Colleges and universities now have a toolkit to help them make confident, informed decisions about the legal issues surrounding cloud computing.
JISC Legal has responded to a growing demand for guidance on cloud solutions by creating a comprehensive ‘Cloud computing and the law’ toolkit. The aim of this resource is to guide educational professionals through the legal aspects of implementing cloud computing solutions in their institutions.
Dr Stuart Brough, director of Information Services at the University of Strathclyde, welcomes its release: “Up till now it’s been difficult to find a practical toolkit on cloud computing and the law created specifically for the education sector. This timely new JISC Legal resource will fill that gap,” he said.
Colleges and universities have a particular responsibility to protect the intellectual property, research data and confidential records of staff and students. Compiled by JISC Legal’s team of ICT law experts, the toolkit contains accessible, up-to-date information about cloud computing in an educational context. It’s designed to meet the needs of a range of educational professionals, including academic, research and support staff.
Alex Hawker, JISC programme manager, said: “In this challenging economic environment, universities and colleges are now looking at new ways to provide services for their students and staff including using cloud-based technology. At JISC we’re aware that with innovative new technologies like cloud, many organisations will need support to understand the intricacies of how it works and what the legal implications are - so this guidance aims to build confidence among staff in working with a cloud provider.”
According to JISC Legal service director, Ralph Weedon: “We created this toolkit in response to a growing demand from the FE and HE sectors for up-to-date guidance on cloud computing in this area. It’s designed for a range of educational professionals and we hope that it will help them to feel more confident in their understanding of the legal aspects of cloud services.”
The five publications in the toolkit are:
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Access the toolkit and introductory video
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A list of courses in Manchester accredited by CILIP
Department of Information and Communications, Manchester Metropolitan University, Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamond Street West, off Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6LL
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Melissa Benn still believes the public can see the benefits of the classic comprehensive school system
Britain doesn't have many American-style political dynasties, but the Benns are an exception. Three generations have produced a cabinet minister apiece: Tony Benn, once the stuff of bourgeois nightmares but now an octogenarian "national treasure", is the best-known and his son Hilary, a New Labour minister from 2001, is the most recent. And from the next generation, Emily Benn, Tony's granddaughter, stood unsuccessfully, aged 20, as a Labour candidate in last year's general election.
But there are other Benns keenly doing their bit for what are loosely called "progressive" causes. Among them is Melissa, Tony's only daughter, one of our "leading feminist writers" (the Guardian's description), a one-time assistant to Labour's future deputy leader Harriet Harman at the National Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty), a former Open University researcher on deaths in custody, and a founder of the Local Schools Network, which "celebrates and supports local schools". Now 54, her latest contribution to the common welfare is School Wars: The Battle for Britain's Education, published next week. (In the interests of full disclosure: she interviewed me for the book, and quotes me in it.)
No prizes for guessing which side she's on in those wars. The book is a passionate defence of comprehensive schools and she doesn't mean the allegedly non-selective academies, free schools, faith schools, trust schools and other varieties invented by successive governments. She's a true believer in what New Labour airily dismissed as the "bog-standard" comprehensive. Benn prefers neighbourhood schools run by elected public authorities. She also favours mixed-ability teaching, though as a "compromise", she'd reconcile herself to setting by subject after 14. She talks, as the pioneers of comprehensives did, about creating a "common culture" through education and asks, "how do we learn about others if we never come in contact with them?"
Is there any chance that this classic model of the comprehensive can come back? She replies that what "they" have set up will fail (she doesn't say so, but I'd guess "they" means New Labour as well as the coalition government) and what she's arguing for will, 20 or 30 years hence, emerge as the only alternative. "This whole shimmer of choice," she continues, "it just confirms class hierarchies. In the early 21st century, we have something that increasingly looks like the set-up in the 19th century. The three biggest blocks to a fairer school system don't involve genuine choice. Private schools obviously, because you can't go if you can't pay. Grammar schools are positively Orwellian: the state sorts children out and says where they should go. Faith schools: well, if you're not a churchgoer, the only option is for deception."
So she would deny choice to parents? "I don't think we can any more just tell parents where to send their children. But we have to find a way to ensure that no school is stuck with the most disadvantaged. School admissions may be politically unsexy but they're absolutely crucial." All this is said with the expansive hand gestures characteristic of the family, and eyes trained slightly upwards into the middle distance, as though scanning anxiously for a vision of happy comprehensives where rich and poor learn to love and cherish each other.
But as Benn happily explains, her ideal school is on her doorstep, in the socially and ethnically mixed area of north London where she lives with her husband, a psychotherapist, and daughters, aged 14 and 17. "We didn't decide to live according to the availability of local schools. But we went to see the local primary and we thought it was great. Secondary school was more of a decision. Our nearest school, Queens Park, 20 minutes walk away, was not, to put it crudely, the one the middle-classes were sending their children to. But a group of parents, whose children were about two years ahead of ours, got together and said, if we all support this school, we can be part of changing it. We were lucky. It is a really good example of a hard-working, creative local school. Results have gone up and up. It so annoys me that schools like that are routinely denigrated."
Ofsted reports confirm that Queens Park has been improving since the early 2000s. It has almost equal numbers of white, black and Asian children (white British account for under 20% of pupils), an above-average proportion on free school meals, and lower than average attainment levels on entry. Has Benn used private tutors? "Ah, I woke up this morning and thought: he'll ask me about private tutoring. Well, a bit of help a couple of times when exams were coming up, but we're not running a complete parallel system. There's no denying that parents like ourselves can help our children, but I also bring that helpful practice to the school, running workshops and so on."
Her own education was a different matter. Strange as it may now seem, Labour frontbenchers, if they could afford it, once sent their children to private schools without significant comment from either press or party. The Benns, with money on both sides of the family, enrolled Melissa at Norland Place, an expensive London preparatory school later attended by George Osborne. But when she was seven, she and her two elder brothers were switched to the state sector. Oddly, her name was still put down for the posh, fee-charging St Paul's girls' school because, she says, "there was a tremendous nervousness, not from my parents but from the world they lived in, grandparents and so on, about what they'd done and so they wanted reassurance that I was keeping up academically". A place was offered but rejected. Melissa, like her three brothers, went instead to Holland Park comprehensive, close to the family home in west London.
It became known as "the socialist Eton" because so many prominent leftwing figures, including Tony Benn's cabinet colleague Roy Jenkins, sent their children there. After starting with the trappings of a grammar school, including teachers in gowns, it threw out uniform and other traditions and embraced mixed-ability teaching, then very rare. "It was a very creative and exciting time," says Benn. "I really, really enjoyed school." But she adds: "There were elements that, as a parent, I wouldn't have been happy with. I didn't feel unsafe exactly but I knew there were certain toilets I shouldn't go into, and there were pockets of disorder, things that frightened me, skinheads, gangs and so on. As a parent, you have to be in favour of order. On discipline, I think the right is on to something."
As Benn's father became more prominent, emerging as a leader of the Labour left, media interest and hostility grew. She recalls a forest of photographers as she stepped out of the house and being followed as she walked to school. "The children's lives were scarred," her father once said. Her late mother, Caroline, took it particularly badly and, though a knowledgeable and articulate pro-comprehensive campaigner – she co-wrote two exhaustively researched studies of the schools – could scarcely bear to speak even to sympathetic broadsheet journalists.
The family wariness of the media remains. Benn says she always wanted to be a writer, composing her first story at six, a novel shortly afterwards and a play about resistance fighters "when I was nine or 10". She eventually worked at the radical magazine City Limits and contributed freelance features and reviews to the Guardian, New Statesman and Independent. But, she says, "I have never felt fully comfortable in the media world, it has taken time for me to learn to inhabit it in my own way." She has written two novels that explore the uneasy relationship between the public and private lives of politicians and the media's role in it.
Benn believes the British public can still be persuaded to view a truly comprehensive state education service with the affection it has for the health service. "Education's problems go back to 1944. The NHS became a symbol of common citizenship but education couldn't because it divided 20% of the population from the other 80%. Ed Miliband recently talked of the things that bind us together, but he didn't mention schools. People are always talking about the importance of churches, post offices and pubs to communities, but not about schools. If we make the political weather, we can change that."
Melissa Benn's book School Wars is published on 5 September by Verso Books
The UK's first university technical college provides hands on training for the young engineers needed by the industries of tomorrow
The 18th-century mill in the village of Rocester, near Uttoxeter is a stunning blend of ancient and modern. Rooms are spacious and light, with views of the Staffordshire moorlands. This was a cotton mill for two centuries, until its closure by Courtaulds in the 1980s. It has now been adapted for academic use – to educate the engineers who will be required by the industries of tomorrow. This is the site of the JCB academy, Britain's first university technical college (UTC), which opened for its second academic year on 22 August.
UTCs are the brainchild of Lord Baker. The former education secretary is back with a rekindled vision for reform. He chairs the Baker-Dearing Trust, which developed the idea of technical colleges. JCB may be the first UTC, but it won't be the last. Next month, the Black Country academy will open, also in Staffordshire, and the current education secretary, and the chancellor, George Osborne, has already announced funding for another 24 by 2014. Baker envisages between 200 and 300 in 10 years' time.
Although they sound like higher education institutions, in fact UTCs are non-selective colleges for pupils aged from 14 to 19, sponsored by universities. They teach practical subjects such as engineering, product design and health sciences, which require specialised equipment, as well as English, maths, science, humanities, foreign languages and IT. Pupils also do 40-80 days' work experience a year. "This is going to be the answer to all the mistakes we've made in British education," Baker told the Guardian this year.
"No pressure then?" I ask Jim Wade, principal of JCB, which is supported by five universities, including Cambridge.
"All I can do is try to deliver a first-class education for the students who come here," he says. "And it's my belief that there are a group of youngsters out there for whom this is a preferred way of learning. If you can provide them with that, you can enthuse them."
They need to be enthusiastic because they're here from 8.30am until 5pm three days a week. Students come from an 18-mile radius, so buses pick them up in Derby, Stafford or Stoke-on-Trent at 7.20am every weekday. "They get used to it," Wade says. The attendance record is 95.6%, which is above the national average. "And they do work experience during their holidays. They like meeting real engineers."
Wade came here after eight years running a comprehensive in Devon, which specialised in technology. "This was an opportunity to set up something special," he says, fiddling with his laptop. Up pops a glossy film of the academy's opening day, with comments from luminaries from industry and academia. Among them is Sir Anthony Bamford, chairman of JC Bamford (Excavators) Ltd, better known as JCB, who has put his money where his mouth is. JCB's headquarters are just across the road and the donation of the mill made up a substantial wedge of the £2m that the company has put into the venture. The government provided £20m.
So far there are few pupils here. The first year's intake was 120 year 10 students and 50 year 12. "But 148 applied for year 10 and 63 for year 12," says Wade. They were selected through "the digital equivalent of drawing names out of a hat". By 2013, there will be a full complement of 600, aged 14-19. "When we're doing engineering, which is 40% of the curriculum time, there will be one member of staff for every 12.5 students," the principal says. "For other subjects, it'll be one to 24." Not all engineering staff are teachers. Some are "learning mentors", who have worked in industry or the armed forces.
"We have to do in-house training because they have to be taught how to teach," says the vice-principal, Mark Henshaw. "But the sad truth is that there are a lot of trained teachers without hands-on experience. At my last school, it took months to raise the money to buy two lathes. Here we have 30, and it's the kind of equipment that students will find when they go into industry."
Harriet Chiles from Ashbourne is part of a small minority at JCB. Girls account for just 10% of the school population. Attempts to remedy that disparity are going on upstairs, where female sixth-formers are entertaining around 80 girls from local primary schools over two days. "Too many of them have a lack of understanding of engineering," says Meg Aucott, 18. "They think it's oily, greasy work."
The curriculum covers maths, English, German, at least two sciences, IT and business enterprise, as well as engineering. "We break the school year into eight-week blocks, each one based around solving an engineering problem in teams," Wade explains. "Each problem has a business element to it. And we try to build the rest of the curriculum through engineering. So, if we're designing a pump for a Rolls-Royce jet engine, we might be writing about it in English."
So is this school more about training than education? "They do a programme of studies here," he says, "that would equip them to train as a doctor or a journalist if they decide at 16 that they no longer want to go into engineering." What about history, art and literature? "We run clubs offering art, music, drama, dance or journalism. They have to do one [of those] and they can't do the same thing for three nights running."
There's no doubt the school has the sort of equipment, staffing levels and work ethos others would envy. And it's easy to be persuaded that we need more like it to meet the demands of a second industrial revolution so very different from the first.
Politicians who blame the riots on a lack of school discipline have got it all wrong, says Phil Beadle
So, the citizenship classes were a smashing success then! And, next week, countless lessons on the subject of being a good citizen will start with the teacher asking, "So, what did we learn from the riots?"
"Well, sir, man, I learned that you need to try stuff on before you loot it, or you get something that don't suit you; it don't go with your bandana."
The reaction of commentators and politicians to the riots has been predictable: voices from the right pontificating views unlevened by any experience whatsoever of the people whom they rightly denigrate; and voices from the left seeking to justify an outbreak of wanton criminality as an almost reasoned response to the current administration's "scorched earth for the poor" policies.
It is the right's response, however, that shows the most perverse perspective on the relationship between cause and effect.
Witness the prime minister, with his crassly simplistic, "broken society" slogan, identifying that: "The next part of our fightback is what happens in our schools." The heir to the throne weighs in: "Schools don't have enough extra-curricular activities. There are not enough organised games or other activities." John Howell, Tory MP for Henley, calls for "more discipline in our schools", and a clueless cleric takes the riots as proof that we need to "rebuild education" and starts jibbering about "ethos".
Teachers around the country will have let out a rueful sigh – "I thought it would be our fault. Schools aren't doing their job properly. It's clearly time for me to be sacked" – before realising that they were actually on a wet beach in northern France. "Hold on. I'm pretty sure I'm on holiday. It can't really be my fault, can it?"
Indeed, the riots did happen when schools were on holiday. This reveals those blaming educational institutions for the trouble to be guilty of reverse logic. The riots are actually evidence of the exact opposite: that once the expert guidance and care, the moral framework, the daily routine, the discipline and – yes, Charles – the extra-curricular activities provided by schools are absent from these children's lives, it all rapidly goes to hell in a handcart.
Why has no one asked: would the riots have happened in term time? Even if they had, I strongly suspect the numbers of rioters aged under 18 would have vastly diminished. First, rioting on a school night is probably beyond the pale even in the inner-city home. Second, there were rumours throughout the day of the worst outbreaks that it was all about to kick off. Had this been the case in term time, each maligned educational institution would have mobilised with military precision, keeping kids in school, texting parents to pick them up, arranging transport, and calling assemblies in which no one would have been left in any doubt about the potential consequences of dangerously irresponsible behaviour.
The most measured and reasoned responses to the troubles have been from the teaching profession, its representatives and associated organisations.
John Murphy, director of education at Oasis Community Learning, who has been the principal of two schools for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, hits the nail on the head: "In the recent riots, politicians espouse single reasons to complex problems. The reality is those involved were not from one group with one reason. There were opportunists, gang members and there were people who are totally disenfranchised from any involvement with civil society."
The second of these categories plays a huge part: immediately outside the gates of most inner-city schools there exists a thriving gang culture, eager to gobble up those who need a sense of belonging. This gang culture, both formal and informal, plays a huge part in the identity-making of an increasing number of young people in the inner cities.
The gang culture is critical to what happened this month. And it is time that denial of its existence in the upper circles of government stopped. As Murphy says, "There are many young people who are in gangs and who were part of the troubles - they are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The question is how to bridge the gap between them and the institutions of state."
Schools in inner cities have been dealing with this matter for years, but we cannot solve it. We merely provide a safe place in which gang rule does not apply. It is a societal problem: the only safe place for some of these young people is within the civilised, nurturing bosom of the school. As Old Andrew, the consistently readable blogger behind Scenes From the Battleground, writes: "Even though so many of the rioters are young, the education system could not have prevented this. Better discipline in schools cannot ensure better discipline in the streets."
Research shows that a coyote with a damaged foot can run almost as fast on three legs as its uninjured pals
Running Speeds of Crippled Coyotes introduced itself in 1976, in a journal called Northwest Science. You'll find few scientific studies that tell their story so clearly and efficiently. Bruce C Thompson, of the department of fisheries and wildlife at Oregon State University, wrote everything he had to say in a plain two pages.
It contains little jargon or lingo, and no clever metaphors. When the study speaks of crippled coyotes, it means exactly that: coyotes that are crippled.
Thompson begins with some history, just enough so you learn that other people, in earlier days, spent time thinking about how fast coyotes run. He alludes to decades-old studies, by scientists named Cottam, Sooter, and Zimmerman, that "reported running speeds of presumably uninjured coyotes being chased by cars".
Thompson brought something new to the table (so to speak): "On 21, 22, and 23 October 1974, I recorded running speeds of three wild-trapped coyotes that had lost the use of one foot due to damage from a steel trap".
How exactly did Thompson accomplish this? He tells you in just a few sentences: "During the tests, the coyotes were released from their cages singly and allowed to run along the perimeter fence of the enclosure. Each day the coyotes were timed with a stop-watch as they ran three measured courses along the perimeter fence. As a coyote approached the starting point of each course, I chased the animal on foot at a distance of 45 meters to 70 meters."
Thompson also measured the running speed of a coyote that had all its original equipment. On its best run, that animal had a speed of just under 32 miles per hour. One of the crippled animals matched that almost exactly, despite lacking a right foot. The other three-footed coyotes attained best speeds of 22.5mph and 25.4mph, respectively. (The full-bodied coyotes chased by four-wheeled cars decades earlier, by the way, ran much faster than the one chased in the 1970s by the two-legged Bruce Thompson.)
Thompson also paid attention to style. "Although the crippled coyotes occasionally contacted the ground with their damaged appendage", he wrote, "they typically adjusted their stride to prevent contact with the ground. The adjusted stride resulted in a noticeable bouncing movement when the crippled coyotes ran."
Bruce Thompson's monograph refers, glancingly, to a 1939 study called "Food habits of peg-leg coyotes," by Charles C. Sperry of the U.S. Biological Survey's Food Habits Laboratory in Colorado. Sperry, too, knew how to tell a tale. Who could resist this beginning: "During the past two years, 164 peg-leg coyote stomachs that contained food remains were obtained and their contents examined in the Denver laboratory."
I will skip over Sperry's other good parts, and get right to his thrilling conclusion: "It will be noted that two peg-leg coyotes eat as much livestock as three normal coyotes.
(Thanks to Sally Shelton for bringing this to my attention.)
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
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JISC Advance is furthering its work with adult learning providers by signing a memorandum of understanding with The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE).
The memorandum sets out how the two organisations will work together to raise the quality of learning experiences for adults across the UK.
Guy Lambert, Managing Director of JISC Advance, said: “It is particularly important for JISC Advance to work in a complementary manner with membership organisations. Combining our expertise in technology with NIACE’s deep understanding of adult learning provides a unique capability to support learning providers and learners to get the best results from their endeavours.”
JISC Advance and NIACE already share a common commitment to ensure that adult learning, and access to it, is enhanced and enabled through the use of technology.
Sal Cooke, director of JISC Techdis and the stakeholder engagement lead for JISC Advance, said: “It is vital that work continues between these two key organisations to help the education sector meet the many challenges to come. This memorandum will help create a powerful synergy and ensure that even more providers benefit from the many services offered under the JISC Advance banner.“
The commitment is proven by their strong relationship to date; the nationwide network of Regional Support Centres work together with NIACE to provide advice and guidance on how technology can both improve the learner experience and increase efficiencies for providers.
This is further enhanced by the work of the JISC Advance services, such as accessibility experts, Techdis and training providers, Netskills.
Alastair Clark, digital lead for NIACE, said: “This document really does give us a firm footing on which to continue our excellent relationship. We already have plans for a programme of activities with JISC Advance’s Regional Support Centres and JISC Techdis, and can now look forward to extending this to include more of the JISC Advance services.”
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Facet Publishing have announced the release of the new textbooks; Innovations in Information Retrieval: Perspectives for theory and practice, Knowledge Management: An introduction and Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century: An introduction, 2nd edition revised.
Edited by Allen Foster and Pauline Rafferty and contributed to by an international team of experts, Innovations in Information Retrieval provides a snapshot of changes in the information retrieval field, and outlines the importance of developing innovation and creativity in thinking in information retrieval practice and research.
Knowledge Management: An Introduction by Kevin C. Desouza and Scott Paquette, balances theory and practice to introduce this growing, multi-disciplinary subject to students in an engaging and effective manner. This essential guide considers the issues organizations encounter in the global marketplace and is the first to integrate social media and networking into knowledge management practice.
Kay Ann Cassell and Uma Hiremath have revised their landmark text Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century to reflect the changes in reference services since their last edition was published. This practical guide teaches failsafe methods for identifying important materials by matching specific types of questions to the best available sources, regardless of format. Information on more than 300 sources has been updated to provide the highest quality resource. Many of these new sources focus on innovative Reference 2.0 tools like Google Books, Twitter, and Second Life.
-ends-
Press contact:
James Williams, Marketing Manager, Facet Publishing
Tel: 020 7255 0597
Email: james.williams@facetpublishing.co.uk
Notes to editors:
1. Innovations in Information Retrieval: Perspectives for theory and practice (July 2011; 224pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-697-8; £44.95) is published by Facet Publishing. It is available from Bookpoint Ltd, Mail Order Dept, 39 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4TD | Tel: +44 (0)1235 827702 | Fax: +44 (0)1235 827703 | Email: facet@bookpoint.co.uk | Web: www.facetpublishing.co.uk
2. Knowledge Management: An introduction (August 2011; 256pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-735-7; £49.95) is published by Facet Publishing. It is available from Bookpoint Ltd, Mail Order Dept, 39 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4TD | Tel: +44 (0)1235 827702 | Fax: +44 (0)1235 827703 | Email: facet@bookpoint.co.uk | Web: www.facetpublishing.co.uk
3. Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century: An introduction, 2nd edition revised. (July 2011; 384pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-778-4; £44.95) is published by Facet Publishing. It is available from Bookpoint Ltd, Mail Order Dept, 39 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4TD | Tel: +44 (0)1235 827702 | Fax: +44 (0)1235 827703 | Email: facet@bookpoint.co.uk | Web: www.facetpublishing.co.uk.
4. Dr Allen Foster BA MSc is Director of Postgraduate Studies at the Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University. He holds a PhD in information behaviour from the University of Sheffield, where he was also involved in research projects for a numbers of years.
5. Dr Pauline Rafferty MA(Hons) MSc MCLIP is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Teaching and Learning at the Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University. She previously taught at the Department of Information Science, City University London, and in the School of Information Studies and Department of Media and Communication at the University of Central England, Birmingham.
6. Dr Kevin C. Desouza is an associate professor at the Information School, University of Washington, and holds adjunct appointments in the University’s College of Engineering and at the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs.
7. Dr Scott Paquette is a visiting professor at the College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, and is affiliated with the Center for the Advanced Study of Communications and Information (CASVCI) and the Center for Information Policy and e-Government (CPEG).
8. Kay Ann Cassell is Assistant Professor and Director of the MLIS Program at Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey, USA
9. Uma Hiremath is Assistant Director of the Ames Free Library in Easton, Massachusetts, USA.
10. Facet Publishing, is the commercial publishing and bookselling arm of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, is the leading publisher of books for library and information professionals worldwide. At the forefront of library and information development, Facet Publishing has a comprehensive list covering all the major areas of professional activity.
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There are endless theories about why Mozart died at the age of 35, but the reality could be quite simple
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has died a hundred deaths, more or less. Here's a new one: darkness.
Doctors over the years have resurrected the story of Mozart's death again and again, each time proposing some alternative horrifying medical reason why the 18th century's most celebrated and prolific composer keeled over at age 35. A new monograph suggests that Mozart died from too little sunlight.
The researchers give us a simple theory. When exposed to sunlight, people's skin naturally produces vitamin D. Mozart, toward the end of his life, was nearly as nocturnal as a vampire, so his skin probably produced very little vitamin D. (The man failed to take any vitamin D supplements to counteract that deficiency. But that wasn't Mozart's fault. Only much later, in the 1920s, did scientists identify a clear link between vitamin D, sunlight, and good health. Vitamin D supplements did not go on sale in Salzburg and Vienna, Mozart's home towns, until many years after that.)
Stefan Pilz (who, if he plays his cards right, will hereafter be known as "Vitamin" Pilz) and William B Grant published their report, called Vitamin D Deficiency Contributed to Mozart's Death, in a journal called Medical Problems of Performing Artists. Pilz is a physician/researcher at the Medical University of Graz, Austria. Grant is a California physicist whose background is in optical and laser remote sensing of the atmosphere, and atmospheric sciences.
Pilz and Grant explain: "Mozart did much of his composing at night, so would have slept during much of the day. At the latitude of Vienna, 48º N, it is impossible to make vitamin D from solar ultraviolet-B irradiance for about six months of the year. Mozart died on 5 December, 1791, two to three months into the vitamin D winter."
But they acknowledge the existence of competing medical theories. They do not bother mentioning the possibility, depicted in Peter Shaffer's 1969 play Amadeus, that a rival composer did him in. Other academic studies do examine the evidence for poisoning; most conclude that that evidence is lame.
Rival doctors and historians have presented arguments, in medical and other academic journals, that Mozart perished from acute rheumatic fever, bacterial endocarditis, streptococcal septicemia, tuberculosis, cardiovascular disease, brain hemorrhage, hypertensive encephalopathy, congestive heart failure, uremia secondary to chronic kidney disease, pyelonephritis, congenital urinary tract anomaly with obstructive uropathy, bronchopneumonia, hemorrhagic shock, post-streptococcal Henoch-Schönlein purpura, polyarthritis, trichinellosis, amyloidosis, and quite a few other unpleasantnesses.
Other studies have tried to tease out biomedical causes for some of Mozart's eccentric behaviour. Two of the more abstruse are by Benjamin Simkin. In 1999 he wrote about a concept called "pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcal infection" (Pandas). The study is called Was Pandas Associated with Mozart's Personality Idiosyncrasies? It expanded on Simkin's curse-filled 1992 monograph, in the British Medical Journal, called Mozart's Scatological Disorder.
(Thanks to Jim Cowdery for bringing this to my attention.)
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
Resources for ensuring your library and information service is accessible for disabled people.
Resources for providing services to disabled users
Providing a library service that is accessible for those with disabilities will mean knowing accessibility standards for your library's physical facilities, the services you provide and for computer access.
You will also need to keep up-to-date with developments in disability and accessibility, such as campaigns like the Right to Read campaign run by the RNIB, new technology and new policy and legislation.
Share the Vision in association with the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) and the Scottish Library & Information Council (SLIC) have developed six steps that library services can follow in order to provide better services for blind and partially sighted people.
The MLA has a webpage on libraries and disability including Disability Portfolio Guides a collection of 12 guides on how best to meet the needs of disabled people as users and staff in museums, archives and libraries. It gives invaluable advice, information and guidance to help overcome barriers and follow good practice.
Accessibility for Visitors is a document that looks at new technology and its uses for disabled visitors.
Assistive technology can give those with many types of disabilities and conditions access to computers. AbilityNet have factsheets on all aspects of computing and disabilities.
You can keep up-to-date with web accessibility developments by checking Accessibility guidelines for websites.
TechDis is an educational advisory service, for accessibility and inclusion.
Once you are disability compliant, you will need to ensure that information about your library and services are coded to show the specific facilities you provide. Access codes, developed by Artsline, show whether your venue has facilities for disabled people. The codes are:
E – hearing loop system installed
W - venue with un-stepped access via main or side door, wheelchair spaces and adapted toilet
X - venue with flat or one-step access to event/meeting area
A - venue with 2-5 steps to event/meeting area, or split-level access
S - venue with many unavoidable steps and/or other obstacles for wheelchair users
G - provision for guide dogs
The resource 'Guidelines for library services to people who are housebound' published by the Library Association in 1991 is still a good guide to providing services to people who cannot get to a library.
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After 35 years of working in post-16 education and research, Dr Malcolm Read executive secretary at JISC will retire in January 2012.
Malcolm joined JISC in 1993 and has been central to championing digital technologies for education and research. His achievements include setting up the UK’s academic computer network JANET(UK) and being a passionate advocate of making publicly funded research widely available for everyone to benefit.
Alan Langlands HEFCE’s chief executive said, “Malcolm’s contribution both on driving policy and strategic development not only in the UK but across Europe and internationally has been tremendous. This was also recognised in 2010 when Malcolm was awarded an OBE for his services to further and higher education. We wish Malcolm well with his future plans.”
Dr Read has been central to setting up partnerships with The Knowledge Exchange, The British Library and the Higher Education Academy to create knowledge sharing as well as publishing papers and contributing to books, with his most recent publication being a chapter in The Tower and Cloud an e-book on the future of technology for education.
Upon retiring Dr Read will be following his passion for glaciology and will be travelling around Antarctica for two months.
HEFCE is now looking to recruit an executive secretary (CEO) for a fixed term for JISC’s transition period. To find out more and to apply for the post visit HEFCE’s careers website.
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With “profound regrets” Gareth Johnson has announced his decision to step down early as a CILIP Trustee; the decision takes place with immediate effect. Gareth was elected to CILIP Council by members in December 2010 and was due to serve until December 2013.
Chair of Council Isabel Hood said, “I would like to thank Gareth for his hard work and commitment to the role of CILIP Trustee. I appreciate that this has been a very difficult decision for Gareth and on behalf of Council I wish him all the best for the future. ”
Trustees will discuss the process in terms of a replacement at the next Council meeting on the 22 September.
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Museum Collections Management: A handbook by Freda Matassa and Managing and Growing a Cultural Heritage Web Presence: A strategic guide by Mike Ellis.
Written by a renowned expert, Museum Collections Management: A handbook is the first practical guide to cover everything a collections manager needs to know. This landmark publication addresses the key principles and strategies for looking after culturally significant objects and their associated information as well as the relevant laws and codes of ethics. It then moves on to the practical processes involved and is backed up by examples of real policies and documents drawn from major museums, together with suggestions for additional resources.
Managing and Growing a Cultural Heritage Web Presence: A strategic guide provides a complete guide for anyone looking to build or maintain a cultural heritage web presence. Peppered with data and case studies on current practice from large and small cultural heritage institutions, the book advises the reader on the best strategic approach, as well as providing insight into how key institutions manage their websites, and hints and tips on best practice. A companion web site provides template downloads and other up-to-date information including links and white papers.
Dr Ross Parry, Museum Studies Programme Director at the University of Leicester said, 'This is an important addition to the body of digital heritage literature and a strong indication not just of how far we have come in our practice but of how mature today discussion of this subject is.'
-ends-
Press contact:
James Williams, Marketing Manager, Facet Publishing
Tel: +44 (0)20 7255 0597
Email: info@facetpublishing.co.uk
Notes to editors:
1. Museum Collections Management: A handbook (May 2011; 256pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-701-2; £54.95) is published by Facet Publishing. It is available from Bookpoint Ltd, Mail Order Dept, 39 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4TD | Tel: +44 (0)1235 827702 | Fax: +44 (0)1235 827703 | Email: facet@bookpoint.co.uk | Web: www.facetpublishing.co.uk The book is available in the US and Canada from Neal-Schuman Publishers www.neal-schuman.com
2. Managing and Growing a Cultural Heritage Web Presence: A strategic guide (April 2011; 224pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-710-4; £49.95) is published by Facet Publishing. It is available from Bookpoint Ltd, Mail Order Dept, 39 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4TD | Tel: +44 (0)1235 827702 | Fax: +44 (0)1235 827703 | Email: facet@bookpoint.co.uk | Web: www.facetpublishing.co.uk The book is available in the US and Canada from Neal-Schuman Publishers www.neal-schuman.com
4. Freda Matassa is a well known UK expert on collections management who advises, teaches and lectures internationally. Former Head of Collections Management at the Tate Gallery and co-founder of the European Registrars Conference, she is an expert adviser on several European projects for museum standards and to the Minister of Culture on immunity from seizure. She was recently named one of the top 50 women to watch in the arts.
5. Mike Ellis is a Digital Strategist at Eduserv who is particularly interested in how web and mobile technologies can help non-technical people communicate, share and create. He writes and presents extensively, runs conferences and gives workshops on various aspects of web technology. He has spent much of his working like in and around cultural heritage and other content-rich institutions, and was Head of Web at The National Museum of Science and Industry from 2000 to 2007.
6. Facet Publishing, is the commercial publishing and bookselling arm of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, is the leading publisher of books for library and information professionals worldwide. At the forefront of library and information development, Facet Publishing has a comprehensive list covering all the major areas of professional activity.
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The number of Co-op schools has trebled in just over a year. The model offers local accountability as well as independence
Mervyn Wilson is feeling bullish about the snowballing progress of the fastest-growing schools network in England. "It's a quiet revolution," he says. "By next year, we expect there to be well over 200 schools, with the potential of that growing substantially in the next few years."
Those following the development of our rapidly changing education landscape could be forgiven for guessing that Wilson works for one of England's high-profile academy chains, which are often mentioned in ministerial speeches and seem very well connected at the Department for Education.
In fact, Wilson is chief executive of the Co-operative College, a Manchester-based organisation that is helping to support and promote what he says is the ground-up, democratically driven growth of Co-operative trust schools. These are part of the Co-operative movement, with a history dating back to the 19th century.
Almost unnoticed, Co-ops are thought to have increased in number so they now make up the third largest association of schools in England, after those run by the Church of England and by the Roman Catholic church. They easily outstrip more publicised groups such as Ark Schools or the Harris academy chain.
Wilson likens their development to community-run village shops, or to Supporters Direct, which campaigns for football clubs to be run by fans.
Reddish Vale in Stockport was the first school to become a Co-operative trust, less than four years ago, but there are already 151 Co-op schools across the country, with numbers having trebled in just over a year.
In Cornwall alone, Wilson says, 70 to 100 schools will have joined Co-operative trusts by the end of this year, making a total of well over 200 nationwide by early in 2012. Nine primary schools in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, are already part of a joint trust, with another eight about to consult on joining. South Yorkshire, with approximately 50 schools expected by 2012, is another area of strength for the movement.
So what are Co-operative trusts, and why are the numbers growing? The Co-operative movement itself dates to the early 19th century – although some argue it goes further back – and the ideas of the cotton magnate Robert Owen.
The principles were that people would come together to form membership organisations based on common ownership or mutualism. In 1844, the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers was established by 28 workers in the Lancashire town, quickly growing and forming the model for the modern Co-op group, which includes businesses from the well-known supermarkets to travel insurance, funeral services and banking.
The Co-operative movement also set up schools in the 19th century, including one established by the Rochdale Pioneers themselves. But Wilson told a conference last month that the idea of Co-operative involvement in schools had gone out of fashion by the 1980s.
This began to change five years ago, following one of the most intensely contested pieces of legislation piloted through parliament by Tony Blair: the 2006 Education and Inspections Act.
This established trust schools, billed as "independent state schools", which were to be set up with weaker links to local authorities than conventional state-funded institutions, and which would be run by a trust that could include businesses, charities, faith groups and universities. Each had to have a parents' council that would have a say in the school's day-to-day affairs.
Of the more than 500 trust schools in England, Co-operative trusts are now believed to be the largest grouping. Distinctively, each school allows pupils, teachers, parents, local people and employers to become "members" of the trust, forming a "community-based mutual" organisation.
The members elect representatives to a "stakeholder forum", which then expresses the views of the wider group to the school leadership, while also electing trustees, who in turn elect some of the members of the school's governing body.
Typically, several Co-operative schools are linked together in a single trust: often a group of local primary schools working with a secondary.
There are also now three Co-operative academies, where formal links with the local authority are even more minimal than in the case of trusts.
All of this seems to fit well with what many within the Co-operative movement view as core educational values: democracy, equity and fairness.
It has also played well with politicians from both major parties, with David Cameron strongly endorsing Co-operative schools as opposition leader in 2007 and Ed Balls, as schools secretary, pledging in 2008 that 100 would open by 2010.
But there appear to be other factors behind the rising numbers. With the role of local authorities growing more uncertain, schools are looking for new ways of sharing expertise. Co-operative trusts, or even Co-operative academies, are seen by some schools as alternatives either to going it alone as a single academy or to joining a large sponsored academy chain, says Wilson. The reasons for taking the Co-operative route sometimes seem practical, and sometimes philosophical.
In Cornwall, schools have been encouraged by their local authority to form collaborative arrangements in order to pool resources.
Although the government hopes that eventually all schools will be academies, a paper, Championing Children, Championing Excellence, produced by Cornwall council in April said that small primary schools in particular would find it difficult to take on the extra responsibilities of academy status, including land, staffing and purchasing decisions while remaining financially viable. "The local authority does not believe that any single small primary school can be effectively sustainable into the future … as an academy", said the paper, because of the extra management overheads autonomous academies would bring.
Although Co-op schools were not mentioned in the paper, they seem a natural alternative, because schools can band together to share expertise and jointly buy in services. Six groups of schools are therefore joining Co-ops in the county.
Most provocatively for Wilson and some heads now running Co-op schools, the movement also rejects what it sees as a developing "semi-privatised" education system, with academy "brands" competing in a market structure underpinned by the values of corporate business.
It contrasts what it sees as the democracy of the Co-operative movement, with schools networking in groups and each institution interacting with its stakeholders, with conventional sponsored academy arrangements, which allow private sponsors to appoint the majority of each school's governing body, and where academies are often closely supervised from head office.
However, academy chains are also growing. Ark Schools was set up in 2004 by the hedge fund manager Arpad Busson, and now has 14 academies either open or in development. The Harris Federation, sponsored by Lord Harris of Peckham, chairman and chief executive of the retailer Carpetright, runs 13 academies in south London, with plans for another 12.
E-ACT, a charity run along business lines by the former Labour government's schools commissioner Sir Bruce Liddington, operates 11 academies and reportedly hopes to run 250 schools within five years.
All of this underscores the need for a Co-op alternative, says Wilson. "The break-up of local authorities and the development of these chains needs to be viewed as the latest phase in the marketisation of the education system," he told a Centre for Successful Schools conference at Keele University last month. "There are many of us who now feel that there is not just space, but a desperate need, for a community-based alternative."
Steve Baker is head of Lipson community college in Plymouth, which is in a Co-operative trust with six primary schools, and which embodies the movement's ethos. It has 200 members, the school runs pupil drama and choral groups on a co-operative basis, and even has children work together "co-operatively" in small groups in lessons.
Baker says: "Philosophically, we could not be further opposed to the top-down academy chain model. Education is very precious. It's much too precious simply to hand over to philanthropist sponsors. We had that model in the 19th century. We've come a long way from that."
Robert Owen was himself a 19th-century philanthropist, so there are ironies here. And academy chains obviously take a different view.
David Wootton, chair of the Independent Academies Association, says: "The academy movement, and sponsored academies in particular, have a strong commitment to social justice and moral purpose. This means a dedication to the communities they serve and a deep desire to improve outcomes and "close the gap" for students in some of the most challenged communities. Many academies have very strong community routes.
"We in the academy movement welcome the support of the Co-operative movement, who are now actively involved supporting academies, and believe there is room for a diversity of providers."
Despite their democratic appeal, trust schools in general are viewed by some campaigners for conventional state education as a form of privatisation, and some might view the Co-operative movement cautiously, as yet another interest group seeking influence in schools.
However, this is a significant movement, and is likely to have a say in the future of English education for a while to come.
Most A-level students face a life of debt if they go to university, says Danny Dorling, to the benefit of the rich
Twenty-five years ago I collected my A-level results. In 1986, only a handful of us traipsed into school to get them. Most children had left by the age of 16. Of those staying on, even of those taking A-levels, only a tiny number would go on to university; a majority of those would be boys. Today, half of all girls now gain a place at university.
When I went to university, there were no fees. This was because people had fought for decades to open up the universities, not because there were so few of us coming from ordinary schools. Angry reports were written in the 1930s on how unfair university access was then. Fifty years later, we had never been as equal, but the tide was turning again.
In 1986, the richest 1% of the population held 18% of all marketable wealth (the kind you can lend). For the rich, it was a low point. In that same year, the poorest half of all Britons held 10% of marketable wealth between them, an all-time high. The latest figures reveal that the richest 1% of Britons now hold 53% of all marketable wealth and the poorest half hold just 6%.
Most successful A-level students today face a life of debt if they choose to attend university. Student loans will ultimately be underwritten by the richest 1% as they hold the majority of what money can be lent, that 53% of marketable wealth. For decades to come, the debt interest that students will have to pay will mostly find its way into the bank balances of this richest 1%. This is not in the interest of 99% of the population.
It gets worse. The same irrational logic that has been employed to privatise universities could be extended to secondary education. Why, politicians may ask, should adults who choose not to have children be taxed to subsidise schooling? Why not instead give all children a loan and, while we're at it, surely not all children are up to learning after age 16? Do all children need to stay on until 17? After all, many new jobs in future will involve working in service for the super-rich. Do you need a GCSE to be a butler, maid, nanny or cleaner?
There is another way. In fact, there are so many alternatives to the stupid night-watchman state we are heading towards that a good A-level student, if set an exam essay on it, would not know where to begin. They would have so much to say and so little time to say it.
Between the years 2000 and 2008, the position of the UK in the OECD ranking fell from third to 15th when measuring the proportion of its young people going to university. At the top of the ranking is Finland, where 80% of girls now attend university. How much must the Finns charge their young people to afford this? Home fees in Finland are non-existent, and 94% of all Finnish higher education funding is from their public sector.
It's not just A-level students who are to be robbed to keep the rich so very rich, but their parents, who will help them if they can, and grandparents, who will worry about them now even if they have "done well". In fact, everyone gets hurt when we tell a generation that we are not willing to allow them what we had. Why shouldn't they grow selfish and resentful? And if they do, who will care for the elderly in 25 years' time?
At some point soon, the 99% of us will, probably in a very quiet British way (public disapproval and private ostracising), seek reparation from the rich for the 25 years of theft that has occurred and which is ongoing through student loan financing and government borrowing in general. After all, it is not as if the "wealth creators" have succeeded in creating a bright new dawn. They had their 25-year shot and they failed.
If you are picking up results this week, good luck with your future. Whatever you are awarded, please remember that it's more important to be about something good and useful than just to try to get rich, or just to survive. Your parents forgot that. They let this happen and now they are worried about your future as well as their own.
• Danny Dorling is professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield. His latest book is Bankrupt Britain: An Atlas of Social Change, written with Bethan Thomas and published by Policy Press
A new website aims to match students with family homes in their university town. But is it a good idea?
Like many parents, Hermione Pask often found herself worrying about the rising costs of putting her children through university. It wasn't just tuition fees – what about accommodation and general living expenses?
Thinking about students' options, Pask, from Brighton, was struck by the thought that while living at home is an increasingly popular choice, it usually means that the student cannot then go to their first choice of institution.
"It was then that I had a thought," she says, "what if a student just swapped their bedroom with another student who lived near where they wanted to study?"
And from there the website, Unihome swap.co.uk, was born. The service, which she runs with a partner, Becci Cary, aims to match students in different parts of the country who are looking to swap their room in their family home. The students will get free accommodation during term time, rather like swapping homes for a holiday. The site is free at the moment, but a registration fee is likely to be introduced once it becomes established.
The student, or family, signs up and place an ad for their available room, including location, room size and any extra features, such as a phone connection. They then search for something similar in the university town of their choice for a swap.
The number of students choosing to live at home instead of going away to university is growing, and is expected to rise further over the next decade. According to a recent survey by home insurer LV, almost half of all students (47%) are expected to live with their parents by 2020. The current figure for those living at home is one in five.
Daisy Waterman is one of the first students to join the site. The 19-year-old from Brighton aims to start a child psychology degree at the University of Chichester next month.
"It's a great way to save money, but there are other benefits too," she says. "I've been feeling quite nervous about going to university. I like my home comforts and routine, so staying with a family could give me a soft landing.
"I suppose it wouldn't work for someone wanting to immerse themselves in student life. I'd probably only do it for my first year as I'm a bit worried about missing out on the social aspect of university."
And how does she feel about someone else planting their clothes in her cupboards at home? "It is a bit weird," she admits. "I'd prefer to swap with a girl than with a guy."
Daisy's family heard about Unihome swap through friends and saw it as an interesting option. "It's partially financial, but we also thought it could be a really nice, supportive environment for Daisy to live in," says her stepfather, Simon Appleton. "Having a student staying in our home will be quite different, but there'll be more energy in the house. There'll have to be some boundaries, though. We wouldn't want a smoker and we'd have to chat about them bringing back boyfriends or girlfriends." Details such as food costs are agreed between families, and if any relationships break down, it's for the lodger and family to sort out their differences.
It seems like an ingenious idea. But some would argue that what the site offers is the worst of both worlds: the student loses out on making friends in halls, parties, late nights, and learning to cook and do their own washing. But they also miss the familiarity and comfort of being with their own family.
Sarah Parkinson, director of specialist market and social research agency ERS (Education, Research and Services), advises students to think carefully about what they want. "In some cases, students may really benefit from the extra support of living in a caring family home," she says.
"However, students who don't live with other students, either in halls or in shared houses, can feel isolated and find it more difficult to socialise at university." Research by ERS has shown that loneliness caused by not "fitting in" with peers is a key factor in dropping out, she says.
And another thing: "University is where a lot of people learn about their own sexual identity – somebody else's family home might not be the best place for this to happen."
Find out what university and college admissions tutors will be looking out for in this year's Clearing phone calls
Buy the Guardian on Thursday to get your free copy of The Fresher which is packed with useful advice for new students
You hardly need reminding, but results day is almost here. Fingers crossed, it'll all go to plan: top results and university welcoming you with open arms. But there's a chance it won't, thrusting you into Clearing. Frustratingly, you'll find the pot of available places there far smaller this year. You'll need to win over the admissions tutors with the phone conversation of your life. But what to say, and how to prepare? Here's the lowdown from the admissions tutors who'll be answering the phones on Thursday.
"Would you go to Glastonbury without your wellies? Be prepared," says Wendy James, assistant registrar at London Met. "Research viable alternatives to your firm and insurance choices, and try to visit the campus." Look at courses, entry criteria, university environment, facilities and the social scene, bursaries and accommodation. "If you're considering changing subjects, think about writing a new personal statement now to explain your interest in the course and your strengths."
Check out what's available now – many universities' Clearing websites are already showing vacancies. "Check the Ucas website regularly, and contact the schools offering courses you're interested in to ask if there are likely to be places available in Clearing," advises Peter Lightbown at the University of Salford. "Make yourself known to the appropriate tutor so that they are aware of your commitment."
Spread your gaze. "Don't overlook partner colleges of universities that also offer university-approved foundation degrees and degrees, but do check how long they have been operating," says Mike Lister, head of Cornwall College, Camborne, a partner of the University of Plymouth. "You may find something on your doorstep that will save you loads of money, because you can study from home. There will still be opportunities to apply for most of our courses through Clearing."
Think laterally. "Could you choose a different course, but still get experience in your area with voluntary work?" asks Nikki Harford, senior assistant registrar at the University of Northampton. "Before Clearing, familiarise yourself with the Ucas website, and any university sites that run the courses you are interested in."
Write a list. "Take a note of each university's Clearing phone numbers and opening hours," says Helen Thurstan, recruitment manager at Staffordshire University. "And remember you're dealing with your future, so make the best decisions for you: don't be swayed by a friend's choice."
You may feel the strain as a student in this tough admissions year. But it's not all bad news. Some universities, such as St George's, University of London, have more places in this year's Clearing than last. "Trained support staff and student helpers will take calls and do the first screening to determine whether the candidate meets the entry requirements. If so, the candidate will be scheduled for an interview," says Martha Holland, head of student recruitment. So clear your diary.
Get up early. "Be prepared to act quickly," says the University of Lincoln's admissions manager, Caroline Connell. "The earlier you can get on the phone to us – we are open from 8am on Thursday – the more chance you will have of getting on the course you have chosen." Check when your desired universities open their hotlines – several are up and running by 7am.
Keep an eye on the Ucas website, Twitter and Facebook: universities use them to flag up spare places. "Our social media sites will be more vital than ever before for giving out advice and helping those going through Clearing," says Harford.
Seek advice from school and teachers. "We have trained staff in schools and colleges to advise students on what to do if they don't get into their chosen course," says Ross Renton, head of recruitment at the University of Hertfordshire.
Do it yourself. "Don't get your mum, dad or a friend to call up," says Peter Keel at the University of West London. "It won't look good."
Be specific. "Clearing tutors will be far more impressed by your application if you express a specific desire to come to their institution and give reasons for it," says Amy Croft, course director at Kingston University. "Explain the specific features of the course that attracted you."
Expect support. "Our Clearing training includes an intensive three-day programme highlighting upset callers, irate, persistent, difficult parents, and discussion of alternative programmes or retaking qualifications," says Bev Woodhams, head of recruitment at the University of Greenwich. "If callers are distressed, clearing staff know to listen and calm them."
Karen Pichlmann, head of admissions at Bournemouth University, says not to settle for something you don't want. "Don't make rash decisions – if you're not happy with the place, course or how long it takes you to go home for a weekend, it's going to have a detrimental effect on how you do." Jo Midgley, director of admissions at the University of the West of England, Bristol, adds: "Ring as many institutions as you want. You do not have to accept the first offer you receive."
What you must do
• Have all of your data to hand, including Clearing number and exam results.
• Be honest about your qualifications and experience.
• Tell tutors about research you've done on the course and institution – it shows commitment.
• Stay calm and polite.
• Say what you'd like to do post-university. Be enthusiastic, motivated, and prepared to travel to the university for interview if required.
What you must not say, according to the UK's most-experienced admissions tutors
• "I'm not sure what I want."
• "I'm desperate to find something ... anything."
• "I am interested in your course because my boyfriend is on it."
• "Will I have lots of free time to surf?"
• "How much do I have to attend lectures?"
• "How cheap is the beer?"
• "I'll do anything … What have you got?"
• "Hello, I'm calling on behalf of my son/daughter/great nephew …"
• "What can I get into with the qualifications I have?"
• "My dog died on the day I had to sit my exam, but I promise I'll work really hard if you let me in."
Don't miss the Fresher, our special guide to Clearing and your first year at university. Free in Thursday's Guardian
New buildings are reaching for the sky, but how do you to take them down?
The engineers who designed and built the very tallest, most skyscraping skyscrapers said very little about whether – let alone how – someone could safely disassemble such a colossus, should the need arise. About the only person who thought about it long and hard was the writer and illustrator David Macauley. Decades ago, Macauley published a children's book called Unbuilding. It explains, in words and highly detailed drawings, how to carefully, lovingly take apart the Empire State Building.
In the race to build ever-taller buildings, a problem lurks. These towers are so costly, and the real estate market unpredictable enough, that some of them could become financial failures. To simply abandon something nearly a quarter of a mile tall (the Empire State Building), then let it rot and crumble, would be unneighbourly on a grand scale.
Indeed, how would one disassemble one of the tallest skyscrapers without risking huge damage to its neighbourhood? And how would this work financially, if the tower needed to be disassembled because the owners ran out of money?
David Macauley tells how, if you have the money, to unbuild in a way that is "practical and safe". You take the building down "floor by floor in the reverse order in which it had been built".
These days, architecturally, things are looking up. The tallest building, currently, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, is more than twice the height of the Empire State Building. An architecture firm has just announced plans to erect something even taller, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Financially ... well, it's a thrilling time for new skyscrapers' owners, and perhaps soon for the neighbours.
The book Unbuilding, published in 1980, is a fantasy about the future. In it, the "Greater Riyadh Institute of Petroleum" needs a new headquarters. A Saudi Arabian prince decides, for symbolic purposes, to purchase the Empire State Building, and move it from New York City to Riyadh. (He chooses, on the basis of cost, to transport only those "portions of the building necessary to recreate its appearance", and build everything else.)
New Yorkers are at first outraged at the thought of losing their most beloved building. But after the Prince Ali offers the city new parks, museums, and other compensation, nearly everyone agrees to let him take the Empire State Building.
The book at this point has a passage that reads very differently, now in the year 2011, than it did in 1980:
"One desperate but clever preservationist suggested that the twin towers of the World Trade Centre be offered instead – both for the price of the Empire State. In declining the offer Ali suggested that he would be willing to consider pulling them down as a goodwill gesture. With this final show of generosity all remaining resistance crumbled."
Marc Abrahams
Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
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A skill or trade is now seen as second-best to a degree, but one freelance journalist has taken the radical step of advertising for an apprentice
Over my 10 years as a freelance journalist, I've become adept at juggling the demands of different editors, even when it has meant working into the early hours or getting up ludicrously early to meet a deadline. But in recent months, I've realised I need help. I have a stack of story leads, but no time to do the research and I've been turning work down – something no freelance wants to do.
With A-level results two days away and school leavers making big decisions about their futures, I've decided to recruit an apprentice to assist me with research, transcription, developing story ideas and – once they have enough experience under the belt – possibly even the writing of articles.
They'll work for me four days a week and spend a day a week working towards a business administration apprenticeship at Harlow College. For a strong candidate, there may also be an opportunity to study for a qualification from the National Council for the Training of Journalists. I want to give them as much hands-on experience as possible, so I'll be taking them along when I go out to cover stories and, where appropriate, getting them to do some interviewing.
Like many freelance journalists, I have a portfolio-style career, which includes writing for national newspapers, copywriting, training and university teaching. Sharing my workload should allow me to bring in new business and, ultimately, boost profits.
But my decision to hire an apprentice goes far beyond that. Through my work as an educational journalist, I've spoken to dozens of apprentices over the past few years and, without exception, I've been amazed by their maturity, commitment and willingness to learn. I believe we all have a responsibility to pass on our skills and experience to the next generation. And, in my own small way, I want to challenge the way we educate young people and prepare them for life.
I spent four years teaching English in secondary schools and now lecture in journalism at various universities. What worries me is that education is no longer a route to a career – it has become an end in itself. We keep young people in education for as long as possible, spit them out at the end, and wonder why they are not ready for work at the end of it.
And as a result of the last government's obsession with getting as many people into higher education as possible, having a skill or a trade – something that was once highly valued and respected in society – is now seen as somehow second-best to a degree.
At the same time, we've raised the bar for entry to occupations, such as journalism, that used to be classed as trades. A trainee journalist needs to be an accurate writer, have good research skills and – most importantly – have plenty of initiative and determination (these are certainly the qualities I'll be looking for in my apprentice). Everything else can be learned on the job.
Yet journalism – a trade in which employers used to grow their own staff, using apprenticeships and other kinds of traineeships – has largely become a graduate-entry profession. But a degree – or even an NCTJ qualification – is no guarantee of a job. For many aspiring journalists, the only way to get a foot in the door on most national newspapers or magazines is to do endless low-paid or unpaid internships, which is really only an option for those who can rely on the Bank of Mum and Dad to finance them.
To have a truly balanced press, journalism should be populated by people from all walks of life but – as in many influential professions – it is now largely populated by the most privileged. Research carried out by the Sutton Trust in 2006 showed that more than half the UK's leading news and current affairs journalists had been privately educated. Half of those who had been to university had been educated at Oxbridge.
Today only a handful of publications (mostly local newspapers) offer apprenticeships, and I'm fairly certain I am the first freelance journalist to do it. In fact, though there are hundreds of frameworks (outlining the specific skills needed to achieve the qualification) for apprenticeships, so few employers offer journalism that there is no specific framework. The few employers who do have journalistic apprentices have to be creative, adapting the framework for the advanced apprenticeship in either creative and digital media or – as I will be doing – business administration to suit their needs.
Skillset, the sector skills councils for the creative industries, is interested in the idea of creating a specific apprenticeship framework for journalism, but is still trying to gauge the appetite for this among employers. But journalism is lagging behind other industries, such as engineering, banking and IT, where British Gas, IBM, Deloitte and other companies are tapping into the potential of employing school leavers.
While being apprenticed to a freelance journalist may seem like an unusual way to train, it makes perfect sense in the current climate. These days many publications are realising they need fewer staff with different skills. And, with the economic downturn, no journalist can be complacent about job security. Understanding how to make a living from freelancing can keep journalists solvent when times get tough. If my apprentice does decide to progress into higher education – either at Harlow College or elsewhere – they will have the necessary skills to earn while they learn, which will give them a head start when it comes to getting their first job.
Reaction from friends and colleagues to my decision to recruit an apprentice was a sharp reminder of how little people generally know about vocational education. One friend started to lambast me for being exploitative, until I pointed out that, at £6.08 an hour, I'd be paying well above the national minimum wage for apprentices (£2.50 an hour) out of my own pocket. Another questioned whether an 18-year-old would have the skills to add anything to my business. It's an attitude that does a great disservice to young people.
The post is currently being advertised via the National Apprenticeship Service's online vacancy matching site. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to a two-day assessment workshop at Harlow College – which has an impressive list of journalistic alumni, including Piers Morgan, Jeremy Clarkson and the editor of this paper, Alan Rusbridger – where they will complete a variety of research and writing tasks.
As I start out on this journey, I have no doubt that I have as much to learn from my apprentice as she or he will learn from me. But if I can achieve one thing, in addition to giving a young person an opportunity to learn my trade, it will be to encourage others to follow suit. I'd love some of the big newspapers and publishing houses to be bold enough to grow their own talent through apprenticeships instead of cherry-picking the top graduates, as they do now. They might just be surprised at the results.
Councillors are the trustees of CILIP.
If you would like to contact one of the CILIP Councillors during 2011, please select an email address from the list below.
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Judy Broady-Preston |
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John Crawford |
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Andy Dawson |
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John Dolan |
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Isabel Hood |
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Jill Lambert |
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Dion Lindsay |
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Emma McDonald |
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Nick Poole |
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Bruce Royan |
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Katy Wrathall |
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Liz Jolly |
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Tony Durcan |
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Click on the links below to read biographies of the CILIP Councillors for 2012. A link at the bottom of each biography will take you to that Councillor's manifesto and nominating statements relating to the year in which they were elected.
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Councillor Biography |
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Maria Cotera |
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John Crawford |
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Andy Dawson |
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John Dolan (Chair of Council) |
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Toni Franck |
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Mike Hosking |
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Emma McDonald (Vice-Chair) |
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Liz McGettigan |
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Nick Poole (Treasurer) |
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Sue Westcott |
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Keith Wilson |
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At a time of economic constraint it is essential that libraries can evaluate usage and make a compelling case about the value of journal subscriptions.
But obtaining and analyzing usage data can be extremely labour intensive for librarians, with each library having to visit each publisher's website and download their own statistics.
Now 100 libraries are benefiting from the Journal Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP) which offers single sign-in access to this crucial information.
The JUSP Portal provides a single point of access for usage statistics, meaning that users can easily and quickly compare usage across various publishers, subscription or academic years and journal titles.
Ben Showers, programme manager at JISC, said, "Libraries that use JUSP can now download usage statistics at the click of a button, transforming what used to be an arduous and time consuming task into an opportunity to interrogate and analyse business critical statistics. Librarians will be able to ensure that their management decisions are based on evidence and the evolving needs of their users.”
If you are a UK university and would like to participate please complete two copies of the Library Participation Agreement and return to Anna Vernon at JISC Collections.
If you are a publisher or intermediary interested in participating please contact Anna Vernon on 0203 006 6008.
The portal is a JISC-funded service which is operated through a consortium including JISC Collections, Mimas at the University of Manchester, Evidence Base at Birmingham City University and Cranfield University.
Cliff Spencer, librarian at Newcastle University, said, "Evidence-based library decisions rely on the timely analysis of usage statistics. JUSP has quickly matured into a highly valued service largely due to the team's skill in solving problems and presenting complex data within a clear and well-structured user interface.”
He added that the portal saves time and money by reducing the administration load on libraries and fitting in with workflow patterns.
Sarah Weston, data manager at the University of Portsmouth, said, “The project has a real community feel to it, in that it actively responds to user input and I think it is a really good example of collaborative working - something we should be striving towards to avoid us needing to reinvent the wheel! I think the team has worked very well with libraries in seeking their input."
"The more publishers you can get on board the better!” said Kate Newell, e-resources and serials team leader at the University of Exeter, adding, “The JUSP portal is already proving to be invaluable to us."
Visit the project website or contact Jo Lambert for more information.
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