Joseph Skipsey, the 'peasant poet', and an unpublished letter from W. B. Yeats

This article examines an unpublished letter from Yeats to the ‘pitman-poet’ Joseph Skipsey, which gives new insight into the early career of Yeats and a deeper understanding of the possibilities and capabilities of the Victorian working-classes. It argues that, in Skipsey, Yeats found an English equivalent to the Irish peasant poet, a figure whose life and poetry was central to Yeats’s vision of Ireland and his nation’s literary revival. The article contends that, following the discovery of a letter from Yeats, Skipsey’s poetry and influence should be considered outside the bounds of the Pre-Raphaelite clique within which he is usually located

Digitised historical newspapers: chronicling America

Historical newspapers, often referred to as “the first draft of history”, are among the richest primary sources available for research into virtually aspect of the life of a nation, whether in the cultural, social, and political or economic sphere. They offer not only information about events in the past, but give us a window into how these were reported and packaged as news. Up till recently, to access these materials, a researcher had to be determined enough to make his way through either aged, often fragile, originals, or reels of microfilm, often difficult to locate and without the benefit of any index. This has now changed fundamentally with the advent of digitization, which has made newspapers both readily available and searchable. The digitization of American newspapers has been undertaken over the last 15 or 20 so years both by commercial companies, where access is charged for, and by various bodies and institutions making their material freely available. Within the first category, there are now a number of companies offering access to a vast range of titles, with sophisticated searching and viewing tools, but these come at a price: resources like ProQuest Historical Newspapers; Gale 19th Century US Newspapers; America’s Historical Newspapers from Readex (a division of Newsbank) are normally only available via a select number of institutions such as academic libraries that are able to afford the subscriptions. The alternative option of taking out a personal subscription to the back files of titles such as New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times is unlikely to appeal to any but the best-heeled researcher

Reflections on student support in open and distance learning

This is a very interesting moment to reflect on Student Support in Open and Distance Learning (ODL). After some 10 years of the radical intrusion of a range of technologies, principally those grouped around what has been broadly termed ICT, we have the chance to see if and how the world of ODL has qualitatively changed. To begin with a historical perspective on the European context, as is well known correspondence education is said to have begun in England in 1844 with Isaac Pitman's shorthand course delivered by correspondence, using the new postal system, enabled in its turn by the rail system that was beginning to make travel and communication across England quicker than ever before (Shrestha, 1997). The crucial dimension of Pitman's system was that he corrected students' work and sent it back to them. Thus although separated from the teacher, students received feedback, together we can at least imagine with encouragement from their tutor

Reading the "Negro Bible": online access to Jet and Ebony

This article gives a very brief account of the rise to prominence of the black owned and run Johnson Publishing Company, with particular emphasis on its earlier years and specifically on the role played by its two most important publications, Ebony and Jet. The late Redd Foxx called Jet "The Negro Bible," and a character in one of poet/playwright Maya Angelou's plays said that "if it wasn't in Jet, it didn't happen.". It then describes how runs of these 2 titles, and others from the same publishing house, are now available online from Google Book Search, before looking at some potential uses of these resources as primary source material for research

Open Universities: the next phase

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to report on research on the views of Presidents and Vice Chancellors of Open Universities of current threats and opportunities for their institutions as the author approaches the 50th anniversary of the first Open University in the UK in 1969. The paper offers a historical account of the development of the Open University model, and assesses the extent to which it remains in the key position as owner of innovation in the higher education sector. Design/methodology/approach - Interviews were conducted with leaders of Open Universities or distance teaching universities. They covered a total of 14 universities. Findings - The replies from institutional leaders reveal the current developments, opportunities and strategic challenges of the universities. It is suggested that the digital revolution along with a wider range of environmental changes for higher education have substantially eroded the first-mover advantage that Open Universities had undoubtedly enjoyed in the first 25 years. Originality/value - The paper concludes that there are significant concerns that innovation in Open Universities is not sufficiently embedded to ensure that their contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals will be maximised, or even in some cases their survival, and that a key but undervalued element is leadership development for innovation and change