Employers, Quality and Standards in Higher Education: Shared Values and Vocabularies or Elitism and Inequalities?

This paper is based on a research project funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England which investigated employers' needs for information on higher education quality and standards. A key issue was identifying the type of knowledge that employers utilise in graduate recruitment. A finding of the study was that information on quality and standards was being used by some employers in a way that could undermine equity and widening participation initiatives. Whereas employers reported that, in initial recruitment, they placed least emphasis on information about quality and standards and most emphasis on graduates' interpersonal and communication skills, over a quarter used league tables/Top 20 lists in their decision-making processes and 80 per cent of employers cited the importance of the reputation of the higher education institution in their decision making about marketing and individual recruitment of graduates. Reputation was based on real or imagined league tables, `grapevine¿ knowledge, personal, regional and professional networks, performance of past graduates and prejudice against new universities. The hierarchy of opportunity within the labour market often appeared to correspond to a highly stratified higher education sector

Genomic, RNA, and ecological divergences of the <it>Revolver </it>transposon-like multi-gene family in Triticeae

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Revolver </it>is a newly discovered multi-gene family of transposable elements in the Triticeae genome. <it>Revolver </it>encompasses 2929 to 3041 bp, has 20 bp of terminal inverted repeated sequences at both ends, and contains a transcriptionally active gene encoding a DNA-binding-like protein. A putative TATA box is located at base 221, with a cap site at base 261 and a possible polyadenylation signal AATAAA at base 2918. <it>Revolver </it>shows considerable quantitative variation in wheat and its relatives.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>Revolver </it>cDNAs varied between 395 and 2,182 bp in length. The first exon exhibited length variation, but the second and third exons were almost identical. These variants in the <it>Revolver </it>family shared the downstream region of the second intron, but varied structurally at the 5' first exon. There were 58 clones, which showed partial homology to <it>Revolver</it>, among 440,000 expressed sequence tagged (EST) clones sourced from Triticeae. In these <it>Revolver </it>homologues with lengths of 360-744 bp, the portion after the 2nd exon was conserved (65-79% homology), but the 1st exon sequences had mutually low homology, with mutations classified into 12 types, and did not have EST sequences with open reading frames (ORFs). By PCR with the 3'-flanking region of a typical genomic clone of <it>Revolver</it>-2 used as a single primer, rye chromosomes 1R and 5R could be simultaneously identified. Extensive eco-geographic diversity and divergence was observed among 161 genotypes of the single species <it>Triticum dicoccoides </it>collected from 18 populations in Israel with varying exposures to abiotic and biotic stresses (soil, temperature, altitude, water availability, and pathogens).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>On the base of existing differences between <it>Revolver </it>variants, the molecular markers that can distinguish different rye chromosomes were developed. Eco-geographic diversification of wild emmer <it>T. dicoccoides </it>in Israel and high <it>Revolver </it>copy numbers are associated with higher rainfall and biotic stresses. The remarkable quantitative differences among copy numbers of <it>Revolver </it>in the same species from different ecosystems suggest strong amplification activity within the last 10,000 years. It is the interesting finding because the majority of Triticeae high-copy transposable elements seem to be inactive at the recent time except for <it>BARE-</it>1 element in <it>Hordeum </it>and the fact might be interesting to perceive the processes of plant adaptive evolution.</p