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The UK “buy to let” property market is significant with over 1,024,300 “buy to let” mortgages outstanding between 1996 and 2007. This paper investigates whether the factors that encourage male and female individuals to invest in the “buy to let” property market are similar or different.

The research is conducted through a quantitative study which examines whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for landlords investing in the “buy to let” housing market and if these issues are perceived to be the same by male and female landlords. Through a literature review the research author critically evaluates books, papers and legislation to establish the current background information which exists on the “buy to let” market. The primary research contained within this paper is conducted through a survey questionnaire distributed to 100 landlords attending private sector landlord forums.

This paper recognises that overall male and female landlords have differing approaches to their investment decisions within the “buy to let” sector.

This paper establishes new learning relating to gender expectations regarding “buy to let” investments.

The “Colleague Review of Teaching” programme (CRT) aimed to enhance reviewees’ confidence to teach. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Case studies using mixed-method, interview and questionnaire, repeated measures intervention were employed whereby academics in an Australian university science faculty volunteered to participate in a multi-faceted teaching review programme. Underpinned by confidence and self-determination theory, the CRT included peer coach training, reviewee choice, and a strengths-based approach to peer reviewing and coaching colleagues.

The reviewees declared an enhanced confidence to teach, teaching skills and unit design knowledge in an environment that was supportive of psychological needs. The peer coaches reported the CRT to be a positive experience that should continue. The strengths-based approach to peer observation of teaching and peer coaching facilitated department collegiality and was positively received by all participants who completed the programme.

The indifferent response to the CRT protocol completion reconfirms that peer review is a complex science and needs careful negotiation.

Review, peer coach and mentor training, review practice, choice protocols and the multi-faceted approach (pre-observation meeting, observations, written report and post-observation meeting) were positively received.

This paper provides rich insight into the experiences of a teaching review process.

Community initiatives to collate and manage different kinds of cultural forms and resources are a popular way for local people to engage with the heritage of their area. These initiatives are often heavily dependent, however, upon short-term funding and long-term efforts of a few dedicated individuals. This paper aims to explore how community digital archives offer scope to widen participation in cultural activities and to investigate the sustainability of these initiatives.

A case study approach was taken of Hebridean Connections, which is a community managed, online historical resource. This paper is primarily based on interview data with key stakeholders, all of whom are based in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

Participation in Hebridean Connections was reported in positive terms by respondents and many cited that it was a good way to reconnect with diasporic populations and that they believed that this would encourage tourism. It was also reported that the system of linked records added value to the collections as previously undiscovered connections could be made that would not be possible without the electronic resource.

Few studies have been undertaken examining community digital archives. The multidisciplinary nature of the study also brings together different perspectives on the area of enquiry.

There is no clear evidence that British workplaces are any nearer the achievement of being representative bureaucracies as far as disciplinary rules are concerned as public policy initiatives are to placing the emphasis on a corrective as opposed to a punitive approach to Industrial discipline. The concept of industrial discipline is examined alongside forms of management control. Management aims and objectives and the difficulties management encounters in this sphere are considered. Worker attitudes and sources of complaints are discussed in the context of the type of involvement unions should have in the discipline process. The trend towards formalisation is explored and Its reasons, advantages and disadvantages discussed. Discipline Is still conflict‐prone and the reasons for this and ways to minimise it are examined. The work is based on an extensive review of the literature and an ESRC research project that examined disciplinary practice in eight different workplaces. Findings are based on interviews with personnel, line managers and shop stewards and examination of rule books, procedures and disciplinary records. The project was carried out during 1981–1983.

This is the second of two linked articles on the question of union autonomy; the first appeared in the previous issue of this journal. It considers state control and approach to union autonomy in the wider context of state controls on unions′ bargaining activities including industrial action. Two questions are posed: whether there is any “balance” between state respect for union autonomy and state confidence that union collective bargaining activities take place within a legally prescribed framework; and how the state in the UK was able to shift so rapidly from the traditional, voluntary approach and the incipient neo‐corporatism of the 1970s, to the detailed and onerous regulation of union internal and external activities in the 1980s and 1990s.

Since 1979, the Conservative government in the UK has introduced wide‐ranging and detailed regulations for the conduct of union internal affairs; a number of other Western industrialized countries have not done so (or have not done so to the same extent) but have continued their tradition of relying on unions themselves to establish democratic procedures. Alternative views of the role of the state in industrial relations underlie these differences. A second, linked article, appearing in Employee Relations (Vol. 15 No. 4), examines state approaches to union autonomy in the context of attitudes towards other controls on union activities and attempts to explain the successive shifts in British policy in the UK since the 1960s.

This article looks at discipline as a workplace issue, considers what is meant by good industrial relations, and how the effective management of discipline can contribute to positive workplace relationships. It argues that the punitive, corrective and revisionist models of discipline do not provide a satisfactory explanation of managerial behaviour. It contends that valuable and relevant insights can be provided by McGregor’s classic study on management. Finally, the article considers the value of metaphor as a means of understanding organisational behaviour, and utilises four animal metaphors to describe and prescribe four distinct types of management conduct in disciplinary situations.

Financial expert systems have been developed in the past few years for applications such as credit assessment, portfolio management, and insurance underwriting. The decision making process of the experts in these application domains to a large extent relies on intuitive knowledge acquired by these experts after many years of practice. Eliciting and formalizing this knowledge is a critical phase in the design and development of such expert systems. This paper describes a prototype expert system for auditing and evaluating workers' compensation insurance premiums. This system differs from the abeve expert systems in that most of the experts' knowledge is explicitly accessible as regulations in procedures and manuals. This expert system is an instance of what can be called an expert system for regulation management (ESRM). The main role of the expert in the development of an ESRM is to explain regulations. The expert system presented here exhibits two features critical to the effectiveness of an ESRM: (i) an appropriate representation of complex regulations, and (ii) the capability to incorporate frequent changes to regulations quickly.

Proposes to treat social law contracts by covering the two most important aspects of the contract of employment, and also the collective agreement. Covers the contract of employment in full with all the integral laws explained as required, including its characteristics, written particulars, sources or regulations, with regard to employers, are also covered. Lengthy coverage of the collective agreement is also included, showing legal as well as moral (!) requirements, also included are cases in law that are covered in depth.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the research practices of biology researchers and to assess the suitability of the OJAX++ Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for these researchers.

Usability testing was used to evaluate the usability of OJAX++ in relation to biology researchers. Interviews with biology researchers in a large Irish university were conducted to investigate their research information behaviour, to establish user requirements in their discipline and to evaluate the feasibility of using OJAX++ in their research.

The results show that biology researchers used online tools extensively in their research but do not use social networking tools. E-mail and phone conversations are the preferred methods of collaborating with colleagues. The biology researchers found that OJAX++ was easy to use, intuitive and professionally presented but in its present format, OJAX++ does not fit in with current research practices as they do not use Web 2.0 tools that facilitate tagging. A list of requirements of a VRE for biology researchers is presented.

The findings of the study will assist developers of VREs and other web tools to better understand how researchers, in particular biologists, collaborate during the research process and what they require from online research tools. This study gives an important insight into the information behaviour of life science researchers.