'E' for exposed? Email and privacy issues

In March 1996, American Libraries featured a piece about a librarian at the University of California/Irvine whose supervisor intercepted her e-mail while she was absent on medical leave. As a result of this, UC's Office for Academic Computing began a review of e-mail privacy on the nine-campus system. This article and UC's reaction prompted my research into this topic

Implementing an ICT centre for school and community

The British Government, in parallel to the move to e-government, has introduced various strategies to embed ICT within secondary-school learning. One strand of this approach has been the establishment of City Learning Centres (CLCs), state-of-the art ICT-based learning facilities based at selected secondary schools. The CLCs are designed for use by students at the host school and surrounding schools, as well as by the wider local community. This article reports on a case study of a CLC based at a secondary college in northern England. The study examines the impact of and issues raised by the new centre. Some of these issues relate to ICT at a general level, including the impact of technology on teaching, teachers’ professional learning, students’ motivation, behaviour management, and students’ information literacy. A more specific area of interest is the relationship between ICT and the traditional information resources in the school library, and their joint impact on teaching and learning. In this case the new ICT facility was physically incorporated into the college’s library, called the Learning Resource Centr

Being an information literate researcher: tips for avoiding plagiarism

A practical guide by Pat Gannon-Leary and Moira Bent to avoiding plagiarism when gathering information, managing and writing up your research project

Students with dyslexia: research projects at Northumbria University

Northumbria University has about 700 registered disabled students, the majority of whom (around 58 per cent) are registered as having dyslexia and account for approximately two per cent of the total student population. Therefore dyslexic students represent the largest single group of disabled students and are those with whom most staff are likely to come into contact. The research authors were keen to ascertain whether there was a difference in academic performance between dyslexic and non-dyslexic students in respect of degree classification and assignment marks and to investigate whether dyslexic students generally felt supported in their academic studies. Research involved both qualitative and quantitative strands and the areas explored include pre expectations; general support throughout study; methods, flexibility and clarity of learning tasks, in particular assessment and levels of performance throughout and at the end of their study. This research is ongoing, however, findings have proved invaluable as a basis in the construction of good practice guidelines in dealing with the pedagogic needs of this diverse student grou

Peer mentoring in assisting retention – is a virtual form of support a viable alternative?

Support systems are vital for university entrants and one established means of support is peer mentoring, which has the potential to improve student engagement and retention. Peer mentoring models are generally based on face-to-face contact. However, given the increasing number of higher education institutions using social media, might online models be beneficial in a peer mentoring context? This article describes a literature review and case study that considers the advantages and disadvantages of three potential virtual models to facilitate a peer mentoring scheme. The case study, undertaken at Northumbria University, UK, involved an investigation of mentoring needs and current usage of electronic media where special attention is afforded to a diverse student body. The three models discussed are virtual learning environments (VLE), social networking sites and virtual worlds. We find that the VLE is established within institutions but lacks excitement; social networking is popular particularly with younger students but there may be resentment if this appears to be appropriated by the institution; whilst virtual worlds are unfamiliar to many students and require advanced skills to use successfully. Based on these findings the social networking model is now being run as a pilot study by business programmes at Northumbria University

Understanding the learning process in SMEs

A major obstacle to the diffusion of management development learning technologies from Higher Education Institutions to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) is a lack of understanding about how SME learners learn. This article examines the nature of learning in SMEs and considers the incidence of informal support for informal learning. Consideration is given to the potential for the use of learning technology to support SME learning, considering potential benefits, development of appropriate content, formal vs. informal learning technology support and the socialisation of learning content. Finally, the application of this study at both a macro and micro level is reflected upon

New partnerships for learning: meeting professional information needs

This paper has been prompted by the challenges created by recent proposed reforms to social care services in the UK services which are being 'modernised', a term ubiquitous in policy documents but difficult to define with confidence. Government modernisation and e-government programmes highlight with renewed urgency the need for social care practitioners on the front line to have up-to-date, reliable information. Yet the rise in the rate and volume of information published (over new and old channels) has, paradoxically, made it increasingly difficult for them to keep up with new developments. How can higher education institutions best contribute to the social care community through a period of profound ideological and structural change? In particular, the paper discusses the key challenges of keeping abreast of research; changes in the social/organisational/professional context of social care; how social care practitioners learn; and effectively integrating practice, research and educatio