The influence of teaching experience and professional development on Greek teachers' attitudes towards inclusion

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the European Journal of Special Needs Education© 2007 Copyright Taylor & Francis; European Journal of Special Needs Education is available online at http://www.informaworld.comOn the assumption that the successful implementation of any inclusive policy is largely dependent on educators being positive about it, a survey was undertaken into the attitudes of Greek teachers to inclusion. The 155 respondents were general education primary teachers drawn from one region of Northern Greece, with a proportion deliberately selected from schools identified as actively implementing inclusive programmes. The analysis revealed positive attitudes towards the general concept of inclusion but variable views on the difficulty of accommodating different types of disabilities in mainstream classrooms. Teachers who had been actively involved in teaching pupils with SEN held significantly more positive attitudes than their counterparts with little or no such experience. The analysis also demonstrated the importance of substantive long-term training in the formation of positive teacher attitudes towards inclusion. The paper concludes with recommendations for developing critical professional development courses that can result in attitudinal change and the formulation of genuinely inclusive practices

Introducing Pergamos: A fedora-based DL system utilizing digital object prototypes

This demonstration provides a "hands on" experience to the "internals" of Pergamos, the University of Athens DL System. Pergamos provides uniform high level DL services, such as collection management, web based cataloguing, browsing, batch ingestion and automatic content conversions that adapt to the underlying digital object type-specific specialities through the use of Digital Object Prototypes (DOPs). The demonstration points out the ability of DOPs to effectively model the heterogeneous and complex material of Pergamos. Special focus is given on the inexpensiveness of adding new collections and digital object types, highlighting how DOPs eliminate the need for custom implementation. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006