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The objective of this study is to gather information about information technology (IT) related security issues in small firms in both manufacturing and service.

Despite its widely acknowledged importance, the academic research in the area of information systems security issues for small businesses is almost negligible. To fill this gap, a questionnaire was mailed to 1,000 small business owners in Lynchburg, Virginia, USA, and 138 valid responses were received.

The results of this study indicate that the small business owners may have procedures and policies in place and may use technologies to counteract the security threat, but this research raised doubts about their effectiveness.

The data collected through this research will help small business organizations in planning, training, and exploitation of IT.

The Jurassic Park film franchise offers a complex portrayal of gender issues within a long-running science fiction action series, although not one without problematic moments. This chapter examines selected examples from the series to explore this complex picture. These include moments in the series that display female characters such as Ellie Sattler, Sarah Harding and Claire Dearing with power and agency and the top of their respective professions, noting that Jurassic Park is unusual among science fiction films for its presentation of such accomplished female characters. The chapter also addresses the sexualisation of the character Ian Malcolm and the role of the more typical ‘action star’ from later films, Owen Grady. Finally, it considers the question of sex-selection for the non-human characters, namely the dinosaurs, as significant plot points advance upon the premise that the entire dinosaur population in the series consists of non-breeding females, a fact that is later shown to be untrue. The chapter addresses each of these examples through key issues relating to the production, presentation, and violation of the human and non-human living body across the full Jurassic Park series.

Addressing preservice teachers’ beliefs about learning is a key task of initial teacher preparation. In this chapter, we describe and reflect on the use of action research as a learning activity/assessment to address those beliefs within a required course on learning theories. Through this activity, preservice teachers engage in a cycle of observation-reflection-planning-action-evaluation to change practices deemed ineffective. This use of action research has not been reported in the literature and we discuss our success as well as challenges in its implementation.

This paper reports on a study exploring a sustained coaching model of teacher professional development (PD). The study was undertaken with middle school teachers in a small rural school division in Alberta, Canada. The goal of the study was to theorize about the components of the sustained coaching model of PD that supported or was a barrier to teachers engaging in a year-long PD series.

A grounded theory methodology was used to theorize about the components of a teacher PD model that participants viewed as being a support or barrier to their engagement in the PD. Data were collected from two individual participant interviews: one interview at the beginning of the year and one interview at the end of the year.

Findings indicate that teacher PD should include a constant community, accountability to other participants in that community, and a balance of theoretical and practical support and be provided over multiple sessions. In addition, in order for the PD to be sustainable, barriers to engaging in the PD should be minimized.

A recognition of the complexity of the factors influencing a teacher's interaction with PD provides a lens with which to consider the potential for a teacher's engagement with PD.

Brevard College is a small, liberal arts college in Western North Carolina committed to experiential education. The Teacher Education Program prepares future teachers to lead the next generation of learning communities by nurturing values and skills necessary for inquiry-based teaching. Darling-Hammond (2005) reaffirms that one critical aspect of school reform is “preparing accomplished teachers who can effectively teach a wide array of learners to high standards … essential to economic and political survival” (p. 238). Admittedly, this is no easy task. Newly licensed candidates face a convergence of politics, economic, and demographic 21st century realities. Faculty and candidates need a deep understanding of constructivist theory to prepare for inquiry-based teaching. This knowledge must not just be a tag line on a syllabus but embedded in heads and heart. Reflecting on how theory is put into practice, through explicit minds-on/hands-on field experiences in diverse community partnerships, teacher candidates are empowered. The lessons learned by a newly licensed constructivist-based teacher boldly sharing his passion for inquiry-based teaching in a public school setting offers a glimpse of potential hope.

This chapter explores recent developments, challenges, opportunities and strategic initiatives in higher education systems. These systems can be seen as catalysts for social transformation, economic diversification and sustainable development. This includes developing strategic and equitable global partnerships and collaboration. In this chapter, the authors discuss challenges such as limited access, being underprepared and a lack of funding that is necessary for students to pursue studies outside of their own countries. The authors also discuss opportunities and strategic initiatives for delivering on quality education and social transformation. This is done by highlighting the role of effective partnerships and the connection between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 and the other SDGs. Using education policy and its subsequent implementation, the authors frame their discussions on educational reform to acknowledge the impact of higher education across multiple dimensions. The chapter concludes with student perspectives on the issues raised and a deeper consideration of some challenges they face in pursuit of quality higher education.

Current top-down literacy reform mandates have reenergized attention to professional development (PD) outcomes. Still, questions remain about why English teachers struggle to apply their learning. Refocusing attention on understanding the complex yet critical relationship between professional development (PD) facilitators and teachers offers one explanation.

Using a telling case from an interactional ethnography, this paper illustrates how through their language-in-use teachers and facilitators can productively resolve conflicts that, if left unaddressed, can prevent teachers from acting on their professional learning.

A set of discursive moves – flagging, naming, soliciting and processing – provide a toolkit for surfacing and successfully resolving conflict in PD interactions.

These moves offer a way of prioritizing the importance of teacher–facilitator relationships in future research aimed at addressing the longstanding conundrum of how best to support English teachers’ ongoing professional learning.

Teaching facilitators and teachers how to collaboratively address inevitable conflicts offers a needed intervention in supporting both teacher and facilitator learning.

Previous research has affirmed that facilitators, like teachers, need support for navigating the complexity of professional learning interactions. This paper offers a language for uncovering why teacher–facilitator interactions can be so challenging for teachers and facilitators as well as ways of responding productively in-the-moment. It contributes to a more capacious understanding of how these relationships shape diverse English teacher learning.

Possible limitations on the successful formal modeling of human expertise can only be identified if the evolving thought processes involved in acquiring expertise are understood. This paper presents a 5‐stage description of the human skill‐acquisition process, applies it to the skill of business management, and draws conclusions about potential uses and abuses of formal modeling.

The value which can be placed upon the rights of property in a name of a commodity, a food or drink, perhaps famous all over the world, which has come down to us through the centuries, is incalculable. Most of such foods and drinks have a regional association, and are prepared according to methods, often secret, handed down from one generation to another and from locally grown and produced materials. Nowhere are such traditions so well established as in cheese‐making and the wine industry. The names do not signify merely a method of manufacture, since this can be simulated almost anywhere, nor even the raw materials, but differences in climate, the soil and its treatment, its produce, harvesting, even in the contaminants of environment. Rochfort cheese, for example, is made from ewe's milk, but most important, with mould growths found only in the caves of that part of France where it is stored.