ADSET's Information Weblog

Assessing Web interaction with recollection: Age-related and task-related differences

2012-01-30T09:28:00.001Z

an article by Isabelle Etcheverry, Patrice Terrier, Jean-Claude Marquié (Université de Toulouse & CNRS (CCLE-LTC UMR 5263)France) published in Computers in Human Behavior Volume 28 Issue 1 (January 2012)

Abstract

The current study examined how young (n = 26; mean = 22.31 years) and older Internet users (n = 24; mean = 64.54 years) performed when they had to select and recollect information displayed in Web pages. Content-oriented and navigation-oriented information-finding tasks were used during the study phase. At test, the method made use of two recognition paradigms designed to assess recollection and the nature of representations in memory: namely, the remember/know procedure and a forced-choice recognition procedure which made it possible to compare the retrieval of detailed (verbatim-based) and semantic (gist-based) representations. The evidence from both procedures suggested that remembering was less contextualised in older participants. Furthermore, the idea that content-oriented searches impose greater processing demands than navigation-oriented searches in Web pages was confirmed for both age groups. Interestingly, the older Internet users experienced more difficulties in finding targets in navigation-oriented searches than in content-oriented searches.

10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

2012-01-22T09:24:00.000Z

My Experience with ADD via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Freelance writer and editor Molly Oswaks first found some relief with cocaine. Instead of giving her a high, it calmed her down and helped her focus. Later, an ADD diagnosis and medication gave her more lasting clarity and attention consistency after a life mostly spent adrift.
Read More

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Steve Jobs and David Gelernter seemed like natural allies: Both chided technologists for neglecting design. Instead, they fought each other... more

How does biology explain the low numbers of women in computer science? via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Watch the video here where you can also link to more presentations from Terri Oda
A great look at math, and real vs. imaginary Bell curve distributions.
Thanks to Gideon for bringing this to my attention!

Winter Escape via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this week game you have been accidentally locked out of your home and must find a way to get in. Can you do it before you become ill from being out in the cold too long? Tick-tock tick-tock!
As usual you can choose to read Asian Angel’s walk-through here or take your chance and go straight to the game here.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Money and art. The two can't be disentangled. But some entanglements are more troubling than others. Culture is in retreat before the brute dollar. Jed Perl explains.. more

Smog-Eating Material to Wrap Buildings via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Researchers in Belgium are testing an old material in a new way, which may benefit the environment and make city dwellers healthier and happier by eating away at air pollutants. Titanium oxide, currently used in everything from toothpaste to sunscreen, can now be found coating the ceiling of a driving tunnel in Brussels, Belgium.
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What is ET Listening to Now? via Stephen's Lighthouse
An infographic (of which Stephen Abram is very fond judging by the number in his blog) which shows how far television waves (could) have reached across space. The Lone Ranger is just past Pi Mensae. Fascinating.
See for yourself here.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Gloria Steinem, still tiny of waist and big of hair, wants you to know that she has never gotten by on her appearance. “Who wants to be feminine?”... more

The Colossal Heads of the Olmec (Picture of the Day) via Britannica Blog by Britannica Editors

Olmec colossal basalt head in the Museo de la Venta, an outdoor museum near Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico. Credit: © Robert Frerck/Odyssey Productions

The Olmec, the “people of the rubber country”, represented the first elaborate pre-Columbian civilization of Mesoamerica. Much of what is known about them has come from archaeological excavations at sites in modern-day southern Mexico, where structures such as large earthen pyramids and giant stone carvings, including colossal heads, have been uncovered.

Fascinating – read more here

Researchers to build Babbage Analytical Engine via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin

Over the next decade, a group of researchers in the UK will attempt to construct a working version of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, which he dreamed up a hundred years ago, but did not complete. John Markoff has the story in the New York Times today [7 November], and here’s a related interactive feature. Cory blogged about the project recently on Boing Boing, and the legacy of Babbage, a great mathematician, philosopher, and engineer, is a favorite topic in our archives (see links below).

Babbage-esque mechanical computer chip
Comic about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage comic
Babbage Difference Engine No. 2 Recreation Coming to Computer ...
Babbage difference engine No. 2 now operational – Boing Boing Gadgets
Lovelace met Babbage on this day in 1833

10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

2012-01-21T09:23:00.000Z

The Secret to Marital Happiness: Don't Have Kids or Have Lots of Them via Big Think by Peter Lawler
That’s the conclusion of this study. The discovery that being married without children is one path to happiness vindicated the feminists, the liberationists, the authentic followers of Simone de Beauvoir. Authentic people live for themselves; they refuse to be breeders; their lives are fulfilled without giving into some biological inclination shared with the other animals.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
To enliven a well-trodden globe, what's a travel writer to do? Some try gimmicks, like hitchhiking with a fridge. Evelyn Waugh opted for wit... more

War Tubas via Retronaut by Chris

“The war tuba is a colloquial name sometimes applied to Imperial Japanese Army acoustic locators due to the visual resemblance to the musical tuba.” – Wikipedia
There’s another photo here.

Why Americans Don’t Care via Big Think by Robert de Neufville
Compare the covers of the different editions of the latest [as at 30 November] issue of Time. In most of the world, the cover of the magazine features a striking image of an Egyptian rioter in a gas mask. But the U.S. edition reduces the unrest to Egypt to small print and leads instead with a general series on “Why Anxiety is Good for You”.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
If you've been at death’s door or your wits’ end, about to bite the dust or cast the first stone, you’ve inhabited the King James Bible... more

What Can Plato Teach Me That I Can't Find on Wikipedia? via Big Think by Daniel Honan
Do we really need to read the classics in the age of Wikipedia? Aren't these books just historical artifacts or a bunch of pretentious fodder for cocktail party conversation? According to Jeffrey Brenzel, Philosopher and Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University, the classics will not only enhance your education, but help you live better.
Read More

Magazine First Covers via How to be a Retronaut by Chris
includes:

Harper's Bazaar - 1867
National Geographic - 1888
Vogue - 1892
Time - 1923
New Yorker - 1925
Esquire - 1933
Newsweek - 1933
Seventeen - 1941
TV Guide - 1953
Sports Illustrated - 1954
Rolling Stone - 1967
People - 1974
Vanity Fair - 1983
Wired - 1993

View them all here
This capsule was curated by Isaac Scribner

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
A life in letters. When the day was done, P.G. Wodehouse returned to his chief pleasure: "writing stinkers to people who attack me"... more

The Pedascope via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris

“Shoe-fitting fluoroscopes, also known as Pedoscopes, were X-ray fluoroscope machines installed in shoe stores from the 1920s until about the 1960s in the United States (by which time they were prohibited), and into the mid-1970s in the United Kingdom. In the UK, they were known as Pedoscopes, after the company based in St. Albans that manufactured them.” Wikipedia
More images here
Thank you to the Science Museum

The Marching Eagle: Africa’s Secretary Bird via Britannica Blog by Kara Rogers

Credit: © Stephen J. Krasemann/Peter Arnold, Inc.
On the open lands of sub-Saharan Africa, the world's only terrestrial bird of prey, the long-legged secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius), stalks across the ground, sometimes walking as many as 20 miles in a single day in search of quarry. And when it finally happens upon a soon-to-be meal, we find that the civilized nature implied by the secretary bird's name is far from a true reflection of its actual behavior. Indeed, when it encounters prey, it stomps, kicks, and crushes the victim into submission and then swallows it whole.
This post was originally published in NaturePhiles on TalkingScience.org

Distribution and determinants of lifetime unemployment

2012-01-18T09:10:00.001Z

an article by Achim Schmillen (Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg; Osteuropa-Institut Regensburg; and University of Regensburg, Germany) and Joachim Möller (Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg; University of Regensburg, Germany and Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn) published in Labour Economics Volume 19 Issue 1 (January 2012)

Abstract

The empirical literature on unemployment almost exclusively focuses on the duration of distinct unemployment spells. In contrast, we use a unique administrative micro data set for the time span 1975–2004 to investigate individual lifetime unemployment – defined as the cumulative length of all unemployment spells over a 25-year period. This new perspective enables us to answer questions regarding the long-term distribution and determinants of unemployment for birth cohorts 1950–1954.

We show that lifetime unemployment is highly concentrated on a small part of the population. With censored quantile regressions we investigate the long-lasting influence of bad luck early in the professional career. Controlling for individual and firm characteristics we find that choosing at a young age what turns out to be an unfavourable occupation significantly increases the predicted amount of lifetime unemployment.

Recognition of knowledge and skills at work – in the interest of the employer

2012-01-17T09:21:00.003Z

an article by Leif Berglund (Luleå University of Technology) and Per Andersson (Linköping University) published in Journal of Workplace Learning Volume 24 Issue 2 (2012)

Abstract

Purpose
Workplace learning takes place in many settings and in different ways, resulting in knowledge and skills of different kinds. The recognition processes in the workplace is however often implicit and seldom discussed in terms of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). The aim of this article is to exemplify and analyse the employers' logics in assessing knowledge and skills of employees. Further we discuss how knowledge and skills get recognition in the work place and what the consequences of such recognition processes might be.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based upon a study in two companies and two municipalities, where twenty-one interviews have been made with human resource managers, team leaders and Labour Union representatives. The research concerned in what ways these organisations visualised and recognised skills among their employees, how the logics of these actions could be understood and in what ways this promotes the interests of the employees.
Findings
The findings show that both companies and municipalities have their own ways of assessing knowledge and skills, mostly out of a production logic of what is needed and used at the workplace. However, certain skills are also kept in silence and made "unvisualised" for the employee. This employer-controlled recognition logic is important to understand when RPL models are brought to the workplace in order to obtain win-win situations for both employers and employees.
Practical implications
It seems important to identify already existing system for assessment of knowledge/skills at the workplace when bringing RPL processes to the workplace.
Originality/value
The approach was to understand assessment processes in these companies and municipalities from an RPL perspective, not widely covered before.

10 Skills All Students Need in Any Job Market

2012-01-16T10:21:00.000Z

Molly Mitchell, writing on Big Think, says: “Every few years sees the job market changing and the educational market change along with it. As the new hot career comes up, there is always a degree or program to go with it. But did you know that there are essential skills that every student, graduate, and job candidate needs to have to give him or her the best chance at landing a job? Below, we have gathered a list of just ten of the must-haves every college student should be thinking about during their studies.”

The list (see here for a short description of the item):

Job experience
Relevant experience
Writing
Verbal communications
Public speaking
Technology
Finance
Criticism
Networking
Research

Just ten things you need to do/get. Say it quickly and it might not seem too bad!

Computer use in older adults: Determinants and the relationship with cognitive change over a 6 year episode

2012-01-16T09:24:00.001Z

an article by Karin Slegers (Centre for User Experience Research, K.U. Leuven/IBBT, Belgium) and Martin P.J. van Boxtel and Jelle Jolles (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) published in Computers in Human Behavior Volume 28 Issue 1 (January 2012)

Abstract

Cognitively challenging activities may support the mental abilities of older adults. The use of computers and the internet provides divergent cognitive challenges to older persons, and in previous studies, positive effects of computer and internet use on the quality of life have been demonstrated.

The present study addresses two research aims regarding predictors of computer use and the relationship between computer use and changes in cognitive abilities over a 6-year period in both younger (24–49 years) and older adults (older than 50 years). Data were obtained from an ongoing study into cognitive aging: the Maastricht Aging Study, involving 1,823 normal aging adults who were followed for 9 years.

The results showed age-related differences in predictors of computer use: the only predictor in younger participants was level of education, while in older participants computer use was also predicted by age, sex and feelings of loneliness. Protective effects of computer use were found for measures of selective attention and memory, in both older and younger participants. Effect sizes were small, which suggests that promotion of computer activities in older adults to prevent cognitive decline may not be an efficient strategy.

10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

2012-01-15T09:34:00.006Z

How chicken wire is made via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
Here’s a mesmerizing Gabion machine [Well, it is in the blog post but I could not find a static picture anywhere], a massive loom that weaves chicken wire fencing out of wire.
Machine grace ahoy.
Chicken Wire Fabrication – Video (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Neanderthal neuroscience. What are humans made of? Find 40,000-year-old hominid pinky bone, extract the DNA, compare and contrast... more

The debate over Kaliningrad's architectural heritage: An insider’s perspective
an article by Anna Karpenko published in Eurozine
What is the threat implied in the handover of the symbolically significant heritage of the Kaliningrad region to the Orthodox Church of Russia? An examination of the social and cultural aspects of the conflict.
Full story (HTML) here also available as PDF (4pp) here

Transformice: An Addictive, Casual Game For Your Browser Or Desktop via MakeUseOf by Craig Snyder

It took nearly two months for a friend to convince me to give Transformice a shot. The game looked too childish, uninteresting, and casual. After finally giving the game a fair chance, I've been disappointed that I didn’t listen two months sooner. This is one of the most unique browser games that you're going to find.
It’ hard to put Transformice into a genre. It’s a strategy game, but it’s something more than that. Transformice is the most individual team-based game I’ve played. That’s weird, I know. It’s also the only game that I can think of where trolling is almost integrated within the gameplay.
On any given school night, Transformice touches over 10,000 players online. I say school night because this game is targeted more towards a younger audience. The objective of Transformice is to proceed through each map and collect the cheese. After collecting the cheese, you must bring it back to the mouse hole. By collecting cheese, you gather points towards becoming the next Shaman. The Shaman is the designated mouse who builds and casts objects so that their fellow mice can more easily get to the cheese. Shamans are rewarded for the number of mice they are able to save and help bring back the cheese.

Check out the Gameplay here (where you will also get the adverts that help to keep MakeUseOf free at the point of use) which includes tips and tricks, a video to help you along etc
Or you could go straight into the game here (don’t be put off if the screen opens in French – you get to choose your language after about three screens).

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Once the epitome of glamour, fur has fallen on hard times. The mink coat has come to signify hussies on the make or the kept woman... more

6 Classic Disney Animated Wartime Propaganda Cartoons [Stuff to Watch] via MakeUseOf by Tim Brookes
During the Second World War film-makers on both sides of the Atlantic were put to work on morale-boosting and influential propaganda films – Walt Disney included. The master of animation was determined to put his characters to use in the war effort, especially Donald Duck.
Here are a selection of 6 Disney cartoons that were produced during the war, each with its own message and each designed to bolster public opinion behind allied war efforts.

Education For Death: The Making of a Nazi (1943)
Considerably different to the average Disney short, Education for Death is based on a book by Gregor Ziemer and features none of Disney’s usual characters. Instead the production focuses on the issue of youth and how the Nazi machine corrupted minds from a very early age.
At just over 10 minutes long this film was shown to US audiences in movie theaters in 1943 and probably had quite an impact. This isn’t the usual jovial Disney outing – far from it. The imagery contained in this short film is as serious as it gets and it’s easy to see why Walt believed his usual love-able characters would confuse the message.
Der Fuehrer’s Face (1942)
Starring Disney favorite Donald Duck, Der Fuehrer’s Face is a simple anti-Nazi propaganda film that went on to win the Academy Award for best animated short. The message behind this one is straightforward: Hitler and the Nazis are your enemy, support our troops and back the war effort!
There are lashings of comedy thrown in, after all this is a Donald Duck film! The obsessive extremes painted of Nazi Germany are almost comical – everything from clouds to trees are swastika shaped.
The Spirit of ’43 (1943)
Propaganda wasn’t just used to influence public opinion against the enemy, far from it. In this example Donald Duck expounds the virtues of saving money in order to pay tax – and pay it on time.
At a time when the payment of tax was more important than it ever had been before the film was viewed by around 26 million US citizens. According to a poll, 37% of those who saw the film admitted that it had indeed affected their willingness to pay higher tax rates in order to fund the ongoing conflict.
Donald Gets Drafted (1942)
This short treads a fine line between brazen propaganda and typical Disney antics as Donald Duck receives his draft notice and prepares for the army. The film opens with Donald walking past seemingly endless recruitment advertisements, many of which look way too good to be true.
Walt managed to squeeze in a few more clever jokes about conscription and the army’s willingness to take new troops, though this film seems to have a less defined message than many of the other Disney wartime shorts.
Fall Out Fall In (1943)
In this cartoon we see Donald Duck marching for miles through storms, ice and baking hot desert sands before struggling with his tent and regiment’s particularly loud sleeping habits.
Donald was a busy duck during the war, and many of the cartoons produced simply follow his military career and inevitable mistakes that lead to hilarious consequences. Whilst this one is naturally not much different, it does at least tackle a few of the hardships faced by soldiers in the war.
Commando Duck (1944)
With a not-so-subtle reminder of who America was fighting and lines like “Japanese custom always say shooting a man in the back please” (yes, I know) this is one Disney cartoon that reflects the desperation of the war effort by 1944.
Rather than ending up peeling potatoes or troubled by fatigue this is one cartoon in which Donald seemingly succeeds – though not without the usual hysterical cartoon antics that made Disney so popular in the first place. Politically incorrect but historically important!

Link to the original post here

In a good light via Prospero by J.M. | NEW YORK
Cecil Beaton, an English photographer, found happy hunting in New York City for more than 40 years, both behind the camera and in the world of the theatre. When he arrived in America after the second world war, Beaton wrote that it was “time to settle down and relish to the full the infinite delights that New York has to offer”. A new exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York aims to chronicle his engagement with those delights, from his early Vogue photos of the mid-1930s – their figures highly stylised in poses and shadows reminiscent of German Expressionism – to a 1970 portrait of Mick Jagger, as casual and unaffected as a snapshot.
Cecil Beaton: The New York Years is at the Museum of the City of New York until February 20th – just in case you’re going there anyway!!
Full article

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Everything is suddenly a distraction to William Ian Miller. His brain is "balsa wood floating in a helium sea." In truth, his brain is shrinking. And so is yours... more

Startling photo of volcanic lightning via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

No, this is not a still from the Raiders of the Lost Ark scene when the ark is opened, but an absolutely magnificent image of southern Chile’s Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano spewing lightning-topped ash. Wow. Ricardo Mohr’s photo was selected as one of National Geographic’s “Pictures We Love: Best of October”.

“We didn't have [x] when I was a kid and I turned out okay” via Big Think by Scott McLeod
Here’s a statement that I'm getting really tired of hearing: “We didn’t have computers when I was in school and I turned out okay. There’s no reason why kids today need ’em.” I’m sure that this argument was offered in the past as well: “Buses? We walked to school barefoot, in the snow uphill both ways!”
Read More

10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

2012-01-14T09:33:00.001Z

The Color of 47-Million-Year-Old Moths via Britannica Blog by Kara Rogers

A Peleides blue morpho butterfly. Credit: © Vera Kailova/Fotolia
The color of a fossil species is often its greatest secret, its pigmented tissues having decayed and returned to the earth long before its discovery. An anomaly in this pattern was the recent reconstruction of wing coloration from color-producing structures discovered in the wing scales of 47-million-year-old fossil lepidopterans (moths and butterflies) recovered from the Grube Messel oil shales in Germany.
You can read the rest of this incredible article here.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Though reluctant to work with the U.S. military, anthropologists have a lot to say about the war in Afghanistan. Alex Star listens... more

Why Mozart Rocks So Hard. Artistic Genius Explained. via Big Think by Megan Erickson
What’s the difference between a Jackson Pollock painting and a finger-painting? Why is The Magic Flute so enduring, while other classical compositions have been forgotten? Is “I know it when I see it” as close as we’ll get to defining what we mean by “great art”?
Read More

The most dangerous place to be a park ranger via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Lots of links to more photos, how you can support the work etc are here

This photo was taken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Virunga National Park, where the Nyamulagira volcano is currently erupting. The man in the photo is named Romeo. No last name given, and I can’t help but wonder if that's for the same reason that he carries a rather large gun.
Romeo is a park ranger in Virunga. It’s a very dangerous job. Virunga has lost more park rangers than any other protected site on Earth. That’s due to several factors. For one thing, men like Romeo are in charge of protecting the Park’s gorillas and other endangered wildlife from poachers. For another, political instability leaks into Virunga on a relatively regular basis. Back in January, three rangers and five Congolese soldiers were killed by members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Virunga borders Rwanda and members of this militia try to use the park as a hideout. In the process, they clear-cut the forest for charcoal. The January attack was thought to be in retaliation for rangers destroying a couple of FDLR camps and cracking down on illegal forest destruction.
In fact, the job is dangerous enough that one of the fundraising campaigns the park is promoting is a program to care for the widows of dead rangers. You can donate online.
Who are the guys that put their lives on the line for a national park and a bunch of great apes? The park website also has some short statements by several of the rangers. Romeo isn’t among them. But you can get an idea of who these guys are, and why they chose this job.
Surprisingly, despite all that, large parts of Virunga are safe enough for tourists. According to Wikipedia, the park gets 3,000 visitors a year.
Via Brendan Maher

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Stephen Hawking included just one equation in A Brief History of Time. Others followed suit. But can physics be explained without math?... more

Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, Holland, 1928 via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris

Pictures are provided here with no explanation as to why a seemingly pseudo Roman/Egyptian theme was chosen. Can I find out?
NO. But I did find out some information about sprinter Percy Williams here
Anyone else got any ideas?

Why some birds of prey become transvestites via 3quarksdaily by Azra Raza

From MSNBC:

Birds of prey may be thought of as fierce foes, but scientists find that some males disguise themselves as peaceful females. These males belong to a species of raptor known as the marsh harrier. Using plastic decoys, French researchers learned that the transvestites among these predators are less aggressive than other males. Some animals will use the tactic known as sexual mimicry in the cutthroat battle to survive. For instance, young male birds often have female plumage that helps camouflage them; they will acquire more striking plumage only after reaching sexual maturity, to help them attract mates. However, permanent lifelong female mimicry, in which males look like females throughout life, is extraordinarily rare in birds. Until now, it had been studied in only one species, the ruff (Philomachus pugnax), a shorebird in which some males engage in female behavior to sneakily get sex.

More here

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Retractions in scholarly journals are on the rise. Why? Let’s ask an editor. “It's none of your damn business!”... more

“Airlines of the United States” Ads, WWII, by James Bingham
via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris
Thank you to American Art Archive where you can see the rest of the images.

The real Hurt Locker via 3quarksdaily by Morgan Meis
Captain Nawa Salah Ahmed was not thinking of Hollywood when he signed up for the bomb-disposal unit in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. It was 2004, and the young policeman was burnt out. He had enlisted in the force when the American military invaded his homeland, taking a job in the local criminal-investigations unit. And as a lawless chaos had come crashing down upon the country, business, so to speak, was booming. Cases flooded in—Ahmed dealt daily with thefts, murders, and worse. But the pressure, he says, was unrelenting.
more from Neil Arun at Vanity Fair here.

Reviewing the need for gaming in education to accommodate the net generation

2012-01-13T11:28:00.001Z

an article by by G Bekebrede, H J G Warmelink and I S Mayer published in Computers & Education Volume 57 Issue 2 (2011)

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the use of simulations and games in Dutch higher education. This development is based on the perception that students belong to the “gamer generation” or “net generation”: a generation that has grown up with computer games and other technology affecting their preferred learning styles, social interaction patterns and technology use generally.

It is often argued that in education this generation prefers active, collaborative and technology-rich learning, i.e. learning methods that involve extensive computer use and collaboration among students. Gaming is then proposed as a new teaching method which addresses these requirements.

This article presents the results of a survey which studied whether this discourse is also applicable to higher education students from the Netherlands and whether games, considered as active, collaborative and technology-rich learning experiences, are of greater importance in the formal education of today’s students.

Of 1,432 respondents from eight Dutch institutes of higher education surveyed between 2005 and 2009, about 25% fit our criteria of being a clear representative of the net generation. Furthermore, our analysis shows that there is little difference, and no statistically significant difference, in active, collaborative and technology-rich learning preferences between the representatives and non-representatives of the net generation. Furthermore, no large or statistically significant differences were found between representatives and non-representatives of the net generation with respect to the value they accorded to gaming in education.

Overall our dataset did not fit the expectations raised by the net generation theory, with the percentage of students who fit the criteria being much lower than expected. However, regardless of whether they represented the net generation or not, in general our respondents preferred collaborative and technology-rich learning and deemed games a valuable teaching method.

Europe and the economic crisis: forms of labour market adjustment and varieties of capitalism

2012-01-13T11:22:00.002Z

an article by Michel Lallement (Lise-CNRS, CNAM (Paris), France) published in Work Employment & Society Volume 25 Number 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

The economic crisis that beset Europe in 2007 had a considerable impact on employment. Since 2008, unemployment has increased throughout Europe, but adjustment mechanisms affecting the labour market have varied from one country to another. By examining six representative European Union countries from the EU15, this article examines three types of adjustment involving segmentation, working hours and unemployment/underemployment. These adjustment systems, which originate from business strategy and which are partly supported by public policy measures, reflect the persistence of three varieties of capitalism in Europe.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but being left on my own is worse: …

2012-01-13T10:37:00.000Z

an analysis of reported bullying at school within NFER attitude surveys

Tom Benton Research report, November 2011

Since early 2010 the NFER has been working with both primary and secondary schools to allow them to survey their own pupils and better understand their views across a range of issues. With almost 100 secondary schools and more than 35,000 pupils in years 7 to 13 having taken part we have now begun undertaking a national analysis of the results so far. We have begun by exploring findings relating to bullying at school and have produced some interesting results.

As part of the NFER attitude survey, children in school years 7 to 13 (aged 11 to 18) were asked questions about the types of bullying they had experienced over the last 12 months and why they think they may have been bullied. Through analysis of their responses to these questions and how these relate to the emotional well-being of children (also measured within the questionnaire) some conclusions can be made as to the prevalence of different types of bullying and the relative seriousness of each type of bullying as measured by its impact on emotional well-being.

Key findings

Schools and parents should be aware of the potential harm done to young people when they experience bullying through “being left out”. This type of bullying is more strongly associated with poor emotional well-being than any other type including more explicit forms such as physical or verbal abuse. For this reason it is important that schools look for ways to build on the efforts they already make to help young people to socialise, and explore ways of supporting them when relationships with other pupils break down.
“Being left out ” is more common amongst girls than boys. However, it was found that the link between this type of bullying and poor emotional well-being is stronger in boys.
For girls “unwanted sexual contact ” was found to be the type of bullying most strongly associated with poor emotional well-being. However, this type of bullying is relatively rare.
Most common type of bullying is verbal abuse. The potential negative impact of this type of bullying should not be underestimated as our analysis indicates that verbal abuse is more strongly linked to poor emotional well-being than physical abuse.
Pupils become less likely to be the victim of the majority of types of bullying once they enter the sixth form.
Physical bullying more commonly affects boys than girls.

Pupils who have been the victim of bullying are most likely to mention “lies or rumours” about them or their appearance as the reason they think they have been bullied.

NFER press release is here where you can find a link to the full report (PDF 18pp) and a videocast about the research.

A survey on information re-finding techniques

2012-01-13T09:31:00.001Z

an article by Tangjian Deng and Ling Feng (Tsinghua University, Beijing) published in International Journal of Web Information Systems Volume 7 Issue 4 (2011)

Abstract

Purpose
Observing that people re-access what they have seen or used in the past is very common in real lives. The purpose of this paper is to review the subject of information re-finding comprehensively, and introduce to readers the underlying techniques and mechanisms used in information re-finding.
Design/methodology/approach
After analysing users’ information re-finding behaviours and their requirements, the paper studies the natural way of re-finding in human memory, and reviews state-of-the-art techniques and tools developed in the fields of web and personal information management for information re-finding.
Findings
Four main re-finding support techniques on the Web are:

re-finding tools in Web browsers;
history service;
re-finding search engine; and
voice-based re-finding.

Three main re-finding approaches are used in PIM: browse-based approaches; content-based search; and context-based search.
Practical implications
Following the recalling mechanisms in human memory, the method of recall-by-context in both fields of web usage and personal information management can make users feel easy to re-find information.
Originality/value
The paper gives a comprehensive overview of information re-finding techniques.

Rent this article from DeepDyve

The complete information literacy? Unforgetting creation and organization of information

2012-01-12T12:28:00.001Z

an article by Isto Huvila (Uppsala University, Sweden) published in Journal of Librarianship and Information Science Volume 43 Number 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

Even though the concept of information literacy typically embraces an idea of a complete participation in an information community, its definitions have tended to underline the phases of seeking, searching and evaluation instead of creating information. Shortcomings of information creation can, however, explain many of the difficulties of finding information.

This article develops the notion of information literacy with a specific focus on integrating creation and organization of information as central aspects of being information literate and discusses the implications of developing information creation processes from the point of view of information professionals and users. Finally, suggestions are made for how information creation might be improved in practice.

Macroeconomic policy, labour market institutions and employment outcomes

2012-01-12T12:19:00.003Z

an article by Eileen Appelbaum (Center for Economic and Policy Research, USA) publisihed in Work Employment & Society Volume 25 Number 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

The increase in income inequality and household debt of middle- and lower-income households in the USA over several decades led to increasingly fragile financial institutions and set the stage for the most serious recession in the last 60 years. The proximate cause of the economic crisis was the collapse of the housing bubble that caused both the recession that began at the end of 2007 and the financial crisis that erupted in 2008.

The drop in GDP in the USA, while steep, was not more severe than in most of the other OECD countries and the macroeconomic policy response was better. Yet the increase in the US unemployment rate was among the steepest. This article examines this failure of US labour market institutions to respond to these policy initiatives and the implications of the analysis for economic policy.

Racism in a post-racial Europe

2012-01-12T11:21:00.000Z

an article by Alana Lentin published by Eurozine

Summary

The discrediting of the category of race in post-war European societies did not abolish racism: officially endorsed cultural relativism perpetuated Eurocentricism while dismissing racism as the pathology of the individual. Critique of culturalism is, however, to be distinguished from the new wave of anti-multiculturalism, argues Alana Lentin. Ostensibly aimed at the illiberalism of multiculturalism's “beneficiaries”, the latter expresses intolerance of “bad diversity”.

Read the full article here

The impact of career visions on work attitudes: a longitudinal approach

2012-01-12T10:43:00.000Z

an article by Claudia Holtschlag (University of Barcelona, Spain) and Aline D. Masuda, (EADA Business School, Barcelona) published in Career Development International Volume 16 Issue 7 (2011)

Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of difficult and specific career visions on job satisfaction and turnover intentions seven years after students reported their visions.
Design/methodology/approach
Data for this study were collected in two waves, seven years apart, from the same cohort. At time 1 the career visions of MBA students were measured in terms of difficulty and specificity. At time 2 MBA students reported their job satisfaction and turnover intentions.
Findings
Results showed that MBA students with a specific and challenging career vision were less likely to report intentions to leave their work seven years after reporting their visions. Further, job satisfaction mediated this relationship.
Research limitations/implications
The study was limited due to the small sample size used (n=74). Future studies should also test whether goal progress and job performance could be mediators between the quality of career vision and job satisfaction.
Practical implications
Results of this study indicate that individuals who formulated more specific career visions were more satisfied with their jobs seven years after reporting their visions. This finding has implications for career counsellors, coaches and managers who care for the development of their subordinates.
Originality/value
This is the first study that examined the impact of the quality of career visions (i.e. specificity and difficulty) on future job satisfaction and turnover intentions.

Understanding the worklessness dynamics and characteristics of deprived areas

2012-01-12T09:18:00.002Z

DWP Research Report 779 by Helen Barnes, Elisabeth Garratt, David McLennan and Michael Noble (Oxford Institute of Social Policy, University of Oxford)

Summary

Research was commissioned to use individual level data from the Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study (WPLS) to try to shed light on some unanswered questions about the dynamics of worklessness in deprived areas.

It has been suggested that in certain deprived neighbourhoods individuals make the transition from worklessness into employment and move away to less deprived areas. As these people move away they are replaced by inflows of other workless people who may themselves find employment and move on in a similar way. Therefore, although people experience positive individual level employment outcomes whilst living in a neighbourhood, the area may change little over time and may appear unresponsive to initiatives aimed at reducing worklessness. This research examines this issue and the associated policy implications.

The research classifies deprived areas according to whether they were an ‘improver’ or ‘non-improver’ area, over the period 2004 to 2007, as well as identifying ‘transition’ areas (a subset of ‘non-improver’ areas characterised by high population churn). We have published a full list of these classifications for each Lower Super Output Area in Great Britain, to enable local partners to conduct their own follow-up research into the issues locally. This has been simultaneously published alongside this report.

Full report published November 2011 (PDF 87 pages)
ISBN 978 1 908523 31 0

LSOA tables for DWP RR779 (Excel (97-2003) 8.79 MB)

Hazel’s comment:
As one does with reports of this nature I looked for my home town and, as expected, Kettering contains some nasty pockets of deprivation. The area in which I live also has some very long-term worklessness into the third generation of “dealers” (not in drugs, although there is some of that, but in anything that can raise a bit of cash).

Digital libraries in the classroom: Secondary school teachers’ conception

2012-01-11T12:12:00.002Z

an article by A Abrizah and AN Zainab (University of Malaya) published in Journal of Librarianship and Information Science Volume 43 Number 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a case study investigating secondary school teachers’ understanding of the term digital libraries and their relationship with learning.
The study addresses two research questions:

How do teachers conceptualize digital libraries, their relevance and issues relating to their integration into the curriculum? and
What are the teachers’ perceptions of the initiative to develop a collaborative digital library for school projects?

A series of interviews were carried out on six history subject teachers which provide a detailed and succinct information on their understanding of digital libraries, their knowledge and use of the internet and digital resources, their perception of the possible impact of digital resources on teaching and learning, the benefits teachers seen in digital resources and the problems they have in using them. It also offers important insights on history subject teachers’ perceptions of the initiative to develop a collaborative digital library for history projects, perception of its potential use, pointing out the conditions that facilitate its use in the classrooms.

The paper also points out the relevance of digital libraries to the history curriculum which will make readers understand that using the technology is relevant to the teaching of all subjects.

A study on the conceptualization of librarians’ career movement and identification of antecedents

2012-01-11T12:11:00.002Z

an article by Younghee Noh (Konkuk University, South Korea) published in Journal of Librarianship and Information Science Volume 43 Number 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

In today’s world, the surrounding environment and organizations are constantly requiring individuals to engage in lifelong learning and develop boundaryless careers. In this paper, the antecedents of career movement for librarians or those working in related organizations will be identified and conceptualized. To this end, this study establishes a theoretical model of internal and external career movement and its antecedents, verifies a model based on surveying librarians working at libraries and those whose functions are similar to those of librarians, and conducts usefulness analysis while exploring a new model.

In the previous study, a structural equation model, originally designed for careers other than librarians, was applied to the targets of this study, librarians, to assess external validity. This study, however, sets out a new model because the basic model cannot fully explain the structure of the data. The new model has good fit and also offers a good explanation of a covariance matrix of the original data. The significance of all coefficients, except for the covariance between career development support and external career movement intention, are statistically significant.

Parents’ perspectives on technology and children’s learning in the home: …

2012-01-11T11:09:00.001Z

social class and the role of the habitus

an article by S. Hollingworth, A. Mansaray, K. Allen and A. Rose (Institute for Policy Studies in Education (IPSE), London Metropolitan University) published in Journal of Computer Assisted Learning Volume 27 Issue 4 (August 2011)

Abstract

Government attention (in England and elsewhere) has been drawn to the role of technology in supporting learning in families. However, sociologists of education highlight that parent’s ability to engage with their children’s education and learning is not a straightforward issue.

Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this paper attempts to open up a space for examination of the differential experiences of parents from different social class backgrounds, of technology in the home, and how this informs the potential they see for family learning using technology. We use Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘cultural and economic capital’ and ‘habitus’ to explore several themes.

Firstly, the paper explores the impact of material inequalities of access on families and how this structures parental engagement with technology in relation to their children's schooling;
secondly, how the harms and risks of technology are differentially experienced, negotiated and managed by parents from different social class backgrounds – with varying amounts of social and cultural resources available to them;
thirdly, through discussion of the ‘generation gap’, we examine the significance of the parents’ working lives (in terms of the privileged forms of engagement with technology, which professional employment increasingly requires and facilitates) in shaping parents’ own relationships to education and learning.

Houses and schools: Valuation of school quality through the housing market

2012-01-11T10:48:00.002Z

an article by Stephen Machin (University College London and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics) published in Labour Economics Volume 18 Issue 6 (December 2011)

Abstract

This paper offers a critical appraisal of the now sizable empirical literature that values school quality and performance through housing valuations. This literature consistently finds housing valuations to be significantly higher in places where measured school quality is higher, implying a strong parental willingness to pay to get their children educated in better performing schools. This conclusion emerges from studies undertaken in a number of countries, using a variety of identification strategies, and at different parts of the education sequence that children follow.

Social Network and Occupational Mobility: A Mathematical Model

2012-01-11T09:19:00.002Z

an article by Oleg Demchenko published in Social Science Quarterly Volume 92 Issue 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

Objectives
This article examines the comparative effectiveness of different types of social ties used by a job seeker and proposes an explanation for the inconsistency in empirical evidence for strength-of-weak-ties hypothesis.

Methods
Granovetter’s strength-of-weak-ties hypothesis predicted that in a job search, weak ties (acquaintances) are a more valuable source of information as compared to strong ties (close friends or relatives). However, subsequent empirical research has provided ambiguous support for this hypothesis. To sort out the conflicting results, a mathematical model of the transmission of job information through a contact network has been constructed. Along with the strength of tie, a widely used characteristic of contact, the model also incorporates the work relation of tie.

Results
The model has numerous implications with strong empirical support, as well as propositions going beyond the findings of prior empirical work, which can be evaluated in subsequent studies. It is shown that the effectiveness of a certain type of contact depends on both the ego’s status (weak and work-related contacts are more advantageous for higher-status workers) and the composition of the ego’s network (work-related contacts promote the effectiveness of weak ties, while strong-tie contacts hinder the effectiveness of work-related ties). In particular, it implies that the inconsistency in empirical evidence for the strength-of-weak-ties hypothesis can be explained by the differences in status or the proportion of work-related contacts in the samples examined.

Conclusion
Work-related ties play a significant role in the analysis of informal job-search methods; their incorporation into the model allows one to account for a number of previously unexplained empirical results.

Striking the Right Note: The Cultural Preparedness Approach to Developing Resonant Career Guidance Programmes

2012-01-10T15:07:00.000Z

an article by G. Arulmani published in International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance Volume 11 Number 2 (July 2011)

Abstract

Cultural preparedness is presented as a conceptual framework that could guide the development of culture-resonant interventions. The "Jiva" careers programme is presented as a case study to illustrate a method of career and livelihood planning based upon Indian epistemology and cultural practices. Social cognitive environments and career beliefs are discussed as key factors that characterise a group's orientation to career development. An impact analysis is described. Traditional knowledge is highlighted as an important resource for constructing career guidance programmes to address the needs of clients from different cultural heritages.

Nobody tells you how to be a SENCo

2012-01-10T14:17:00.003Z

an article by Sarah M. Rosen-Webb published in British Journal of Special Education Volume 38 Issue 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

The ways in which SENCos identify themselves and how they enact the SENCo role is the focus of this research by Sarah Rosen-Webb, an associate tutor and course coordinator at Middlesex University.

Who becomes a SENCo and how different individuals develop their SENCo role is explored through the study of the career pathways of nine SENCos in nine secondary schools in England. Data from semi-structured interviews and completion of Diamond Nine activities were coded and analysed using grounded theory procedures.

Recommendations arising from this research indicate that recruitment initiatives and development programmes need to be alert to the dynamics between management and teaching roles of SENCos, and to be careful in maintaining a balance between management training and specialist teacher training.

Internet use in households and by individuals in 2011 - Issue number 66/2011

2012-01-10T13:18:00.002Z

Eurostat (European Commission statistics) says:

Two thirds of Europeans used the internet on average at least once a week, one quarter have never used it

The internet has become important for daily life, education, work and participation in society. A large majority of households and individuals make use of it today. Nevertheless there are significant differences in access and usage between countries and socio-economic groups. About a quarter of the EU-27 population aged 16 to 74 years old have never used the internet. Among those who used it, most internet users have searched for information and news, consulted wikis, participated in social networks and bought products online. This issue of Statistics in Focus provides an overview of the latest results from the Survey on ICT (information and communication technology) usage in households and by individuals and takes a closer look at the activities done by internet users.

Full report (PDF 8pp)

The differences in motivations of online game players and offline game players: …

2012-01-10T12:16:00.002Z

A combined analysis of three studies at higher education level

an article by by Tom Hainey, Thomas Connolly, Mark Stansfield and Elizabeth Boyle (University of the West of Scotland, Paisley) published in Computers & Education Volume 57 Issue 4 (2011)

Abstract

Computer games have become a highly popular form of entertainment and have had a large impact on how university students spend their leisure time. Due to their highly motivating properties computer games have come to the attention of educationalists who wish to exploit these highly desirable properties for educational purposes. Several studies have been performed looking at motivations for playing computer games in a general context and in a higher education (HE) context. These studies did not focus on the differences in motivations between online and offline game players. Equally the studies did not look at the differences in motivations of people who prefer single-player games and people who prefer multi-player games.

If games-based learning is to become a recognised teaching approach then such motivations for playing computer games must be better understood. This paper presents the combined analysis of two studies at HE level, performed over a two year period from 2007 to 2009. The paper focuses, in particular, on differences of motivations in relation to single-player/multi-player preference and online/offline game participation. The study produces a set of important motivations to be taken into consideration for each player preference type (single-player or multi-player) and each player participation type (online or offline) based on a large piece of empirical research.

Wage inequality, technology and trade: 21st century evidence

2012-01-10T11:54:00.000Z

an article by John Van Reenen (Centre for Economic Performance and London School of Economics) published in Labour Economics Volume 18 Issue 6 (December 2011)

Abstract

This paper describes and explains some of the principal trends in the wage and skill distribution in recent decades. Increases in wage inequality started in the US and UK at the end of the 1970s, but are now widespread. A good fraction of this inequality trend is due to technology-related increases in the demand for skilled workers outstripping the growth of their supply. Since the early 1990s, labour markets have become more polarised with jobs in the middle third of the wage distribution shrinking and those in the bottom and top third rising.

I argue that this is because computerisation complements the most skilled tasks, but substitutes for routine tasks performed by middle wage occupations such as clerks, leaving the demand for the lowest skilled service tasks largely unaffected.

Finally, I argue that technology is partly endogenous, for example it has been spurred by trade with China. Thus, trade does matter for changes in the labour market, but through a different mechanism than conventionally thought.

Analysis of keyword networks in MIS research and implications for predicting knowledge evolution

2012-01-10T10:13:00.002Z

an article by Jinho Choi (Sejong University, Seoul), Sangyoon Yi (University of Southern Denmark) and Kun Chang Leec (Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul) published in Information & Management Volume 48 Issue 8 (December 2011)

Abstract

New concepts and ideas build on older ones. This path dependence in knowledge evolution has promoted research to identify important knowledge elements, research trends, and opportunities by analysing publication data. In our study, keyword networks formed from published academic articles were analysed to examine how keywords are associated with each other and to identify important keywords and their change over time.

Based on MIS publication data from 1999 to 2008, our analysis provided several notable findings.
First, while the MIS field has changed rapidly, resulting in many new keywords, the connectivity among them is highly clustered.
Second, the keyword networks show clear power-law distribution, which implies that the more popular a keyword, the more likely it is selected by new researchers and used in follow-on studies. In addition, a strong hierarchical structure is identified in the network.
Third, the network-based perspective reveals interdisciplinary keywords which are different from popular ones and have the potential to lead research in the MIS field.

The independent evaluation of the pilot of the linked pair of GCSEs in mathematics - First interim report

2012-01-10T09:16:00.000Z

The impetus for change to the assessment of mathematics at GCSE level began with Adrian Smith’s report, Making Mathematics Count (2004). The response to some of the criticisms in the report was the development of a new programme of study (PoS) for mathematics that placed the emphasis on problem solving, functionality and mathematical thinking. New criteria and a new single GCSE in mathematics was developed for first teaching in September 2010 alongside the pilot of the linked pair of GCSEs in mathematics.

This report is the second of seven formative evaluation reports on the pilot of the linked pair of GCSEs in mathematics. The report focuses on the centres and students who participated and engaged in the pilot, on reported changes to teaching and learning caused by the pilot qualifications and their assessment, and on the extent to which these changes parallel those caused by the introduction of the new single GCSE in mathematics.

The aim of the evaluation, to consider the extent to which the linked pair of GCSEs offers a different experience of learning mathematics from the new single GCSE, is addressed by looking at: attitudes to mathematics, comparability of demand of the pilot qualifications both with each other and with other GCSEs in mathematics, and the views of centres (both pilot and non-pilot) on the pilot.

Includes:

Introduction
Methodology
Research findings
Summary and conclusions

DFE Research Report RR181 (PDF 42pp)
DFE Research Report RR181 Appendices (PDF 48pp)

Working Futures 2010-2020

2012-01-09T16:11:00.001Z

UKCES Evidence Report Number 41

Summary

Working Futures 2010-2020, is the most detailed and comprehensive set of UK labour market projections available. The results provide a picture of employment prospects by industry, occupation, qualification level, gender and employment status for the UK and for nations and English regions up to 2020.

These projections form a core part of the base of labour market intelligence that is available to support policy development and strategy around careers, skills and employment.

As with all projections and forecasts, the results presented in Working Futures should be regarded as indicative of likely trends and orders of magnitude given a continuation of past patterns of behaviour and performance, rather than precise forecasts of the future.

At a time of great uncertainty about the short to medium term prospects for the economy, it is important to stress the value of Working Futures in aiding understanding of likely prospects for employment in the longer term (i.e. in 2020). The reader should therefore focus on the relative position of sectors, and occupations in 2020 and treat the projected values as broad indicators of scale rather than exact predictions.

Full report (PDF 237pp+)

‘An acceptance that it’s just your lot, I suppose’: reflections on turbulent transitions between work and welfare

2012-01-09T15:14:00.001Z

an article by e David McCollum published in People, Place & Policy Online Volume 5 Issue 3 (2011)

Summary

Employment policies have conventionally focused on the transition from welfare to work. However, many of those who leave out-of-work benefits for employment return to them again relatively quickly, meaning that some people perpetually cycle between work and welfare for much of their working lives.

This article focuses on the individuals making these precarious labour market transitions and on the narratives that they use when reflecting on them. A broad agency-structure analytical framework is used to demonstrate the role of individual and more ‘involuntary’ structural factors in the production and reproduction of economic marginalisation. These findings have implications for the extent to which ‘bad jobs’ and ‘bad workers’ are viewed as determinants of labour market disadvantage and for how policies to combat work-welfare cycling are formulated and critiqued.

Full text: HTML and PDF (12pp)

Are temporary jobs a port of entry into permanent employment?: …

2012-01-09T14:34:00.001Z

Evidence from matched employer-employee

an article by Fabio Berton (University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy and LABORatorio Revelli, Turin), Francesco Devicienti, (Collegio Carlo Alberto, University of Turin and LABORatorio Revelli, Turin) and Lia Pacelli (University of Turin, and LABORatorio Revelli, Turin) published in International Journal of Manpower Volume 32 Issue 8 (2011)

Abstract

Purpose
This paper seeks to explore whether temporary jobs are a port of entry into permanent employment and to argue that the answer crucially depends on the type of temporary contracts being considered.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper bases its empirical evidence on a longitudinal sample of labour market entrants in Italy and estimates dynamic multinomial logit models with fixed effects to allow for the non-random sorting of workers into the different types of contracts.
Findings
The authors show that the transition to permanent employment is more likely for individuals who hold any type of temporary contract than for the unemployed, thus broadly confirming the existence of port-of-entry effects. Yet, not all temporary contracts are the same. An order among non-standard contracts with respect to the probability of taking an open-ended job emerges, with training contracts at the top, freelance work at the bottom, and fixed-term contracts outperforming apprenticeships. Strong SSC rebates, lack of training requirements, and low legal constraints concerning renewals result in poor port-of-entry performance, as in the case of freelance contracts. Instead, mandatory training and more binding legal constraints on the use, extension, and renewals of training contracts tend to enhance the probability of getting a standard job.
Originality/value
Most of the existing empirical literature aggregates temporary contracts in a single category, thereby ignoring a relevant source of heterogeneity.

None of our business? Private emails, FOI and lawful interception

2012-01-09T13:27:00.005Z

an article by Jonathan Baines, Information Governance Office in the Legal and Democratic Services Team at Buckinghamshire County Council, examines the issues surrounding FOI and lawful interception published in Freedom of Information Volume 8 Issue 2 (November/December 2011).

And at that point I come to a thundering full stop. There is no abstract to this article. The two introductory paragraphs could be taken to constitute one (see below) although they aren’t really. This journal is not listed on DeepDyve nor does there appear to be any way of accessing a single article without subscribing to the whole journal for a minimum of a year.

This policy is, to my mind in this day and age, short sighted but then I'm not the publisher trying to make money!

Introductory paragraphs

There was much discussion in the media recently about reports that the Information Commissioner was to investigate the education secretary, Michael Gove, and his close advisers at the Department for Education (the Department). The Department has since denied any impropriety, and has stated that private email was being used to conduct party political rather than government business.

These stories provoke some interesting questions. Firstly, to what extent can information contained in “private emails” be caught by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)? Secondly, to what extent might a deliberate attempt to evade FOIA in this alleged manner be unlawful? Thirdly, to what extent can an employers, or a government department, scrutinise its employees’, or an elected person’s email accounts (especially if those accounts are webmail accounts)?

Interesting!!

Are you an Adult at Work?

2012-01-09T12:22:00.001Z

via Lynda Gratton - The Future of Work by Lynda Gratton

It’s been an exciting year – economic turmoil in Europe, extraordinary growth in many of the developing countries, the rise of some companies and demise of others. What is clear is that we are in the midst of an industrial revolution greater than the world has ever seen with all the turbulence, the challenges and the opportunities that previous revolutions have brought. Partly as a result of this, it seems to me that the relationship between companies and their employees is undergoing a fundamental shift. All over the world the old Parent to Child relationship is moving towards a potentially more balanced Adult to Adult relationship. This is generally good news – but don’t underestimate what this will mean to your working life and what you will have to do to make the most of it.

Ms Gratton goes on to look at her own experiences of the last year and suggests that everyone asks themselves five questions. I’ll not spoil this for you – you really do need to read the advice for yourself. Warning: it’s not easy.

Am I letting my context overwhelm me?
Am I a Technological Child?
Am I in control of my competencies?
Do I have the courage to make the hard choices?
Am I making the most of the future?

Class size and education in England evidence report

2012-01-09T11:06:00.000Z

The number of children born each year in England has risen significantly since 2004 and, apart from between 2009 and 2011, is projected to continue rising. Over the next few years this will inevitably increase demand for primary and secondary school places.

This report gives an overview of the existing evidence base on class size and education in England. In particular, it considers how class sizes have changed over time; and the impact of the increase in birth rate on pupil numbers and how this could affect the teacher requirement and class sizes; and the impact of class size on educational outcomes.

Includes:

Executive summary
Introduction
Population changes and class size
Impact of current legislation on class size
How important is class size?
International comparisons
Conclusion
Bibliography

DFE Research Report RR169 (PDF 68pp)

The supply of and demand for high-level STEM skills

2012-01-09T10:44:00.001Z

This briefing paper (from UKCES) considers the supply of and demand for high-level science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills in England. It draws on detailed analysis of STEM skills supply, demand and mismatches, as well as key findings from the 2009 National Employer Skills Survey (NESS). It aims to add to the evidence base on high-level STEM skills and identifies a number of areas for further discussion.

STEM skills support research, innovation and high-tech manufacturing, and are seen as critical to the UK’s international competitiveness in these areas. Recent media coverage suggests that there is a problem with STEM skills: some employers report that they cannot recruit people of the calibre and with the skills they need, and that this is harming their businesses. However, other sources suggest that the supply of STEM skills is more than sufficient to meet demand, and that the focus needs to be on improving the ways in and extent to which these skills are used in the economy.

This paper sets out and analyses the evidence on the supply of and demand for high-level STEM skills, and argues that the picture is much healthier than often suggested. High-level STEM skills supply is broadly in line with demand, and by international standards the UK is holding its own. This is not to say that there are no challenges: in particular geographical areas, sub-sectors and industrial specialisms, we need to improve both the supply and use of skills.

Full document (PDF 24pp)

Eight Questions about Brain Drain

2012-01-09T09:34:00.001Z

a Policy Research Working Paper (WPS5668) by John Gibson and David McKenzie published by The World Bank Development Research Group in May 2011 and included in the Journal of Economic Perspectives Volume 25 Number 3 (Summer 2011)

Abstract

High-skilled emigration is an emotive issue that in popular discourse is often referred to as brain drain, conjuring images of extremely negative impacts on developing countries. Recent discussions of brain gain, diaspora effects, and other advantages of migration have been used to argue against this, but much of the discussion has been absent of evidence. This paper builds upon a new wave of empirical research to answer eight key questions underlying much of the brain drain debate:

What is brain drain?
Why should economists care about it?
Is brain drain increasing?
Is there a positive relationship between skilled and unskilled migration?
What makes brain drain more likely?
Does brain gain exist?
Do high-skilled workers remit, invest, and share knowledge back home? and
What do we know about the fiscal and production externalities of brain drain?

This paper is a product of the Finance and Private Sector Development Team, Development Research Group. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org.

Full paper (PDF 30pp)

10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

2012-01-08T09:28:00.001Z

The Rise of Social Entrepreneurs via Big Think by Big Think Editors
A growing number of individuals are using their companies to directly benefit society while also making a profit. Many are innovating low-cost solutions to social and economic problems in the third world. For example, Sam Goldman and Ned Tozun of D.Light Design manufacture inexpensive lamps and sell them in communities that don’t have reliable electricity. Or take Tom Skazy who dropped out of Princeton to create Terracycle, which sells fertilizer and over 250 products made from 60 waste streams.
A globalised communication and financial network has given rise to a new kind of entrepreneur. Some call them impact investors, others prefer social entrepreneurs, but what they have in common is trying to empower people using market-based solutions. Popularised by Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank, which was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, social entrepreneurs take the view that risk brings reward, even on the smallest scales.
Read it at Forbes

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Jackie Kennedy, a name synonymous with style and class. What a surprise, then, that her first instinct was for the popular, the kitsch, the second-rate... more

The connections between “itch” and “ouch” via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker

Image: llama itch, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from davedehetre's photostream
The biology of itching and the biology of pain are intertwined in interesting ways, writes graduate student and science blogger Aatish Bhatia. Understanding itching can help us better understand how to treat pain. I’d not seen Bhatia’s blog before, but I’m really liking his style. He does a great job of breaking down the science in a clear way.
Via Greg Laden
Read Maggie’s post in full here

The Rise of Atlantis via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game you set off on a campaign across ancient Mediterranean regions to acquire multiple artifacts in a quest for success.
Special Note: This flash version of the game allows you to play through three areas (Phoenicia, Babylon, and Egypt) of the overall campaign that is available in the full version. Even in its limited form it still provides a good amount of game play.
Asian Angel’s walk-through is here or you can go straight to the game thus:
The Rise of Atlantis (Webpage Version for all Browsers)
Install The Rise of Atlantis (Web App for Chromium-Based Browsers) [Note: wouldn’t load for me but I’m using my husband’s computer and he has all sorts of blocks on which I must not remove on pain of death.]

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Social science is wrong: Crowds are not violent forces that submerge individuality and destroy rationality. In fact, they bring out the best in people... more

Exit Searcher: a game via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
Test your skills as an escape artist while trying to escape the rooms you are trapped in.
Asian Angel’s walk through is here or if you want to go straight to the game then do it here
My OH says: "Beware, this is highly addictive."

Kitchens, 1950s via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris

Thank you to House Beautiful where you can see another 15 kitchens of the 50s together with links to kitchens of the following four decades.
If this is the 1950s style then I don't think I lived through it! I searched for something a bit more authentic and found an article from the Daily Mail which shows something a bit more recognisable to me as being “of the period”.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Aphrodite, goddess of...looting. Consider the journey of one classical statue, hidden in loose carrots, from Italy to Los Angeles and back... more

Does Shacking-Up Before Marriage Hurt the Bottom Line? via Big Think by Marina Adshade
When my sister married a man she had only known for nine months, seventeen-year-old me thought that was a bad idea. “Why not live together first?” I asked. Because, she explained, people who live together before they get married are less likely to have successful marriages. Ridiculous, I thought. Read More

Technology’s Exponential Progress via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Radical futurist Ray Kurzweil says the pace of innovation will only continue to accelerate because exponential evolution is built into the very nature of technology. He says that technological progress, from the discovery of fire through today's headlines, follows a …
Read More

10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

2012-01-07T09:54:00.001Z

Nanomaterial is world's lightest via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

A new material developed by scientists at UC Irvine is described as the “world’s lightest material”, so light it can perch atop a dandelion clock without disturbing the seeds. The material is documented in the Nov 18 Science.
The new material redefines the limits of lightweight materials because of its unique “micro-lattice” cellular architecture. The researchers were able to make a material that consists of 99.99 percent air by designing the 0.01 percent solid at the nanometer, micron and millimeter scales. “The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1,000 times thinner than a human hair,” said lead author Dr. Tobias Schaedler of HRL.
The material’s architecture allows unprecedented mechanical behaviour for a metal, including complete recovery from compression exceeding 50 percent strain and extraordinarily high energy absorption.
Multidisciplinary team of researchers develop world’s lightest material (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
(Image: Dan Little, HRL Laboratories LLC)

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
George Harrison had two personalities: self-effacing spiritual seeker and cocaine-addled adulterer. The latter made him a cliché, the former made him the most unlikely rock star... more

Can cows sense magnetism? The debate continues via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
In 2008, some scientists proposed that cows can sense magnetism and actually line up in fields along Earth’s magnetic lines. It’s the sort of paper that everybody in the media wants to talk about for, roughly, two weeks … and then never mention again.

Image: Cows, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 35463710@N06's photostream
But that’s not how science works. One research paper does not an unquestionable fact make. Luckily Discover’s Discoblog has been kind enough to update us on the current state of magnetic cow research. Shorter version: This issue is far from settled, with a second research team attempting to poke holes in the original study. Nevertheless, outside researchers say, the original findings still look strong. There is evidence that herds of cows stand along magnetic lines, and fail to stand along those lines in the presence of magnetic-field distorting high-voltage power lines. Whether this is absolutely the case and, if so, why, remains a bit of a mystery. Needs more research.

... an analysis of Google Earth images by another team finds no such lining up. In a back-and-forth over the last year in scientific journals, the first team reanalysed the second’s data and said that half of the images were useless, since they were near high-voltage power lines or contained hay bales or sheep instead of cows. Plus, the first team points out that the second team looked at single cows within herds instead of herds as a whole, and it’s pretty clear at this point that animals in herds and flocks aren't operating as independent entities. The second team retorts that their images were too okay to use, and the first team may have been looking at the wrong pictures.

Illustrated Pepsi Ads, 1950s via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris
Totally cringe-making imho!

Thank you to the American Art Archive (site suspended - er?)
anyway a good selection is available via Retronaut

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The university is broken. Students learn little and take on big debt to pay for an education that, intellectually, doesn't amount to much... more

How to Grow a Heart: Transforming Cells Into Human Organs via Big Think by Megan Erickson
Unlocking the human genome is a little like learning the alphabet. It gives you all the essentials - but in order to actually put your knowledge to use, you need to know more. You need to understand the rules of language, how to form words from letters and sentences from words.
Read More

Technical Cutaways, 1940s, by Frank Soltesz via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris

All images by Frank Soltesz

Thank you to Gawno - where you can see other stunning images.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The 19th-century social network. To enjoy the crowd, Baudelaire told us, one must have masks. His love of observing was at war with his fear of being seen... more

Earth’s Oceans Delivered by Comets? via Big Think by Big Think Editors
During observations made with the powerful Herschel Space Telescope last year, astronomers found frozen water on a comet called Harltey 2. More recent analysis shows that the molecular composition of the comet’s water – specifically, its deuterium-to-hydrogen …
Read More

HIV/AIDS Treatment Breakthrough via Big Think by Big Think Editors
A Californian biomedicine company has developed a cell-treatment therapy that, for the first time ever, can reduce the amount of HIV in the body of an infected person. While previous therapies have been limited to extending the life of the patient, this new treatment …
Read More

Student Involvement and Data-Driven Decision Making: …

2012-01-06T16:44:00.001Z

Developing a New Typology

an article by Brianna L. Kennedy (University of Florida, Gainesville) and Amanda Datnow (University of California, San Diego) published in Youth & Society Volume 43 Number 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

Existing literature supports the inclusion of students in education reform, documenting benefits for both students and educators. When student voice is not included in reform efforts, these efforts are more likely to flounder. The emerging educational reform of data-driven decision making (DDDM) offers promise for increasing student achievement. However, scant research documents the involvement of students in DDDM reforms.

Using a theoretical framework that advocates for democratically involving students in education reform, this cross-case analysis examines the role of students in DDDM reforms in elementary and high schools known to be exemplars of data-driven decision making. Based on findings of efforts made by exemplar districts as well as actions they did not take to involve students, the authors conclude that a new typology is necessary for assessing student involvement in DDDM. Consequently, the authors propose a new three-tiered typology for conceptualizing this phenomenon.

Lone Parent Obligations: work, childcare and the Jobseeker’s Allowance régime

2012-01-06T16:12:00.001Z

a DWP Research Report (RR 782) by by Pippa Lane, Jo Casebourne, Lorraine Lanceley and Malen Davies (Inclusion)

Lone Parent Obligations were introduced in November 2008. Since then, based on the age of their youngest child, lone parents have lost entitlement to Income Support (IS) solely on the grounds of being a lone parent. From October 2010, the age of the youngest child was lowered to seven and over.

This report presents findings from qualitative research with lone parents who made a claim for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), either as a new or repeat claimant, or following the transition from IS, when their youngest child was seven. Sixty in-depth interviews were carried out with lone parents in three case study areas during June and July 2011. The interviews explored issues such as work readiness, childcare, claiming JSA, looking for work and any experience of moving into work.

The research was carried out by the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (Inclusion).
December 2011

Full report (PDF 92pp)
ISBN 9-781-90852-338-9

Preparing new police officers for their careers: in-house training or university education?

2012-01-06T15:47:00.000Z

an article by Linda Heath (University of Brighton Business School) published in Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning Volume 13 Number 2 (August 2011)

Abstract

In 2006 several police forces in the UK (including Sussex, Kent and the City of London Police) moved the training of student officers into their local universities instead of providing in-house residential student officer courses. This was in response to a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), which concluded that the police’s traditional training model did not accord with the needs of a police officer in the twenty-first century (HMIC, 2002). This looked like the start of a process whereby new police officers would acquire a university education. Arguably, police officers were following the trajectory of primary school teachers and nurses (and, most recently, paramedics and fire fighters) towards their jobs becoming all-graduate professions.

This article looks at the experience of one university and one police force over three years. The aim of this article is to distil lessons on that experience. Why does this issue matter? It is an important issue because bringing the training of the police force within universities would be a significant extension of higher education (HE) within society. It is also important because it could have a significant impact on the nature and ethos of policing. It would thus widen participation in higher education and, by shifting the focus of the preparation of police officers from narrow training, it could develop their capacity for continued learning throughout their career.

This paper contains an illuminative evaluation of the programme from its beginning in 2006 to its end in 2009. Its findings are based mainly on interviews with tutors and students and draws on discussions with the Pro Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Brighton and the External Examiner of the programme. The main conclusions are that the representatives of the university, tutors and student officers from Sussex Police believe that situating student officer training in higher education has the potential for long-term benefits both in terms of individual personal and career benefits, benefits to Sussex Police and, subsequently, benefits to the communities that Sussex Police serve.

Review of the matrix Standard in response to the Tribal review of 2009: evaluation report

2012-01-06T15:23:00.000Z

Evaluation report for the 2010 review of the matrix standard, which quality assures the delivery of information, advice and guidance (IAG) services. Covers the development of the revised matrix standard, trials with pilot organisations and responds to the recommendations of the Tribal review.
URN: 11/1327
Publication date: 15 Dec 2011

Introduction to the report (which carries a date of 29.06.11)

The matrix Standard is the unique quality framework for the effective delivery of information, advice and/or guidance on learning and work. Designed to promote continuous improvement amongst individuals and organisations, the Standard quality assures the delivery of information, advice and guidance (IAG) services. It promotes the delivery of high quality information, advice and/or guidance by ensuring organisations plan, deliver, review, evaluate and develop their service; The matrix Standard was launched in February 2002 and is the intellectual property of the Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and is Crown Copyright. The current version of the matrix Standard was introduced in 2005.

Over 2,100 organisations in the UK are currently accredited to the matrix Standard, including but not limited to; Higher Education, Further Education, Community/Third Sector, Training Companies, Careers Companies, Next Step Providers, Trade Unions, Prisons and Professional Bodies. There are a further 300 others either working towards it or showing a strong interest in engaging with the Standard. The majority of these can be found in England with small numbers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, interest in the Standard is not confined to the UK. In recent months interest in adopting matrix as a national Standard has been shown elsewhere in Europe and as far afield as Australia.

In England the Next Step service, that is funded by Government and administered by the Skills Funding Agency, delivers careers information, advice and guidance to adults. All contractors managing and delivering the Next Step service are required to meet the matrix Standard. The Next Step service will from April 2012 be replaced by a new National Careers Service. It will provide high quality, professional careers information, advice and guidance to young people and adults. The National Careers Service will also be required to meet a national quality standard which will assure users that providers of careers guidance are delivering a high quality service.

As the body responsible for the matrix Standard, emqc Ltd has undertaken trials of a revised matrix Standard on behalf of BIS. The revised Standard was drawn up under the control of a Steering Group appointed by BIS in response to a review of quality standards for careers information advice and guidance carried out by Tribal in 2009¹. The trials are intended to test and evaluate whether the revisions will result in a Standard which provides Ministers with the necessary assurance about the quality of service that users will receive from the National Careers Service and other organisations who adopt the new Standard. This report with recommendations has been prepared and presented to the Steering Group as a detailed account of the review of the matrix Standard.

¹Quality Assurance Arrangements for the Adult Advancement and Careers Service, 8^th November 2009

Full report (PDF 80pp)

An Information System for Coping with Student Dropout

2012-01-06T15:03:00.000Z

an article by Ester Aflalo and Eyal Gabay (Hemdat Hadarom College, Israel) published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education Volume 7 Issue 3 (July-September 2011)

Abstract

Student dropout prevention is one of the most important challenges of the education system. This study examines the effectiveness of a Local Authority Information Center (LAIC), developed in Israel to cope with that problem. The research population included 418 regular attendance officers (RAOs), educators who deal with students who drop out and those who are at risk of dropping out. The RAOs were divided into an experimental group, who performed their work using the information system, and a control group who used manual means.

The research findings show that the information system improved the comprehensive nature of the information and its relevance for students at risk of dropping out, and resulted in an increase in the number of students treated by the RAOs. This improvement was maintained over a period of three years. The LAIC is likely to offer an effective and professional approach to reducing the problem of student dropout.

Information literacy in United Kingdom schools

2012-01-06T14:33:00.002Z

an article by David Streatfield, Sue Shaper, Sharon Markless and Simon Rae-Scott published in JIL: Journal of Information Literacy Volume 5 Number 2 (2011)

Abstract

This paper reviews the evolution of information skills and information literacy (IL) work and associated research in UK schools over the past thirty years as reflected in the literature. A brief report is then offered of a recent small study of library-based IL work in primary schools in England, using structured focus groups of teachers and library assistants and telephone interviews with Heads.

The remainder of the paper reports on the IL aspects of the first major surveys of UK post-primary school libraries and what librarians do for more than twenty years. It draws on an activity survey of library staff in 1,044 schools in the UK, conducted through a combination of peer interviews with an e-survey, across a range of post-primary schools. A set of questions was asked about the preferred term used in the school for IL, the extent of learning support by library staff, and the distribution of IL efforts across student years. These replies were then compared with responses about management supervision and about librarian-generated planning to show that these are both influencing factors in IL work. Further questions were asked about the types of IL work undertaken by library staff – from supporting IL efforts of teachers to conducting lessons in the library or classroom and preparing guidance for students. Respondents then identified the phases of the IL cycle on which they concentrated their efforts and the main activities which they engaged in when collaborating with teachers. In presenting the results, comparisons are made between replies from professionally-qualified librarians and other categories of respondent.

Three models of IL intervention in schools are then presented, drawing upon activity descriptions contributed by survey respondents (including those interviewed). These are characterised as:
• Sporadic opportunism
• Systematic development
• Strategic orchestration

A brief comment is made on the limitations of the survey and some conclusions are offered, relating to the growing gap between ‘the best and the rest’, the implications of declining school library budgets at all levels, and the difference that a professionally-qualified school librarian can make to IL work in the school.

Full Text (PDF 22pp)

Customer service for academic library users on the web

2012-01-06T13:52:00.002Z

an article by Kiran Kaur and Diljit Singh (University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur) published in The Electronic Library Volume 29 Issue 6 (2011)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of customer service in the academic library setting and ways in which its management can be best approached in the electronic environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a two-phase methodology. First is a content analysis of the literature on customer service in libraries, focusing on electronic services, to identify main issues and strategies being used to address customer issues. This is followed by a qualitative data-gathering approach to explore user perspectives on the quality of electronic services, focusing on customer service.
Findings
The findings reveal that the concerns of library customers in the web environment are similar to those in the traditional library environment. They are concerned about receiving online help for technical problems and also help to search and use information. Reference services are still highly in demand with an emphasis on the characteristics of the online librarian. Another major need is the ability to give feedback and receive a quick response from the library.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited to web-based library customer service quality as perceived by postgraduate students at four research universities. Thus, it cannot be generalised to the whole academic library’s clientele views, though it is applicable to electronic library services at other institutions. The subjectivity of the researchers’ interpretations of qualitative data are also acknowledged.
Practical implications
This paper will be helpful to academic libraries in managing the quality of electronic library services by focusing on what the customers require and deem important. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on electronic customer services in academic libraries.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the shortage of studies on the perceived quality of library electronic library services, as is evident in the literature.

Gender Discrimination at Work …

2012-01-06T12:34:00.001Z

Connecting Gender Stereotypes, Institutional Policies, and Gender Composition of Workplace

an article by Donna Bobbitt-Zeher (The Ohio State University) published in Gender & Society Volume 25 Number 6 (December 2011)

Abstract

Research on gender inequality has posited the importance of gender discrimination for women’s experiences at work. Previous studies have suggested that gender stereotyping and organizational factors may contribute to discrimination. Yet it is not well understood how these elements connect to foster gender discrimination in everyday workplaces. This work contributes to our understanding of these relationships by analyzing 219 discrimination narratives constructed from sex discrimination cases brought before the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. By looking across a variety of actual work settings, the analysis sheds light on the cultural underpinnings and structural contexts in which discriminatory actions occur. The analyses reveal how gender stereotyping combines in predictable ways with sex composition of workplaces and organizational policies, often through interactional dynamics of discretionary policy usage, to result in discrimination. The findings suggest the importance of cultural, structural, and interactional influences on gender discrimination.

Education and Training in a smart, sustainable and inclusive Europe

2012-01-06T11:30:00.000Z

This report summarises the actions and developments during the first 2009-2011 cycle of implementing “ET2020” and suggests priority areas for European policy cooperation for the next cycle 2012-14.

It highlights in particular how cooperation in education and training can support reaching the objectives of the “Europe 2020” strategy.

The Commission suggests these areas to be confirmed as priorities for European cooperation during the next “ET 2020” work cycle (2012-2014), so as to sustain a successful implementation of “Europe 2020”.

Links

A computer card game for the learning of basic aspects of the binary system in primary education: …

2012-01-06T10:19:00.001Z

Design and pilot evaluation

an article by Maria Kordaki (Patras University, Greece) published in Education and Information Technologies Volume 16 Issue 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

This paper presents the design, features and pilot evaluation study of a computer card game for the learning of basic aspects of the binary system (BS) by primary level education pupils. This design was based on modern social and constructivist theories of learning, in combination with basic game design principles. Pupils are asked to play against the computer with cards featuring Binary Numbers (BNs). To engage successfully with the game, pupils are provided with opportunities to review their previous knowledge of the decimal system and, subsequently, to use analogical reasoning to make connections between this knowledge and basic aspects of the BS. Several scaffolding elements are also provided for the pupils to construct, verify, extend and generalise their knowledge, at the same time using essential learning competencies. The game was piloted in the field using real pupils (20 6th Grade pupils) with encouraging results. Finally, an attempt has been made to address essential points of this game that have contributed to its becoming a successful learning environment. Addressing these points could be useful for both designers of educational computer games for Computer Science (CS) education and educators in Computing.

User Perceptions of Security Technologies

2012-01-06T09:21:00.001Z

an article by Douglas M. Kline and Ulku Yaylacicegi (University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA) and Ling He (Saginaw Valley State University, USA) published in International Journal of Information Security and Privacy Volume 5 Issue 2 (April-June 2011)

Abstract

In this paper, user perceptions of information systems security are explored through a study of university students. Server authentication, which is often ignored by users, clouded by system administrators, and exploited by hackers, is explored in detail, as it significantly affects usability and requires user knowledge and participation. The study also investigates the respondents’ consistency, gender differences, and assessment of their own knowledge. Although users appear knowledgeable about security technologies, they rely more on peer opinion and reputation of web sites when making security decisions.

Vocation, Vocation, Vocation: placing meaning in the foreground of career decision-making

2012-01-05T16:15:00.000Z

This occasional paper offers a collection of articles resulting from presentations given at the Centre's biennial conference on the Salomons campus of the University [Canterbury Christ Church] in May 2011.

Occasional Paper ISBN: 9-781-89925-391-3 Edited by Hazel Reid © Canterbury Christ Church University

The occasional paper is available to be downloaded in its entirety or as individual chapters.

Occasional Paper – Full Copy (PDF 88pp)

Introduction Hazel Reid (PDF 2pp)

Career guidance policy development under the Coalition Government: a critical analysis A.G.Watts
(PDF 8pp)

Receive in order to give: Eastern cultural values and their relevance to contemporary career counselling contexts Gideon Arulmani (PDF 7pp)

Philosophies for career work: what do we mean by “careers work”? And, anyway, who are “we”? Bill Law (PDF 11pp)
[Note: Difficult to read on screen because of diagrams in landscape. Print in colour for the best experience.]

Prayer, meditation and contemplation in career decision making Liane Hambly (PDF 7pp)

Knowledgeable practice requires more than practical knowledge: drawing on two counselling approaches for guidance work with young people Hazel Reid and Jane Westergaard (PDF 11pp)

Age Matters? An exploration of the similarities and differences in the values and beliefs of practitioners working with clients of different ages Barbara Bassot and Barbara Shottin (PDF 7pp)

Crossing the line? Personal and professional boundaries in tension Alison Fielding (PDF 7pp)

Parental influences on career and life choices – when did you last see your father? Anne Chant (PDF 8pp)

Keeping your balance on a floating raft: engaging with voices in collaborative working between statutory and non-statutory sectors in services for children and young people Joanna Oliver (PDF 7pp)

Vocational Pathways: The occupational experiences of older professional practitioners Ian King (PDF 8pp)

Abbreviations, Full Spellings, and Searchers’ Preferences

2012-01-05T15:45:00.001Z

an article by Jeffrey Beal published in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly Volume 49 Issue 6 (2011)

Abstract

This study examined ten, selected word pairs, each containing a word’s full spelling and its abbreviation, to determine which form search engine users preferred in searching. Using seven search logs gathered from several Internet search engines with approximately 608 MB of data, the study measured the occurrences of the twenty terms. The selected words are important in library cataloging, for some are prescribed abbreviations in metadata content standards. The study found that in eight of the ten word pairs users preferred to search words’ full spellings over the abbreviations, often by a high margin.

Hazel’s comment:
I managed to get to read this article in full and found it fascinating. The word pairs used were:

corporation : corp.
government : govt. [98.2% of searchers use full word but cataloguers go almost equally the other way]
limited: ltd [depends on whether British company]
miscellaneous : misc
California : Calif.
department : dept
departments : depts
Boulevard : Blvd
Internal Revenue Service : IRS or I.R.S.

If you can get access to the full text then do please do so. You'll soon discover why your users are not finding the information that you, the cataloguer, have so carefully crafted so that they can.

A review of occupations regulation and its impact (Evidence report 40)

2012-01-05T14:27:00.005Z

This report by John Forth et al for the UKCES maps the current pattern of occupational regulation in the UK, focusing on three forms of legal regulation (licensing, certification and registration) and one form of voluntary regulation (accreditation) that has no legal backing or state involvement.

It reviews the theory regarding the operation and impact of occupational regulation, and examines the existing evidence on the impacts of occupational regulation in the UK and abroad.

It also provides initial estimates of the impact of occupational regulation on labour market outcomes such as skill levels, wages and employment in the UK.

Full report (PDF 198pp)

Thanks to Skills Development Scotland for alerting me to this series of publications.

Review of the National Curriculum in England: …

2012-01-05T12:44:00.004Z

Report on subject breadth in international jurisdictions

This report describes the organisation and content of school curricula in several countries and jurisdictions. It includes information about their: curriculum structure and organisation; curriculum review processes; lower secondary qualifications; and compulsory and optional curriculum subjects at different educational phases.

The principal source of information for this report has been the International Review of Curriculum and Assessment Frameworks Archive (INCA), the content of which is managed by NFER. INCA provides descriptions of government policy on education in 21 countries worldwide, focusing on curriculum, assessment and initial teacher training frameworks for pre‐school, primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education in schools.

DFE Research Report RR178a (PDF 130pp)

The Framework for the National Curriculum: …

2012-01-05T12:15:00.001Z

A report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum review

This report summarises the Expert Panel’s thinking on a range of fundamentally important issues, which are crucial to defining an overarching conception of the purposes, shape, size and structure of the curriculum. The report focuses in particular on a number of recommendations, some of which have the potential to result in radical change to the National Curriculum, beyond change to curriculum content.

It is hoped that the report will help to generate public discussion and constructive contributions to the Department’s review of the National Curriculum over the weeks and months to come.

Includes:

Knowledge, Development and the Curriculum
Aims and Purposes of the Curriculum
The Structure of the School Curriculum (for primary and secondary)
Subjects in the Curriculum through the Key Stages of Schooling
The Structure of Key Stages
The Organisation of Programmes of Study
The Form of Programmes of Study and Attainment Targets
Assessment, Reporting, and Pupil Progression
Oral Language and its Development within the National Curriculum
Risks
Conclusions
Annexes

DFE report 00135-2011 (PDF 76pp)

Ethical Considerations in Classification Practice: …

2012-01-05T11:12:00.001Z

A Case Study Using Creationism and Intelligent Design
an article by Daniel CannCasciato (Brooks Library, Central Washington University, USA) published in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly Volume 49 Issue 5 (2011)

Abstract

This article re-visits a scenario from 1987: a university president required a library director to reclassify some materials into a science classification. The author looks at the prominence of the Code of Ethics of the American Library Association in the general library literature and in classification and cataloging practice literature. The issue of censorship is also discussed. The author then reviews classification for Creationism and Intelligent design and some decision-making processes one could use when deciding on the professional ethics of such a request, concluding that in some cases the ethical action might indeed be to go ahead with the reclassification.

Hazel’s comment:
So that means moving items from B to Q in the LoC Classification System, B to R in LDCS and ?? to ?? in other schema.

Who Cares about Skills? …

2012-01-05T10:53:00.001Z

The Impact and Limits of Statutory Regulation on Qualifications and Skills in Social Care

an article by Howard Gospel and Paul A Lewis (King's College London) published in British Journal of Industrial Relations Volume 19 Issue 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

This article examines the impact of statutory regulation on qualifications and skills in the social care sector in the UK. It draws on various sources and a set of case studies, first carried out in 2003 and replicated in 2008. The analysis shows that the advent of the statutory régime has had a positive effect on the volume of training and qualifications in the sector. However, few organisations have combined training with a broader set of human resource management practices of the kind required for the establishment of a high-performance work system. This constitutes one of the continuing limits to further skill development. Changes in the regulatory régime risk losing benefits that have been gained.

The contribution of information technology to call center productivity: ...

2012-01-05T09:03:00.005Z

An organizational design analysis

an article by Frantz Rowe ((LEMNA) and SKEMA Business School, University of Nantes, France), Rolande Marciniak (University of Paris Ouest Nanterre (IDHE), France) and Cécile Clergeau (University of Angers (GRANEM), France) published in Information Technology & People Volume 24 Issue 4 (2011)

Abstract

Purpose
This paper seeks to offer a strategic and socio technical analysis of the productivity of telephone call centers from the perspective of Galbraith's organizational design theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a quantitative survey of 155 call center managers in France, which benefited from extensive preparation through ten case studies.
Findings
When focusing the analysis on call centers handling only inbound calls, five main factors: the profile of the telephone operators, division of labor, goals, reward system and the technology – including automated call distribution, computer telephony integration and e-mail – are found to be important productivity enhancers.
Research limitations/implications
Perceptual measures when used are based on single items.
Practical implications
The findings confirm the paramount impact of human resources’ profile on the efficiency of call centers. As expected, automated call distribution is above all a productivity tool and should be recommended to all call centers.
Social implications
Division of labor is important but, beyond a personal relationship with each customer, work in call centers has a collective component, which is best reflected by the efficiency of collective rewards.
Originality/value
The paper provides an evaluation method of call center productivity based on a first literature review on call centers from an IS perspective. It adapts Galbraith’s organizational design theory and shows that for inbound call centers, which can be considered as a group of domains or set of tasks in Galbraith’s organizational design theory, people, structure, goals assigned, rewards and IT all have an impact on productivity measured with the rate of efficiency.

Young people and the Great Recession

2012-01-05T08:56:00.001Z

an article by David N. F. Bell (Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, IZA, and CPC) and David G. Blanchflower (Dartmouth College, Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, IZA, CESifo, and NBER) published in Oxford Review of Economic Policy Volume 27 Number 2 (Summer 2011)

Abstract

This article reviews the effects of the Great Recession on youth labour markets. We argue that young people aged 16-24 have suffered disproportionately during the recession. Using the USA and UK as case studies, we analyse youth unemployment using micro-data. We find that there is convincing evidence that the effects of unemployment when young impose costs on individuals and society well into the future. Although the effects of current policies on youth unemployment are uncertain, there is still a strong case for policy intervention to address the difficulties that the young are having in accessing employment.

Understanding household income poverty at small area level

2012-01-04T16:09:00.001Z

an article by Robert Fry (Office for National Statistics) published in Regional Trends 43 (2011)

Abstract

A new ONS data release provides experimental estimates of the proportion of households in poverty, after housing costs, at Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA) level in England and Wales. These complement the experimental estimates of average household income for MSOAs already published by ONS.

These estimates are based on Family Resources Survey (FRS) data and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publication Household Below Average Income derived from FRS data. They use a similar modelling approach to that used for the average household income estimates. The first set of these estimates relate to the 2007/08 period. Future updates will be released alongside the estimates of average household income.

This article looks at spatial patterns in the proportion of households in poverty, in particular looking at how poverty is distributed within regions and local authorities. The article shows that there are wide variations in the patterns of the proportions of households in poverty in each region. Looking across all MSOAs, Wales, the North East and London had the highest median values of the proportion of households in poverty¹. London had the largest spread, that is, it had both areas with very low and high proportions of households in poverty.

The article also provides an introduction to these estimates and some summary guidance on their use. It will be of interest to people with a focus on poverty at a local level such as politicians, charities, planners, regeneration specialists, and academics.

¹ Official estimates of the proportions of individuals in low income by region are given in the Households Below Average Income publication here [published May 2011]

Hidden information in Microsoft Word

2012-01-04T15:22:00.000Z

an article by Li Liu, Yang Xiao, Jingyuan Zhang, Andrew Faulkner and Keith Weber published in International Journal of Security and Networks Volume 6 Number 2/3 (2011)

Abstract

There is no doubt that Microsoft Word is the leading personal word processing software on the Windows platform. The intuitive user interface provides convenient editing as if it was doing so on a real note pad for publication. Even though users apparently see what they put on the electronic document in Word format, not-apparent information is recorded by the software itself based on the users' behaviour or identification. This information is called “Hidden Information”. In this paper, we discuss what is concealed in the Word file and its related issues.

Hazel’s comment:
Current price for online access to this article is Thirty Euros but if you can find an institution through which you can get access then it makes for an interesting read. Specifically for those who use the program without wondering about the how or even why.

How Much Do Educational Outcomes Matter in OECD Countries?

2012-01-04T14:03:00.000Z

an article by Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessman (Hoover Institution, Stanford University, NBER and CESifo; University of Munich, Ifo Institute for Economic Research, CESifo and IZA) published in Economic Policy Number 67 (July 2011)

Summary

Between 1960 and 2000, three OECD countries averaged more than four percent annual growth in per-capita GDP, while two averaged less than 1.5 percent. Despite extensive investigations of the determinants of long-run economic growth, little is known about why some developed countries have grown so much faster than others. A number of studies over the past decade have shown that human capital as measured by cognitive skills explains a significant portion of the difference in growth rates between developed and developing countries. We show that cognitive skills also can explain differences in growth within just the OECD. We then provide three innovations on past analyses.

First, we demonstrate that a wide range of measures of economic institutions have no significant relationship with long-run OECD growth once cognitive skills are accounted for.

Second, even though tertiary education is often thought to be the big advantage of developed countries, there is little evidence that it explains differential growth. In fact, the alternative of measuring cognitive skills suggests that the top end of the human capital distribution is more important in developing countries than in OECD countries.

Third, we use the estimated growth models to simulate the economic impact of improved educational outcomes.

The results suggest that the OECD as a whole could gain (in present value terms) $90-275 trillion from implementation of reform programs that bring human capital in the OECD to higher levels (but ones currently observed within the OECD). We close by discussing evidence on which education policy reforms may be able to bring about the required improvements in educational outcomes.

Full text (PDF 65pp) contains a number of data tables and formulae supporting the hypothesis.

Is There a Difference Between Critical Thinking and Information Literacy?

2012-01-04T13:23:00.007Z

an article by John M Weiner published in JIL: Journal of Information Literacy Volume 5 Number 2 (2011)

Abstract

This paper investigates the similarities and differences between two important ideas in information processing and knowledge utilisation. Those ideas are [critical thinking] and [information literacy]. The two phrases are shown in brackets to indicate that the two words involved in each idea are not arbitrarily combined but have been coupled by authors to represent a single entity or a focus for development of concepts describing the characteristics involved. By exploring terms related to this couplet from the same sentence, the meaning of each of the central ideas can be expanded. The education, library science, and health science literature were used in this study, which analysed 8745 articles dealing with [critical thinking] and 8201 reports dealing with [information literacy] included in either ERIC or PubMed from 2000-2009.

The findings showed that combinations of terms (i.e. ideas) such as [information & literacy & related term] or [critical & thinking & related term], when organised based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning (Bloom 1956), clarified the similarities and differences between the two central ideas. [Information literacy] was involved in all of the cognitive functions suggested by Bloom. This finding is consistent with the definitions of [information literacy] that relate it to lifelong learning and effective decision-making. In addition, the ideas describing [information literacy] were consistent with actions and perceptions that were more public and standardised than those associated with [critical thinking].

This suggests that [information literacy] and its associated procedures could significantly augment current instruction in [critical thinking] and indeed, the possibility has been explored by some authors in the current literature. A merging of the two ideas would involve [information literacy] providing tools and techniques in the processing and utilisation of knowledge and [critical thinking] supplying the particulars and interpretations associated with a specific discipline. This type of integration could lead to instructional programs similar in concept and application to those in research methodology where methods from statistics are integrated with the techniques and skills associated with a specific discipline. The development of a curriculum of this type would change functions and perceptions from private, individualised mentation, now associated with [critical thinking], to a more easily learned and practiced process suitable across the breadth of disciplines.

Full text (PDF 13pp) with some explanatory diagrams in colour. Worth printing.

OECD Statistics Newsletter - Issue 54 (December 2011)

2012-01-04T12:38:00.001Z

Contents

Measuring Multi-Factor Productivity by Industry: Methodology and First Results from the OECD Productivity Database
Benoit Arnaud, Julien Dupont, Seung-Hee Koh and Paul Schreyer, OECD Statistics Directorate

New ECB Statistics on Securitisation
Clive Jackson and Jani Matilainen, European Central Bank

The Relationship between Quarterly and Annual Growth Rates
Philip Cross and Diana Wyman, Statistics Canada

International Seminar on the New Framework for Economic Statistics: Global Standards and Implementation
Young Bae Kim, Director-General of Economic Statistics Department, Bank of Korea

New ECB Statistics on Euro Area Insurance Corporations and Pension Funds
Rafael Quevedo, Leda Tiktopoulou and Barbara Zupancic, European Central Bank

Recent publications

Forthcoming meetings

Use of conceptual models in self-evaluation of personal competences in learning and in planning for change

2012-01-04T11:38:00.002Z

an article by Natasha Kersh, Karen Evans and Seppo Kontiainen (Institute of Education, University of London) and Howard Bailey (2nCompass and Striding Out consultants) published in International Journal of Training and Development Volume 15 Issue 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the use of conceptual modelling to assist with the competence development of adult learners with interrupted occupational and learning careers. The research introduces a self-evaluation approach used with a group of adult female students in the United Kingdom. The study aimed at increasing learners’ awareness of the qualities and nature of their individual learning processes. The paper applies Kontiainen’s dynamic concept analysis modelling method as a tool to assist individual students in the evaluation of their personal competences in learning. The findings of the current study suggest that providing adult learners with opportunities to evaluate their own competences may facilitate a process of making their skills visible to themselves as well as to their tutors and employers. This aims to increase their motivation to use and develop their competences. The paper provides an example and a demonstration of the self-evaluation process in action illustrated by two case studies.

Increasing digital channel use amongst digitally excluded Jobcentre Plus claimants

2012-01-04T10:53:00.006Z

DWP Research Report 776 by Duncan Adam, Dr Maria de Hoyos and Anne E. Green (Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick) and Vicky Campbell-Hall and Dr Andrew Thomas (TNS-BMRB)

Qualitative research was commissioned to develop an actionable approach to encourage digitally excluded claimants to use Jobcentre Plus digital channels, by increasing Jobcentre Plus’ understanding of:

how to address the barriers to digital service usage;
the behavioural strategies required to encourage digitally excluded claimants online;
the types of services that claimants might value (which involved presenting claimants with examples of potential digital services); and
the role of Jobcentre Plus staff and digital partners in supporting the migration of claimants to online services.

For the purpose of this research, ‘digitally excluded’ claimants are defined as individuals who never access the internet, or do so no more than three times a month, and lack confidence in their internet skills.
Between April and June 2011, 80 face-to-face interviews with digitally excluded Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), Income Support (IS), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Incapacity Benefit (IB) claimants, 35 telephone interviews with Jobcentre Plus staff and five telephone interviews with external digital partners were undertaken and analysed thematically (further details are presented in Chapter 1).

Full report (PDF 95pp)
ISBN 978-1-908523-26-6

What good is moral reasoning?

2012-01-04T09:32:00.001Z

an article by Hugo Mercier published in Mind & Society Volume 1 Number 2 (December 2011)

Abstract
The role of reasoning in our moral lives has been increasingly called into question by moral psychology. Not only are intuitions guiding many of our moral judgments and decisions, with reasoning only finding post-hoc rationalisations, but reasoning can sometimes play a negative role, by finding excuses for our moral violations. The observations fit well with the argumentative theory of reasoning (Mercier H, Sperber D, Behav Brain Sci, in press-b), which claims that reasoning evolved to find and evaluate arguments in dialogic contexts. This theory explains the strong confirmation bias that reasoning displays when it produces arguments, which in turn explains its tendency to rationalise our decisions. But this theory also predicts that people should be able to evaluate arguments felicitously and that, as a result, people should reason better in groups, when they are confronted with other people’s arguments. Groups are able to converge on better moral judgments. It is argued that reasoning and argumentation play an important role in our everyday moral lives, and a defence of the value of reasoning for moral change is offered.

UK Employer Skills Survey 2011 - first findings report

2012-01-04T08:56:00.001Z

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills has published First Findings from the first ever UK-wide employer skills survey. Over 87,500 employers from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland were interviewed as part of the project.

This ambitious project has brought together the four surveys on skills deficiencies and training that were previously carried out separately in each constituent nation and represents a significant achievement technically. Compared to the previous surveys run in the nations, this survey includes all establishments with the exception of sole traders, which is a wider population. The survey will enable us to:

Compare sectors and occupations within the UK
Analyse across the entire UK on a comparable basis
Recreate the data on a basis that allows time series analysis in the constituent nations

The First Findings Report provides a first glance at the statistics emerging from the project, but a fuller Main Report will follow in spring 2012 once there has been time to scratch beneath the surface of the data. The First Findings presents only information at the UK level, and does not breakdown information to the level of constituent nations. This will occur in the fuller analysis to follow in 2012. All figures in the report are subject to adjustment as we review and refine our analysis.

Key issues emerging from the report include:

Total UK employer expenditure on training is estimated at £49bn over the 12 months before the 2011 UK Employer Skills Survey. This is the first time that such a detailed estimate of UK-wide training expenditure has been calculated. Please note that previously only the surveys in England and Northern Ireland had calculated a total training expenditure figure. For the reasons given above the figure is not comparable with the 2009 NESS¹ figure in England.
A quarter of all establishments had trained staff towards nationally recognised qualifications in the 12 months prior to the survey. This illustrates that a minority of employers are currently engaged with the established qualifications system and highlights the importance of engaging employers more actively in driving the development of qualifications, so that one single market for training and development is created. For more on this issue see our paper on Employer Ownership.
It is notable that amongst the sectors where more money is spent on training relative to the number of establishments that train in the sector, several have a high prevalence of occupational regulation. Transport and Storage, Public Administration, Education and Health and Social work are examples. This reflects the rising prevalence of occupational regulation, which is explored from the perspective of its impact on training in one of our recent evidence reports.
Whilst only pockets of the economy experience skills deficiencies, where they are felt they have an impact on the ability of establishments to function (62 per cent report some impact). Nearly half (48 per cent) of establishments with skill gaps report that it leads to increased workload for other staff, whilst 83 per cent of employers experiencing hard-to-fill vacancies found this to be a problem. Nearly a half of businesses with hard-to-fill vacancies found it difficult to meet customer service objectives; to develop products or services, or that it led to a loss of business orders.

¹NESS is the National Employer Skills Survey, which was the name of the employer skills survey previously run in England.

First Findings from the 2011 UK Employer Skills Survey by David Vivian, Mark Winterbotham, Jan Shury and Ben Davies (IFF Research) (PDF 26pp)
Published December 2011 ISBN 9-781-90659-797-9

‘I remember thinking, why isn’t there someone to help me? …

2012-01-04T08:44:00.000Z

Why isn’t there someone who can help me make sense of what I’m going through?’
‘Instant adulthood’ and the transition of young people out of state care

an article by Ruth Rogers (Canterbury Christ Church University) published in Journal of Sociology Volume 47 Number 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

Recent years have seen a shift away from youth transitions being understood as a linear progression towards conventional goals. Instead, it is now argued that youth transitions tend to be highly chaotic, often involving non-linear and fragmented movement between dependence and independence.

This article discusses how young people leaving the state care system are seldom afforded the luxury of a more gradual and non-linear transition. Instead, for them, the possibilities of adult futures remain marked by chronic and continuing exclusion as they move abruptly into ‘instant adulthood’, with no opportunity to return to the child welfare system should they find themselves unable to make it on their own.

Drawing from findings of 30 in-depth interviews with young care leavers, social workers and further and higher education institutions in the UK, the article considers the experiences of young people leaving state care, including their perceived lack of ‘care’, and the importance they place on unconditional and emotional support and contact.

Hazel’s comment:
This is, I believe, an important point to remember when providing career guidance to young people. It was certainly evident with the adults I advised as an employment adviser that those with a chequered history in childhood were more difficult to place in adulthood – even when vacancies were comparatively plentiful.

Privacy issues could stymie government’s web plans

2012-01-03T16:53:00.000Z

a short piece by Tim Buckley Owen published in Information World Review Issue 267 (September/October 2011)

You can find it here surrounding the picture of Geraldine van Bueren, Equalities Commission member, who is quoted as saying: “the state is holding increasing amounts of information about our lives without us ... being able to check that it’s accurate or to challenge this effectively.”

Additionally, the way government manages data is “deeply flawed” – while an audit of public sector websites reveals that most organisations haven’t a clue how many cookies they use.

Ambition Gone Awry: …

2012-01-03T15:36:00.000Z

The Long-Term Socioeconomic Consequences of Misaligned and Uncertain Ambitions in Adolescence

an article by Ricardo Sabates (University of Sussex), Angel L. Harris (Princeton University) and Jeremy Staff (The Pennsylvania State University) published in Social Science Quarterly Volume 92 Issue 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

Objective
The objective of this study was to investigate whether misaligned or uncertain ambitions in adolescence influence the process of socioeconomic attainment.

Methods
Using 34 years of longitudinal data from the British Cohort Study (BCS70), we considered whether youth with

misaligned ambitions (i.e., those who either over- or underestimate the level of education required for their desired occupation),
both low occupational aspirations and educational expectations (low-aligned ambitions), and
uncertainty with regard to their future occupations (uncertain ambitions) at age 16

experienced more unemployment spells, lower educational attainment, and lower hourly wages in adulthood compared to youth with high occupational aspirations and educational expectations (high-aligned ambitions).

Results
Youth who hold misaligned or uncertain aspirations show long-term deficits in employment stability and educational attainment, which in turn leads to lower wage attainments at age 34.

Conclusion
Misaligned and uncertain ambitions in adolescence compromise the construction of life paths and the realization of long-term educational and occupational goals.

Immigrants

2012-01-03T14:53:00.001Z

New from Eurostat is Migrants in Europe – A statistical portrait of the first and second generation.

The 155-page publication “looks at a broad range of characteristics of migrants living in the European Union and EFTA countries. It looks separately at the foreign-born, the foreign citizens, and the second generation. It addresses a variety of aspects of the socio-economic situation of migrants including labour market situation, income distribution, and poverty. The effects of different migration-related factors (i.e. reason of migration, length of residence) are examined.”

One of its revelations is that one in three foreign-born people aged 25 to 54 are overqualified for their jobs, compared to one in five native-born.

Press Release 180/2011

Publication page

GDP per capita varied by more than six to one across the EU in 2010: …

2012-01-03T14:19:00.000Z

Consumption and price levels differed by more than three to one

As in previous years, Bulgaria remains the country with the lowest level of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita among all EU Member States, at less than half the EU average. The Netherlands was 33 percent above that average, surpassed only by Luxembourg. Levels of Actual Individual Consumption (AIC) were somewhat more homogeneous, but still showed very substantial differences across EU Member States. The country with the highest price level remains Denmark.

Full report Issue number 64/2011 via Eurostat Statistics in focus (PDF 8pp)

Lifelong Learning, Equality and Social Cohesion

2012-01-03T13:11:00.000Z

an article by Andy Green published in European Journal of Education Volume 46 Number 2 (June 2011)

Abstract

This article compares the evidence from the 2009 PISA survey on the distribution of skills amongst 15-year-olds in different regions and country groups and explores how education systems in these regions contribute to different levels of inequality. In the second part, it presents evidence from surveys on adult skills and attitudes on how skills inequality affects social attitudes and social cohesion.

Hazel’s comment:
Access to this article, as with all those published under the Wiley Online Library banner, is through your institutional subscription, if there is one, or Wiley's Pay-Per-View service. This is the equivalent of Cambridge Journals Rent-an-article in that you purchase 24-hour access in order to read an article.
This article is here Pay-Per-View but note that no price is given.

Cracking the New Job Market

2012-01-03T12:45:00.004Z

Charles Purdy of The Monster Blog talks to the veteran human resources executive and career coach R. William Holland about his new book.

Holland provides answers to the following questions:

Do you believe that “following your passion” is good advice today in choosing a career – and has that changed in recent years?
How has the advance of social media changed looking for a job and managing a career?
What are some traditional or “old-fashioned” methods that no longer serve job seekers, especially older job seekers, well?
Soon-to-be college grads and their parents are feeling hopeless about career prospects – what is your advice for them?
What skills should all workers be cultivating to stay relevant?

You can read the answers here

Amazon.co.uk has the paperback (£13.99) and Kindle (£6.46) here

Knowledge sharing and investment decisions in information security Knowledge sharing and investment decisions in information security

2012-01-03T11:42:00.001Z

an article by Dengpan Liu (University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA), Yonghua Ji (University of Alberta, Canada) and Vijay Mookerjee (University of Texas at Dallas, USA) published in Decision Support Systems Volume 52 Issue 1 (December 2011)

Abstract

We study the relationship between decisions made by two similar firms pertaining to knowledge sharing and investment in information security. The analysis shows that the nature of information assets possessed by the two firms, either complementary or substitutable, plays a crucial role in influencing these decisions. In the complementary case, we show that the firms have a natural incentive to share security knowledge and no external influence to induce sharing is needed. However, the investment levels chosen in equilibrium are lower than optimal, an aberration that can be corrected using coordination mechanisms that reward the firms for increasing their investment levels. In the substitutable case, the firms fall into a Prisoners’ Dilemma trap where they do not share security knowledge in equilibrium, despite the fact that it is beneficial for both of them to do so. Here, the beneficial role of a social planner to encourage the firms to share is indicated. However, even when the firms share in accordance to the recommendations of a social planner, the level of investment chosen by the firms is sub-optimal. The firms either enter into an “arms race” where they over-invest or re-enact the under-investment behaviour found in the complementary case. Once again, this sub-optimal behaviour can be corrected using incentive mechanisms that penalise for over-investment and reward for increasing the investment level in regions of under-investment. The proposed coordination schemes, with some modifications, achieve the socially optimal outcome even when the firms are risk-averse. Implications for information security vendors, firms, and social planner are discussed.

On the economics of sleeping

2012-01-03T10:28:00.001Z

an article by Tinna Laufey Asgeirsdottir and Gylfi Zoega published in Mind & Society Volume 10 Number 2 (December 2011)

Abstract
Sleep is a form of rejuvenation, which can be treated as a source of energy. This energy is available in limited quantities and individuals must decide when it should be renewed and when it should be consumed. Sleeping involves investing in energy and alertness but also a sacrifice of time. We derive and solve the inter-temporal utility-maximisation problem on the length of sleep to obtain optimality conditions for the length of sleep. Several applications emerge from the analysis. These include the effects of labour-market opportunities on sleep patterns; the effect of having children; the consequences of decreased division of labor within the household; and the relationship between sleep deprivation and obesity. When data allows, those outcomes are tested using panel data from Iceland. The empirical results are consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model.

Proposal for modernising the Professional Qualifications Directive

2012-01-03T09:05:00.001Z

The Commission has adopted a legislative proposal for modernising Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications.

The proposal aims at simplifying rules for the mobility of professionals within the EU. It is essential to enabling professionals to start a new business or to find a job in another Member State requiring a specific qualification for a specific professional activity.

Key elements of the proposal are:

The introduction of a European professional card
Better access to information on the recognition of professional qualifications
Updating minimum training requirements for doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, midwives, veterinary surgeons and architects
The introduction of an alert mechanism for health professionals benefiting from automatic recognition
The introduction of common training frameworks and common training tests
Mutual evaluation exercise on regulated professions

Links

via cedefop: European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training

Young people's education and labour market choices aged 16/17 to 18/19

2012-01-03T08:56:00.001Z

DFE Research Report (RR182) by Claire Crawford, Kathryn Duckworth, Anna Vignoles and Gill Wyness
© Centre for Analysis of Youth Transitions (December 2011)

Summary

There has been a long‐term shift during the last few decades towards increased participation in education and entering the labour market at a later age. There are also shorter-term transitory difficulties in the youth labour market associated with current economic conditions.

In the context of a difficult 2011 labour market, this report examines the early educational and labour market transitions made by young people, age 16/17 through to age 18/19. The overarching objective of the research is to obtain empirical evidence on the transitions made by young people which can then inform policies to improve transitions into the labour market for young people.

The primary focus is on comparing the outcomes of those who initially take jobs without training with those who initially take jobs with training. The research analyses the average effect from initially taking a job with or without training, regardless of whether the training actually led to a qualification or not.

Includes:

Introduction
Existing Evidence
Data
Young people’s labour market choices
Short‐term transitions
Medium term transitions
Longer‐term transitions
Conclusions
Appendix

Full report (PDF 81pp)

Bibliometrics and the brain dead

2012-01-03T08:44:00.000Z

an article by Ian M. Johnson (Robert Gordon University) published in Information Development Volume 27 Number 2 (May 2011)

Abstract

Many bibliometric and webometric studies are superficial, failing to explore the reasons underlying the phenomenon that they measure.

Why do so many LIS researchers show so little curiosity about the context within which information is produced and used?
Why do they neglect this opportunity to demonstrate the importance of information to development?
What more do teachers need to communicate about the purpose of bibliometrics and how to apply them in an influential way?

Hazel’s comment:
This is a stunning indictment of LIS researchers – not all of which I understood since I am a careers information manager cum shambrarian and have never been trained in library or information theory.
Mostly, though, I understood that researchers are quoting from other researchers without putting the information into context. Even I know that this is wrong!
I wanted to read the article myself before bringing you the abstract – hence the long delay between publication and this post.
If your institute has a subscription to this journal then you will be able to read it otherwise it will cost you $25 for short-term access from the publisher (Sage) which does not, yet, have an agreement with DeepDyve nor does it operate a rental system.

10

2012-01-01T09:13:00.000Z

The new “Seven Wonders of Nature” via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

The New7Wonders campaign has announced the “New 7 Wonders of Nature”, chosen by a combination of public voting and an expert panel led by the former head of UNESCO. National Geographic posted a photo essay of these natural wonders. Above, Iguazú Falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina. The others include the Amazon, Halong Bay, Jeju Island, Komodo, Puerto Princesa Underground River, and Table Mountain. "Pictures: Are These the Seven Wonders of Nature?"

Man-made New 7 Wonders of the World - Boing BoingArts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
For the teenage Geoff Dyer, Penguin Modern Classics did not have the subversive allure of drugs, but consuming them was an expression of independence and discovery... more

Ballet shoes as technology via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker

Image: get the pointe III, a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from chrishaysphotography's photostream
At the Atlantic, science historian Suzanne Fischer has a really interesting post up about the development of pointe shoes. In the early 20th century, at a time when all sorts of technologies were remaking the way people lived, worked, and played, pointe shoes were doing the same thing for ballerinas.
In particular, Fischer writes, pointe shoes were almost the dance equivalent of Henry Ford's assembly line – they standardized bodies and turned dancers into a sleek, modern commodity.
Via Alexis Madrigal

Do you remember these sounds? via Stephen's Lighthouse (and other sources)
11 Sounds That Your Kids Have Probably Never Heard by Kara Kovalchik
I won’t spoil your fun by putting any text or pictures in here – the link to Kara’s blog post is at the bottom of this list.

Rotary Dial Telephone
Manual Typewriter
Coffee Percolator
Flash Cube
TV Channel Selector
Record Changer
Gas Station Driveway Bell
TV Station Sign-Off
Cash Register
Film Projector
Broken Record

Read the full text here
Stephen Abram added a few sounds of his own (but only text not the actual sound)

The screeching noise a dial-up modem makes when it's connecting.
The ratchet sound of pin-fed printers (along with the paper tear sound of removing the pin-hole edges).
The bell at the corner gas station (the one that made the gas jockey come out to fill your tank).
Chalk and/or fingernails on a chalkboard.
"ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk" of Gestetner or ditto copy machines.
The coin return on a pay phone.
The sound of winding film in a camera.
The sound of the analog gasoline pumps.
The sound of an audio cassette going into a tape player.
The clicking/popping sounds whenever you closed or opened an older VCR.
The sound of an old reel-to-reel tape player.
The sound of rewinding an audiocassette tape (or VHS/Beta).

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
All religions have bloodstained garments, but Scientology has more blood on fewer garments, more pints per believer... more

The Joy of Addiction via Big Think by Big Think editors
Rats who receive a pleasurable sensation when they press a lever quickly become addicted to that lever, neurologists at Johns Hopkins University have found. So strong was the rats’ desire for gratification that male rats ignored female rats in heat and mother rats abandoned their children. Read More
Terrified when I read that the experiments has to be stopped before the rats starved to death. The addiction was stronger than the need for food.

Mind-Reading Is Quickly Becoming Reality via Big Think by Big Think Editors
By scanning the brain, scientists are increasingly able to tell what a person is thinking about. Three recent studies demonstrate the frontiers of real-life mind-reading. The first looked at dreaming and whether certain parts of the brain operate the same whether a person is awake or dreaming. Read More

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The greatest director, writer, and producer in the history of radio died this week. They were all Norman Corwin. He was 101... more

The Acme Catalog via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Amanda
See lots of images here
All images from The Acme Catalog by Charles Carney
Thank you to Pulpfactor
This should have been “see lots of other images here” but the damned thing wouldn't stay where I put it on the page!

Lisa Randall Explains the Cosmos via Big Think by Big Think Editors
In Lisa Randall’s newest book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door, [£10.80 on Amazon.co.uk] the renowned physicist explains where the frontiers of science currently rest. Thanks to the Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest particle accelerator that smashes atoms together at unfathomable energies …
Read More

10 - not edited for 31 december

2011-12-31T17:30:00.000Z

Is Immorality Our Default Mode? via Big Think by Big Think editors
Accusations of sexual harassment against Herman Cain and the Penn State rape scandal have left many saying: “If I were in that situation, I would have done the right thing.” But time and time again, research demonstrates that we are less given to moral behaviour than we would like to think, particularly when we are put on the spot. Individuals imagine themselves to be more upright than those around them, even though most everyone seems willing to act immorally without much provocation.
Read it at The New York Times

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Everything is suddenly a distraction to William Ian Miller. His brain is “balsa wood floating in a helium sea”. In truth, his brain is shrinking. And so is yours... more

How Star Wars Characters Could Have Benefited From Online Training via Stephen's Lighthouse
This would make a great poster to advertise a session on searching and research skills. Common experiences like Star Wars, Star Trek, ET, Indiana Jones, and Wizard of OZ all make great connections to audiences.
See the infographic here

Deep Intellect: Inside the mind of the octopus via 3quarksdaily by Azra Raza

From Orion Magazine:
Measuring the minds of other creatures is a perplexing problem. One yardstick scientists use is brain size, since humans have big brains. But size doesn't always match smarts. As is well known in electronics, anything can be miniaturized. Small brain size was the evidence once used to argue that birds were stupid – before some birds were proven intelligent enough to compose music, invent dance steps, ask questions, and do math. Octopuses have the largest brains of any invertebrate. Athena’s is the size of a walnut – as big as the brain of the famous African gray parrot, Alex, who learned to use more than one hundred spoken words meaningfully. That’s proportionally bigger than the brains of most of the largest dinosaurs.
Another measure of intelligence: you can count neurons. The common octopus has about 130 million of them in its brain. A human has 100 billion. But this is where things get weird. Three-fifths of an octopus’s neurons are not in the brain; they’re in its arms. “It is as if each arm has a mind of its own,” says Peter Godfrey-Smith, a diver, professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and an admirer of octopuses. For example, researchers who cut off an octopus’s arm (which the octopus can regrow) discovered that not only does the arm crawl away on its own, but if the arm meets a food item, it seizes it – and tries to pass it to where the mouth would be if the arm were still connected to its body.

More here

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Ben Jonson, Britain's first literary celebrity, was a bruiser, intellectually and physically. It surprised no one that he stabbed a man to death... more

Elizabeth And Hazel Story Humanizes Little Rock Nine Icon via Big Think by Kris Broughton
“Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate!” The black and white picture from the fifties of a teenaged white girl yelling racial epithets at a young black coed who marches through an angry white mob to desegregate a Deep South high school in 1957 is world famous. Read More

Evolution of Apple Ads 1975-2002 via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris
Thank you to Nikola Lazarevic
Some of these are absolutely stunning – hard to pick a favourite from so many but this caught my eye.
See them all here

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
From seamstress to mistress to magnate, Coco Chanel never kept her little black dress on for very long... more

Bunnies and science, minus the ethical debates via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Speaking of smart games, Spongelab's Natural Selection is almost more of an interactive demonstration than an actual game, but it's still way cool. The goal: Learn about how evolution works by causing mutations in populations of cute, fluffy bunnies.

Image: Bunny, a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from aigle_dore's photostream

A Man With A Mission: Ban Speaks To The World via Big Think by Mark Seddon
Sir Brian Urquhart, one of the oldest surviving senior UN staff members, reminded us recently in an article in the New York Times that a former Secretary General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjold, had once said; “The United Nations was not created to bring us heaven, but to save us from hell”. …
Read More

Rude word censored – but definitely muttered under my breath

2011-12-29T16:35:00.006Z

about the British Journal of Educational Technology

Those readers of long standing will know that I read or, more truthfully, glance at the table of contents, with abstracts, for a large number of journals.

I will then either:

mentally discard the information as not relevant to careers practitioners (the majority of what passes before my eyes);
send an email, or cut and paste the URL, into my blog’s drafts folder for later posting (sometimes gets discarded at this stage; or
write, using paper and pencil, the journal title and the page number so that I can request said journal to read the full article on my next visit to the British Library.

The system works well until you try to open a journal at page E117 to read “What fantasy role-playing games can teach your children (or even you)” to discover that there are thirteen items which are not included in the print version of said journal.

Fortunately the British Library has the electronic version but, to be honest, by this time I have lost interest in what I thought would be interesting!

10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting (should have been Christmas Day)

2011-12-29T10:11:00.001Z

The First Aircraft Carrier, 1910 via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Amanda

On November 14, 1910, Eugene Ely became the first pilot to successfully launch a plane from a stationary ship. The Curtiss pusher airplane, one of the first models in the world to be built in any significant quantity, flew for two miles before Ely landed on a beach. Using the same aircraft, Ely landed on the USS Pennsylvania on January 18, 1911, while the ship was anchored at the San Francisco waterfront. He had to use a braking system made of ropes and sandbags, but he was able to quickly turn around and take off once again'
Thank you to The Atlantic

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
What makes a good prophet? Showmanship and luck, but also a taste for secrecy and controversy. Most of all, be a blank slate: People see what they want to see... more

To Slow Aging, Remove Old Cells via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota have unveiled a long-kept medical secret: What causes aging and the onset of age-related disease. After studying a group of mice, who because of a natural disease aged relatively fast, researchers concluded that our body’s oldest cells – called senescent cells because they no longer divide – may cause aging and age-related disease.
Read More

What good is half a wing? via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
One of the most common arguments you'll hear against evolution (or, at least, one of the most common arguments I heard growing up amongst creationists) had to do with transitional forms. An eye is a valuable thing, this argument goes. But half an eye? That's just a disability.
Like many of the really common arguments against evolution, this one crumbles the minute you start to apply the slightest bit of fridge logic. Sure, half an eye is less useful than a full eye. (Or, more accurately, a clustering of light-sensitive cells don't have all the functionality of a modern eyeball and optic nerve system.) But, if most of the other creatures have no eyes, and you have a few light-sensitive cells, you've got an advantage. And an advantage is all it takes.
Now apply that to the evolution of birds. One of the cool things about this process is that it appears that feathers evolved before flight. In fact, feathers seems to have evolved rather independently of flight.
You might ask: What's the point of that? How are feathers an advantage if they can't help you fly? Is this just about looking pretty? Maybe. But on his blog, The Loom, Carl Zimmer presents another hypothesis. Feathers and wings, even without flight, might have given their owners a physical advantage over bare-skinned cousins. The birds in this video aren't flying. You can see that their feet don't leave the ground. But the act of flapping those feathers around helps them to walk up inclines that would otherwise be impassable walls. That's enough to escape a predator and live to breed another day. And it's also pretty damn astounding to watch.
And there's a fascinating Video on YouTube.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
John Milton would appreciate today's personal ads: seekers in meticulous revolt, like Satan, against the reality imposed on them... more

Happy birthday to a transport of delight
Middlesbrough marks the centenary of its famous bridge which still clanks to and fro on the quarter-hour.The comedian Terry Scott drove off it by mistake. More sedately, you can abseil from it for £3
Posted by Alan Sykes on The Northerner Blog from Guardian
Read all about it here

How tide predicting, analog computers won World War II via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Without Lord Kelvin, there would have been no D-Day.
There's some very cool science history in the September issue of Physics Today, centering around a collection of analog computers, developed in the 19th century to predict tides. This was a job that human mathematicians could do, but the computing machines did the job faster and were less prone to small errors that had big, real-world implications.
Physics Today explains why the behaviour of tides was so important at D-Day and why the tide calculators were so important to Allied success.
You can read more about tide predicting machines on Wikipedia, and try out a Java simulation of Lord Kelvin's tide predicting machine at the American Mathematical Society website.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The Loeb Classical Library – 518 volumes covering 1,400 years of Greek and Latin literature – is among the greatest accomplishments of modern scholarship... more

Dolphins and US (That’s Not to Say Dolphins ARE us) via Big Think by Peter Lawler
So there’s a lot of excitement about dolphins on BIG THINK these days. If we can figure out how to communicate with them, we can figure out how to communicate with the aliens (ETs) that are bound to be somewhere out there. But here’s one difference between dolphins and any ETs we’ll ever find out …
Read More

Dinosaur feathers in amber via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz
This photo shows dinosaur feathers found in amber. Discovered in Alberta, Canada, the preserved plumage likely came from dinosaurs and birds that lived 75 to 80 million years ago. The University of Alberta researchers published their findings in the new issue of the journal Science.

Read more – lots more!

10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting (should have been last Saturday)

2011-12-28T10:00:00.002Z

Why being wrong makes us angry via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker

Christie Aschwanden is a science journalist. Last month, she joined a lot of other science journalists at the National Association of Science Writers conference and gave a short Ignite presentation about why people get angry when presented with evidence that their beliefs are wrong. She's posted a storyboard of the presentation to The Last Word on Nothing blog. It's definitely worth a read.

Do, please, read it. It makes sense and not only in relation to science writing but also to life in general. Underneath all the bluster you know that you’re wrong but can’t bring yourself to admit it as this impinges on you as a person not just your beliefs.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Literature and the loo. For Henry Miller, the toilet enriched certain works: Ulysses could not be read anywhere else... more

Heating Up: Wildfire in the Arctic Tundra (Science Up Front) via Britannica Blog by Kara Rogers

In 2007 the Anaktuvuk River fire burned 1,039 square kilometers of Alaska’s Arctic tundra, increasing by two-fold the area burned since 1950 across the entire Arctic tundra biome. The burn resulted in the release of some 2.1 teragrams of carbon – an amount equivalent to that absorbed each year for the last 25 years by the tundra ecosystem, according to a study led by University of Florida biologist Michelle C. Mack.
Prepare to be frightened, if not terrified, by the statistics. Read it here.

Using machine translation techniques to attack ciphers reveals secrets of ancient German opthalmology cult via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
A team of Swedish and American researchers used machine translation techniques to crack an 18th century cipher used by a secret society. The approach – presented to the Association for Computational Linguistics in a paper called The Copiale Cipher (PDF 8pp) – treated the encrypted text as a foreign language and used techniques similar to those employed by Babelfish and Google Translate to derive the cleartext.
(via Reddit)
How Revolutionary Tools Cracked a 1700s Code [nytimes.com]

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The hole in The Old Farmer's Almanac made it easier to hang in an outhouse, where it served dual purposes, equally useful... more

Quant Trading or How Mathematicians Run the World via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Once the purview of obsessive traders, financial markets the world over are increasingly controlled by algorithmic trading formulas that buy and sell large volumes of stock automatically. Developed by some of the world’s leading theoretical mathematicians …
Read More

Travelling in realms of gold via Prospero by The Economist
Swift, direct, plain, and eminently noble; Homer’s Iliad has inspired translations for centuries. Our correspondents consider four new ones.
Nice podcast here (calls itself video but that is only the advert).
I never managed to conquer this in the original (a bit of Latin but never Greek) although I thought the sound of it really melodic.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Evil and us. Sloppy historical analogies, amateurish psychological speculations, oversimplifications, tired moral platitudes – we've gotten evil all wrong... more
In my opinion this essay deserves to be read, in full, thoughtfully and carefully. You may not agree with everything that is being said but you will, I believe, be moved by the arguments.

Friday Fun: Siege Hero – Viking Vengeance via the How-To Geek by Asian Angel
Your work week is almost over, but until you can leave for the day why not sneak in some castle crunching fun? In this week’s game you lead an army of Vikings on a crusade to conquer your enemies, grab the gold, and save your allies along the way.
Read Asian Angel's walk-through here or go straight to Siege Hero – Viking Vengeance
Looks to me like a dozen or so other games but …

The psychopathic neurobiologist via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
James Fallon studies the brain. Then he studied his own, and found out that he has the same brain malfunctions as psychopathic serial killers. What happened next is a fascinating story about the brain, the mind, and the duelling influences of nature and nurture.
Read it here (or actually watch the video – 15 minutes but worth every one of them).

Social Problems Everywhere and No Attention to Spare

2011-12-27T09:45:00.001Z

I had thought to put this article into one of my regular "trivia/interest" blog posts but decided that it would make a post in its own right.

via Big Think by Matthew C. Nisbet Guest by Audrey Payne, American University graduate student.

It seems like there are so many problems discussed in the media every day- public health, the environment, the economy, political protests…. Have you ever stopped to wonder why? Even more importantly, why do some issues tend to dominant mediscussion while others remain third or fourth tier considerations.

Read it here

Students with disabilities and other special needs in the process of higher education: inclusion issues

2011-12-22T09:27:00.002Z

an article by Violeta Vida?ek-Hainš, Valentina Kirini? and Andreja Kova?i? published in International Journal of Knowledge and Learning Volume 7 Number 1/2 (2011)
[with apologies to the authors for the mangling of their names - this was all that I could find online]

Abstract

Nowadays, there is an increasing number of persons with disabilities eager to pursue their education in higher education institutions as well as of students with some specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, etc. A lot of institutional resources at different levels enable the inclusion of persons with disabilities and learning difficulties into higher education.

This primarily refers to organisational resources and professional staff resources, including services and student counselling within universities or particular faculties, educational assistants, current legislation (development strategies), financial support, environmental support, ICT support and others.

This paper presents initial experiences in organising a supportive/effective academic environment for students with disabilities by means of contemporary information and communications technology. Although the described experiences have arisen from the early stage of establishing an effective learning environment for students with disabilities, they can be valuable in future implementation of such an environment.

Students’ conceptions and experiences of Web 2.0 tools

2011-12-21T10:06:00.000Z

an article by Sirje Virkus and Alice A. Bamigbola, (Institute of Information Studies, Tallinn University, Estonia) published in New Library World Volume 112 Issue 11/12 (2011)

Abstract

Purpose
This paper aims to present the results of a study that investigated the Erasmus Mundus Digital Library Learning (DILL) Master programme students' conceptions and experiences of the use of Web 2.0 tools.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted phenomenography as a research approach to identify DILL students' conceptions and experiences of Web 2.0 tools. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were conducted with 12 students from Africa and Asia within the DILL Master programme.
Findings
The data analysis revealed four categories of descriptions of Web 2.0 tools: communication, educational, professional and multipurpose. For each category of descriptions preferred Web 2.0 tools were identified.
Research limitations/implications
The study analyses only conceptions and experiences of the use of Web 2.0 tools of 12 DILL students. This small group of students was from Africa and Asia and, therefore, the results should not be generalised to describe all DILL students' conceptions and experiences of the use of Web 2.0 tools.
Practical implications
The results of this study can be taken into consideration when designing and delivering a DILL programme. In order to use technologies to support learning there is a need to understand and know what students do with these new technological tools.
Originality/value
This paper supports the idea of integration of information and communication technologies into education and highlights the potential of Web 2.0 tools to support teaching and learning in the higher education setting.

What is the Threshold of Teachers’ Recognition and Report of Concerns About Anxiety and Depression in Students? …

2011-12-21T09:39:00.001Z

An Exploratory Study With Teachers of Adolescents in Regional Australia

an article by Michelle Trudgen (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Melbourne) and Sharon Lawn (Flinders University, Australia) published in Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling Volume 21 Issue 2 (December 2011)

Abstract

Introduction
Anxiety and depression in adolescence is prevalent but often unrecognised and untreated. This can lead to serious disorders in later life. This study explored how teachers recognise anxiety and depression in secondary school students and act on their concerns.
Method
Twenty teachers from four secondary colleges in regional Victoria, Australia were interviewed regarding their experiences. In-depth interviews were analysed using descriptive thematic analysis in order to understand how teachers respond to this issue.
Results
Teachers’ recognition of mental health problems in students and the threshold for reporting their concerns was subjective and not based on any formal knowledge of how to identify anxiety or depression risk factors in students. Years of teaching experience was not associated with increased knowledge of mental health problems in students. Time pressures and lack of resources in student well-being teams were barriers to teachers reporting their concerns about students.
Conclusion
Education bodies and teaching universities responsible for training teachers and providing ongoing professional learning need to ensure that mental health training is part of every teacher’s core skill set, so that teachers can confidently promote mental well-being, identify emerging mental health problems, know how to facilitate access to more specialist intervention where required and contribute effectively to follow-up support.

Article Rental from Cambridge Journals

2011-12-20T12:40:00.001Z

via Peter Scott's Library Blog by Peter Scott

Cambridge Journals has announced a brand new Article Rental scheme, which will see single academic research articles being made available over a 24-hour period at a significantly lower cost. For just £3.99, $5.99 or €4.49, users are now able to read single articles online for up to 24 hours, a saving of up to 86% compared with the cost of purchasing the article. After registration and payment, the reader is emailed a link, through which they can access and read the article in PDF format as often as they wish during the subsequent 24 hours.

Hazel’s comment:
If the publisher of the article you want to read does not operate a scheme similar to the one managed by Cambridge Journals then there’s always DeepDyve which has articles from Springer, Nature Publishing Group, Wiley-Blackwell, Emerald and lots more.

Multi-dimensional poverty in Australia and the barriers ill health imposes on the employment of the disadvantaged

2011-12-20T11:45:00.001Z

an article by Emily Joy Callander, Deborah J. Schofield and Rupendra N. Shrestha (School of Public Health and NHMRC Clinical Trial Centre, The University of Sydney) published in Journal of Socio-Economics Volume 40 Issue 6 (December 2011)

Abstract

A little over one million individuals in Australia between the ages of 24 and 64 years are in Freedom poverty – they have low family income, and have either poor health or an insufficient level of education. These individuals are some of the most disadvantaged in society due to their multiple capability restrictions. Current political rhetoric focused on reducing the number of individuals out of the labour force to improve their living standards may offer a means of improving the lives of these most disadvantaged individuals. Indeed, of those in Freedom poverty, 80% are not in employment. But these individuals also have poor health and/or a poor education and these capability limitations may act as barriers to their labour force participation. Indeed, 49% of individuals in freedom poverty who were out of the labour force cited ill health as the reason for this (39% cited their own ill health, and 10% cited another's ill health). Not only will these individual's ill health act as a barrier to their engaging in the labour force, but ill health will also contribute to reduced quality of life. Political promises to improve the lives of citizens should not focus narrowly upon increasing labour force participation rates, but should take a holistic view of the lives of individuals taking note in particular of how health may be restraining their quality of life.

Coping with Complexity and Instability in the UK Vocational Training System

2011-12-20T10:39:00.001Z

an article by Gábor Halász (ELTE University Budapest) published in European Journal of Education Volume 46 Issue 4 (December 2011)

Abstract

Vocational training systems that take the needs of the world of work seriously and maintain strong and dynamic connections with it are faced with growing complexity and instability. Some countries try to cope with this through creating new mediation mechanisms between the systems of training and work that allow higher level complexity while maintaining appropriate social control over the linkages between these systems.

The training policy of the United Kingdom offers an interesting example for this.

The key message of this article is that increasing complexity and high level instability may seriously impede the engagement of employers for training and human resource development but reducing it have to be made in a cautious way, so that it does not harm the achievement of the strategic goals of making training more demand-led, making it more responsive to the changing skills needs of companies and letting employers have a decisive role in determining the content of training and the way it is delivered. The skills policy of the United Kingdom is used as an example to illustrate the growing social complexity that characterise modern social systems, including vocational training, and one specific way of devising public policies based on new innovative forms of steering and regulating that enhance coping with complexity and instability.

Subject choice and earnings of UK graduates

2011-12-20T09:11:00.001Z

an article by Arnaud Chevalier (Royal Holloway, University of London and Geary Institute University College Dublin) published in Economics of Education Review Volume 30 Issue 6 (December 2011)

Abstract

Using a survey of a cohort of UK graduates, linked to administrative data on higher education participation, this paper investigates the labour market attainment of recent graduates by subject of study. We document a large heterogeneity in the mean wages of graduates from different subjects and a considerably larger one within subject with individuals with the most favourable unobserved characteristics obtaining wages almost twice as large as those with the worst. Moreover, gender differences in wages within subjects are also large. We then simulate a graduate tax to calculate a willingness to pay – in form of tuition fees – to capture these subject wage premia.

Earnings returns to the British education expansion

2011-12-19T17:57:00.001Z

an article by Paul J. Devereux and Wen Fan (School of Economics and Geary Institute UCD, Ireland) published in Economics of Education Review Volume 30 Issue 6 (December 2011)

Abstract
We study the effects of the large expansion in British educational attainment that took place for cohorts born between 1970 and 1975. Using the Quarterly Labour Force Survey, we find that the expansion caused men to increase education by about a year on average and gain about 8% higher wages; women obtained a slightly greater increase in education and a similar increase in wages. Clearly, there was a sizeable gain from being born late enough to take advantage of the greater educational opportunities offered by the expansion. Treating the expansion as an exogenous increase in educational attainment, we obtain instrumental variables estimates of returns to schooling of about 6% for both men and women.

Adaptive browsing: Sensitivity to time pressure and task difficulty

2011-12-19T16:53:00.000Z

an article by Susan C. Wilkinson (University of Wales Institute Cardiff) Will Reader (Sheffield Hallam University) and Stephen J. Payne (University of Bath) published in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Volume 70 Issue 1 (January 2012)

Abstract

Two experiments explored how learners allocate limited time across a set of relevant on-line texts, in order to determine the extent to which time allocation is sensitive to local task demands. The first experiment supported the idea that learners will spend more of their time reading easier texts when reading time is more limited; the second experiment showed that readers shift preference towards harder texts when their learning goals are more demanding.

These phenomena evince an impressive capability of readers. Further, the experiments reveal that the most common method of time allocation is a version of satisficing (Reader and Payne, 2007) in which preference for texts emerges without any explicit comparison of the texts (the longest time spent reading each text is on the first time that text is encountered). These experiments therefore offer further empirical confirmation for a method of time allocation that relies on monitoring on-line texts as they are read, and which is sensitive to learning goals, available time and text difficulty.

Do RFIDs (radio frequency identifier devices) provide new ethical dilemmas for librarians and information professionals?

2011-12-19T15:55:00.000Z

an article by Clare Thornley (University College Dublin), Stuart Ferguson (University of Canberra), John Weckert (Charles Sturt University, New South Wales) and Forbes Gibb (University of Strathclyde) published in International Journal of Information Management Volume 31 Issue 6 (December 2011)

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of the current and potential ethical implications of RFID technology for the library and information professions. These issues are analysed as a series of ethical dilemmas, or hard-to-resolve competing ethical obligations, which the librarian has in relationship to information objects, library users and the wider social and political environment or state.

A process model of the library is used as a framework for the discussion to illustrate the relationship between the different participants in the library system and it is argued that ethical analysis should involve the identification of future developments as well as current issues. The analysis shows that RFIDs do currently pose some dilemmas for librarians in terms of the conflicts between efficient service, privacy of users and an obligation to protect the safety of society as a whole, and that these are likely to become more problematic as the technology develops.

This paper is part 2 of a series of papers on RFIDs and the library and information professions.

10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting - this is really today’s

2011-12-18T13:45:00.005Z

Dresses of Tsarina Alexandra Romanova via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris

Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova (1872 – 1918), was Empress consort of Russia as spouse of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of the Russian Empire. Alexandra is best remembered as the last Tsarina of Russia, as one of the most famous royal carriers of the haemophilia disease and for her support of autocratic control over the country. Her notorious friendship with the Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin was also an important factor in her life. Wikipedia

Thank you to Grand Ladies where you can see many dresses like this one. Such elegance.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
“We live in a world where information is potentially unlimited,” says George Dyson. “Information is cheap, but meaning is expensive. Where is the meaning?”... more

Microbial home: fuelling the kitchen with methane from waste via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
This concept design for a “microbial home” centered around a methane digester hub that feeds gas from your food into various appliances has a nice, bodgy, Rube Goldberg feel. We can call it methanepunk (not perfect, but better than “fartpunk”).
The Microbial Home is viewed as a cyclical biological machine where wastes like sewage, effluent, garbage, wastewater are filtered, processed and recycled to be used as inputs for the various home functions. The project includes various aspects like a Bio Digester Island and Larder in the kitchen, Urban Beehive, Bio-light, Apothecary, Filtering Squatting Toilet and Paternoster Plastic Waste Up-cycler.
The Microbial Home (via Beyond the Beyond)

Prizma Puzzle Challenges via the How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game your mission is to successfully create energy bridges between two points on an isometric grid before running out of energy.
Read Asian Angel’s walkthrough here or go straight to the game here
This one looks as though it requires a bit more intellectual effort than most of the freebies.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
fMRI's and free will. Imagine a neuroscientist knowing what you'll decide before you do. Is consciousness a biochemical afterthought?... more

Dead Sea Scrolls Available Online via Big Think by Big Think Editors
With Google as its partner, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem will launch a new website that allows the public to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls in fine detail. “The site provides searchable, high-resolution images of the scrolls, plus explanatory videos and background on the foundational texts.”
Read More

Support for Tsunami Recovery in Galápagos Islands
The powerful tsunami resulting from the devastating March 11th 2011 earthquake off the coast of Japan struck the Galápagos Islands several hours later, damaging a number of coastal buildings. Funding from the World Heritage Centre's Rapid Response Facility helped repair and re-equip the Charles Darwin Research Station's marine conservation centre.
Help preserve World Heritage today!

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
“I'm getting old,” says Bernard Lewis. But his memory remains sharp. Just ask him about swapping Marx Brothers films with the Shah… more

Antibiotic resistance is older than antibiotics via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
This came out while I was travelling, but I wanted to post it here in case you missed it. It is very cool, in that “maybe cool isn’t the right word” sort of way. Our modern antibiotics are really just purified and pumped-up versions of naturally occurring compounds, right? So, it makes sense that, long before we started using them as antibiotics, bacteria had already started building defenses against the natural compounds. In other words: Antibiotic resistance is older than the use of antibiotics

Infestor via the How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game two factions on a human colony are about to have the fragile peace they enjoy shattered by a new biological weapon known as Infestor. Are you ready to use Infestor to defeat the enemy?
Asian Angel’s walk through is here or you can, of course, take a leap into the dark and start playing it here.

10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting - what I should have posted yesterday

2011-12-18T13:30:00.001Z

Why We Can't Tell Good Wine From Bad via 3quarksdaily by Abbas Raza

David McRaney in The Atlantic:

The Misconception: Wine is a complicated elixir, full of subtle flavors only an expert can truly distinguish, and experienced tasters are impervious to deception.

The Truth: Wine experts and consumers can be fooled by altering their expectations.
In 2001, Frederic Brochet conducted two experiments at the University of Bordeaux.

More here.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Is evil free-willed wickedness? Or are evildoers compelled to act as they do, victims of an errant electrochemical impulse, an anomaly in the amygdala?... more

Consider the Slime Mold: How Amoebas Form Social Networks via Big Think by Megan Erickson
“It turns out we’re not the only species that assembles ourselves into networks,” says physician and sociologist Nicholas Christakis in his Floating University lecture, If You're So Free, Why Do You Follow Others? Read More

Little Red Hen illustrated by Andy Warhol, 1958
via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Amanda
Thank you to Glyphjockey

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Would you like a planet with old-growth forests, a living ocean, and no extreme climate change? Of course. Only technology can make such a world possible... more

Go Back in Time With Sims Medieval via Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

If you've ever wanted to live in Medieval times, with kingdoms, castles, damsels and wizards, here's your chance with the new Sims Medieval Pirates and Nobles on EA Games.
Build up your own kingdom from the ground up, choosing a primary Sims hero, be it a blacksmith, a wizard or monarch to carry out a quest. But it's not as easy as it sounds; you must choose two traits AND one fatal flaw. For example, your King might be bloodthirsty, your blacksmith may be a drunk (mine is), or your pirate dastardly cruel.

Popgadget is not somewhere I expect to find games (quirky, often useless fun, gadgets but not games) so when I do see one it must be good – and it is.
Popgadget’s description is here or go straight to the game here

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
In 1967, Noam Chomsky accused intellectuals of deceit and distortion for rationalizing American militarism. Four decades later, little has changed... more

Broadband data ad from 1963 via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
Phil Are Go! has unearthed this 1963 advertisement for “broadband” data services from Western Union: “So, by 1963, business guys who were rich enough to have those little egg cups could transmit pictures, charts, stock data and stuff over the phone lines. Who knew? Well, the Internet knew. It's just jarring to see the word ‘broadband’ appearing in print as early as the sixties. I tried to find some numbers on what qualified as broadband back then, but couldn't find anything. Shazbot.”
I don't know what 1963 considered broadband either, but I'm guessing 300 baud?
Western Union - Broadband 1963 style

Deco commercial illustrations for Arrow Collars via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
JC Leyendecker's commercial illustrations from the 1920s sure were beautiful.
Have a look at a couple of them

Light-Insensitive Cavefish Provide Insight into Circadian Rhythm via Britannica Blog by Kara Rogers

A zebrafish, Danio rerio. Credit: Soulkeeper

Each day, living organisms cycle through a series of physiological changes that correspond roughly to the 24-hour day-night cycle. In many species, this internal clock, known as circadian rhythm, is dictated by exposure to light. But what about species that are never exposed to light? A recent study comparing the Somalian cavefish Phreatichthys andruzzii, which has a 47-hour rhythm that functions in the complete absence of light, with zebrafish (Danio rerio), which experience typical day-night cycles, has revealed that there is in fact much more to circadian rhythm than light alone.
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Ethnography goes online: towards a user-centred methodology to research interpersonal communication on the Internet

2011-12-15T09:47:00.003Z

an article by Roser Beneito-Montagut (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain) published in Qualitative Research Volume 11 Number 6 (December 2011)

Abstract

Ethnographic research is increasingly concerned with how the Internet operates within our everyday life. This article attempts to offer a methodological contribution of online communication and an exploration of initial empirical data generated with this methodology. The article calls for a specification of how ethnography can be applied appropriately to the study of relationships online. It departs from the real versus virtual dichotomy, offering a user-centred methodology to study interpersonal communications on the internet. It suggests the use of three main strategies to pay tribute to the characteristics of uses online: multi-situated, online and offline, and flexible and multimedia data collection methods. This approach facilitates a holistic analysis of the way in which social information and communication technologies operate within society in everyday life. It deals with the problem of defining the setting of research online and proposes an expanded ethnography. The article specifies details of this methodology for research into interpersonal communications and emotions online. It does so by drawing on empirical data generated in a study on everyday life and emotions on the internet. Epistemic questions related to this methodological approach will also be discussed. Overall, the exemplification suggests that the methodological approach proposed here is able to capture the uses and understandings of the Internet.