Employability: A review of the literature 2012-2016

This report, commissioned of the University of Derby, examines 187 pieces of research published between 2012 and 2016. It describes how the subject of employability has been addressed during this period and draws out some of the key implications for higher education providers (HEPs), academics and employability practitioners.Higher Education Academ

FDTL voices : drawing from learning and teaching projects

This publication draws on insights and experiences from individuals and teams within learning and teaching development projects in higher education. It considers lessons learnt from the processes, outcomes and tangible outputs of the projects across the spectrum of the FDTL initiative, with the intention that colleagues can draw on and benefit from this experience. The overriding theme at the heart of every FDTL project has been the desire to achieve some form of positive and meaningful change at the level of the individual, institution or discipline. The continuing legacy of the programme has been to create wider community involvement as projects have engaged with the higher education sector on multiple levels - personal, institutional, practice, and policy. This publication has remained throughout a collaborative endeavour, supported by Academy colleagues. It is based around the four themes emerging from the initiative as a whole: • Sectoral/Organisational Change • Conceptual Change • Professional and Personal Development Partnership and • Project Managemen

Drivers of Globalization: An Evolutionary Perspective on Firm-State Relations in the Asian Newly Industrialized Economies

The emergence of firms from the Asian Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs) in the global economy during the past two decades has been phenomenal. Many pundits have attributed the competitive success of these Asian NIE firms and their home economies to the relentless efforts of the so-called developmental states. They argue that state initiatives such as active industrial policy and financial support have enabled these "national champions" to venture into and compete successfully in the global economy. This statist approach to the globalization of Asian firms and their home economies, however, has unfortunately ignored the complex and dynamic evolutionary nature of firm-state relations within the changing context of economic globalization. Drawing upon an institutional and evolutionary theory of change and adjustments, I aim to explain how the global emergence of Asian firms cannot be simply read off from and explained by their embeddedness in the developmental state. Since the 1990s, these Asian firms have strategically disembedded from state apparatus and successfully reembedded themselves in dynamic global production networks. This shift of strategic partnership of Asian firms from firm-state to firm-firm networks has profound implications for our understanding of the present and future trajectories of regional economies in Asia. It presages the demise of the developmental state as the primary driver of economic change and growth in Asian economies. In developing my conceptualization of changing firm-state relations, this paper draws upon several emerging and interrelated research frontiers in economic geography that call for more theoretical attention to trans-local actors and processes, evolutionary dynamics of change, and institutional contexts.Firm-state relations, evolutionary dynamics, globalization, selection environment, global production networks

Innovative learning in action (ILIA) issue three: Employability, enterprise & entrepreneurship

The theme of the 3rd issue of ILIA is Employability, Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, reflecting the University of Salford’s Learning and Teaching Strategy and our Goal “To produce graduates with the skills, creativity, confidence and adaptability to succeed in the labour market and make a meaningful contribution to society”. The creativity, problem solving and change orientation this implies recognizes Salford’s distinctive strengths in this regard, and provides us with a conceptualization of employability which embraces enterprise and entrepreneurship, manifest in the form of selfemployment, but equally relevant to those working within organizations i.e. to intrapreneurship. The contributions to this edition provide us with examples of excellent practice demonstrating how practitioners at Salford have responded to the challenge of providing a quality learning experience for our students. Consideration of the papers and snapshots reveal how colleagues have embedded employability into teaching and learning and assessment strategies, and into frameworks of student support, in differing and innovative ways, across the institution. As this edition of ILIA goes to print work is underway to develop an Employability Policy and Strategy for the University. Designed to provide a coherent and progressive approach to Employability, Enterprise and Careers Education and Guidance, this Strategy will be able to build on the good practice evident both in this edition of ILIA and across the institution. ILIA therefore has once again provided us with a range of perspectives on a key area of curriculum design and development. It also has provided an opportunity to reflect on practice and student learning, to share experience and hopefully to identify future areas for collaboration

The Transformation of Trust in China’s Alternative Food Networks: Disruption, Reconstruction, and Development

Food safety issues in China have received much scholarly attention, yet few studies systematically examined this matter through the lens of trust. More importantly, little is known about the transformation of different types of trust in the dynamic process of food production, provision, and consumption. We consider trust as an evolving interdependent relationship between different actors. We used the Beijing County Fair, a prominent ecological farmers’ market in China, as an example to examine the transformation of trust in China’s alternative food networks. We argue that although there has been a disruption of institutional trust among the general public since 2008 when the melamine-tainted milk scandal broke out, reconstruction of individual trust and development of organizational trust have been observed, along with the emergence and increasing popularity of alternative food networks. Based on more than six months of fieldwork on the emerging ecological agriculture sector in 13 provinces across China as well as monitoring of online discussions and posts, we analyze how various social factors—including but not limited to direct and indirect reciprocity, information, endogenous institutions, and altruism—have simultaneously contributed to the transformation of trust in China’s alternative food networks. The findings not only complement current social theories of trust, but also highlight an important yet understudied phenomenon whereby informal social mechanisms have been partially substituting for formal institutions and gradually have been building trust against the backdrop of the food safety crisis in China

The Global University: The Role of Senior Managers

Contributors address the role of senior managers in relation to internationalisation, globalisation, and sustainable development and share how these often overlapping challenges can be addressed. Consideration has been given to a range of potentially competing demands including the relationship between what Paul Luker describes as the 'core mission and values of HE' and what Caruana and Hanstock describe as 'marketisation discourse'. The Global University: The Role of Senior Manager is written by higher education institution senior managers, for HEI senior managers. Supported by HEFCE Leadership, Governance and Management Funding, 'The Global University: the role of senior managers' is a companion publication to 'The Global University: the role of the curriculum'. Many of the contributors are regarded as critical champions of internationalisation in the UK as well as thoughtful strategists in the process of affecting sustainable university-wide change. To provide further food for thought, in addition to the UK contributions, a case study on university-wide approaches to the development of global citizens at the University of British Columbia and a perspective on the barriers affecting the process of internationalisation in Latin American Universities have also been included. Contributors address key concepts from a variety of perspectives and what will quickly become apparent is that the terms are not always translated in quite the same way (a way of seeing is also a way of not seeing) but in spite of this, collectively, considerable insight for moving the agenda forward is provided. At the very least, the publication will serve to inspire debate on what should constitute the vision, mission and values of a global university, within the context of global society. Given the global footprint of universities and the ability of our graduates to influence change in global society, the publication maintains that universities cannot ignore their corporate and social responsibilities: senior managers have a critical role to play as leaders of this agenda and of change that results in positive benefits for a wider stakeholder group

The Global Engineer : Incorporating global skills within UK higher education of engineers

Background. The Marburg virus (MARV) has a negative-sense single-stranded RNA genome, belongs to the family Filoviridae, and is responsible for several outbreaks of highly fatal hemorrhagic fever. Codon usage patterns of viruses reflect a series of evolutionary changes that enable viruses to shape their survival rates and fitness toward the external environment and, most importantly, their hosts. To understand the evolution of MARV at the codon level, we report a comprehensive analysis of synonymous codon usage patterns in MARV genomes. Multiple codon analysis approaches and statistical methods were performed to determine overall codon usage patterns, biases in codon usage, and influence of various factors, including mutation pressure, natural selection, and its two hosts, Homo sapiens and Rousettus aegyptiacus. Results. Nucleotide composition and relative synonymous codon usage (RSCU) analysis revealed that MARV shows mutation bias and prefers U- and A-ended codons to code amino acids. Effective number of codons analysis indicated that overall codon usage among MARV genomes is slightly biased. The Parity Rule 2 plot analysis showed that GC and AU nucleotides were not used proportionally which accounts for the presence of natural selection. Codon usage patterns of MARV were also found to be influenced by its hosts. This indicates that MARV have evolved codon usage patterns that are specific to both of its hosts. Moreover, selection pressure from R. aegyptiacus on the MARV RSCU patterns was found to be dominant compared with that from H. sapiens. Overall, mutation pressure was found to be the most important and dominant force that shapes codon usage patterns in MARV. Conclusions. To our knowledge, this is the first detailed codon usage analysis of MARV and extends our understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to codon usage and evolution of MARV

Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

Transforming pre-service teacher curriculum: observation through a TPACK lens

This paper will discuss an international online collaborative learning experience through the lens of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The teacher knowledge required to effectively provide transformative learning experiences for 21st century learners in a digital world is complex, situated and changing. The discussion looks beyond the opportunity for knowledge development of content, pedagogy and technology as components of TPACK towards the interaction between those three components. Implications for practice are also discussed. In today’s technology infused classrooms it is within the realms of teacher educators, practising teaching and pre-service teachers explore and address effective practices using technology to enhance learning