1,720,956 research outputs found
The relationship between professional autonomy, social power and organisational structure for Heads of Quality as third space professionals in English Higher Education
Get PDFThe relationship between professional autonomy, social power and organisational structure for Heads of Quality as third space professionals in English Higher Education
Get PDFThe increasing complexity of external regulation and quality metrics applied to universities in recent decades has emphasised the importance of the internal role of Head of Quality. This thesis discusses the social power and professional autonomy of Heads of Quality in higher education in England. It considers the types and levels of power and autonomy they exercise, and how this is affected by organisational structure. Following a scoping survey with responses from 52 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in England, 11 interviews were conducted across three case study HEIs, selected as representatives of particular organisational types, with staff in similar roles interviewed in each case. Alongside the Head of Quality, interviews were also conducted with their line manager, a direct report, and a senior academic with responsibility for quality management. The thesis proposes a new exploratory typology of HEIs according to organisational structure, based on the degree of centralisation / devolution and the strength of hierarchical control. Secondly, it offers an enhanced understanding of the role played by ‘third space’ professionals within English higher education, typified by the Head of Quality. It argues that the ‘space’ in which these third space professionals operate is not uniform, and that while each Head of Quality exercises professional autonomy, the ways in which these are enacted is dependent on organisational type and the availability of different bases of social power. It therefore adds to the literature on third space professionals in higher education, by proposing a more structurally-situated explanation for the phenomenon which also considers organisational type. Finally, the thesis proposes a model of social power and the deployment of professional autonomy according to organisational type. These findings extend our understanding of the exercise of social power and professional autonomy within different types of HEI, and have practical implications for universities, individuals with responsibilities for quality assurance, and the wider professional workforce
Making it work in practice: how heads of quality negotiate the third space
Get PDFRecent decades have seen increasingly complex external regulation applied to higher education providers. This has accentuated the role of heads of quality, who require considerable specialist knowledge and insight to ensure that organisational practices align with regulatory expectations. However, while the existing literature recognises that heads of quality do not perform a uniform role, it does not typically discuss the key organisational features which explain the differences in the role or necessarily position of heads of quality as third space professionals. Drawing on a comparative case study of three universities, the article extends our understanding by confirming that heads of quality can legitimately be termed third space professionals and by showing that heads of quality must navigate their environment in different ways according to the degree of access to the third space offered by their organisation. A more structurally situated explanation of third space activity is thus required. The article also reflects on the tendency to discuss a particular group of third space professionals and to characterise their experience as though it were broadly common. It argues for a more nuanced explanation, taking account of organisational structure as a further variable which may help to explain the experience of the third space professional
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
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
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