1,721,002 research outputs found
The Sustainable Development Report 2019: What can We do to Address the Challenges?
No full textThe United Nations Sustainable Development Report 2019 makes sobering reading. Not only are there “shockingly low proficiency rates in reading and mathematics [which] signal a global learning crisis”, but “750 million adults still cannot read and write a simple statement; two thirds of those adults are women” (United Nations, 2019, Goal 4, pp. 30-31). United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres comments that “It is abundantly clear that a much deeper, faster and more ambitious response is needed to unleash the social and economic transformation needed to achieve our 2030 goals.” But why has there been so little progress? What can be done to address some of the concerns identified? This issue of JL4D looks at some of the challenges and some of positive developments towards solutions
Meeting Sustainable Development Goal 4: some key contributions
No full textThe articles in this issue all provide important contributions towards meeting SDG4. They highlight the role of informal learning (Kidu), community development (Pascevicius & Hodgkins-Williams), Open Educational Resources (OER) and teacher professional development (Haβler, Hennessy & Hofmann). The importance of appropriate policies and governance are highlighted (Mukama); and, as always, all efforts will need strong leadership to guide developments (Torres & Rama)
Open Education, Open Educational Practice and the concept of Openness: issues and challenges
Get PDFAll the articles in this issue contribute to the debates surrounding Open Education, including Open Universities, Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Editorial: Open and Distance Learning for Development: how can new technologies and distance education leaders make an impact?
No full textThis issue of JL4D continues our popular series on Leaders in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) across the world, and it also includes major discussions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and how they can be realised in practice, particularly in the context of ODL. // Our two articles on Leaders in ODL come from very different areas – Asia and the English-speaking Caribbean and are, again, written by authors who are leaders in distance education in their own right
The Open Education Movement: How Can We Realise its Full Potential?
No full textGreat claims have been made about the potential of the Open Education movement to extend accessible and relevant educational opportunities to all. But how far does the reality of Open Educational Practice match these claims? Who is served by the current models of openness? And – more importantly – who is not gaining from new developments and how can any issues be addressed? // All the contributions to this issue of JL4D provide new insights into these critical questions and highlight areas to be addressed to ensure that we can meet Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG) “Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning” (see https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Goal-4.pdf
Book Review: Higher Education and Open Distance Learning Trajectory in India: Reflections of an Insider by V. S. PRASAD
Get PDFThe volume provides a critique on the functionalities of the ODL system, especially the open universities, with plausible arguments, and touches upon all the crucial aspects of the system broadly. The author takes advantage of being a witness of the system as an insider, which not only lets him analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the system minutely but also to present issue-based solutions with a futuristic approach focusing on the important aspects of relevance and quality. The aspect of quality flows as an under-current throughout the discussion by the author in the volume. The arguments framed by him are convincing and bring the readers on to the same page as the author. Though some typos can be noticed in the text here and there, the effort of the author in writing down the current and future scenario of the distance higher education system in India, with a focus on larger issues confronting the system, deserves appreciation. I do hope that the book will give food for thought to all – the policy makers, the practitioners and the novice users of the ODL system, i.e., the learners at large
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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