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Given the increasingly prominent position of digital technologies in the Higher Education classroom, this paper takes a concurrent triangulation mixed method approach to explore the ways in which blogging might be used to support student learning through a large MA dissertation module, comprising students from five courses. Taking as it impetuous the idea that blogging can create a community to support students in the writing of their own dissertation. The research saw 179 students invited to undertake blogging over a 10-week period, with proscribed activities for eight of these weeks. The networks built by students were modelled through Gephi, and this data was supplemented with two surveys carried out before and following the module. The results showed a mild trend towards the blogs not producing a community, nor creating an environment in which self-reflective practice was forthcoming. The role of the teacher also appeared to become solidified as the sole motivating factor, leading to a low uptake in posting on the blog, and even lower in commenting. The work also highlights the two-fold issue of students being fearful of giving negative, coupled with the sense that peer feedback was not worth as much as staff feedback, significantly reduced the development of the community, and of critical thinking. The work concludes that while blogs might have some potential, this case demonstrates that they need to be more deeply embedded within the pedagogy of the course, and not used as an 'add-on'.

This paper presents a critical account of the representation of immigration in the Brexit corpus-- a collective corpus of 108,452,923 words compiled mostly from blogs, tweets, and daily news related to Brexit debate. The study follows the methodological synergy approach proposed by Baker et al. (2008), a heuristic methodological approach that combines methods of discourse analysis and corpus-assisted statistical tools including keyword, collocation, and concordance analysis. Drawing on this methodological synergy approach, the investigation yields significant findings contextualized within the socio-economic-political context of the European Union (EU) leave referendum to trace how the issue of immigration is represented in the discourses of the Remain and Leave campaigns. The frequency results show that immigration is one of the most salient topics in the Brexit corpus. Concordance analysis of the word "immigrants" and collocation investigation of the word "immigration" reveal opposing attitudes toward immigration in the EU referendum debate. The analysis uncovers negative attitudes toward the uncontrolled flow of immigrants from other EU countries and public concerns about immigrants' negative impacts on wages, education, and health services. Other findings reveal positive attitudes toward immigrants emphasizing their positive contributions to the UK economy. The study concludes with an argument of the significant association between the political and socio-economic ideologies of a particular society and the language communicated in its media.

This paper considers professional development in a context that is familiar and problematic to teaching teams in tertiary education everywhere, that of delivering online programmes with an ever-decreasing complement of staff. The Teaching Qualification Further Education (TQFE) teaching team at University of Dundee confronted the reality of reduced staff numbers by centralising tutoring and support for programme participants. The new system involves standardising tutoring as far as possible through generic email, blog and microblog accounts, all badged "TQFE-Tutor" and staffed on a roster basis. Once the new "rules of engagement" via TQFE-Tutor were in place, it became clear that in addition to benefits in terms of student support, there were other unintended positive consequences: opportunities for informal professional development for staff and the promotion of effective team working. The experience of collective tutoring has facilitated collaboration on a range of innovations within online learning. This paper describes the evolution of the TQFE-Tutor innovation and reports upon a small scale study which was carried out to gather the views of the tutor team working with TQFE-Tutor. The authors conclude that the centralisation of communication and tutoring on the TQFE programme has been highly beneficial in terms of professional development for the team. (Contains 2 figures.) [This paper was published in the ALT-C 2012 Conference Proceedings.]

This paper reports on research that took place at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), United Kingdom, over two years. The project formed the basis of an iterative, interpretive, action research study focussing on a particular set of participants--trainee teachers. The insights gained from the initial cycle fed into planning the second cycle, for which the action plan was modified and the research process repeated (Zuber-Skerritt 1992). The research project focuses on the use of Web 2.0 technology, specifically web logs, (or blogs) with trainee teachers, both during their university programme and during the first year of teaching as full-time newly qualified teachers. The purpose of this research was to add to a developing body of knowledge identifying whether technology used by trainee teachers during their training course can be cascaded into their practice once qualified. Participants from the two collaborating universities were introduced to blogs and blogging during their time at university, and encouraged to use it for themselves, and to also think about how it could be used in their own classrooms when they were teaching. Questionnaires were used to ascertain their thoughts on the use of blogs during training, and these were followed up with interviews with a number of the trainees to determine the cascading of this technology, once they had become newly qualified teachers (NQTs) and were teaching in schools. These interviews explored the reasons for enabling or inhibiting the use of blogs in their teaching in school. This paper presents the findings of the research and discusses the enablers and inhibitors that were identified in the light of current research findings. The research supports the view that developing innovative use of technology in the classroom is complex and experiences during training are not always transferred into practice. (Contains 1 table.)

Introduction: This paper reports on a study undertaken for the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), which explored the economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models. Rather than simply summarising the study's findings, this paper focuses on the approach and presents a step-by-step account of the research process, highlighting the combination of process mapping, activity costing and macro modelling. Method: The analysis relies primarily on existing sources, collating activity cost information from the wide-ranging literature on scholarly communication. Where necessary, these sources were supplemented by targeted informal consultation with experts. Analysis: We examine the costs and potential benefits of the major alternative models for scholarly publishing, including subscription publishing, open access publishing and self-archiving. Adopting a formal approach to modelling the scholarly communication process and identifying activity costs, this paper presents activity and system-wide costs for each of the alternative publishing models. It then explores the potential impacts of enhanced access on returns to R&D. Results: We find that different scholarly publishing models could make a material difference to the costs faced by various parties and to the returns on investment in R&D that might be realised. Conclusion: It seems likely that more open access could have substantial benefits in the longer term. While the benefits may be lower during a transitional period they would be likely to be positive for both open access publishing and self-archiving alternatives. (Contains 1 note, 1 table, and 6 figures.)

Research into tutoring at a distance has a fairly long history and the functions of tutors in distance education institutions are well understood. Over the past 20 years research into online tutoring has advanced significantly as such institutions have "gone electronic": in this paper we cite published research from the UK Open University. Recently, blogs, wikis and podcasts have arrived to supplement established systems like email, virtual learning environments (VLEs, such as Blackboard) and computer conferencing. Little research has been published so far, however, on tutoring distant students in three-dimensional multi-user virtual environments (3-D MUVEs). Distance educators may well ask whether the best practices from tutoring at a distance and online tutoring can be transferred to these environments, which do "not" resemble VLEs. To clarify what may or may not be feasible in a prime example of a 3-D MUVE, this paper elucidates tutoring by and through avatars on a Second Life Island created by the Beyond Distance Research Alliance at the University of Leicester (which has 7,000 students learning at a distance). It analyses what can be done in Second Life by way of meeting students' needs for tutoring, and discusses some of the opportunities and challenges inherent in asking students and tutors to meet in such an environment. (Contains 1 table.)

In this paper we report on one aspect of a qualitative study about an online wiki community, which was developed to build collaborative knowledge about poetry among a group of pre-service English teachers. Our paper explores pre-service teachers' experiences of writing in a digital medium and their perceptions of themselves as writers. We focus specifically on the processes of poetry writing (both collaborative and independent) undertaken in this digital medium by two groups of teachers, who were working in contrasting settings in the UK and Canada during their pre-service year. We investigate the affordances (Laurillard, Stratford, Lucklin, Plowman, & Taylor, 2000) that a multimodal, wiki environment offered these teachers for learning about poetry writing and question the impact that these affordances have had both on the teachers' collaborations and the poetry they wrote. In analysing the pre-service teachers' wiki writings we were interested to observe how they shaped themselves as writers and intervened in each other's work in progress within a digital third space. We also wanted to explore how the wiki had supported their professional learning about the teaching of poetry writing during their training year and the implications that this support could have for their own future classroom practice as teachers of writing.

This paper describes the findings about the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the education of health professionals in the United Kingdom (UK). The work is part of a wider study scoping the use of e-learning. Its objectives were to: (1) Explore issues influencing implementation and use by both early and late adopters; (2) Identify barriers to implementation and good practice; and (3) Review the employment of e-learning within curricula representing a range of teaching models. In phase one, a postal survey obtained data from 25 higher education institutions relating to their uptake and development in this field. A second phase identified four case studies, two from early and two late adopters, reflecting the features identified from phase one. In the case studies, interviews and focus groups with students and staff were conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the issues which were significant to them. The main findings suggested e-learning development and use varies, with a spectrum of employment across the sector. The predominant engagement is with instructivist learning approaches managed through a Virtual Learning Environment with only limited experimentation in interactive learning online. This paper will discuss the findings from the study where they relate to the limited use of Web 2.0 technologies. It will include a discussion on the moral, legal and ethical implications of current and future developments. (Contains 1 table.)

Recently, the "Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency" (2012) have funded programmes designed to advance European citizenship and citizen competences through education. This paper reports on the findings from one project, Creative Connections, designed to encourage the "voices" of young people in exploring European identities. Children (aged 9-16) in 25 schools in six European Union (EU) countries (UK, Finland, Spain, Czech Republic, Portugal and Ireland) developed artworks that explored perceptions of European citizenship. Their art was posted on a secure website and they discussed images with peers using automatic online translated blogs. The project facilitated representations of identity/belonging using a range of media. However, some artworks suggested that children were alienated from "Europe", particularly EU responses to global austerity. This paper uses the theory of "precarity" to examine the ways in which the children expressed their concerns. Some artworks suggest that recent economic and political decisions have had the effect of challenging a sense of shared European citizenship; they resist a positive sense of identification with Europe and demonstrate fear for their future based on their current lives. This indicates that the EU's educational goals to promote citizenship competences may require revision to account for the challenges of contemporary societies.

This is a panoptic paper in five parts. In Part One, Immiseration Capitalism, I examine the current neoliberal cum neoconservative austerity capitalism and its "class war from above", in particular its resultant relative immiseration and its absolute immiseration, with particular reference to Greece, Ireland, Britain and the USA. In Part Two, Anger at, Analysis of and Activism within/ against Immiseration Capitalism, I argue that there is a necessity for Anger, (Marxist class-based) Analysis, and Activism, with Programme, Organisation and Strategy. Activism, Analysis and Strategy are then addressed in terms both of electoralism and in terms of direct, extra-Parliamentary activism, both being deemed necessary, but with the former having limitations and the latter being deemed essential. Here, I lay a stress on the importance of revolutionary Marxist party. In Part Three, I identify the main features of Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism and Education for Austerity Capitalism and Immiseration, contrasting this, in Part Four, with Activism in the Education Arena: Critical Pedagogies, Socialist Education. Here, I summarise key aspects of critical pedagogy and socialist education, and also summarise Marxist critiques of theories that serve to disable class based analysis and activism in education and society: postmodernism, identity politics, and revisionist/ reformist socialism. In Part Five, Resistance: Revolt, Revenge and Strategic Activism, I return to Resistance and Revenge and call for them to be strategically focused. The paper is also slightly autobiographical, referencing some of my own relevant experiences, blogs and writing. As a panoptic paper it is therefore, inevitable a summary paper, in places, an extended annotated bibliography.

This research project investigated how openness and sharing of knowledge are manifested through scholarly blogging. We aimed to identify the academics' and researchers' motivations for starting a blog; the contribution of blogging to their personal and professional development; and any challenges. Twenty-six participants were recruited. A pre-interview questionnaire was first emailed to the participants to collect background information. An initial unstructured interview was conducted by email, followed by a synchronous semi-structured interview. Textual and visual extracts of blog content were also collected. The datasets were analysed using different techniques. The findings revealed varied reasons for blogging. Some academics/researchers began a blog for its accessibility to self and others. Blogging aided the academics' and researchers' personal and professional development in several ways. Bloggers can quickly reach a wider audience compared to other forms of academic publishing. Among the challenges, there were concerns over validity of online content. Based on previous scholarship models and on our findings, we have derived an empirically grounded framework of blog use in academia and research. The framework describes how characteristics of digital scholarship such as openness and sharing are manifested through blogging. The framework can be used to guide academics and researchers who are interested in taking up blogging as a scholarly practice. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.) [This paper was published in the ALT-C 2012 Conference Proceedings.]

Recent reports on xMOOCs indicate that underprivileged learners in need of higher education have minimally been reached by these courses. While the "open access" agenda is needed to reach such learners, most MOOCs have been developed in societies that have shifted toward the "lifelong learning" agenda. In this paper, xMOOCs are positioned in both the "open access" and the "lifelong learning" agendas in a developing country context. Findings from ten xMOOCs are presented and discussed. The findings suggest that two of the ten xMOOCs may be adapted for direct use in opening up higher education within the open access agenda, and two xMOOCs may contribute indirectly to the same agenda. Nine xMOOCs were found to have the potential to contribute to the lifelong learning agenda. These findings may inform policies and practices that underpin opening up higher education and open education in general.

Conole and Alevizou's social media typology (Conole and Alevizou, 2010) includes amongst its ten categories: media sharing; conversational arenas and chat; social networking and blogging. These are all media with which language learners are increasingly engaging (Lamy and Zourou, 2013). Social networking tools, in particular, which encourage informal, social communication have been identified as suitable for supporting language learning and their use is growing quickly. This paper reviews research on using social media for informal language learning. It will then discuss a small qualitative case study of Welsh learners' practices in using such resources. Welsh is a minority UK language spoken by around a fifth of the population of Wales. Unlike a majority language there is no need for English speakers in Wales to learn Welsh in order to communicate with Welsh speakers as all UK Welsh speakers are bilingual. Nevertheless there is great interest among adults in Wales and from Welsh families across the UK in learning Welsh. However there are two particular challenges: the small numbers of speakers (around 611,000), and their very uneven distribution. These two factors make it difficult for learners outside Welsh speaking "hotspots" to hear and practice Welsh. Social media has the potential to support Welsh language learning by providing resources wherever the learner is (particularly if they live in a non-Welsh speaking area or outside Wales completely) and by supporting web-based learning communities. The study reported here is concerned with the extent to which this potential is being exploited in practice. It employed interviews and a small survey to study the practices of learners at all stages of their language learning. It was found that learners used social media widely but those at different stages used social media somewhat differently, with beginners browsing to make contacts and gather information, listening to the language and watching Welsh programmes via the internet whilst some advanced learners set up practice groups, lead sub-communities and source and provide resources both on- and off-line.

Designing and implementing successful online learning has been at the forefront of institutional agendas since digital learning increased in market demand over the last decade. However there is still ongoing debate as to the "how" of this arduous task. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) is one learning design method that has seen potential in the field, but practical implementation of designing for the important components of Social, Cognitive and Teaching Presence have yet to be fully realised. This paper researches an e-learning design strategy called E-tivities as a suggested possible method for designing for CoI components. The research explored recent online blog posts of experienced learning designers' and educators' experience in designing successful online learning using E-tivities. Results suggest the E-tivities do have the potential to cater for all Presences of CoI. Specifically when using E-tivities to design online learning Affective Expression was the highest reported Social Presence design factor. All four components of Cognitive Presence appeared to be present in E-tivities design. The most important component for adequate Teaching Presence factors was the initial Design and Organisation of the course. E-tivities and the 5-Stage Model provides a solid framework for this to occur.

This paper reports on a study at a research intensive University in the North of the UK exploring academics' perceptions of the potential of Web 2.0 for their teaching and any influences shaping those perceptions. It looks at the perceptions of academics "on the ground" as well as those leading teaching and learning strategies at the University. The study identifies a range of perceptions among academics. These are influenced predominantly by academics' beliefs of what constitutes good teaching in their contexts. The paper concludes with an exploration of ways in which the range of perceptions evidenced may inform discussion of Web 2.0, arguing that academics' perceptions are crucial to context-based understandings of its potential. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Although assessment is acknowledged as being of central importance to the student learning experience, assessment practices have been consistently highlighted as one of the weakest features by the Quality Assurance Agency and identified by many as a crisis within higher education. This paper explores the use of Patchwork Text Assessment within a level 6 undergraduate psychology module and considers the potential of this method for enhancing the learning experiences of psychology undergraduates, facilitating the process of self-reflection and allowing students to make explicit the nature of their learning "journey". (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Purpose: There is much hype about academics' attitude to Wikipedia. This paper seeks to go beyond anecdotal evidence by drawing on empirical research to ascertain how academics respond to Wikipedia and the implications these responses have for the take-up of Web 2.0+. It aims to test the hypothesis that Web 2.0+, as a platform built around the socially constructed nature of knowledge, is inimical to conventional power-knowledge arrangements in which academics are traditionally positioned as the key gatekeepers to knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: The research relies on quantitative and qualitative data to provide an evidence-based analysis of the attitudes of academics towards the student use of Wikipedia and towards Web 2.0+. These data were provided via an online survey made available to a number of universities in Australia and abroad. As well as the statistical analysis of quantitative data, qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis using relational coding. Findings: The data by and large demonstrate that Wikipedia continues to be a divisive issue among academics, particularly within the "soft sciences". However, Wikipedia is not as controversial as popular publicity would lead one to believe. Many academics use it extensively though cautiously themselves, and therefore tend to support a cautious approach to its use by students. However, evidence supports the assertion that there is an implicit if not explicit awareness among academics that Wikipedia, and possibly by extension Web 2.0+, are disruptors of conventional academic power-knowledge arrangements. Practical implications: It is clear that academics respond differently to the disruptive effects that Web 2.0+ has on the political economy of academic knowledge construction. Contrary to popular reports, responses to Wikipedia are not overwhelmingly focused on resistance but encompass both cautious and creative acceptance. It is becoming equally clear that the increasing uptake of Web 2.0+ in higher education makes it inevitable that academics will have to address the "political" consequences of this reframing of the ownership and control of academic knowledge production. Originality/value: The paper demonstrates originality and value by providing a unique, evidence-based insight into the different ways in which academics respond to Wikipedia as an archetypal Web 2.0+ application and by positioning Web 2.0+ within the political economy of academic knowledge construction.

This paper reports on a phenomenographic study about the different ways that undergraduate law students understood and conceptualised the idea of e-portfolios as used on their programme. The aim of the study was to investigate variations in conceptions of e-portfolios, including their purpose, benefits and problems as experienced by students. The study sought to contribute to the growing collection of literature relating to technology-enhanced learning, which recognises the critical role of students in designing curriculum and in particular the need to engage students in using innovative methods of teaching. The findings include three conceptions of an e-portfolio held by students: "as a self-improvement gauge"; "as a learner-centred depository"; "as a showcase of reflections". The study offers some suggestions for improving students' engagement with the e-portfolio as a method of assessment in higher education.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to summarize the findings of a survey of UK universities about how their websites are managed and resourced, which technologies are in use, and what are seen as the main issues and priorities. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a web-based questionnaire distributed in summer 2006, which received 104 usable responses from 87 institutions. Findings: The survey showed that some web teams were based in IT and some in external relations, yet in both cases the site typically served internal and external audiences. The role of web manager is partly management of resources, time and people, partly about marketing and liaison and partly also concerned with more technical aspects including interface design and HTML. But it is a diverse role with a wide spread of responsibilities. On the whole web teams were relatively small. Three-quarters of responding institutions had a CMS, but specific systems in use were diverse. Sixty per cent had a portal. There was evidence of increasing use of blogs and wikis. The key driver for the website is student recruitment, with institutional reputation and information to stakeholders also being important. The biggest perceived weaknesses were maintaining consistency with devolved content creation and currency of content; lack of resourcing a key threat while comprehensiveness was a key strength. Current and wished-for projects pointed again to the diversity of the sector. Research limitations/implications: The lack of comparative data and difficulties of interpreting responses to closed questions where respondents could have quite different status (partly reflecting divergent patterns of governance of the web across the sector) create issues with the reliability of the research. Practical implications: Data about resourcing of web management, technology in use, etc. at comparable institutions is invaluable for practitioners in their efforts to gain resources in their own context. Originality/value: The paper adds more systematic, current data to our limited knowledge about how university websites are managed. (Contains 14 tables, 4 figures and 3 notes.)

The learning and teaching relationship, whether online or in the classroom, is changing. Mentis offers a typology of teacher roles gathered from current literature on e-learning including instructor, designer, guide, mediator, curator and mentor, which offer the university teacher a striking range of ways in which to develop relationships with students in the mutual development of knowledge and understanding. A study of Higher Education teachers in the UK proposed a shift in their role and behaviour concomitant with the explosion of VLE usage in universities. As online and blended learning become familiar features in the university landscape, pedagogical discussions are being given more priority and ideas about how students can be enabled to learn appropriate skills for employability and lifelong learning, as well as higher order thinking, claim attention. Online, the teacher's status can easily be eroded, as learners can compare teacher-designed resources with video lectures from across the world on similar topics and chat directly with experts in the field through their blogs. Teachers who are open to new ways of thinking about their subject, and welcome such self-directed behaviour from learners, are most likely to integrate new technology into their teaching, and their own competence with technology will be a factor in how such integration works. But it is vital in these discussions not to lose sight of classroom behaviour in the rush to develop e-moderating and blogging skills for teachers. What teachers say and do in their face-to-face classes has always had a major impact on not only what is learned but also how it is learned. Bandura suggests that most human learning is done by observing and imitating others' behaviour provided the potential learner attends, can retain, reproduce and wants to do these things. So if we aim to integrate at least the affordances of VLEs into teaching design for blended learning, one of our considerations must be how the teacher uses the VLE in front of the learner. There is no doubt that teachers are increasingly uploading materials and weblinks etc into VLEs to support learners (or are made to by institutional policy). However there is less evidence that teachers are role-modelling effective e-learning to their learners. Some of this is about competence, but it is rare for a teacher to lack the ability to learn basic technology use. More of this reluctance is about fear and anxiety, to be shown up as incompetent in class to what are considered the net generation. This paper will explore the concepts and behaviours implied in the role-modelling of effective e-learning in the classroom, drawing on data from teachers and learners involved in using VLEs and other Web resources in face-to-face sessions. (Contains 1 table.)

Mobile and participatory cultures have led to widespread change in the way we communicate; emphasizing user generated content and digital multimedia. In this environment, informal learning may occur through digital and networked activities, with literacy no longer limited to alphabetic and character-based texts. This article explores adult learners' new literacies within the context of a digital mobile storytelling project. A qualitative approach is used to explore the artifacts and practices of nine adult participants who comprise the study. Participants created a range of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and diary-style content in a variety of modes and media. Outcomes from content analysis, interview and survey methods depict mobile digital literacies as characteristically situated, experiential and multimodal. The mobile and participatory nature of this project was catalytic to participants' imaginative re-interpretation of the world around them as sources for meaning making and transformation. This paper contributes a case example of mobile learning with adults in a community setting.

Knowledge Cartography is the discipline of visually mapping the conceptual structure of ideas, such as the connections between issues, concepts, answers, arguments and evidence. The cognitive process of externalising one's understanding clarifies one's own grasp of the situation, as well as communicating it to others as a network that invites their contributions. This sensemaking activity lies at the heart of the Open Educational Resources movement's objectives. The aim of this paper is to describe the usage patterns of Compendium, a knowledge mapping tool from the OpenLearn OER project, using quantitative data from interaction logs and qualitative data from knowledge maps, forums and blog postings. This work explains nine roles played by maps in OpenLearn, and discusses some of the benefits and adoption obstacles, which motivate our ongoing work. (Contains 4 tables, 2 graphs, 9 figures and 5 footnotes.)

This paper looks at blogging by academics and argues that there is a niche role for an academic blog informed by principles of transformative learning. I begin by describing my experiences of blogging, first, as a reader while carrying out my own doctoral research, next, as a teacher introducing blogs to my students, then as a writer of my own journal blog. I suggest that transformative learning principles provide a frame of reference for understanding these experiences, in particular, by offering an idea of autonomy which puts subjective experience in social contexts. I then suggest that academics interested in transformative learning might learn a more engaging style of writing from bloggers.

Moving innovation in teaching and learning beyond isolated short-term projects is one of the holy grails of educational technology research, which is littered with the debris of a constant stream of comparative studies demonstrating no significant difference between innovative technologies and traditional pedagogical approaches. Meanwhile, the approaching giant wave of the bring your own device (BYOD) movement threatens to overwhelm education practitioners and researchers preoccupied with replicating current practice on mobile devices. A review of the literature indicates that there are yet few well-developed theoretical frameworks for supporting creative pedagogies via BYOD. In this paper, we overview the development of a framework for creative pedagogies that harness the unique affordances of BYOD. This framework has been used across multiple educational contexts and scale from short workshops through to full courses and international collaborative projects. Our key design principles for supporting creative pedagogies via BYOD include modelling collaborative practice via establishing teacher communities of practice to learn about the affordances of mobile devices in relation to new modes of student learning, collaborative curriculum redesign in response to shifts in conceptions of teaching and learning, and collaborating with ICT Services for infrastructure development across the campus.

This paper presents a novel collaborative tool--AWESOME Dissertation Environment (ADE)--which facilitates student learning through semantic social scaffolding: a new approach to dissertation writing challenges. These challenges revolve around three issues: timing of support; collective intelligence, and sense making strategies in tension with the individual and individualized experience of researching, writing and supervising dissertations; and supporting students' transition from learning "about" to learning "how to" research and write dissertations. A social technical approach was adopted to meet the challenge of effectively integrating technology development and pedagogic practice to address these issues. A semantic wiki was tailored into a social writing environment capable of providing holistic support throughout the whole dissertation process. A trial of ADE with students and tutors in Fashion Design examines user acceptance and the connection between technology and practice. Based on the design, implementation, and user trialing of the ADE, broad implications for future TEL adopting social semantic web principles and tools are drawn, highlighting issues with 1) user-centric design and development, 2) tailoring, seeding and evolution of the community environment, and 3) divergent expectations and facilitation of user participation. (Contains 9 figures and 10 footnotes.)

Institutional repositories have been established by most university libraries but their level of success has varied. Determining what belongs in such repositories has been the subject of some discussion but research would suggest that a broader rather than narrower compass is a positive approach to adopt. By seeking out a variety of content types, the library is able to initiate, renew, or redefine its relationship with faculty, departments, and administration, generating critical support for scholarly communication and repository initiatives. This paper provides examples of successful IRs and their scope. (Contains 1 chart.)

A series of articles appearing in English-language Jewish newspapers in the United States and the United Kingdom have recently announced the "blogosphere"--the world of discourse propelled by the technological innovation of online interactive diaries known as "weblogs"--as a new liberating arena for Orthodox Jewish women. In this essay, the author suggests that blogging is better understood as a technology that enables an expansion of the private sphere for the Orthodox Jewish women who write them. Rather than break through the boundaries that separate public and private realms, these blogs represent the articulation of a new kind of "public" private--one that facilitates an extraordinary opportunity for self-expression, but one that is not viewed consciously by the women who write them as compromising social or religious boundaries. At the same time, it is also clear that the veil of privacy, so essential to the genre in general, is an illusion that masks the transgressive dimension of blogging. The writers examined in this essay do not claim that their blogging is a feminist act, and do not view it as such. Nonetheless, their public writing does subvert certain aspects of traditional Jewish gender roles, and thus has consequences that, however unintended, have feminist implications. In this respect, the blogger's home page comes to serve as a site for pressing at the boundaries of domesticity, but also for inscribing a new kind of "public-private" in the virtual domain. (Contains 11 notes.)

Can we apply the best of Web 2.0 principles to an educational context? More specifically can we use this as a means of shifting teaching practice to a culture of sharing learning ideas and designs? This paper describes a new social networking site, "Cloudworks", which aims to provide a mechanism for sharing, discussing and finding learning and teaching ideas and designs. We describe the development of the site and the key associated concepts, "clouds" and "cloudscapes". We provide a summary of recent activities and plans for the future. We conclude by describing the underpinning theoretical perspectives we have drawn on in the development of the site and in particular the notion of "social objects" in social networking and a framework for "sociality" for transforming user practice online. (Contains 2 tables and 7 figures.)

The "Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior" was founded in 1958 by a group of male psychologists, mainly from the northeastern USA and connected with either Harvard or Columbia. Fifty years later about 20% of both editors and authors reside outside this country and almost the same proportion is women. Other changes in the journal include having its own website for more than a decade and now publishing online as well as on paper. A recent connection with PubMed Central of the National Library of Medicine has made possible the completely free electronic presentation of the entire archive of about 3,800 articles. (Contains 5 tables and 3 figures.)

In the United Kingdom over the past few years there has been a dramatic growth of national and regional repositories to collect and disseminate resources related to teaching and learning. Most notable of these are the Joint Information Systems Committee's Online Repository for [Learning and Teaching] Materials as well as the Higher Education Academy's subject specific resource databases. Repositories in general can hold a range of materials not only related to teaching and learning, but more recently the term "institutional repository" is being used to describe a repository that has been established to support open access to a university's research output. This paper reports on a survey conducted to gather the views of academics, support staff and managers on their past experiences and future expectations of the use of repositories for teaching and learning. The survey explored the rights and rewards associated with the deposit of materials into such repositories. The findings suggest what could be considered to be an "ideal" repository from the contributors' perspective and also outlines many of the concerns expressed by respondents in the survey. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)

Despite electronic book (e-book) piracy being viewed by many rightsholders as the greatest contemporary challenge to the publishing industry, there is little research evaluating different anti-piracy methods, and explaining how they work. This paper explores the technological methods that United Kingdom and United States publishers, and their representative bodies, are using to tackle the growing challenge of e-book piracy. Through interviews with industry experts (including consultants, publishers and representatives) and publishing case studies, this paper brings together knowledge previously published and considered separately. The systems considered include The Publishers Association Copyright Infringement Portal, and Digital Rights Management in its various forms. Through these systems, we can reveal a lack of nuanced understanding in the motivations and methods of illegal file sharing, which have led to unsuccessful blanket solutions to a complex problem. By teasing out these problems, this paper will act as a point of reference for current anti-piracy measures, and consider the future options for an industry increasingly using the World Wide Web to distribute content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

June 2012 saw publication of the Finch report into expanding access to published research findings, the UK Government's response to the report and the issuing of a revised policy on open access publication of research papers by the UK Research Councils. All appear to be driving the UK towards the world's most rigorous adoption of open access publication of publicly funded research outputs. This article looks at the potentially profound consequences of these steps for publishers, librarians and researchers in the UK, and for scholarly communications in general, not least for the centuries-old model of peer review. It concludes that the success of the policy will depend to a considerable extent on the availability of funding and mechanisms to support it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the various opportunities that might be available to promote the e-resources held within an institution. In the current decade an ever increasing percentage of tightly stretched library budgets is spent on e-resources (databases, back-file packages, current e-journals, textbooks, image databanks and reference works). As these are part of a virtual library they are not always noticed or fully exploited by their target audience. This paper looks at some possibilities to publicize e-resources, making these important collections more visible, and considers how these resources, in particular electronic journals, can be made accessible, useful, relevant and obvious to the library customer. Topics discussed include information literacy sessions, library branding, 'spreading the word', ensuring value for money and 'making it fun'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the results of a two-year investigation into the use of e-journals by the UK research community. Log analysis, questionnaires, interviews, and observation were used to collect the information. The results are presented in a FAQ format to make the key findings accessible. The main findings are that journals have become central to most disciplines, and that the e-form has become the prime means of access. The results for history suggest that the old scholarly communication mantras (scientists primarily communicate through articles, historians through monographs) are rapidly breaking down. Indeed, all researchers seem addicted to journal content. Research without this resource now seems unthinkable; journals are a researcher's lifeblood. Gateway services, hugely popular in science, are re-intermediating the broken chain between publisher and reader; they are the new librarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological changes are providing opportunities for easier access to publicly-funded research. While these opportunities for easier access have been growing, concerns have been expressed that current business models are preventing their realization. Even well-funded university libraries are unable to purchase all the books and journals required by researchers and learners. A survey conducted by JISC, CURL and SCONUL looked at six situations of access in one UK university to the research papers and books written by researchers in another comparable UK university. The survey indicates that UK researchers and learners may not have access to around one-third of publications by researchers in other UK universities. The shortfall in access varies from university to university and relates to all types of content but particularly to books and journals from smaller publishers. Targeted additional funding and support for new access models are suggested to improve access for UK researchers to UK research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues related to the conflict between British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) and the rest of the British media, highlighting BBC Online. It notes that the company launched its ultra-local news service in the Midlands, fragmenting the market, decreasing the local commercial media's appeal to advertisers, and causing repercussions far and wide. The British Internet Publishers Alliance is profiled.

For students with print impairments, e-books offer great potential to remove barriers to information. However, for various reasons, not all e-books are fully accessible. Significant variability exists between different platforms and titles. To benchmark e-book accessibility, a group of library and disability professionals across the UK higher education sector organized a crowdsourced e-book accessibility audit, using simple criteria to capture end-user experiences. The audit can act as a framework for librarians and e-book providers to discuss accessibility and effect improvements. This audit was of 275 e-books from 65 publishers across 44 platforms, resulting in an interactive spreadsheet on the project website and individual feedback reports for each platform. Most of the volunteer auditors had little accessibility expertise so a byproduct of the process was training to introduce key accessibility concepts and support for those using the audit tool. This paper explores the process, including key findings from a follow-up questionnaire for testers. The results indicate increased awareness of e-book accessibility and empathy for disabled learners and an appetite for further training, in particular using e-books with screen reading and text-to-speech software. The study suggests crowdsourced research can be highly effective on multiple levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study - overseen by representatives of the publishing, library, and research funder communities in the UK - investigating the drivers, costs, and benefits of potential ways to increase access to scholarly journals. It identifies five different but realistic scenarios for moving towards that end over the next five years, including gold and green open access, moves towards national licensing, publisher-led delayed open access, and transactional models. It then compares and evaluates the benefits as well as the costs and risks for the UK. The scenarios, and the modelling on which they are based, amount to a benefit-cost analysis to help in appraising policy options. Our conclusion is that policymakers should encourage the use of existing subject and institutional repositories, but avoid pushing for reductions in embargo periods, which might put at risk the sustainability of the underlying scholarly publishing system. They should also promote and facilitate a transition to gold open access, while seeking to ensure that the average level of publication fees does not exceed c.?2.000; that the rate in the UK of open access publication is broadly in step with the rest of the world; and that total payments to publishers from UK universities do not rise as a consequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article offers information on the Medical Council on Alcoholism (MCA) and its journal "Alcohol and Alcoholism" in Great Britain. It highlights the success of the council and its journal in focusing several issues in alcohol research. It also indicates the events in the development of the publication including its adoption by the European Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ESBRA), appointment of Keith Tipton as joint chief editor, and the challenges of electronic publishing.

Describes a Web-based pre-prints project in Great Britain's Electronic Libraries Programme in order to raise issues about the forms of scholarship that are best suited to online working. Processes at work in academic research; Degrees of formality involved in different kinds of online communication; Use of established groupware tools to accommodate academic working practices.

This section presents news briefs related to the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) as of November 2004. The finishing touches are being made to the speaker line-up and programs at the UKSG 2005 Conference and Exhibition at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland from April 11 to 13. Booking forms will be mailed out to all and sundry before Christmas. Details regarding exhibiting will be available in early January 2005. The Scientific Publications: Free for All? seminar is taking place on November 23 at the Geological Society in London, England. The aim of the event is to help busy professionals in the serials world digest and interpret the conclusions and recommendations from the British House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report on scientific publications so that they can understand the implications for their own spheres of operation. A report of the event and a selection of the papers will featured in the March 2005 issue of Serials. The brainchild of Christine Fyfe, the e-journal technical update courses were introduced this year and have been universally well received, all the better for having such a genial and knowledgeable presenter as Simon Inger from Scholarly Information Strategies to demystify the subject.

The article presents information about text mining, copyright, and barriers to innovation in the electronic publishing industry as of July 212. The discussion topics include the value and cost of copyright research and text mining and also two studies in Great Britain concerning intellectual property and the text mining market. Also noted is the Wellcome Trusts' survey of periodicals' open access articles.

The article presents the author's contribution to a discussion on the expansion of an online edition of the periodical JSAH (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians). The author is of the opinion that an electronic format will increase the journal's international outreach and strengthen scholarship in the architectural history discipline. The author discusses the JSAH's planning process and praises the society's business plan for being sustainable longterm. The author also comments on the different readership that the electronic journal would bring, including the Great Britain market.

With the outcomes of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) just published, Ed Hughes, RAE Manager for the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) and Alicia Wise, the Chief Executive of the Publishers Licensing Society (PLS) take a timely look behind the scenes describing the important contribution publishers made to simplify access to articles submitted for the exercise. An innovative partnership approach enabled free access to over 190,000 electronic journal articles for the 2008 RAE. Key project partners included HEFCE, the PLS, CrossRef, Eduserv, and a wide array of publishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]