Back to basics: what is the e-journal?

As we move further into the first decade of a new century, it seems a good point to reflect on where the e-journal has come from, the position it is at now, and where it might be going in the immediate and long-term future. My concern within this article is to look backwards and forwards and consider this revolution in serials publishing, and the impact it has had on different user groups from the traditional academic audience to the general internet-savvy population. This article will therefore be structured in the following way: first, I will be looking at the birth of the e-journal, and the development of technologies through the last twenty years which influenced it; then move on to consider popular models of electronic serial publishing; to consider whether ‘born digital’ content is really in the long-term an advantage; to discuss the impact of new publishing models; and finally to look at where the e-journal fits as a source for support, and an outlet, for scholarly research. In conclusion I will present some thoughts on future development for this form of information sharing

Systematics and biogeography of forest snails, chondrocyclus (mollusca: gastropoda: caenogastropoda: cyclophoridae) in Southern Africa

This study presents a molecular phylogeny and systematic revision of Chondrocyclus, the major South African group of the large family of operculate terrestrial molluscs, the Cyclophoridae. Chondrocyclus snails are small gastropods found in forest and moist thicket throughout South Africa. This is the first detailed systematic treatment of a group of Cyclophoridae in mainland Africa and the first to provide molecular data. This study complements regional studies on the systematics of the family in Asia and provides comparative data for studies of higher level relationships within the Cyclophoridae. Phylogenetic reconstruction by BI and ML methods of combined and single gene datasets of 16S and CO 1 all showed Chondrocyclus to be monophyletic and recovered five well-supported clades that corresponded to groups of populations identifiable on the basis of combinations of morphological characters. Species were diagnosed morphologically and were shown to be genetically distinct lineages. Informative morphological features include shell dimensions, protoconch, periostracum, operculum, radula and penis. Two species in Afromontane regions of Zimbabwe and Malawi respectively are excluded from Chondrocyclus based on morphology and tentatively placed in Cyathopoma. Diversity recognised within the genus more than doubled, from a previous seven South African species to seventeen. Re-descriptions of established species and descriptions of new species are provided, together with photographs of morphological characteristics. New taxon names and nomenclatural acts within it are disclaimed and are therefore not available in the sense of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature until validly published elsewhere. Several cryptic species within previously widespread “species” and unrecorded narrowly endemic species were documented. The clade consisting of populations of “Chondrocyclus isipingoensis”, now considered to be a species complex, was sister to a group containing the other four clades. The “Isipingoensis” clade occurs widely in Afromontane regions, along the Great Escarpment, and on the south-east coast. The other four clades occur from Zululand to the Cape Peninsula with a pattern of east-west lineage turnover. The biogeography of Chondrocyclus is interpreted by comparison with concordant patterns in other terrestrial molluscs and unrelated taxa with poor dispersal ability. This study complements other research on composition, spatial distribution and phylogenetic diversity of low-vagility invertebrates and expands the data available for biodiversity conservation in South Africa

The Valiant Woman

In 1600, Hosokawa Tama Gracia perished under mysterious circumstances. She was a noblewoman married to a powerful daimyo, the daughter of a traitor, and a Kirishitan convert during the “Christian Century” in Japan. In life, she was both dutifully subservient and tenaciously bold. In death, she was fodder for propaganda, and in the hands of European writers her life story was re-written for specific narrative purposes. The most striking of these artistic transformations is her depiction as a Christian martyr in the late seventeenth-century Latin Jesuit drama Mulier fortis. The music for this drama was composed by Johann Bernhard Staudt and the lyrics and spoken lines were composed by Johann Baptist Adolph. It was first staged at the Jesuit College in Vienna in 1698 for the Holy Roman emperor and his family. The drama Mulier fortis intertwines references to antiquity with Orientalizing imagery. In his rendition of Tama Gracia’s life, Johann Baptist Adolph took several liberties, rearranging and rewriting the elements of her life to fit the martyrological narrative. My verse translation of the work, The Valiant Woman, preserves the changes he made but contextualizes these alterations with endnotes and transliteration choices. I have rendered the spoken lines of the play in iambic pentameter, and the sung portions I have crafted to fit the rhythms of the accompaniment

Making Language Learning Meaningful and Fun with Collaborative Projects

Second Annual University of Arkansas Teaching and Learning Symposium: Sharing Teaching Ideas Collaborative learning requires students to actively engage with others, typically fellow students, to achieve a common goal (Nokes-Malach et al, 2015). The form of this collaboration may vary from prescriptive, teacher-facilitated activities to more open-ended and reflective projects. Within the L2 classroom, students work toward language proficiency. The current World-Readiness Standards for Language Learners evaluate linguistic abilities in speaking, listening, reading, and writing but also require that students develop cultural competencies and understanding. In this vein, Oxford posits that within a collaborative learning framework, the notion of community should be extended beyond the language-learning classroom to include the community of those who speak the target language: “L2 learning can be a global adventure that involves learning about, understanding, and (at least to some extent) identifying with another culture in which people use a different language, possibly in a completely different part of the world” (1997, p. 449). Collaborative learning assignments within the L2 classroom can be used to help students develop both linguistic proficiency in the target language and cultural competencies

Making Language Learning Meaningful and Fun with Collaborative Projects

Second Annual University of Arkansas Teaching and Learning Symposium: Sharing Teaching Ideas Collaborative learning requires students to actively engage with others, typically fellow students, to achieve a common goal (Nokes-Malach et al, 2015). The form of this collaboration may vary from prescriptive, teacher-facilitated activities to more open-ended and reflective projects. Within the L2 classroom, students work toward language proficiency. The current World-Readiness Standards for Language Learners evaluate linguistic abilities in speaking, listening, reading, and writing but also require that students develop cultural competencies and understanding. In this vein, Oxford posits that within a collaborative learning framework, the notion of community should be extended beyond the language-learning classroom to include the community of those who speak the target language: “L2 learning can be a global adventure that involves learning about, understanding, and (at least to some extent) identifying with another culture in which people use a different language, possibly in a completely different part of the world” (1997, p. 449). Collaborative learning assignments within the L2 classroom can be used to help students develop both linguistic proficiency in the target language and cultural competencies

A journey into e-resource administration hell

The author discusses the administrative problems which can still occur when looking after a large and complex portfolio of electronic resources, and focuses on some of the recurring ‘nightmares’ involving e-journals in particular. Amongst the subjects discussed are lost archives, activation codes which change without anyone being told, unreasonable expiry dates, poor service, wandering URLs, lack of publicity, failure to keep licensing conditions, and title changes. The article ends with a look at some emerging examples of excellent practice to do with e-journal management, proving all parties involved can work together to ensure a smooth and efficient service

Interview with Billie Biel

An interview with Billie Biel regarding her experiences in a one-room school house.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/ors/1033/thumbnail.jp

The Essential Characteristics of Advocacy Associated with the Nurse-Client Relationship: The Client\u27s Perspective

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe clients\u27 lived experiences of advocacy associated with the nurse-client relationship. The sample consisted of ten non-hospitalized adults, 19 to 72 years of age, who had a hospitalization or ambulatory relationship with a registered nurse within the previous six months. Data were gathered via interviews initiated with the same open-ended question. Georgi\u27s five step method was used for data analysis. Four essential characteristics of advocacy associated with the nurse-client relationship were identified. Described by clients as nurse attributes, behaviors, and actions, they were labelled: Competent Knower, Competent Doer, Humanizer, and Communicator. Clients perceived the Competent Knower to be knowledgeable about client conditions and needs, experienced in nursing practice, and capable. The Competent Doer acted on behalf of clients, either by own initiative or at clients\u27 requests, solved problems, served as intermediary, followed through on the clients\u27 needs and desires, demonstrated competence in technical and supportive skills, and exhibited leadership, including taking responsibility for care given by others under supervision. In relationships with client, family, and professional colleagues, the Humanizer was perceived as a personable, caring team member/leader who intervened on clients\u27 behalf, supported their decisions, treated them as valued individuals, encouraged clients, went the extra mile and made self available to clients by being there in presence. The Communicator transmitted and exchanged information with client, family, physician, and other health care professionals, served as liaison between them, provided explanations and education, and kept clients informed by disclosing pertinent information voluntarily and by request. Clients perceived that advocacy was not demonstrated by all nurses and was integrated with other roles within the whole of the nurse-client relationship. Comparisons are made between clients\u27 positive experiences (nurses demonstrated characteristics of advocacy) and negative experiences (which lacked advocacy), and between clients\u27 and nurses\u27 perspectives of advocacy. Implications and research recommendations for clinical practice, education, and administration are addressed, including the development of further validation studies to determine generalizability, and dissemination of the new description to other nurses and disciplines

It is not good to talk : conversation has a fixed interference cost on attention regardless of difficulty

It is well-documented that telephone conversations lead to impaired driving performance. Kunar et al. (Psychon Bull Rev 15:1135–1140, 2008) showed that this deficit was, in part, due to a dual-task cost of conversation on sustained visual attention. Using a multiple object tracking (MOT) task they found that the act of conversing on a hands-free telephone resulted in slower response times and increased errors compared to when participants performed the MOT task alone. The current study investigates whether the dual-task impairment of conversation on sustained attention is affected by conversation difficulty or task difficulty, and whether there was a dual-task deficit on attention when participants overheard half a conversation. Experiment 1 manipulated conversation difficulty by asking participants to discuss either easy questions or difficult questions. The results showed that there was no difference in the dual-task cost depending on conversation difficulty. Experiment 2 showed a similar dual-task deficit of attention in both an easy and a difficult visual search task. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that in contrast to work using a dot tracking and choice reaction time task (Emberson et al., Psychol Sci 21:1383–1388, 2010), there was little deficit on MOT performance of hearing half a conversation, provided people heard the conversations in their native language. The results are discussed in terms of a resource-depleted account of attentional resources showing a fixed conversational-interference cost on attention