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Alternative credentials are rapidly evolving. The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities arising from this evolution with particular reference to their role in education and employment.

The paper explores the credential initiatives with a unique perspective from introducing alternative credential initiatives that have been influential in recent national policy developments. The paper is led by the experiences of the former General Manager of Microsoft's Education Products Group, former Vice-Chancellor of The Open University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University. His experiences and lessons learnt reflecting on alternative credential development during the last 30 years provides a unique insight in seeing the “signals” and moving beyond the “noise” of micro-credentials for successful integration into educational institutions.

A number of key findings are identified in terms of current development challenges that impact on alternative credential use and identifying further developments. Relevant examples and references are provided throughout, with a particular focus on North America, Europe and Australasia where the most progress has been made in alternative credentials.

Implications for those wishing to develop badging and microcredentialing solutions, especially in higher education, are identified for all seeking to maximise the success of alternative credential systems.

Martin Bean has a unique perspective having explored credential initiatives whilst General Manager of Microsoft's Education Products Group and whilst Vice-Chancellor of The Open University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University. Martin Bean has also been influential in recent national policy developments in Australia. Martin Bean’s experiences and lessons learnt witnessing alternative credential development during the last 30 years across three continents, and within both public and private sectors, are summarised here to provide context for discussions of some of the key global concepts and related work.

Retention is one of the key performance indicators in university quality assurance processes. The purpose of this paper is to identify the causes leading to low retention rates for first-year undergraduate computing students in a UK higher education institution (HEI).

The study applies Tinto’s student integration theory, and connects it with the behavioural patterns of students. Data were collected from 901 students using Pascarella and Terenzini’s questionnaire (integration scales). This data were combined with student enrolment information and analysed using the structural equation modelling technique.

The study results indicate that Tinto’s student integration theory is useful in analysing student retention, but this accounts for only a modest amount of variance in retention. Nevertheless, important relationships amongst student’s initial and later academic goals and commitments have been identified through this new approach to analysing retention. The largest direct effect on retention was accounted for by initial goals and institutional commitments, followed by later goals and institutional commitments. In addition, the results show that academic and social integration constructs can have an influence on the student retention processes. When all, or some, of these relationships are operating towards students’ benefits, appropriate services or programmes, such as student support systems, can have their maximum benefits.

The authors mapped behavioural-related retention factors using a learning community lens. The study explored students’ social and learning experiences within the context of a UK HEI by employing Tinto’s model. This is the first time the model has been tested in this context.

Prior research emphasises that organisational founders have a good deal of influence in organisational development and, where information and communication technogies (ICTs) are involved, a generic strategy is usually deployed by managers in order to deal with any resistance that might occur. Cognisant of this, the authors investigated the role played by a managing director of a small to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) consultancy in an ICT project associated with organisational development.

This study is based on an ethnography of an ICT related change management initiative which, theoretically, takes into account though from the social shaping of technology – specifically the idea that technologies in their broadest sense are subject to ongoing work beyond the design stage.

The authors argue that Markus' interaction theory of resistance still has relevance today and we extend it by emphasising the problem of homogenising users and downplaying their ability to appropriate resistance strategies in situ.

The study is based upon one group of individuals' experiences. Further case studies of resistance success are required which further highlight how this is achieved and why.

Those engaged with organisational development projects need to be better educated as to the reasons for resistance, particularly positive ones, and the methods by which this might take place.

This study conceptualises strategies for “overcoming” resistance as managerial technologies. Conceptualising them in this way shows the deployment of such technologies to be a complicated and active process where the audience for such things are involved in how they are received and appropriated to suit differing agendas.

OUR new volume opens in a grave moment in national history and it remains almost a marvel that libraries are Still not only able to persist, but even to expand their book‐work. Is it because of the truth in some admirable words of Charles Rupert Sanderson, in the Toronto Public Libraries Annual Report for 1941: “Whoever believes in democracy must believe in public libraries”? He goes on to say: “Unless any formal education period is to amount to little more than writing on the sand, it must be continued by a lifelong use of books—engendered in childhood, fostered in youth, and built into an adult habit.” Amongst the young people the need for books was never greater, and the difficulty of getting new books for them was never more marked. It is a time when older books should come into their own again. Another feature has been the desire for small collections of “lending books” in munition works, training centres, canteens, clubs and the innumerable other meeting places of men and women. The problem of the day is “time and again time.” There is none of it for travelling, even to libraries, although in the said centres men and women have often to Stand by for hours when they could, and would, read. Librarians have used the opportunity and may be called upon for more of these “dispersal” activities. Otherwise, with all our problems, of which as the writer on Letters on Our Affairs suggests, the greatest is books, although the staff problem is acute, our work flourishes so far as book‐use is concerned. Librarians have faith that a culture so based on books will outlast present cataclysms. People who can read can endure and people who endure can fight, both directly and indirectly, and keep on doing it.

IN The verdict of you all, Rupert Croft‐Cooke has some uncomplimentary things to say about novel readers as a class, which is at least an unusual look at his public by a practitioner whose income for many years was provided by those he denigrates.

This study examines the strategies used, and the challenges faced, by global sport company adidas as it established a major sponsorship deal with the New Zealand Rugby Football Union. In particular the study focuses on how adidas 'localised' into the New Zealand market, how they used the All Blacks as part of their global marketing campaign and, the resistance they encountered based on claims they were exploiting the Maori haka.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate optimal resources to promote resilience in staff working in inpatient mental health services. The study also provides an example of card sorting methodology used as an efficient way to identify the most helpful resources for resilience.

In total, 25 clinical staff participated in the study. A preliminary focus group and brief literature search identified resources used in two tasks. Two card sorting tasks identified resources participants found helpful vs unhelpful and abundant vs scarce, and resources they would find valuable to use more often.

The results indicate that most resources helpful to resilience and available to staff were personal resources (relating to positive outlooks or ways of working), whereas resources valuable to resilience but scarce in the working environment were organisational resources (relating to management or social workplace culture). Resources found to not be valuable to resilience were largely personal tangible resources (e.g. smoking, massages).

The findings and method may be generalisable to other mental health services, giving insight into promoting resilience within individuals and organisations. This information could serve as guidelines to streamline the allocation of organisational resources to best promote resilience across various mental health settings.

Staff resilience to working in mental health services contributes to high-quality, sustainable patient care. This study provides further insight into how personal and organisational resources are both vital to resilience in staff working in highly challenging environments.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the career motivations of future counseling professionals.

Students completing their Masters of Counseling (n=174) responded to a 30 min survey about their career motivations, counseling career choice satisfaction, planned persistence in the counseling profession and perceptions of the demand and reward structure offered by counseling work. Motivational profiles were educed using hierarchical cluster analysis and compared via MANOVA.

Four distinct profiles were identified: “moderately engaged with family values,” “lower engaged,” “altruistic with family values” and “multiply motivated.” Clusters differed in their perceptions of the demand and reward structure offered by a counseling career, and their level of satisfaction with, and planned persistence in the profession. Cluster composition was unrelated to age, gender or pursuit of previous careers.

Implications for educators pertain to capitalizing on career motivations for different types of entrants, to tailor recruitment and professional preparation.

The authors add to existing literature by drawing on the theoretical lens of expectancy-value theory in a person-centered approach, to the study of counselor motivations, professional perceptions and career choice satisfaction.

The utterance at a recent council estimates meeting of an Alderman to the effect that he opposed increase of the book‐fund of the libraries in the town because, whenever he wanted a book, he bought it, was, we suspect, a vainglorious one used for a special purpose and time. It was obviously, too, that of a man who may read on occasion, but is not a regular user of books. There are many such and, no doubt, their limited point of view is to be encouraged, so far as book‐purchase is concerned. What it disregards, or does not understand, is that the real reader cannot easily contemplate life without books; he never has enough of them, even if he is not a hoarder of them. There are thousands such. Their homes are not large enough, and their purses are too limited, for them to buy everything they want to read. The “Alderman” can feel that books are cheap; he spends more, if he has the means, on a box of cigars, or a bottle of whiskey, than any ordinary book costs. A single visit to a theatre with his wife (with the inevitable accompanying dinner or supper and transport) costs him more than a shelf of them. If he throws away the book when read, or rejected—for only a few such books are read through by the type under consideration—that is of little more con‐sideration than his disposal of cigar ash or used theatre tickets. In this stringent time the greater part of the community depends upon the borrowed book. Inevitably this will increasingly be the case. Every man and woman, however, who loves books desires to possess them, and every wise librarian encourages that desire. It can reduce the use of libraries very little, if at all, and our business as librarians should be to provide for the literate nation, indeed to assist its making. There are many ways in which this might be done—the provision of lists on “Books for Every Home” with clear notes on why, for it must be realized that not every citizen knows the books that are commonplace tools. In how many homes, for instance, is Whittaker's Almanack to be found? A reference book, of course; but almost the first need of a household is a set of the best tools of this sort. Has any library yet issued a list with this special intention? Say, “Six Books necessary to Every Home”? We assume that when a reader is passionately drawn to a book he must buy it, but such attraction is mainly felt by those who are already book‐lovers. For others there are such questions as, where shall we put the books suggested? An answer may be that every librarian, in his own area, should urge that built‐in bookcases should be a feature in every house plan. He might do much to solve a real problem. He can continue, too, to assist book‐buying by his periodic exhibitions of books for prizes, presents (Christmas and birthday) and help to answer the question, “What books of great literature ought to be in every home for children and for life‐keeping?” His every convert would become also a life user of libraries.

This paper looks at some of the major trends in the UK newspaper industry – circulation shifts, format changes, ethical controversies, the re‐emergence of the frees, the revival of the alternatives – in the context of the debate over trust in the mainstream media and political elites. It also identifies the elements of authentic communication that are needed for trust to exist between the newspaper writer/producer and the reader. The radical newspapers of the early 19th century are presented as examples of authentic journalism. While there are opportunities for the development of authentic journalism within the mainstream, it is suggested that the internet and today’s alternative press are opening up the best possibilities for the development of trustworthy media.