Peter English, Margarietha Johanna de Villiers Scheepers, David Fleischman, Jacqueline Burgess and Gail Crimmins
Responding to increasing external pressure, universities are developing new strategies to illustrate the impact of their degrees on graduate employability. This paper investigates…
Abstract
Purpose
Responding to increasing external pressure, universities are developing new strategies to illustrate the impact of their degrees on graduate employability. This paper investigates how alumni regard the development of their professional networks during their tertiary education in relation to employability and the associated pedagogical implications.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with 18 business and arts alumni from a regional university.
Findings
The findings reveal the importance of developing a professional network by cultivating social capital while at university. Alumni identify all forms of work-integrated learning (WIL), connectedness through social media, the role of university staff and volunteering as concrete ways to develop a professional network and enhance employability.
Research limitations/implications
This paper has pedagogical implications to develop graduate employability and WIL. Universities should draw from alumni networks to help develop students' bridging capital through industry-facing WIL projects. Educators should design assessment tasks in which students develop contacts and networking capabilities with alumni and other professionals using various platforms (e.g. social media). In addition, educators should promote the benefits of voluntary work and invite alumni and other industry stakeholders to co-design and co-teach areas of curriculum.
Originality/value
Drawing from the experiences of alumni re-routes the channel of communication from institutions expressing the importance of professional networks in relation to employability, to credible industry alumni confirming this importance. Few previous studies have taken this “outside-in approach” to emphasise and validate the importance of developing professional networks in relation to employability, particularly at regional universities.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the important work of Peter Medway in seeking to define English as a school subject in the period from the 1980s to the early years of this…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the important work of Peter Medway in seeking to define English as a school subject in the period from the 1980s to the early years of this century.
Design/methodology/approach
The author reviews the work of Peter Medway.
Findings
The paper addresses the issue of how his work reflected – or not – the curriculum thinking of his time and the complexity of ideas he brought to this endeavour.
Originality/value
This paper is an original look at the work of Peter Medway in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Details
Keywords
Patrick Hopkinson, Peter Bryngelsson, Andrew Voyce, Mats Niklasson and Jerome Carson
The purpose of this study is to mirror the late guitarist Peter Green’s life experiences through insights from Andrew Voyce, who recovered from mental illness, and expertise from…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to mirror the late guitarist Peter Green’s life experiences through insights from Andrew Voyce, who recovered from mental illness, and expertise from Peter Bryngelsson, a Swedish professional musician and author.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a mixed method of collaborative autoethnography, psychobiography and digital team ethnography.
Findings
Despite having not previously attracted academic interest, Peter Green’s experiences of mental health problems and his return to recording and performance provide a rich data source when mirrored and compared to the lives and experiences of Andrew Voyce and Peter Bryngelsson.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of this piece of work is that Peter Green died in 2020. During the process of writing, the authors have had to follow different, mostly unacademic, sources that have described various parts of Peter Green’s life. The authors have given examples and drawn conclusions from their own lives as well as from academic sources, which they have found appropriate.
Practical implications
Both Andrew Voyce and Peter Bryngelsson’s stories would be helpful when it comes to a deeper understanding as to why Peter Green “took a left turn”, i.e., turned his back on an accepted lifestyle.
Social implications
Acid casualty is a problem connected to both mental distress and to the music industry. Peter Bryngelsson’s story tells us that one can remain sane and drug free and still be an influential and creative musician.
Originality/value
The analysis has brought together two stories of mental distress in combination with insights.
Details
Keywords
Investigates the importance of English language sources ofFriedrich Theodor Althoff (1839‐1908), a German of great influence bothin his own country and, indirectly, in the United…
Abstract
Investigates the importance of English language sources of Friedrich Theodor Althoff (1839‐1908), a German of great influence both in his own country and, indirectly, in the United States. Explores some measures of his influence in education and international understanding. Examines a wide variety of sources. Explains how it could happen that an influential person would end up in intellectual history with almost no recognition. Challenges several conventional assessments. Althoff′s most important contributions are in print and more almost certainly exist in university archives, but the material is scattered and unorganized. Because we do not yet have the full story of this remarkable and complex man, firm conclusions about his influence are not yet possible.
Details
Keywords
Sanaz Manouchehri, Mahdieh Mirzabeigi and Tahere Jowkar
This paper aims to discover the effectiveness of Farsi-English query using ontology.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discover the effectiveness of Farsi-English query using ontology.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study is quasi-experimental. The sample consisted of 60 students and graduate and doctoral staff from Shiraz University and the Regional Center for Science and Technology. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to assess the level of English language proficiency of users, background knowledge and their level of satisfaction with search results before and after using ontology. Each user also evaluated the relevance of the top ten results on the Google search engine results page before and after using ontology.
Findings
The findings showed that the level of complexity of the task, the use of ontology, the interactive effect of the level of complexity of the task with the domain knowledge of the users, and the interactive effect of the level of complexity of the task with ontology, influence the effectiveness of retrieval results from the users' point of view. The results of the present study also showed that the level of complexity of the task, the use of ontology, and the interactive effect of the level of complexity of the task and the use of ontology, affect the level of user satisfaction.
Originality/value
The results of this research are significant in both theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretically, given the lack of research in which the interactive effect of the use of ontology has examined the level of complexity of tasks and domain knowledge of users, the present study can be considered as an attempt to improve information retrieval systems. From a practical point of view, the results of this research will help researchers and designers of information retrieval systems to understand that the use of ontologies can be used to retrieve information and improve the query and assess the needs of users and their satisfaction in this field, and ultimately, making the information retrieval process more effective.
Details
Keywords
The use of law reports as a source for data on citation patterns in the courts of law has been pioneered in the United States and to some extent in Canada. Very little work has…
Abstract
The use of law reports as a source for data on citation patterns in the courts of law has been pioneered in the United States and to some extent in Canada. Very little work has been undertaken within the English legal system until now. The difficulties faced are noted: the complexity of the court structures and the law reporting system, but above all the limitations of using law reports rather than the original case transcripts which are difficult to obtain. A citation file was built from the citations included in all the issues of fifty‐eight different law report titles issued during 1985. Since there is a degree of duplication in coverage of cases between the law report publications, 5,260 versions of 2,451 unique cases were discovered, yielding a file of 25,868 citations (excluding those to statutory materials). The file was reduced to 11,159 citations (excluding those to statutory materials) by selecting only the longest versions, according to the number of words, of each of the 2,451 cases. Analyses are presented on the general characteristics of the citation file (the proportion of citations to each of twenty‐four different material types), the frequency of citation to statutory materials, case law and other materials (each cross‐tabulated by citing court, subject matter of the citing case and, except for statutory materials, whether the citation occurred in argument by counsel only or in the judgement). For case law only further analyses were performed to identify the jurisdiction of cited cases, self citation practice by different courts, the ageing of authority, the law report titles from which cited cases were taken, the use of unreported cases, and the occurrence of cases without citations to earlier case law.
The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the…
Abstract
The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.
While holistic studies devoted to the information behavior of humanist scholars have begun to appear more frequently in the literature, there has been, until quite recently, a…
Abstract
While holistic studies devoted to the information behavior of humanist scholars have begun to appear more frequently in the literature, there has been, until quite recently, a persistent tendency to consolidate humanists rather than attend to the variant gestalts, material working conditions, and values that might distinguish one from another. This chapter is a response to recent calls for more finely granulated descriptions of specific humanist disciplinary practices. It offers a close examination of the information behavior of theatre researchers, both academics and practitioners. For reasons that the chapter explores, theatre researchers constitute a user group that has been profoundly neglected. Using both quantitative and qualitative data obtained through a survey of listserv members of the American Society for Theatrical Research and the Theatre Library Association, the chapter examines the impact of theatre culture on theatre research practices. Moreover, inspired by Brenda Dervin's “Sense-Making Methodology,” this chapter offers the embedded perspective of a researcher who is herself a theatre scholar as well as a practicing librarian. The chapter ranges widely, illustrating its findings with, for example, published rehearsal memoirs, statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor, white papers produced by the National Endowment of the Arts, performance theory texts. Topics covered include the history of theatre studies as an academic discipline, the multiple job-holding/unemployment culture of practitioners such as actors and directors, the differences in focus and methodology that distinguish practitioners from scholars, the marginalized status of dramatic literature in university English departments. Several themes that emerged through analysis of qualitative data are discussed: the contrast between scholarly rigor and the tendency of the practitioner to “satisfice,” the conflicting claims of text and artifact, the impact of geography and teaching-intensive institutional affiliation on researchers’ access to resources. The author concludes that it is not only inadvisable and inaccurate to generalize behaviors across humanistic disciplines; it is equally inaccurate to assume that all researchers within the same discipline will manifest the same characteristics, or even that the same researcher will apply the same strategies to all projects. The only generalization about the information behavior of the theatre researcher that can be made is that it is highly task and context dependent.