Examining the Influence of Multiple-Choice Test Formats on Student Performance

Innovative Higher Education - Learning gains associated with multiple-choice testing formats that provide immediate feedback (e.g., IFAT®) are often greater than those for typical...     

Between innovation and industrial policy: how Washington succeeds and fails at renewable energy

During its eight years in office, the Obama administration undertook an ambitious effort to transition the US economy towards the use of renewable energy technologies, and promote American leads in the global ‘cleantech’ industry. While many of the strategies selected to achieve these goals rendered positive results, others proved unproductive and/or politically toxic. Approaching the issue from a critical innovation framework (which focuses on the political and economic conditions under which the federal government is best able to promote technological change), this paper argues that the administration ignored some of the key conditions that have historically allowed Washington to succeed in promoting the uptake of new technologies. The paper describes the nature of these mistakes, and suggests an alternative way forward based on historical precedent.     

档案著录新视角：对档案真实性的证明

近来一些档案学者认为档案著录与其真实性之间存在联系.本文通过回顾一些论述档案著录与其真实性之间关系的文献,比较原文考证与档案鉴定对于判断档案真实性的作用,以及据此得出的三种研究思路,为理解档案著录与档案真实性的关系奠定了初步的基础.     

Trust and professional identity: narratives, counter-narratives and lingering ambiguities

In the field of archives, professional identity is constructed around the twin notions of archivists as trusted custodians and archival institutions as trusted repositories. This essay examines the historical links between professional identity and trust and the ways in which those links are being attenuated and reconfigured in the digital world. It argues that new information and communication technologies and shifting currents of thinking inside and outside the field of archives are challenging and transforming the archival understanding of the relationship between trust and professional identity.     

Contemporary Archival Diplomatics as a Method of Inquiry: Lessons Learned from Two Research Projects

This article explores the use of contemporary archival diplomatics as a method of inquiry in two recent electronic records research projects, namely,The Protection of the Integrity of Electronic Records Project (the UBC Project) and theInternational Research on the Preservation of Authentic Records in Electronic Records Systems Project (the InterPARES 1 Project). The first part of the article examines the historical and contemporary literary warrant underpinning diplomatics as a method of inquiry; the second part provides case studies of two illustrative examples of the process and results of the application of contemporary archival diplomatics in the abovementioned research projects; the third part considers the current status and possible future directions for the use of contemporary archival diplomatics as a research method and concludes with some observations about the value of multiple methods and alternative interpretive frameworks in archival research.     

From the memory of the act to the act itself.The evolution of written records as proof of jural acts in England, 11th to 17th century

This article traces the trajectory from distrust to trust in written records as proof of the conveyance of land in England between the eleventh and seventeenth centuries. During that period of time, such records were transformed from an aide-memoire of an essentially oral act, to the indisputable proof of the act they recorded and, finally, to the very embodiment of the act itself. The article focuses specifically on one particular class of conveyance, i.e., transfers of freehold interests in land held by free tenure, on one particular form of conveyance, i.e., feoffments with livery of seisin, and on one particular type of record, i.e., the charters that recorded such conveyances. The article concludes that the ascension of written proof by the end of the 17th century is attributable to a number of factors, among them, the growth of royal jurisdiction over land, the rise of literacy, the growth of commerce, and an increasing distrust on the part of the judiciary in the capacity of a lay jury to properly assess written records.