1,720,975 research outputs found
Reclaiming the social order in an antithetical social control labyrinth: Realities , reasoned imagination and intervention
Get PDFGlobalisation Paradoxes in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Social Reality in Eclipse
No full textThis paper challenges the dominant notion that globalisation has a neutral “win-win” outlook and the generalisation of “equal gains” and “equal pains” for all countries. The paper provides the dominant narrative on dimensions of globalisation but also dwells more on the global dichotomy approach in understanding this phenomenon. Drawing on analysis of secondary information, this paper examines the paradoxical problem of contested framing of the phenomenon and how it affects sub-Saharan African society. It distinguishes between the Western-oriented and sub-Saharan African perspectives in framing globalisation, which is a departure from the three other dominant narratives. Through a synthesis of available information and the author’s lived experience, this paper confirms that globalisation is not a neutral “win-win” phenomenon but a being that brings disproportionate gain and pain to the detriment of sub-Saharan Africa in numerous social spheres, as demonstrated in this paper. Based on the realities, mitigating approaches are proffered for African future development and social progress
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
Perspectives on employers’ expectations on tertiary education graduates’ employability skills in Eastern Cape, South Africa
Get PDFGiven that undergraduates, graduates and tertiary institutions of higher learning are uncertain Given that undergraduates, graduates, and tertiary institutions of higher learning are uncertain regarding the expectations of employers in the work organizations on the skill that graduates possess, the study presented in this paper attempts to provide some meaningful clues in that directions. The study followed a research question that interrogates what employability skills employers expect graduates to possess for an entry-level job. Designed as a descriptive study, a quantitative research approach was chosen, where the survey method of data collection was employed through a closed-ended structured questionnaire. The study targeted employers (managers) of public and private work organizations in the health and education sectors in a South African town Mthatha, from where a sample of 41 participants (representing organizations) was drawn. The study employed a stratified random sampling in selecting the participants, which ensured that the principle of selecting representatives of the target population was met. Data collected from the participants were analyzed by the use of selected descriptive tools. The analyzed data revealed that all employers expect graduates to possess all the 13 skill areas that employees require to function in the workplace. Surprisingly, the employers mostly expect least from the young graduates in terms of quantitative skills and leadership capabilities. While this finding corroborates what exists in the literature, it provides a new dimension with regard to priority skills needed by employers in the South African labor market. The study, therefore, recommends that the work organizations and higher institutions of learning should form a partnership and a close relationship so that they can assist one another in building the employability skills of graduates
Survey of anti-social related encounters of unemployment in Eastern Cape, South Africa
Get PDFThis paper articulates on the challenges of unemployment in Butterworth, a town in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The objectives of the study were to investigate psychological, social and economic challenges of unemployment respectively. Keynisian theory was used to explain the unemployment situation in the study area. The study made use of quantitative approach, where 80 respondents were drawn from the target population through a stratified sampling technique. Data collected from survey (questionnaire) were analysed with appropriate tools in the Statistics Package for Social Sciences. Demographically, the majority of the sample were females, people between the ages of 18-23, all of African race, were never married, had a diploma, were unemployed for more than three years and said they had not look for work in three weeks. The most prevalent feeling by the unemployed was disappointment and frustration, which according to them led them to engage in anti-social behaviour, especially being dishonest in many occasions and use of alcohol. The biggest social challenge among them include, not getting the expected support from family and friends. They face many economic challenges, in which they are unable and sometimes struggle to have money to apply for jobs or buy clothes. This study made recommendations on how to overcome the challenges of unemployment in the study are
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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