Sir Walter Scott's The Antiquary and the Ossian controversy

A study of the influence of the controversy about Macpherson's Ossian poems on Scott's novel The Antiquary

Web 2.0 and knowledge management for local government in England – A model for the public sector?

PURPOSE Delivering success in the public and private sector requires staff to have access to the best knowledge possible about how to do their jobs well so a major challenge for employers is how to ensure their staff are making decisions based on the latest knowledge of best practice. 21st century professionals and policy makers are increasingly being required to demonstrate that their practice and decision making is evidence based. This paper examines a new public sector knowledge management initiative across local government in England and Wales which aims to improve knowledge sharing across local government. In response to a number of drivers for improvement, the Improvement and development Agency for local government in England (IDeA) has harnessed web 2.0 tools to support knowledge creation and sharing, and just in time learning to create a professional networking online environment - a ‘Facebook’ type environment for local government. The result is an pnline Communities of Practice for local government initiative . DESIGN This initiative was launched across local government in England and Wales in January 2008 and an arrangement with the local government improvement services in Scotland provides similar access to local government officers there. At the time of writing the initiative has over 30,000 members in over 700 online communities with new members joining every day. The knowledge management strategy discussed in this paper was developed following a review of knowledge management literature and an analysis of the specific needs of the local government sector by the Improvement and Development Agency for local government in England. The data reported come from a number of sources including web statistics which are collected automatically and interviews carried out to identify ways in which the initiative is having impact. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS The impact of knowledge management initiatives can be hard to quantify but the paper outlines some proxy measures which give some indication of the value for money of this knowledge management strategy. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS The argument is made that online communities of practice can very quickly provide advantages and significant cost benefits to the public sector in spite of the limitations of the software and the fact that working practices will take many years to change. It is argued that the approach set out in this article provides a model for other public sector organisations. ORIGINALITY/VALUE Knowledge transfer and research impact are areas in England of concern to both government and academics who in the REF 2013 will be judged on the impact of their research This online communities of practice initiative is a new way of knowledge sharing and working across a whole public sector. It has the potential to revolutionise the ways professionals learn and carry on learning as well as the relationships between academics and potential users of research However, the establishing and managing of such an initiative requires national leadership on behalf of a sector

Fingalian topographies: Ossian and the Highland Tour 1760-1805

If Ossian validated the Highland landscape for eighteenth-century tourists, the landscape, in turn, seemed to authenticate poems whose authenticity never ceased to be doubted; but text and topography alike ran the risk of dissolving into insubstantiality. Many tourists cited ‘local tradition’ in order to embroider existing (or to invent new) Fingalian place-names. Ranging over a wide variety of eighteenth-century travel-writers, this article casts new light on the relations between Ossian, travel-writing and Highland topography. It concludes by discussing the ‘fieldwork’ tradition of Ossianic tourism after 1800, which sought out local tradition bearers, rather than attempting to authenticate Macpherson's ‘translations’

National models for CPD: The challenges of C21st knowledge management

Teacher quality is the most critical factor in improving educational outcomes (McKinsey, 2007). This paper proposes analytical frameworks for national models for continuing professional development (CPD). It examines the unacknowledged problem of the quality and extent of the evidence base underpinning teachers’ CPD. In the 21C through the use of ICTs the research and evidence base underpinning educational practice surely could be made accessible to all teachers and all providers of initial teacher training and CPD. The evidence base available internationally appears to be patchy. Yet this is taken for granted in the literature, and is rarely if ever acknowledged in the discourse about school and system improvement. This lack of research based professional knowledge, is a particular problem for subject specialist issues and is further compounded by the fact that research published in journals is not generally designed around questions teachers want answered. In short, the knowledge that is produced and the management of it within the education sector is lacking systemic organisation and dissemination. The paper outlines opportunities which exist for low cost interlinked national and international e-infrastructures to be developed to support knowledge sharing, but such collaboration may pose an insurmountable challenge for national and international agencies

Understanding Water Rights in Alaska

Alaska’s state constitution defines water as a public resource, but no one has automatic rights to use water.1 The constitution and Alaska law allow the state government to decide who can use water, how much they can use, and for what. That’s true on both private and public land, and for all landowners —government agencies, businesses, and individual Alaskans. Anyone who plans to use a significant amount of water needs to get water rights, which are legal rights to specific amounts of water, from specific sources, for specific purposes.2 The Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) processes water-rights applications and decides whether to issue water-right permits and certificates. And anyone who gets water rights has priority over those who apply later, if other proposed uses would conflict with theirs.3Ecotrust, Inc

Translational research principles applied to education: the mapping educational specialist knowhow (MESH) initiative

MESH is a part of a research project applying knowledge management principles which are well known in other sectors, public and private, to the education sector (Leask, 2011, 2012; Leask and Younie 2013, Leask and Preston 2012). The goal is to develop and test out the new ways of working now possible with digital technologies which can address long standing improvement challenges faced by education sectors in all countries