Archive | January, 2007

Tagging on Intute: Have you tried it?

31 Jan

A new report from the Pew Internet Research Center states that 28 percent of Americans have tagged something online, be it a blog post, image on a photo sharing service like Flickr or a website on a social bookmarking service like del.icio.us

David Bigwood over at the Catalogablog site points out that some public domain texts have had keywords extracted from them and automatically uploaded to del.icio.us, but that such automation could be used by spammers to to wreck social bookmarking sites.

Tagging is essentially adding labels to something, to help you find it again. They can be personal just to you or more descriptive and applicable to many more people – there’s no right or wrong way to tag things.

MyIntute offers the chance to tag records for yourself – for example you could gather together a range of websites that you are looking to show off in a lecture, give them a tag of ‘presentation’ and then export them as an email to yourself.

Have you used the MyIntute tagging system? If so, why not tell us what you used it for, how you got on and send us some feedback.

New info4local launched

29 Jan

info4local is the gateway site for local authorities looking for information about what central government is getting up to and it has just been relaunched with a major new facelift.

The new look and feel gives a much cleaner interface which is easy to navigate and includes new information, for example on UK government consultations, sub-categories for some of the subjects covered by info4local and categorisation by region.

Designed to disseminate information of interest to those working in local authorities, info4local may well be of interest to those researching local government issues and how central government policy filters down to the local level.

The Regional Administration section of the Intute: Government Policy gateway contains many links on the issues of Local Government, Finance and Budgets and Specific Personnel, such as mayors.

Using Blogs in Economics

29 Jan

Blogs are a genuine free market in ideas, that’s the conclusion of a new guide to Using Blogs in Economics, produced by the Economics Network and Intute: Social Sciences.

Bringing together best practice in teaching from the Economics Network and the best of the web from Intute: Social Sciences, this guide includes how to start blogging, outlines the risks of writing online and highlights the uses of blogs in the economics classroom.

Bhagesh Sachania, Information Officer for the Economics Network said, “In the economics classroom, blogs enable lecturers to relate economic issues to current events, and get students writing about economic theory, making both of them smarter and more productive. That’s what this guide is all about.”

Paul Ayres, Intute: Economics Editor said, “We’ve undeniably seen the rise of a commentator class of blogging economists, but blogs are also letting lecturers and students take advantage of an ‘invisible college’ of global economic brainpower, a genuine free market in ideas.”

The latest Intute: Social Sciences Podcast features a discussion about the effect of blogs on economics as a discipline and explores how researchers may want to use them to promote their work.

Intute: Social Sciences links to more resources on the issue of blogs in economics

Spoken Word Services

26 Jan

Spoken Word Services is based in the Saltire Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University.

They work in the field of digitised spoken word audio and video, and provide an extensive archive of digitised content from the BBC and other sources. Users need to register for an account to search their repository, but the materials are available for educational use.

Spoken Word provide some case studies about how they have been used, including a series of Talking Hospitality podcasts. Their site also includes a blog about the issues surrounding the use of audio and video to support teaching and learning

Intute: Social Sciences links to more resources on the issues of audio, sound and podcasts.

World Economic Forum 2007

25 Jan

The World Economic Forum 2007 meeting in Davos entitled ‘The Shifting Power Equation’ lasts until January 28th and is a meeting of business, political and social leaders. The site features web/video podcasts of some of the sessions, a blog with a range of contributors and summaries of the sessions.

Coverage of the meeting is also available from BBC News including their Davos Blog, a Davos in-depth section in their Business pages and their stories form part of a wider service called Davos Conversations which aggregates content.

Intute: Social Sciences links to more resources on the topic of the World Economic Forum

British Social Attitudes 23rd report: Perspectives on a Changing Society

24 Jan

The 23rd British Social Attitudes Report – Perspectives on a Changing Society – was published on Wednesday 24 January 2007, by the National Centre for Social Research.

The latest Report assesses the consequences for public attitudes of a number of recent, fundamental social changes – including the emergence of radical Islamic terrorism; an ageing society; the huge growth of the internet; globalisation and increasingly competitive labour markets; and a change of government.

Among the findings:

  • Overwhelming majorities of the public are willing to give up various freedoms to tackle the threat of terrorism – four in five think that following people suspected of involvement with terrorism, tapping their phones and opening their mail is ‘a price worth paying’.
  • Commitment to civil liberties is in decline: in 1990, 40% disagreed that every adult should carry an ‘identity card’; this figure has nearly halved to 22%.
  • The current law that prohibits assisted dying is at odds with public opinion – four out of five people in Britain say that the law should allow a doctor to end someone’s life at the person’s request if they have an incurable and painful illness from which they will die.
  • ‘Britishness’ is in decline – fewer people say that ‘British’ is the best or only way of describing themselves now than 10 years ago, and this is partly due to an increase in feelings of ‘Englishness’
  • Compared with the 1960s, there has been no decline in the proportion of people identifying with a social class. More people still identify with the working class than the middle class.

The press release includes brief summaries of the findings of all 10 chapters.

Intute: Social Sciences links to more resources on the issue of Social Research

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Intute: Social Sciences Podcast 008

24 Jan

Listen to the programme (13 mins, 6 MB)

Welcome to the Intute: Social Sciences podcast. Each programme features Social Science related information news, an interview with a Social Science information provider and a selection of the new resources added to Intute: Social Sciences.

News update:

This edition’s news update includes:

Interview

In this edition we talk to Romesh Vaitilingam, about the State of the Economics Blogosphere

Latest additions to Intute: Social Sciences

Featured resources in this podcast are:

To keep abreast of the latest additions to Intute: Social Sciences, visit our New Resources section, subscribe to the RSS feed or sign up for email updates on MyIntute

If you have any news or comments about the Intute: Social Sciences Podcast, then please do get in touch by emailing paul.ayres@bristol.ac.uk and we hope you’ll tune in again in two weeks time

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Intute: Education news round-up

19 Jan

The Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) is successful in recruiting good candidates, especially in secondary shortage subjects, according to An employment-based route into teaching 2003-06. The report, published today by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), also found that the overall quality of teaching by trainees on the programme was better in 2005/6 compared with the previous two years

The Independent Study into School Leadership commissioned from PricewaterhouseCoopers examines a range of current and new ideas and practices to boost school standards and deliver more effective management of schools through improved leadership model

The Higher Education Academy’s National Teaching Fellowship Scheme for Individual Awards is now open with nominations accepted until noon on Wednesday 14 March. 50 awards of 10,000 GBP are available and each institution may nominate up to 3 individuals.

Intute: Social Sciences links to more resources on the topic of Education

Economics news round-up

12 Jan

The Economics Network is launching a Student Essay Competition for anyone studying Economics as part of their HE course. If you can come up with 1000 words on the topic of “What advice would you give to students starting your course?” you could win £250.

How is economics portrayed in fiction? That was the subject of a recent radio discussion from NPR in the United States, which has been made available online for your listening pleasure (via Boing Boing)

The Adam Smith Institute has announced the Regulatory Monitor which aims to highlight “the worst excesses of bureaucratic red tape and excessive compliance costs in the UK” and begins by looking at gambling and airports.

Intute: Social Sciences links to more resources on the topic of Economics

Intute: Social Sciences Podcast 007

9 Jan

Listen to the programme (11 mins, 5 MB)

Welcome to the Intute: Social Sciences podcast. Each programme features Social Science related information news, an interview with a Social Science information provider and a selection of the new resources added to Intute: Social Sciences.

News update:

Sites featured in this edition’s news update include:

Interview

In this edition we talk to Emma Place, manager of the Intute: Virtual Training Suite of Internet tutorials

Latest additions to Intute: Social Sciences

Featured resources in this podcast are:

To keep abreast of the latest additions to Intute: Social Sciences, visit our New Resources section, subscribe to the RSS feed or sign up for email updates on MyIntute

If you have any news or comments about the Intute: Social Sciences Podcast, then please do get in touch by emailing paul.ayres@bristol.ac.uk and we hope you’ll tune in again in two weeks time.

Tags:

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