Mind the Gap: Using UK Parliamentary Sources to Enhance Teaching

Online primary parliamentary sources can be of great value in teaching Parliament-related courses and a valuable means of promoting the development of students' research and analytical skills; particularly taking into account the research habits of the modern student population. Through a series of focus groups with politics students and a national survey of politics lecturers, the perceptions and current use of the UK Parliament website in teaching are analysed. It was found that a considerable number of lecturers are making use of the website for teaching purposes, though this is usually at a very basic and often superficial level. Barriers to the use of parliamentary resources include a lack of awareness of the types and variety of parliamentary material, difficulties in finding appropriate material on the Parliament website and a lack of understanding on the part of lecturers as to how to use this material effectively in lectures and seminars.     

Authoritarian Integrative Governance in China: Understanding the Crucial Role of Political Risk Aversion

Establishing a model of public administration distinct from those of Western countries has been a long standing hope of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese government. Using the Creating a National Healthy City (CNHC) campaign as a case study, this article demonstrates evidence for an emerging authoritarian integrative governance model (AIGM) in China. Given their limited and scattered resources in terms of both bureaucratic structure and geography, local government officials cannot effectively complete the numerous tasks transferred to them from higher‐level government offices. Therefore, relying on an authoritative system to integrate dispersed resources has become a rational solution. The emergence of AIGM is more contingent upon the weighing the political risks that originate from competition between different political ideologies, environmental feedback on the failure or success of solutions to bureaucratic problems are considered less significant, which furthers allow the emergence of AIGM to be an inevitable consequence. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public sector leadership‐subordinate ethical diffusion conundrum: perspectives from developing African countries

The interaction between organizational superiors and their subordinates has a practical implication on the entire organizational life cycle in terms of ethical conduct. This study explores how ethics among public leadership could trickle down on the conduct of public employees by using two empirical cases from developing African countries context. Using the attraction–selection–attrition and social learning models, the study assesses how superiors influence street level bureaucrats' interaction with clients or customers. Drawing from existing cases and other secondary data, we propose a leadership‐ethical diffusion model that argues that subordinates' perception and experience of superiors' behavior tend to create a kind of organizational ‘ethical groupthink’, which spans the rank and file of the organization. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Learning to Mediate? The Mediation Support Unit and the Production of Expertise by the UN

The UN Mediation Support Unit (MSU) was created to support peace processes and enable organizational learning. This article analyses the unit through a sociological lens with the aim to understand its present configuration, and what this reveals about the production of knowledge about mediation at the UN. It argues that, because of the constraints imposed by intrastate wars and the existing institutional setting within the Secretariat, the MSU emphasizes generic and depoliticized expertise, by contrast with mediation's traditional reliance on non-transferable skills. This approach, in spite of its pitfalls, enables the unit to justify its own existence and to claim a position of authority within the organization and beyond.     

The use of simulated crime scenes in teaching undergraduate forensic sciences: Implementing an active learning approach to forensics

Incorporating a simulated crime scene into one’s pedagogy in forensic science undergraduate courses allows students the opportunity to experience a realistic scenario while demonstrating their knowledge and enhancing their critical thinking skills. The purpose of this paper is to examine an active learning approach to using simulated crime scenes to provide an impactful learning experience for students. While potentially challenging for the instructor, constructing a crime scene scenario can provide students with hands-on practical experience while helping to dispel forensic science misconceptions. Through many years of creating crime scenes, best practices for using such high impact activities in forensic science courses are described in detail, including preparatory exercises that culminate in the final crime scene scenario, considerations in preparing and constructing a crime scene activity, and supervising and assessing students once the activity begins. Three major challenges to implementing active learning exercises such as simulated crime scenes in undergraduate forensic science programs include high workload for instructors, limited supplies, and lack of suitable facilities. Workload solutions include instructors and departments considering the cost and benefit of course releases to improve curriculum and student enrollment. Supplies and facilities solutions involve innovation in reuse and repurposing of supplies, and instructor flexibility in using classroom and outdoor spaces.     

混合式学习理念下Access数据库教学改革探讨

在高等职业院校中,Access数据库为考核学生计算机掌握水平的重要标准之一。在传统的Access数据库教学模式中,由于教学方式单一、枯燥,学生普遍存在学习积极性不强,上机操作时无法集中注意力的问题。针对存在的这一现象,相关学者及专家提出了将混合式学习理念充分融入Access数据库教学模式中的设想。在混合式学习理念下的Access数据库教学模式中,完善教学环境构建;在实际的Access数据库教学过程中,通常采用以项目为主线,以教学任务为驱动的教学方法;对于无法由课堂教学解决的问题,教师可通过运用在线教学中的资源学习中心及多媒体教学进行有效解决;在混合式学习的测评环节中,教师可以将学生期末的考试成绩、平时在线测试所得成绩、小组的测评成绩以及学生的自我评价按一定的权重进行综合评价。混合式教学法能充分激发学生学习热情,大大提高了教学效果;基于混合式理念下的Access数据库教学,通过采用上课、上机、上网三者相结合的教学形式,使学生实现了随时随地学习;通过对整个教学进行改革,实现了试题库、任务库等学习资源库的完善,大大提高了Access数据库教学质量及效率。     

Secondary learning and the unintended benefits of collaborative mechanisms: The Federal Aviation Administration's voluntary disclosure programs

Along with other types of process‐oriented regulation, voluntary disclosure programs are increasingly used by regulatory agencies to supplement traditional inspection activities. Voluntary disclosure programs provide incentives, such as immunity or reduced regulatory enforcement to those submitting reports, while providing regulatory agencies with valuable information on existing risks and areas of non‐compliance. This article contributes to the discussion of voluntary disclosure programs by highlighting an important unconsidered benefit of such programs: the secondary learning they generate, above and beyond information about violations. Beyond the information submitted by firms contained in the self‐disclosures, the programs generate information and insights about the usual practices of the industry, the division of labor, typical problems, and ways to handle them – those details often invisible to those outside an organization or inside the organization but not “on the ground.” This additional information provides important benefits to both industry management and agency officials. We demonstrate the existence of secondary learning and describe the effect of the structure of voluntary programs on secondary learning with evidence from two case studies of the Federal Aviation Administration's voluntary disclosure programs: the Aviation Safety Action Program and the Voluntary Disclosure Reporting Program.     

毛泽东与延安学习哲学运动

延安时期,在毛泽东的率先垂范和大力号召、组织下,中国共产党掀起了全党范围的规模空前的学习哲学高潮,通过成立学习哲学的团体、出版马列主义的哲学著作、举办哲学演讲和哲学学习经验交流会等方式,对党的理论建设、实事求是路线的确立等起了很大的作用,取得了显著的效果。     

“四台一站”自主学习虚拟环境建设

“四台一站”的建设为提高公安工作整体效能和公安队伍核心战斗力奠定了坚实的基础。尽快掌握信息化操作技能、公安信息化管理“四台一站”操作技法和作战技能是时代对每个警务工作者的迫切要求。本文结合公安实际需要,采用虚拟仿真技术构建公安信息化管理“四台一站”自主学习虚拟环境,以促进信息化高端应用培训有效进行。