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The article deals with competition between primary schools in Berlin. The focus is on the perception of competition and the process of student selection – despite school law restrictions for primary state schools. The aim is to find out whether and in what way primary school leaders perceive a competitive situation and how they act in view of second-order competition.

Berlin primary school leaders' statements were analyzed, which were collected and evaluated using quantitative and qualitative methods.

Results show that schools with a good reputation are more likely to benefit from competition because a good reputation may increase the demand for spots at that school and may enable the school to select “desirable” students. State school leaders are more limited in their actions, while private school principals are more autonomous and are better able to make a match between a school's orientation and families' ideas.

The study is limited by its small sample size, yet it provides a basis for further research and gives much needed attention to selection processes at primary schools in Germany.

This is one of a few studies looking at the perspectives of primary school leaders regarding the competitive situation and in particular the selection of students.

This study aims to answer the research question: How to evaluate the structure of global university sustainability rankings according to the Berlin Principles (BP) framework.

The authors investigated two global sustainability rankings in universities, The UI green metric World University Ranking (WUR) and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE-WUR). The authors performed content analysis regarding their evaluation criteria and assessed both rankings using the BP framework.

Results show that there is still a gap to be filled regarding the specificity of global university sustainability rankings. Although the THE-WUR had a better performance in this research, there are several items for improvement, especially regarding the methodological procedures. There are structural differences, limitations and points for improvement in both rankings. Besides, it may not be possible to have a unique and more appropriate ranking, but one that can be more suitable for a contextual reality.

This study can be helpful for university managers when deliberating on the most appropriate ranking for their institutions and better preparing their higher education institutions for participating in sustainability-related rankings. Besides, it suggests possible improvements on the rankings’ criteria.

The authors shed light on challenges for improving the existing university sustainability rankings, besides generating insights for developing new ones. In a provocative but constructive perspective, the authors question their bases and understandings of being “the best university” regarding sustainability.

This is the first study that provides an in-depth analysis and comparison between two of the most important global university sustainability rankings.

Much has been analyzed regarding the origins and the impact of rankings and metrics on policies, behaviors, and missions of universities. Surprisingly, little attention has been allocated to describing and analyzing the emergence of metrics as a new action field. This industry, fueled by the “new public management” policy perspectives that operate at the backstage of the contemporary pervasive “regime of excellence,” still remains a black box worth exploring in depth. This paper intends to fill this loophole. It first sets the stage for this new action field by stressing the differences between the policy fields of higher education in the United States and Europe, as a way to understand the specificities of the use of metrics and rankings on both continents. The second part describes the actors of the field, which productive organizations they build, what skills they combine, which products they put on the market, and their shared norms and audiences.

The purpose of this paper is to present how the JISC Usage Statistics Review Project aims to formulate a fundamental scheme for recording usage data and to propose a standard for its aggregation to provide meaningful and comparable item‐level usage statistics for electronic documents such as, for example, research papers and scientific resources.

A core element of the project has been a stakeholder workshop. This workshop was held in Berlin, 7/8 July 2008. Representatives of key stakeholder groups (repositories, libraries, COUNTER, IRStats, JISC, LogEc, MESUR, OA‐Statistics and other Open Access projects) were invited. During the workshop a fundamental scheme for the recording and the exchange of log files was discussed as well as the normalization of data collected.

The following mandatory elements describing usage events were agreed during the stakeholder workshop: Who – identification of user/session, What – item identification and type of request performed (e.g. full‐text, front‐page, including failed/partially fulfilled requests), When – date and time, usage event ID. The following elements were regarded as optional: From where – referrer/the referring entity and identity of the service. Usage events should be exchanged in the form of OpenURL Context Objects using OAI. Automated access (e.g. robots) should be tagged. The definition of automated access has to be straightforward with an option of gradual refinement. Users have to be identified unambiguously, but without recording personal data to avoid conflicts with privacy laws. Policies on statistics should be formulated for the repository community as well as the publishing community. Information about statistics policies should be available on services like OpenDOAR and RoMEO.

The paper is based on the detailed project report to the JISC, available at http://ie‐repository.jisc.ac.uk/250/

The purpose of this paper is to give an account for preparative collaboration between the police and municipal eldercare in Sweden concerning missing persons with dementia.

Design/methodology/approach used was a qualitative case study design, consisting of one focus group with representatives for the participating organisations, followed by directed content analysis.

The findings showed a lack of current collaboration and reluctance to new collaborative initiatives. However, when focussing on preparative collaboration of coordinated responses to missing incidents, possibilities for improvement could be identified. The improvements concerned updated personnel response checklists, along with suggestions for an elaborate life story document in eldercare, with police access. Finally, better coordination of the return of the found person and a follow up were proposed.

It is suggested that collaboration must be given different meanings and use different approaches adapted to the different phases in a rescue operation. In the preparation and the response phase, the focus should be on coordination of the resources available. In the pre-planning and prevention phases, as well as in evaluation and learning, horizontal collaboration is more suitable. The amount of data in this study is a research limitation which calls for further research.

It is suggested that collaboration must be given different meanings and use different approaches adapted to the different phases in a rescue operation. In the preparation and the response phase, the focus should be on coordination of the resources available. In the pre-planning and prevention phases, as well as in evaluation and learning, horizontal co-operation is more suitable.

The originality/value of this paper can be found in the novelty of missing person research in Sweden, and in practical suggestions for preparative collaboration concerning persons with dementia who go missing. Finally, it can be found in the suggested need for a more dynamic and process-sensitive view of collaboration in SAR or rescue operations.

This study aims to analyse and evaluate the methodology followed by the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THE-IR), as well as the coverage obtained and the data offered by this ranking, to determine if its methodology reflects the degree of sustainability of universities, and whether their results are accurate enough to be used as a data source for research and strategic decision-making.

A summative content analysis of the THE-IR methodology was conducted, paying special attention to the macro-structure (university score) and micro-structure (sustainable development goals [SDG] score) levels of the research-related metrics. Then, the data published by THE-IR in the 2019, 2020 and 2021 edition was collected via web scraping. After that, all the data was statistically analysed to find out performance rates, SDGs’ success rates and geographic distributions. Finally, a pairwise comparison of the THE-IR against the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE-WUR) was conducted to calculate overlap measures.

Severe inconsistencies in the THE-IR methodology have been found, offering a distorted view of sustainability in higher education institutions, allowing different strategic actions to participate in the ranking (interested, strategic, committed and outperformer universities). The observed growing number of universities from developing countries and the absence of world-class universities reflect an opportunity for less-esteemed institutions, which might have a chance to gain reputation based on their efforts towards sustainability, but from a flawed ranking which should be avoided for decision-making.

University managers can be aware of the THE-IR validity when demanding informed decisions. University ranking researchers and practitioners can access a detailed analysis of the THE-IR to determine its properties as a ranking and use raw data from THE-IR in other studies or reports. Policy makers can use the main findings of this work to avoid misinterpretations when developing public policies related to the evaluation of the contribution of universities to the SDGs. Otherwise, these results can help the ranking publisher to improve some of the inconsistencies found in this study.

Given the global audience of the THE-IR, this work contributes to minimising the distorted vision that the THE-IR projects about sustainability in higher education institutions, and alerts governments, higher education bodies and policy makers to take precautions when making decisions based on this ranking.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this contribution is the first providing an analysis of the THE-IR’s methodology. The faults in the methodology, the coverage at the country-level and the overlap between THE-IR and THE-WUR have unveiled the existence of specific strategies in the participation of universities, of interest both for experts in university rankings and SDGs.

This paper aims to provide a review of recent trends in the open access (OA) movement, as well as to discuss the significance of those trends for information access in developing countries.

An analysis of the recent literature was carried out, focusing on the benefits of a greater information access in developing countries. The paper also brings together the diverse experiences from the authors on OA publishing and archiving with institutions in a number of developing countries.

Knowledge workers in developing countries are now getting access to scholarly and scientific publications and electronic resources at a level that is unmatched historically. This is highly significant, if developing countries are to meet the millennium development goals. The OA movement and the growing number of Open Archive Initiative‐compliant institutional repositories promise to provide even greater access to resources and publications that were previously inaccessible. These low cost technology and interoperability standards are providing great opportunities for libraries and publishers in developing countries to disseminate local research and to bridge the south‐north knowledge gap.

This paper therefore provides recommendations for knowledge workers on how to actively participate in and contribute to the global knowledge commons. The results and recommendations contained in the paper should be of interest to authors, policy makers, funding agencies and information professionals in both developing and developed countries.

In this chapter, we develop a conceptual framework on how cultural value can be lost in conflict and created by the arts, artists and arts organisations again and how the arts may also help victims of conflict. We explore examples of the different ways that the effects of cultural engagement are manifested and articulated in the depiction of armed conflict, especially looking at the civil war in Syria (2011–present as of 2020) and discuss three stages in the life-cycle of cultural value. Our conceptual framework of cultural value in the depiction of armed conflict is based on the multifaceted private, public, intrinsic and instrumental benefits of the arts as well as the cultural value created by arts, artists and arts organisations. We discuss universal value at the first stage of a potential loss of cultural value. The second stage addresses the politics of aesthetic value, as the cultural value created by artists and artistic activities which may evolve during armed conflict with examples of two international war artists, John Keane and Ben Quilty. Finally, we review social value as the impact of the cultural value created in overcoming armed conflict as well as restoring and transforming impaired individuals, communities and societies. Within this context, we reinforce the notion of cultural value as an alternative framework for understanding the value constructs surrounding the creation of art in this chapter.

Academic libraries are undergoing a paradigm shift of service, due to various changes in their environment and internally. The maker culture is one of these factors and implies challenges regarding space, infrastructures, and services organization. This situation extends to research support services, in which the users have a particular informative behavior. This chapter aims to analyze whether the academic library has created research support services adapted to the era of maker culture. It examines how research is a key factor in the higher education system to contextualize the importance of research support services in academic libraries. How the researcher accepts or not the role of academic libraries in the process of production and communication of research is studied. As critical elements of the process, we examine part of researcher information behavior in the era of maker culture and the relationship of these users with librarians.