1,720,954 research outputs found
Rethinking Teacher Professional Development in Public Secondary Schools in Zimbabwe
Full text linkEffective professional development practices are instrumental to the performance of schools as teachers play a pivotal role in shaping educational outcomes for learners in any country. In Zimbabwe, economic and social challenges have affected the availability, relevance, and effectiveness of professional development for teachers in public secondary schools. The principals' lack of instructional leadership and poor management skills have exacerbated the situation. Major gaps exist between current practices and strategic goals, highlighting the need for improved professional development. The study is motivated by the urgent need to rethink and redefine professional development in schools in Zimbabwe to improve teacher performance and retention. Situated in the interpretivism paradigm, this qualitative study used semi-structured interviews and document study to gather data. Findings highlight the urgent need for context-specific, continuous, and culturally responsive professional development programmes that address classroom management, discipline, and indigenous knowledge systems. Additionally, the study identifies the need for leadership training, enhanced support systems, and incentives for teacher engagement in professional development. The findings contribute to the broader discourse on human capital development in education, offering practical recommendations for improving professional development in resource-constrained and challenging environments
Intersection of digital culture and social capital networks in South African Universities: Pathways to Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) competence
No full textThe Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has transformed higher education, redefining how knowledge is created, accessed, and disseminated. However, South African universities face inequalities in digital access, infrastructure, and skills development, limiting their ability to prepare graduates for the demands of a rapidly evolving technological economy. The conceptual paper explored the intersection of digital culture and social capital networks in South African universities and their combined potential to foster competencies necessary for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Grounded in social capital theory, constructivist and experimental digital learning frameworks, the study examined how digital networks shape access to knowledge, skills development, and innovation within higher education. The qualitative study synthesised existing literature, institutional practices, and theoretical models for understanding 4IR readiness in South Africa. Findings of the study reveal that universities play a pivotal role in promoting digital inclusion, strengthening connections between industry and academia, and equipping graduates with the skills needed for the 4IR. However, uneven digital infrastructure, disparities in digital literacy, and entrenched socioeconomic inequalities hinder equitable participation, highlighting the need to improve digital infrastructure and leverage social capital networks to bridge the skills gap. The study contributes to ongoing debates on digital transformation in higher education, providing a solid foundation for future research and innovation in 4IR-aligned teaching and learning
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
Full text linkWe 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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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