1,720,960 research outputs found
Perceptions of academics on academic freedom at the University of Zambia
Get PDFThis study was based on perceptions about academic freedom at the University of Zambia. Its primary purpose was to critically study the state of academic freedom at UNZA by analysing the academics' and academic leaders' perceptions of how academic freedom was understood and practiced. "How do academics and academic leaders at UNZA perceive academic freedom?" was the study's main research question. The answer to this question was critical in achieving the study's stated purpose.
I was able to answer the question by combining phenomenological research design with other qualitative methodologies. I chose this design due to the nature of the research problem, which required information regarding the thoughts and perceptions of the 30 purposively selected participants (15 academics and 15 academic leaders). To gather data, I conducted semi-structured interviews and used documentation analysis to analyse documents. UNZA policy documents and Zambia National Policy documents were thoroughly examined.
The following significant findings resulted from the study: (1) Academics and academic leaders had varying perceptions of what academic freedom was and had a fair understanding of the concept; (2) academic freedom matters because it safeguards members of the academic community from internal and external constraints; (3) two realities of how academic freedom was practised at UNZA were uncovered: the first suggesting that academic freedom was practised in teaching and research at UNZA, and the second, suggesting that academics and academic leaders did not know how academic freedom was practised at the institution; (4) financial resources had a direct positive and negative effect on academic freedom at UNZA; (5) academics and academic leaders experienced various challenges in exercising academic freedom causing UNZA not to ultimately realise its mission of creating knowledge through scholarship and research; (6) various strategies were highlighted that could be put in place to facilitate academic freedom at UNZA.
The study's main conclusion was that academic freedom was perceived to be necessary. UNZA needs to uphold and safeguard academic freedom to provide academics with positive motivation to fulfil the university's mission. However, as important as academic freedom was perceived by the participants, it was revealed that academics at UNZA did not fully enjoy academic freedom. Ultimately the study has filled a population gap in the knowledge by adding the voices and perceptions of Zambian academic and academic leaders to the literature on academic freedom.D. Phil. (Philosophy of Education)College of Educatio
Widening university access and participation in the Global South: Using the Zambian context to inform other developing countries by E. Mboyonga (2025). London/New York: Routledge Publishers.
No full textDevelopment of education in the third republic: policies and implications.
Get PDFThe period from 1991 to date is referred to as the Third Republic in Zambia in recognition of three major political changes in the country. During the First and Second Republics, Zambia was run by the United National Independence Party (UNIP) which adopted a mixed economy ideology up to 1972 and the socialist path in a one-party state system thereafter. The Third Republic started in 1991 and covers a period of two political regimes; the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and the Patriotic Front (PF). The MMD adopted several strategies to increase access, equity and the quality of education at all levels, focusing on primary education. This resulted in increased access at all levels as well as infrastructure development. When the Patriotic Front came to power in 2011, it made a number of policy changes in education. Its main emphasis was on early childhood education and opening more tertiary education institutions to ensure access, equity and quality education. A close examination of the two regimes in the Third Republic shows that they supported similar policies centred on access, equity and the quality of education using different strategies. This chapter examines the education policies adopted during the Third Republic from 1991 to 2016 and their implications
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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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