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In recent years there has been a constant growth in digital portfolio use in tertiary education. Portfolios are used by educational institutions for assessment, as a showcase of both student and institution work, and with an increasing trend also as a tool for higher employability of graduates and support of lifelong learning. This chapter introduces concepts of portfolio, digital portfolio, language portfolio, autonomy, and self-assessment. It approaches both positivist and constructivist paradigms of digital portfolio and presents examples of ePortfolio implementation at the University of Pardubice. Selected examples of good practice with respect to autonomous learning, experiential learning, and international cooperation are also given.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the journey of a young person with severe and complex communication needs from no formal expressive communication system, to a point where he is motivated and able to use a text based voice output communication aid for a range of communication functions, in a variety of settings, and with a range of communication partners.

The paper is a descriptive single case study, documenting long‐term changes in speech, language, and communication needs and use, and discontinuation of use, of range of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) tools.

The paper describes the different AAC interventions and their success or otherwise in supporting the young person. It also describes key educational and therapeutic aspects of his management. Changes in the young person's interaction, language and literacy skills, and how his family and the professionals around him perceived the changes in his communication are highlighted.

The paper is a description of one person without a known underlying diagnosis of his severe and complex communication impairment and might, therefore, be of restricted use when generalized.

There are few published longitudinal descriptions concerning how, why, and when young people use or discard AAC tools. This paper highlights the multiple and various factors of the factors that can be at work when actually providing intervention.

This chapter explores queer theory as a “thought of a method” in educational ethnography by sharing stories of two third grade boys and situating them in a discussion of Britzman’s ideas about reading and Butler’s notion of fantasy. The stories are presented as a possible queer educational ethnography, in which the ethnographer writes the fantastic narrative of the boys as they read creatively to reveal and unsettle gender and reading as sites of constraint to which other constraints adhere. The boys’ reading itself is a queer reading of these constraints and as such makes alterity visible and possible. The study and the methodological framework suggest that educational ethnographers and other adults who work in schools should become attuned to the markers of constraint and alterity, so as to recognize, shelter, and maintain the alterity that children make possible. The chapter asserts children must be allowed to read for alterity, and shows how fantastic narratives that emerge from such readings are limited by the hushing of individuals who disallow alterity in classrooms. Ultimately, this chapter is relevant to ethnographers of education in that it suggests that queer theory not only is necessary to narrate and thus shelter the ways that gender can and should be unsettled in classrooms, but also allows us to narrate and shelter other queer urgencies related to fear, violence, and vulnerability that children experience or share in classrooms. Implications for the current climate of school reform based on standardization of curriculum are also discussed.

All the indications are that the recession, having savaged industry mercilessly over the last couple of years, has turned its baleful attention on the consumer. Since March 1981 real incomes have been falling, and the forecast (by Capel‐Cure Myers) is that this erosion of real incomes will continue this year. Unemployment — the most tragic affliction of society — is, as is well known, around the 3 million mark; the significant point here is that regional variations are not only substantial but that they create a marked discrepancy between employment levels in the north and north‐west as opposed to the south and south‐east. The national unemployment average stands at 11.7% — but it is 14.8% in the north and only 8.7% in the south east. Even an area such as the Midlands, traditionally prosperous, is now having to receive assistance. This gap will continue to widen. The DoE forecasts that only 1% of new jobs will be created in the north‐west to 1986, 2% in the north and 3% in Wales — as against 34% in the south‐east. There is also clear evidence that investment increasingly favours the south and south east at the expense of the north and west; rental growth south of the Humber/Severn line is now several points higher than in the north. How is the retail sector responding to this economic polarisation? At a conference on Merchandising organised by the Retail Management Development Programme in March, it was evident that it is going to be a factor at the forefront of retail management awareness when planning capital investment programmes. As David Malpas of Tesco commented: “it is as interesting to speculate about Asda's enthusiasm for obtaining planning consents in the south, as it is to note that much of Sainsbury's strength has turned on concentrating their business in the south and east.” And the type of premises developed may well begin to show marked differences in line with this economic polarisation. Three years ago Tesco forecast that retailers in the more depressed areas would trade increasingly out of stripped‐down, limited range discount stores. The effects of the polarisation will inevitably spread to the types of merchandise; Tesco have already announced they are extending their test market for generics further south, to Yorkshire and the north‐east following their initial test in Scotland. But while the larger supermarket groups continue to major on fresh foods, there seems — inexplicably — no market yet for downmarket fresh food. Yet, with women being thrown out of work at a faster rate than men, and with real incomes declining, it would seem logical that more time and less money should prompt more careful shopping and cooking. When the question was put to David Malpas at the conference, he confessed himself baffled. “It's a paradox,” he said, “I see women piling up their trolleys with expensive convenience foods when they should buy better ingredients at cheaper cost.” With economic reality becoming harsher, will the price of such capriciousness soon affect spending patterns? Looking at the country as a whole, what will people be spending their money on in the immediate future? John Richards of Capel‐Cure forecast a rosy future for home entertainment, especially video, audio and photography; and for sports equipment and clothing. And DIY still looks good. But he was doubtful about clothing, women's cosmetics and jewellery. And the beer market looks cloudy. In this report on the merchandising conference we concentrate our attention on two papers only — the economic background provided by Tony MacNeary and John Richards of Capel‐Cure Myers, and the implications of this for the retailer by Tesco's David Malpas. These papers, we feel, are deeply significant for everybody in the retail and distribution sector.

The latest in our series of Management Classics features an article by the founding father of action learning. Professor Reg Revans. It originally appeared in the Malaysian Management Review.

The purpose of this article is to provide an interview with the Director of Product Management at LogiXML.

The article is an interview with David Abramson.

The interview highlights that, in the past, reporting and business intelligence (BI) was IT‐centric – an organisation's IT department was in charge of delivering reports to the user of that output. However, as the workforce has become increasingly sophisticated in terms of data so the actual consumers of that information want to interact with the data and develop individualized reports for themselves.

The interview highlights the changes in the business intelligence sector.

The present chapter reviews part of the literature that focuses on dark tourism and dark consumption. The main theories were placed under the critical lens of scrutiny. With strongholds and weaknesses, dark tourism seems to be enframed in an ‘economic-based paradigm’, which prioritises the managerial perspective over other methods. Like Dark Tourist, the Netflix documentary assessed in this chapter, this academic perspective accepts that the tourist's experience is the only valid source of information to understand the phenomenon. Rather, we hold the thesis that far from being a local trend, dark tourism evinces a morbid drive which not only emerges recently but involves other facets and spheres of society. We coin the term Thana-capitalism to denote a passage from risk society to a new stage, where the Other's death is situated as the main commodity to exchange. The risk society as it was imagined by Beck, set finally the pace to thana-capitalism. Dark Tourist proffers an interesting platform to gain further understanding of this slippery matter. In sharp contrast to Seaton, Sharpley or Stone, we argue that dark tourists are unable to create empathy with the victims. Instead, they visit these types of marginal destinations in order to re-elaborate a political attachment with their institutions. They consume the Other's pain not only to feel unique and special (a word that sounds all the time in the documentary) but also to affirm their privileged role as part of the selected peoples.