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When a study involves human participants, researchers need to ensure their safety and protect their identities. How do potential participants know what they are agreeing to contribute, and how and why the research is being conducted? Informed consent describes the process and agreements that answer such questions. Conventional consent protocols focused on preresearch discussions between the researcher and the potential participant, resulting in a signed document that verified the agreement. In research conducted with, on, or through social media, there are fewer opportunities for conversational explanations of formal documents. Simply posting legalistic documents is ineffective because Internet users typically do not read such materials before verifying agreement. Researchers need to understand communities, contexts, and communication styles of target participants and settings in order to provide information in familiar, user-friendly ways. Based on a review of literature about informed consent, and a study of current practices used by companies that need to verify agreements online, practical research suggestions are offered. Qualitative researchers who want to collect data through active interactions with human participants will find these examples and recommendations of use when designing their studies.

This paper aims to examine two issues: whether provisions on frivolous claims in the European Union (EU)–Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA) would be Vietnam’s intrinsic demand, and to what extent, Vietnam may enjoy the benefits from these provisions.

This paper combines both doctrinal legal analysis and policy research. It offers an in-depth case study of the provisions on frivolous claims in the EVIPA, compares them with those of other existing international investment agreements and arbitrations rules, examines how similar provisions in these instruments are interpreted in available practical international investment disputes, uncovers the Vietnam’s position through interviewing Vietnamese senior experts, who were members of the Vietnamese delegation negotiating the EVIPA, and through available collected data and then evaluates whether these provisions may be favourable to this country.

While the new investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism in the EVIPA can be viewed as explicit evidence of the EU’s achievement, it may also be Vietnam’s benefits to entertain new ISDS provisions on frivolous claims. They were drafted, based on the ISDS arbitration practice, states’ experience and actual situations in Vietnam. These novel provisions, among other things, serve as Vietnam’s prerequisites to consider whether to accept the new two-tier standing mechanism or not. The inclusion of such ISDS provisions in the EVIPA, therefore, is supposed to meet the Vietnam’s intrinsic demands for defending against unfounded frivolous cases.

This is the first time the EU concluded an investment treaty containing innovative ISDS provisions with a developing country. This paper therefore may help envisage Vietnam’s perspective during its negotiation of provisions on frivolous claims in the EVIPA and prove that the avails of these provisions to a frequent respondent State like Vietnam can be realised. The paper’s findings mean for research in investment law as well as for policymakers as far as the frivolous cases are concerned.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how interlibrary loan practice and access to electronic resources in Canada are affected by copyright law, copyright collectives, and license agreements.

The author summarizes the current Canadian copyright laws and copyright collectives governing interlibrary loan practices, reviews the terms of typical electronic resource license agreements, describes how copyright laws in the USA are often imposed upon Canadian libraries through their various license agreements, and discusses the confusion created by these often conflicting obligations.

Although the current state of Canadian copyright law creates confusion for libraries, the promise of new legislation and future Supreme Court rulings may help resolve some thorny issues.

The paper provides a thorough review of Canadian copyright law as it pertains to interlibrary loan practices. It should be of great interest to any interlibrary loan practitioner who is interested in copyright issues, licensing agreements, and their combined impact upon the future of resource sharing.

This study aims to offer novel insights on how industrial marketing might contribute to bringing innovations to market in the peculiar case of health care. This study aims at shedding first light on how the alignment between dissemination and exploitation activities might contribute to bringing to market innovations developed by public–private partnerships funded by the European Commission (EC).

The theoretical development comes from an inductive research design based on the 42-month pan-European H2020 research project NESTORE aimed at developing an integrated portfolio of innovations for the healthy aging of European citizens.

This study advances the theory and practice of industrial marketing in health care by conceptualizing an actionable method to align dissemination and exploitation activities within EC-funded projects, facilitating that innovations will go to market. The method is composed of five phases. First, an external analysis to define market opportunities and users’/stakeholders’ needs. Second, an internal analysis to identify the most promising exploitable outputs. Third, scenarios crystallization to define the most suitable scenarios (business models) to bring the selected exploitable outputs to market. Fourth, exploitation and dissemination alignment through the identification and involvement of the most relevant stakeholders. Fifth, scenario refinement and business plan.

This study is relevant because many EC-funded projects still fail to move innovations from labs to market, thus limiting the benefits for the European citizens and the competitiveness of Europe with respect to the USA and China. Although this relevance, past studies overlooked the peculiar context of EC-funded innovation projects, privileging pharmaceutical and biomedical companies. This study advance theory and practice of industrial marketing in health care.

Tax research services are now available on the Web. Other formats include print, online, and CD‐ROM. Academic librarians are faced with choosing between the formats in the face of decreasing budgets and competing institutional needs. This article first examines the changes in format of tax services and outlines those services available to academic libraries. Next, the Web‐based products of the two major publishers, CCH Internet Tax Research Network and RIA Checkpoint, are compared on a number of factors. Differences in the needs between professional and academic subscriptions are evaluated. Finally, several issues are outlined that need to be considered before implementing a Web‐based tax service in an academic library.

This is a case study on the opportunities provided by Open Source library systems and the experience of delivering these systems through a shared service.

This chapter derives from desk research, interviews, and direct involvement in the project. The format is a case study, setting out a detailed timeline of events with information that can be applied in other settings.

This chapter presents reflections on the value and limitations of collaboration amongst libraries and librarians on an innovative approach to library systems and technologies. It also presents reflections on lessons learned from the processes and detailed discussion of the success factors for shared services and the reasons why such initiatives may not result in the outcomes predicted at the start.

Libraries and IT services considering Open Source and shared service approaches to provision will find material in this study useful when planning their projects.

The nature of collaboration and collaborative working is studied and observations made about the way that outcomes cannot always be predicted or controlled. In a genuine collaboration, the outcome is determined by the interactions between the partners and is unique to the specifics of that collaboration.

The case study derives from interviews, written material and direct observation not generally in the public domain, providing a strong insider’s view of the activity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the codes of professional conduct observed by construction mediators in England and Wales with the aim of assessing whether they raise awareness about party self‐determination and inform users about variations in mediator approaches.

The research collated a list of construction mediation providers drawn from members of the Civil Mediation Council, professional bodies working in construction and other leading providers. A search was then made of mediation providers' web sites to find published codes of conduct.

A substantial number of providers do not emphasize party self‐determination or the steps taken to inform users about mediator approaches in their online codes. Some organisations provide online access to “Mediation Agreements” which determine how the process and mediator approach is selected but generally codes do not place a specific duty on mediators to ensure parties enter mediation with informed consent about their approach.

Online searches may not have found specific mediator codes if organisations publish overarching professional codes of practice for members, if the documents labels do not identify them as a mediator code, or if web sites are not searchable. Further research should investigate how codes of conduct affect construction mediators' practice.

Codes of conduct from countries and international organisations provide exemplars of good practice. Mediation providers in England and Wales should consider revising mediator codes to give weight to the principle of party self‐determination and to articulate a duty that mediators inform users about their approach to ensure they obtain informed consent.

This is an original analysis of construction codes of conduct observed by mediators in England and Wales. A comparative analysis of codes from international sources contributes to the current debate on regulation and future policy developments.

Since independence, Pacific Island Countries (PICs) have remained heavily dependent on industrialized countries for their economic survival. PICs suffer from many disadvantages: a rising sea level, the tyranny of distance, a poor resource base, etc. Unequal political, economic and human resource capacities prevent PICs dealing on equal terms with their bilateral and multilateral counterparts. These have contributed to some PICs becoming ‘failed states’. Australia and New Zealand are addressing these issues in cooperation with PIC leadership. However, everything is not bleak in the long‐run. Technology has started opening up avenues to harvest chemical, food and mineral resources from the sea. A group approach is required to take advantage of benefits of emerging opportunities, lest others will outmaneuver them: there is no short cut.

International education is one of the largest and fastest growing economic sectors in the world. Degree-seeking students have become a large and growing export opportunity. Asian countries, especially China, are amongst the top countries sending students out, as a result, most countries aim to attract their students. Nevertheless, moving from Asian countries to the western ones is not an easy move. Chinese students face different types of challenges that need to be analysed to smooth their adaptation. This chapter analyses their performance, satisfaction and the challenges – pedagogical, language, cultural – they face to deploy the appropriate strategies to reduce failure and drop-out. Results show that the first 2 years are key for they adaptation. Language is the main barrier, it seems that the time devoted prior to their universities studies and their integration with national students is still a pending task.

The 11th September terrorist attacks on America continue to affect the corporate real estate industry, and this paper is intended to address a number of those ongoing effects. It first discusses property insurance coverage in general and then proceeds to analyse whether damage from acts of terrorism is covered under pre‐11th September and post‐11th September property insurance polices. It also addresses the current status of proposed US Government intervention as a terrorism insurance backstop. It then describes the strategies which certain clients located within the areas directly affected by the terrorist attacks implemented in order to be able to gain immediate access to alternative space. Finally it examines selected lease clauses to which landlords and tenants should pay closer attention in light of the terrorist attacks, including operating expense provisions, force majeure provisions, waiver of subrogation provisions, use prohibitions and alteration provisions.