Open Data on a Closed Shop? Assessing the potential of transparency initiatives with a focus on efforts to strengthen capacity development support

Despite strong political commitment, actual gains in improving accountability in development co‐operation have been limited. Main reasons for this include the low level of transparency and high number of actors, as well as the limitations of the self‐reported and input‐oriented OECD reporting system. Efforts through the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and related transparency initiatives are ill‐equipped to change this given their decision to adhere to the same system. This article uses the specific area of support to capacity development to illustrate this. While further disaggregation of reporting on technical co‐operation could respond to a transparency gap, overcoming the accountability gap requires moving beyond promoting ‘supply‐side’ reform and re‐engaging in efforts to promote collective action.     

An evaluation capacity building toolkit for principal investigators of undergraduate research experiences: A demonstration of transforming theory into practice

This paper describes the approach and process undertaken to develop evaluation capacity among the leaders of a federally funded undergraduate research program. An evaluation toolkit was developed for Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering¹ Research Experiences for Undergraduates² (CISE REU) programs to address the ongoing need for evaluation capacity among principal investigators who manage program evaluation. The toolkit was the result of collaboration within the CISE REU community with the purpose being to provide targeted instructional resources and tools for quality program evaluation. Challenges were to balance the desire for standardized assessment with the responsibility to account for individual program contexts. Toolkit contents included instructional materials about evaluation practice, a standardized applicant management tool, and a modulated outcomes measure. Resulting benefits from toolkit deployment were having cost effective, sustainable evaluation tools, a community evaluation forum, and aggregate measurement of key program outcomes for the national program. Lessons learned included the imperative of understanding the evaluation context, engaging stakeholders, and building stakeholder trust. Results from project measures are presented along with a discussion of guidelines for facilitating evaluation capacity building that will serve a variety of contexts.     

Implementation of a school-wide prevention programme-teachers’ and headmasters’ perceptions of organizational capacity

This study focuses on schools’ organizational capacity to implement a Swedish school-wide programme, Prevention in School (PS). It is based on semi-structured interviews with seven headmasters and 13 teachers from seven Swedish schools. The interviews were analyzed by the use of qualitative content analysis.The findings show that the adoption of a comprehensive intervention like PS challenges the school organization as the staff encountered a variety of organizational barriers when implementing the programme. Factors connected to lack of consensus, collaboration and insufficient programme management were the main barriers that were identified. Teachers wanted a more extensive support from their headmasters in terms of participation in different programme activities. It was emphasized that peer coaches need to be prepared for their task, although the headmasters found it difficult to be able to choose those teachers who they perceived as the most suitable.It is concluded that leadership, coaching and staff selection need particular attention when implementing a programme like PS, since those factors have been defined as important implementation drivers, both in this study and previously.     

我国网络课程建设存在的问题及对策

分析指出了我国网络课程建设存在着重申报、轻建设、不持续、更新少、共享难、效果差等问题,提出了课程建设要以学生为主体、课程质量要以学生满意为最终标准,对于目前开展的资源共享课和视频公开课建设,教育行政部门要有顶层设计,要做到网络课程的真正共享,需要从政策层面规范各学科或专业的教学计划、规定学生可以以网络课程完成的科目和学分,学生在规定的教学计划内自由选修网络课程,学分不受地域和学校限制,跨校选修,全国认可;为此网络课程应给与学生自主空间,具有学习过程网络监控、课程考核和学分认证等功能。     

重庆市农民工市民化的教育培训资源统筹对策

城乡统筹的实质是资源的统筹.在重庆市“千万农民变市民”的社会大试验中,教育与培训将发挥重要作用.目前,重庆市农民工的教育与培训存在较多问题,直接影响了农民工市民化的进程,根源在于资源统筹乏力.应当根据科学发展观的要求,加强重庆市农民工的教育培训资源统筹.文章对重庆市实施制度、机构、经费、师资、信息资源这“五大统筹”和统筹模式变革提出了对策建议.     

大学生专业操作能力优化教学模式的构建——以人力资源管理专业课程为例

高校人才培养与企业实际需求存在匹配度较低的问题,因而有必要构建新的大学生专业操作能力优化教学模式.新的教学模式涵盖目标描述、目标支撑、流程管理、经验教训、工具与表单五个方面.它可以让学生的学习从抽象到具体,从理论到实践,从宏观到微观,从被动接受到主动思考,达到对该模块更深刻的学习、掌握与运用,从而更加适应企业与社会的需求.     

塔尔寺文化旅游资源的开发与利用述论

藏传佛教诸教派中影响最大的格鲁派寺院——塔尔寺,在国内外享有较高的声誉,被树为鲁沙尔镇、湟中县乃至青海省发展旅游业的特色品牌,在实现“旅游兴青富民”的发展战略中占据重要地位。因此,开发和利用塔尔寺蕴藏的丰厚文化资源,具有突出的经济效益和社会效益。     

加强社会实践培养少数民族大学生的实践能力

加强社会实践 ,是高校教学的重要内容和环节。通过社会实践有利于培养和提高少数民族大学生的综合素质、创新意识、创新能力 ;有利于培养德、智、体、美、劳全面发展的社会主义事业的建设者和接班人     

Signaling to Partially Informed Investors in the Newsvendor Model

We analyze a signaling game between the manager of a firm and an investor in the firm. The manager has private information about the firm's demand and cares about the short‐term stock price assigned by the investor. Previous research has shown that under continuous decision choices and the Intuitive Criterion refinement, the least‐cost separating equilibrium will result, in which a low‐quality firm chooses its optimal capacity and a high‐quality firm over‐invests in order to signal its quality to investors. We build on this research by showing the existence of pooling outcomes in which low‐quality firms over‐invest and high‐quality firms under‐invest so as to provide identical signals to investors. The pooling equilibrium is practically appealing because it yields a Pareto improvement compared to the least‐cost separating equilibrium. Distinguishing features of our analysis are that: (i) we allow the capacity decision to have either discrete or continuous support, and (ii) we allow beliefs to be refined based on either the Undefeated refinement or the Intuitive Criterion refinement. We find that the newsvendor model parameters impact the likelihood of a pooling outcome, and this impact changes in both sign and magnitude depending on which refinement is used.