Party debate Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Party debate - Assignment Example ed States multiparty system would have been practiced, the government would have failed to make decisions in a timely manner because it would have failed to attain the majority votes required to pass legislation. Another benefit is that such a political system provides clarity to the voters in deciding which party to vote. This is because in two party systems the two opposing parties are either in favor or against a particular agenda and voters finds it easy to vote for the candidates of that party which is supporting their side of the agenda. For example, the two political parties of United States are either in favor of gay marriage or they oppose it. This allows the American citizens with the ease of selecting the candidate of the party that supports their viewpoints (Bibby, 2008). In my opinion it is better to have a two party system and such a system should continue in the United States because it provides the government with the power to make decisions in a timely manner which m ay be delayed in a multiparty system. Due to late decision making, the effectiveness and the value of the decision is lost and citizens of a particular nation end up experiencing

Rogerian Argument Essay Example for Free

Rogerian Argument Essay The poem â€Å"Sex Without Love† by Sharon Olds is as controversial as the topic itself. The author describing the phenomenon that has become pervasive in modern life could not refrain from taking a stand on the issue, and this position can be either supported or refuted by the audience. When so many people are motivated by the contemporary American culture to engage in sexual intercourse without the trappings of love or even simple emotional attachment, it is interesting to review the poem dedicated to this situation and sort out issues covered in it. Doing so will help one tread with more confidence in the complex realm of human communication. Besides, it is even more interesting since Olds is the kind of poet who does not shun provocative topics and is not afraid to show her intimate life to the public. In analyzing the poem, we will try to understand whether Olds’ poem is a humanistic glorification of the body or a disgusting description that satisfies bad tastes. The latter view of Olds’ poetry is taken by William Logan. In his article â€Å"No Mercy† published in the journal New Criterion in December 1999, he indeed takes no mercy on Sharon Olds’ works and their artistic value. Perhaps the only positive trait Logan finds about Olds’ poetry is its spontaneity and unexpectedness of the next line that in itself should be applauded in the world of literature. However, Logan is disgusted by the sensual images that constantly surface in the poems and repel him with their openness. Therefore, he states that reading through Olds’ â€Å"hell-for-leather hubris you never know whats coming next, but youre sure its going to be a disaster† (Logan 1999:60). In short, Logan believes her work to be â€Å"shameless prose chopped up into lines of poetry, lurid as a tabloid† (Logan 1999:60). As such, he sees Olds’ work as a response to the society in our times constantly demanding from poets more descriptions of sexual lurid scenes, empty of any meaningful human emotions, and Olds is a vivid example of this trend. However, Logan takes care to dismantle the value of the poetess’ work on the grounds on which she seems to him to advance – the radicalism in the portrayal of sexual scenes. Olds to Logan ism despite her attempts to pass herself as a radical, â€Å"a homely Redbook moralist, believing in motherhood, family, and honey on her nipples† (Logan 1999:60). Thus, this view of Olds’ poetry proclaims her tasteless and lacking radicalism, totally denigrating her work and making it look worthless. There is, however, a different perception of Olds’ poetry, and in particular the poem â€Å"Sex Without Love†. To me, in particular, this poem presents an image that is rich in imagery, metaphors, and perceptive comparisons. This imagery comes out in comparisons that liken the participants of the act in turn to dancers, ice-skaters, and children at birth. The latter, true, is a somewhat brutal simile, but it is so to only some people who think that newborns are not particularly good-looking, while to others a newborn is as beautiful as anybody, being part of the life cycle. The first two comparisons, â€Å"beautiful as dancers† and â€Å"gliding over each other like ice-skaters† seem suitable for any taste, reinforcing the opinion that sexual intercourse, like any natural human action, is not disgusting, but beautiful and elegant (Olds). The poem also introduces an interesting perception of sexual intercourse, interpreting it in its own terms. It is unusual to someone who was brought up with the conviction that sex is pure and acceptable only when it is justified by love and preferably by marriage. In our society, love at one point came to serve as a convenient way to justify why people had sex outside of marriage. Therefore, with time it became almost as sacred as marriage itself. Olds takes love off its pedestal and proclaims that those who choose to have sex without it are â€Å"the true religious, the purists, the pros† (Olds). Those are the people who will not accept a false Messiah, love the priest instead of the God. They do not mistake the lover for their own pleasure (Olds). It seems that in this context sex for its own sake becomes the new norm, and love is something like a deviation from this norm. Many people can dispute this perception, but it is certain that each person can have one’s own viewpoint on these matters. In any case, the fact that Olds raises the issue and supports it with bright poetic images makes this poem worth attention. The value of Sharon Olds’ poem is also appreciated in the Free-written Comprehension of Sex Without Love available from the Richard Stockton College of NJ website. Also noting the strong imagery of the poem, the writer also adds that â€Å"the images are here not for enjoyment, but rather to exhibit the reality of the action† (Richard Stockton College). Besides, the interpretation also emphasizes the fact that, like in many pieces of poetry, Olds does not draw the ready-made conclusion that she wants the reader to follow. In fact, she allows several explanations and has the reader make the guessing on his or her own. So is Sharon Olds a lurid author who enjoys portraying sexual scenes with all the possible details or a philosopher who introduces a new opinion, supported with adequate imagery? It feels that the answer can lie somewhere in between. Returning to the denigrating opinion stated by William Logan in his article, one can see that this argument covers the whole poetry. â€Å"Sex Without Love†, compared to other poems by Olds, is relatively more Puritan in its imagery and does not use many shocking details. The emphasis is on the process as a whole, and the author uses broad metaphorical images like ice-skaters or runners to convey broader similarities. Abstaining from talking about details like her labia or other body parts that she mentions in other poems, Olds appears more appealing to a broad audience of people with different backgrounds and views, many of whom may be alienated by more naturalistic images. By the way, talking about the imagery in Olds’ poetry, Logan admits that â€Å"Aristotle would have loved her metaphors, her anatomy lessons† (Logan 1999:60). In â€Å"Sex Without Love†, Olds is at her best with building her imagery that serves to convey her message. Her images become a powerful tool for showing the event from new and new angles, creating the effect of unexpectedness noted by Logan. Most interestingly, there is a viewpoint supported by Free-written Comprehension of Sex Without Love and differing from my initial perceptions: that in the poem, Olds does not at all support the idea of meaningless, thoughtless sex without emotions, and that in fact she is disgusted by it as much as her more conservative audience. The latter view is grounded in the final part of the poem where Olds compares her lovers to runners: they are like great runners: they know they are alone with the road surface, the cold, the wind, the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio- vascular healthjust factors, like the partner in the bed, and not the truth, which is the single body alone in the universe against its own best time. (Olds) It can be claimed that â€Å"stating that the people in bed together are just meager factors of life strongly indicates that there is distaste for sex without love† (Richard Stockton College). Speaking of cardio-vascular health as one of the factors, Olds expresses her sadness over such act of love that does not include any emotional attachment between the two. Even though on the surface, she claims that she admires sex without love, in fact she is repelled by it, as shown in her images. After deliberation, I agree that Olds’ poem should perhaps be read in a different sense – disputing the value and attraction of sex without emotion. Using this time less naturalistic images, Olds displays her strengths with metaphors by creating an unforgettable picture of the two runners rushing along a meaningless path of factors. In this poem, she may not be savoring the details of lurid sexual pictures. Instead, Olds puts in her poem a deep spiritual meaning that reiterates the old human value of love, attachment, and care. In this sense, she may indeed by lacking radicalism, but instead of this she professes values close to many in her audience. Works Cited Logan, William. â€Å"No Mercy.† New Criterion 18.4 (December 1999): 60. Olds, Sharon. Sex Without Love. 24 June 2002. 17 April 2006 http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4922. Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Free-written Comprehension of Sex Without Love. 17 April 2006 http:///thebalance/stories/storyReader$9.

Adult Education: Social Change or Status Quo? :: Argumentative Pesuasive Papers

Adult Education: Social Change or Status Quo? Some believe that adult education was focused on a mission of social change in its formative years as a field in the 1920s. As it evolved and became institutionalized, the field became preoccupied with professionalization. More recently, emphasis on literacy and lifelong learning in a changing workplace has allied it with the agenda of economic competitiveness. This Digest examines the debate over the mission of adult education: is it to transform individuals or society? It looks at whether adult education functions as a means of empowerment in a democratic society or as an instrument for maintaining the status quo. Individual or Society? One of the core tensions of adult education (Merriam and Brockett 1997) is whether the primary focus of the field should be on individuals or society. Beatty (1992) is unequivocal in her stance: "The individual and change within the individual are not only the necessary and sufficient beginning and ending points for all adult education but also the focal point for the educational undertaking" (p. 17). She argues that the individual-society dichotomy is false: educated, empowered individuals create social change in ever-increasing spheres. Hass (1992) agrees that social change is brought about by the individuals affected. Mezirow's transformative theory suggests that individual perspective transformation must precede social transformation (Merriam and Brockett 1997). In describing the ideas of Lindeman, Heaney (1996) and Wilson (1992) point out the complexity of the relationship between individuals and society. For Lindeman, individual growth and development take place within the social context, and changed individuals will have the collective effect of changing society. But Wilson states that it is unclear just how the social order is thereby changed. Others suggest that groups and communities, not individuals, create social change (Horton 1989), that personal autonomy can be achieved only through collective action (Welton 1993), and that the fully developed individual is the consummation of the fully developed society. Ilsley (1992) argues that, although equality in the United States has been defined in terms of individual opportunity, liberty and justice do not arise from individualism. Embedded in this argument is another debate over whether adult education actually did set out with a social purpose that has been lost. A strong practice of adult education for social change is apparent in the work of Paulo Freire in Latin America and Myles Horton at the Highlander Folk School. Their influence continues, although "well on the margins of the adult education mainstream" (Heaney 1996, p.

Of mice and men & An inspector calls Essay

â€Å"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery†- Winston Churchill Winston Churchill thinks that socialism is a philosophy of failure however John Steinbeck author Of Mice and Men & JB Priestly author of An Inspector Calls would say that capitalism creates the failure in society not socialism. Both authors create a microcosm to show us how society was like at the time. This is called social realism. The two texts show how rich people are quick to take advantage of the poor and the vulnerable. The book of mice of men was written in 1937, by John Steinbeck. This book is set in 1930’s California, Salinas valley also known as south Soledad. It was after the war and after the Wall Street crash this is when everybody lost their jobs and became bankrupt. Everyone moved to South California to look for jobs on ranches to fulfil the â€Å"American dream â€Å"another reason why everyb ody had to move to South California is because of the Dust bowl also known as the Dirty Thirties due to the fact it was during the 1930’s. The dust bowl is a period of ruthless dust storms which affected America’s agriculture and ecology. The dust storms were caused by a long period of drought and years of bad farming techniques that caused such things as soil erosion. The weak soil then travelled majority of the United States leaving a thick fog of dust, the drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2) that centred on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and touched adjacent sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. In many areas, over 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s there were severe long-term economic consequences of the Dust Bowl, farmers couldn’t harvest any more crops because the soil was ruined. Counties that had experienced the most considerable levels of erosion saw a greater decline in agricultural land values the per-acre value of farmland decreased by 28% in high-erosion counties and 17% in medium-erosion counties. Furthermore banks failed in the Dust Bowl region with a higher rate of frequency than in the rest of the country, it was har der for farmers to gain access to the credit they needed to buy capital to shift crop production. Consequently Farmers & business owners had to move away because they had no more money. Steinbeck became sensitive towards the people in California. He  wants to help marginalised citizens. Steinbeck created this book to show how reality was to fight against the media. It was a miniature representation of something in this case 1930s California, his book was based on social realism. To show everyone real life as it truly is. He presents the protagonists & antagonists in the world. He is not concerned about idealizing things and making them beautiful when they are not. He is displaying real life as it is for political, social and moral reasons. Steinbeck wanted to indicate the socialism is better than capitalism. The play An Inspector Call is set in the city in Northern Midlands in 1912 and was written J.B Priestly. The book is set just before the First World War. (1911-1914) and that it’s the period history that Priestly chose to set his play on. Priestly play was written just after the World War 2 I think this is to show capitalism is wrong and how socialism i s right he portrayed this by showing Britain at its worst I think he wanted to influence socialism into the new, younger generation. He did this to avoid further war & conflict by showing how capitalism is wrong. The antagonist in of mice of men is Curley. This is because of his habit to think he is better than everyone. Curley’s appearance shows that he is a replica as his father; this is shown when both characters were introduced. The Boss was introduced first in chapter 2 â€Å"he wore high heeled boots with spurs to prove he is not a labouring man† spurs are the sharp silver circles at the bottom of boots; spurs are spiky and sharp this could suggest that the boss is dangerous and he shows this through his boots furthermore these specific boots are more expensive than a typical ranch hand could afford this could propose that the boss is to superior to help the workers like an socialist boss would, this is shown because the boots aren’t practical for workers because they are high heeled and we can’t work in high heeled boots. Curly was introduced in the same chapter(2) â€Å"Liked t he Boss he wore high heeled boots† Curly shows authority through the clothes he wears the quote â€Å"high heeled boots† show he wants to appear taller because of the fact he is short In addition it can also suggest that he is not like the ordinary ranch workers but more superior; He wants everyone else on the ranch to look up to him and treat him with higher authority. Curly is intimidated by Lennie because he is bigger and loftier than him and he tries to act immense around Lennie to show him that he is not scared. This makes us dislike him because we know  that even though Lennie is big and tall he wouldn’t hurt anyone out of meanness. Curley mirrors an animal when he spots Lennie smirking at him â€Å"his hands closed into fists, he stiffened into a crouch† describe him like an animal about to prance. Animals attack would be vicious and dangerous; reason why Curley is an antagonist because of the fact he acts like a scary ferocious and treacherous animal, this would affect the readers because nobody like violent nasty animals. Steinbeck may have done this so the readers of the novel or the people watching the play would change their views are realise that if they are capitalist how wrong it is due to the fact how Steinbeck exaggerated Curlys attitude. Curlys closed fists could mean he is hiding his fear from Lennie by shutting it out Curly has competition with every guy taller than him because he thinks they’re a threat to him. Curly picks on the marginalised characters and doesn’t even care for his dead wife but for revenge on Lennie this shows how cold hearted he is and since Curly is one of the main reprehensive of the capitalists in the book Steinbeck is showing us that the capitalists are the bad guys to the affect that they won’t even have a tad bit of sympathy for even their wife. Protagonists in Of mice and men are George and Lennie this is because they are always there for each other the quote â€Å"I got you to look after me and you got me to look after you† this shows that they got a lot of love for each other. George and Lennie have a brotherly relationship. George is the big brother & Lennie is the little brother. †a few beans slipped out of the side of Lennie mouth, George gestured with his spoon. The gesture which he did is something a mother would do to a child. We like Lennie because he is like a child. In Chapter 1 (pg21) the following quote stated by George to Lennie quite a few times is, â€Å"Say it over to yourself, Lennie, so you won’t forget it.† Here George is treating Lennie like a child because he can not remember anything and must be constantly reminded of what he has to do. Lennies childish behaviour is also shown in the last chapter when Lennie says â€Å"You ain’t gonna leave me, are ya George?† (p. 98) He is fearing, as a little child would, that he will be left all along, and both he and George know that Lennie cannot be on his own we admire Lennie because he is fair and treats everyone the same. We don’t know a lot about Lennie’s background. We don’t know what happened to Lennie’s family and parents and why he didn’t live with them, just that he was looked after by his Aunt Clara. George is  Lennies only family apart from his Aunt, We think of Lennie as a protagonist because he is like a child and everyone likes children we like George because he looks after Lennie and doesn’t take advantage of him to the effect which he treats him like his own family. George could have left Lennie when ever he wanted to. George could’ve left Reed and let the authorities take lennie so he would run off, start somewhere new with a better job and won’t have Lennie as a interference anymore, the fact that George helped Lennie escape shows that they really care for each other and he is like an big brother to him. We are shown Lennies childish behaviour at the start of the book we know he likes to touch soft things, He has a dead mouse in his pocket so he can stroke it as there walking along, When George sees this he treats him like a child and makes Lennie throw it away â€Å"give it here!† This shows there father-son like relationship as the harsh to ne he used when he asked Lennie for the mouse. The harsh tone is shown by the explanation mark. Other protagonist in of mice and men are candy and crooks. Candy is discriminated for being old and disables, readers will feel sympathetic towards him especially after Carlson killed Candy’s only companion his dog; Crooks is a Negro and is discriminated for his race. In the great depression black people suffered as much as white people and in majority of the cases even worse. They left the southern states hoping to find work majority of the time they won’t come across any and they would experience racism. Along with candy crooks character is used by Steinbeck to show the effects of discrimination. This time the prejudice is based on race, crooks is not allowed in the bunk house with the white people he is only allowed in Christmas and that is because he pays a collateral of fighting for their entertainment. The protagonist in of mice and men are coincidently the marginalised characters. Steinbeck shows us that the protagonists in the book are also the socialists. The protagonists in An Inspector Calls is the inspector this is because he feels remorseful for Eva Smiths’ death .In addition the Inspector is the only character in the play who didn’t do something to result in her dying. We can relate the inspector to the ghost from the Christmas tale â€Å"Ghosts of the Christmas past†. The ghosts try to change Ebenezer Scrooges behaviour the same way the inspector is trying to change the Birlings family manners and make them more socialists characters. Sheila is a protagonist because she changed from a  self-centred mummy’s girl to a mature and generous young lady. This is because the inspector showed that what she was did was wrong. In addition we like Sheila because she took full responsibility for Eva Smith’s death and the fact that she played a part towards it. Even after they realised that the inspector was actually a counterfeit and that they are not in trouble she felts guilty. Likewise Eric Sheila’s brother also changed his views he was already had socialists views at the start of play unlike Sheila however at the end of the play both characters took full responsibility and changed their capitalist views to socialist views. However Eric didn’t take full responsibility and tried to put some blame on Mrs Birling his mother. This is because Mrs Birling took no blame for the death of Eva smith. The fact that Mrs Birling takes no liability makes us dislike her similarly Mr Birling takes no blame and is actually relieved that the inspector didn’t come for him but his family this shows how subterranean he is, he didn’t mind the fact that his family might be in danger, only the fact that he is out of harm’s way. Mr Birling selfish and arrogant behaviour makes us dislikes him. Steinbeck and priestly are trying to demonstrate to us that the protagonists are socialists and that socialists are much loving caring and they are people we tend to like however capitalist are supercilious big headed and they are they bad people in life. Social mobility is when the poor attempt to ascend up to the prosperous however the prosperous push them down. This is shown in both texts of mice of men and an inspector calls. A classic example would be Eva smith from An Inspector Calls. She is a working class girl who committed suicide. This is because every time she stepped up or if something good happened to her the Birling residents pushed her down. Eva smith asked Mr Birling for pay raise however he said no for the reason that he claimed that if he paid her more he would have to increase the tax of the goods he sells the quote â€Å"They wanted 25 shilling I refused of course†. Proves my previous points point that capitalist are cold hearted, Mr Birling simply could have used his own money o pay the tax instead of increasing it however he is a capitalist and capitalists only care for themselves therefore to the only way to dispense of this problem was to sack Eva smith from work. The word â€Å"of course† shows u s that there was nothing to discuss and the answer to the raise is moderately perceptible. Mr Birling cares about himself and the profit he gains by getting rid of Eva smith, he  kept himself happy but didn’t realise he just ruined an innocent girls life. Sheila Mr Birling’s daughter took advantage of her father’s power. The quote â€Å"so you used the power you had†¦ to punish the girl just because she made you feel like that† shows the reader Sheila’s selfish attitude. The facts that Sheila got the girl fired because she was prettier than her shows us how priestly is trying to tell us that capitalists are snobby and bigheaded. They will also do anything they want to get what they want even if it’s distressing someone else. Mrs Birling refused to help pregnant Eva smith and said that it’s her fault and that she can’t do anything. This is also known as laissez faire which means not to interfere. The French word means let them do as they will. Mrs Birling doesn’t interfere with Eva Smiths life. This is an example of Mrs Billing’s cruel capitalistic behaviour. In my opinion I thinks that Mrs Birling is more capitalists then all the characters because of the fact she never had to work for money and she was born rich. Unlike Mr Birling who had to work for his money. They are the reason why society is failing and people can’t get jobs. It is ironic because they say they worked to get where they are now, but when one works, and gets rich the capitalists pus them down. In of mice and men, George and Lennie start of working in a ranch in southern California called Salinas’s valley. They are working together so they can get enough money to fulfil the â€Å"American Dream†. The American dream is to own a farm, live on it and the food that grows on the farm as well as the money they make of it. This represent the Jefferson ideal of agrarian society, Thomas Jefferson promoted an agrarian society for the United States of America during the nation’s early formation. Jefferson wanted America to live on farms and live on it and the food that grows on it. Curly the boss’s son abuses his power; he picks on Lennie and controls his wife, curly s capitalistic behaviour led to the failure of the American dream. Lennie had a dream and his dream was to live of the â€Å"fatta the land† the quote shows that Lennie wants to rise up and live and work for himself one day. Curley smashed lennies dream, he paid no attention o his wife so his wife tried communicating with Lennie. This eventually led to her death as she let Lennie touch her hair even after is past of killing soft thing like the puppy and mice. I think Steinbeck isn’t killing socialism but showing us how capitalism is killing it. Steinbeck and priestly show socialism and capitalism through the setting in texts.  Steinbeck shows the bunk house as underprivileged this shows how socialists are inadequately looked after along with their poor living conditions. Whereas priestly shows the Birlings house in the midlands as prosperous this represents the capitalists by saying that they can afford high-quality possessions. The bunk house is minute and un attractive the quote† white washed† shows that he people are deprived, the colour white shows that they can afford any other coloured paint because the colour white is unadorned as well as tedious , this must be why it’s cheap. The colour white is dull, coincidentally so are the people of the bunk house. Another interpretation could be that the boss was being cheap and indolent and that he didn’t want to spend allot of money on the workers, during the 1930s it was the time of the great depression this is when the country went into debt, people cut down on spending money this explains why the boss bought white paint as it must of been inexpensive. Steinbeck uses alliteration in the quote â€Å"white washed â€Å"to exaggerate the glumness of the colour white. The quote â€Å"floor un painted† manifests that the workers have a poor living condition. The quote indicates that not only was the boss cheap enough to get white paint, he couldn’t be bothered to buy enough to paint the floor. This shows that the boss is lazy and doesn’t care about his workers; the quote â€Å"small square windows† indicates that the windows are minuscule. The small window can indicate to their lack of freedom. The word small can mean petty and insignificant this implies that their freedom is negligible and trivial. The quote â€Å"solid door with a wooden latch† suggests that they are restrained within the bunk house. The word â€Å"solid† means hard and strong this can imply that the door is blocked off. The words wooden latch mean that they’re locked in this could imply that they’re trapped in the ranch house and in Steinbeck’s microcosm. The boss, curly and his wife live in another house however this house to superior to be explained in the story. The story is seen through George and lennies eye s perhaps Steinbeck is saying that they are not good enough to see their house. Steinbeck carefully controls the setting in Of mice and men. It is especially lucid in the last and first chapter, both chapters mirror each other you can see this because they start of at the Salinas River and end their journey there to. Steinbeck describes the nature vividly at the start and the end. The nature resonates with the theme of the novel. We can observe the relaxed aggression of nature. This  shows that everything Lennie did meant no harm and it was all natural. â€Å"Lennie never done it in meanness â€Å"the story foreshadows events from the start to the end. The conversation between George and Lennie reflects the firsts and last chapter. Their story goes round in circles like a hamster’s wheel it doesn’t take them anywhere. The ranch house may be poor and shabby however the Birling’s house is in the city in comparison to the country side. The house is advanced than a ranch house. The stage directions give an effect that it’s a comfy home. The lights were â€Å"pink and intimate† the colour of the lights reflected the mood of the play. This is shown in the book at the start whilst the family were celebrating the daughter engagement. When they shade of the lights was a â€Å"rose tinted glow† the family were still celebrating the daughter’s engagement to Gerald croft. The mood of the play was still romantic thus the use of warm coloured lights. The word rose means a shrub with prickly stems and a fragranced flower. A sore symbolizes love priestly may have used this to give a passionate sensation however roses have thorns so bristly, jagged and treacherous, Steinbeck might have been for shadowing the upcoming danger. The word glow means to emit light and heat devoid of flames. Priestly chose this to exaggerate the love and heat in the air emitted by the characters. Glow can also mean having a feeling of wellbeing or satisfaction. Something socialists can never feel because they are never happy due to the capitalists. However the atmosphere changes when the Inspector arrives and the lights are â€Å"brighter and harder† as if he is welcoming the family in to reality. The word â€Å"bright â€Å"is to emit intense light in comparison to the soft light emitted at the start of the play. The word â€Å"harder† means solid, firm and hard. Priestly may be indicating that things are getting ugly metaphorically. It can also mean an unkind feeling causing pain and sorrow of hardship it is as if priestly for shadows upcoming events through the illumination. The bright lights can resemblance the lights from one are getting interrogated by a policeman. The furniture in the Birling’s house is extravagant like the family itself the quote â€Å"solid furniture† means that the furniture in the Birling’s house won’t break because it’s expensive. A rich family tends to have expensive possessions in comparison to the bunk house in Of mice of men. There is only one woman in Of mice of men and that is Curleys wife. During the 1930s women were only used as housewives in  addition men only used them as sex objects this is sexism was more accepted in that centaury. Men paid no affection for their wife’s this is shown in of mice of men when curly would wear a â€Å"glove full of Vaseline† to keep his hand soft to pleasure his wife. This quote shows how curly has no respect for his wife and the fact that he goes around telling the people in the bunk house that shows how arrogant he is. Curly represents how men were in the 1930s in Steinbeck’s microcosm and due to his behaviour we can comprehend how egotistical capitalist men were in that time period. Women are discriminated in the book Of mice of men as well as during the 1930’s.in the time john Steinbeck lived women were only used to serve men they were not supposed high in regards. Women still tried to yearn for a better future by exploiting men. Curlys wife paraded around the bunk house wearing too much make up as well as stimulating clothing with red nails; red ostrich feathers and red mules. Steinbeck uses imagery to portray curlys wife as provocative that and the fact that she goes around the bunk house flirting with the workers and begging for attention. Curlys wife has no other way to communicate to somebody but through her body language. He quote â€Å"red finger nails , red mules , red ostrich feathers† plays a big part in her personality as she is wearing lots of the colour red, it could indicate blood and fire. These two features represents the devil. The devil brings danger so this could mean that curlys wife brings jeopardy. The colour red is intense a nd eye grabbing the fact that she wears these a lot of this colour could mean she wants all eyes on her and that she is seeking attention, implies that she is seeking love and desire both she is need of, she can only do this by wearing bright colours and dressing a certain way and through her promiscuous behaviour. Steinbeck’s preliminary portrayal of curls wife shows her to be a mean and seductive temptress. She is mirrored to eve in the garden of Eden. The same way eve seduced Adam. Curlys wife crushed George and lennies dream of owning a farm. Even curlys wife needed to dream of being a Hollywood actress, her beauty would have helped her fulfil her dream, and this made her vulnerable since she was not successful. The final chapters describe her as innocent. Steinbeck is shows us that everyone who are portrayed as bad may have some humanity in them. Steinbeck also refers to other women in of mice and men. Apart from the fact she’s not mentioned in the novel the girl from weed plays a big part as she is the  reason George and Lennie had to escape from the job in weed. We can conclude that the girl from weed and curlys wife are both temptations that encourage lennies curiosity and of course Lennie could not resist. Similarly how Lennie couldn’t resist to pet soft objects which comfort him ranch men could not refuse to accept the fact that they need to be seeking immediate gratification. Susy brothel households Clearly prove my point that women were just objects in the hands of men; this makes them victims of society. Many of the ranch men go there and participate in bordellos, its crystal clear that women were surplus and that they have no importance. In fact curlys wife’s name is not even mentioned in the novel. Steinbeck does not mention her name for the reason that he want to emphasise curlys ownership over her. He is depicting her as property rather than an actual person. She was the one who caused most the tension on the ranch the reason why her husband was always cranky. In spite of all the malevolence connected with women, Steinbeck also gives us an affectionate vision of Aunt Clara whose position is taken by George. Therefore in the novel we are made conscious that there is some good in women, on the other hand it seems as if that there can never be any harmony in the world were women are present because once eve contaminated Adam in the garden of Eden the world was tainted forever. There are not any main similarities between the three women in an inspector calls. Mrs Birling and Eva smith are from completely different spectra’s such as economical, social and personality apart from their gender there is no traits they share in common, Sheila is in between the two characters she is not as snobby as her callous mother neither is she un compassionate, however her social status is fa r away from Eva smiths. Sheila and Mrs Birling are related however they are more distanced. In this era it is common for parents to be distanced from their children, so as you can envisage in sibyls case she barely knew her own daughter. At the start of the play we see a much closed minded view of Sheila; she is like a Paris Hilton of the Victorian era because she is described as a shallow airhead. she gets bewildered over material goods. Especially when her fiancà © presented her an engagement ring. She called it â€Å"wonderful† and saying things like â€Å"look mummy isn’t it a beauty†. Sheila is in her twenties and his calling her mother â€Å"mummy† this is a classic example of her girlish, childish and immature behaviour. These two evidences prove my point as well  as going against it. They are figurative later on in the play, when Sheila’s impression change. Firstly she gives Gerald back her ring, claiming she wants to begin her relationship once again. Secondly she refers to her mum as â€Å"mother† and sees her mother in a new radiance; Sheila is un impressed and ashamed of her flippant and unsympathetic attitude. Sheila is initially very eager about her engagement and loves Gerald heaps; however she is not obtuse and knows he was doing something suspicious over the summer. Even though she didn’t know exactly what he was doing. She did mention it when they were drinking at the start of the play in an amiable approach† except for all last summer when you never came anywhere near me and I wondered what happened to you† despite the fact that Steinbeck does not let us know from the start that Gerald is up o no good we can guess it’s something to do with Eva Smith. Even before the characters do, priestly uses dramatic irony to emphasise this. Sheila is upset however she is not surprised by Gerald’s affair. As I mentioned earlier Sheila hands Gerald back the ring requesting to start the relationship anew. This shows her developing maturity towards the end of the play. During the final scenes Sheila is more peaceful and distinguished in manner as she is not delivering puerile hysterics that would have been expected from her at the star of the play. She knows she really loves Gerald deeply and she can’t complete life without him, however Sheila does not completely forgive him this is showing how independent she can be. Perhaps priestly is showing us that capitalists are stupid and immature and socialists are mature. Mrs Birling is one malicious piece of work. She is even more capitalists & cold hearted than her husband. She takes no accountability for the death of Eva Smith and tries to blame it on Eva by calling her â€Å"impertinent†. She seems to believe that since she is wealthy she is not to blame- typical capitalist behaviour. What’s even worse than her sickening uprightness is the fact that she is deluded. She believes everything she says is right. Mrs Birling is very comfortable with her situation in civilization. well we think she is, her bitter cold demeanour and her sour manner give of very little of her ambitions. She does not have a high status as the crofts however unlike her husband she in not ashamed and has no burning infatuation to be so. She is already her husband’s â€Å"social superior† and seems to be satisfied with that. It is ironic how Mrs Birling is the social superior as it is normally the husbands whom have a  higher status. she is very aware as well reprimanding her husband for the plain triviality of thanking the cook â€Å"Arthur you’re not supposed to say such things† as if a simple deed as thanking the chef is disgusting. Not only does Mrs Birling put herself on plinth, but she has aloofness for everyone else she even patronises her own offspring’s, treating them younger than they are. She finds the inspector extremely despicable as if she is exceeding the law when she says â€Å"I beg your pardon† according to her if she does not fond of the inspector’s attitude he would have to leave premises. Our image of Mrs Birling is pessimistic from the very start and only got worse she is representational of capitalism. The play was set out to expose and demoralize capitalism. Despite the fact that Mrs Birling is seen as the enemy of socialism, Eva smith is portrayed as its champion she is more of a representation rather than a character, seeing as though she doesn’t actually appear in the play itself Eva smith is very important. Edna and Eva are very alive as they are both working class women earning minimum wage, they hardly appear in the book this might be because of the fact priestly is showing that they are to low class to appear in the play. Both priestly and inspector Goole are similar because they support Eva smith while everyone apart from Mrs Birling felt sorry for her death, the inspector and priestly are the only one who haven’t done nothing wrong to lead to her death. At the start of the play The Birling family is drinking champagne and port both luxurious drinks priestly uses irony to show the rich capitalists are drinking expensive drinks however working class socialists Eva smith is drinks toxic disinfectant. Social Darwinism is the concept of survival of the fittest in this case it’s about women Steinbeck and priestly are shown that because women are women they are not significant enough for their power to increase this is shown through Curlys wife in On mice and men And Sheila in An in inspector calls, it is shown through curlys wife because of the fact she is a house wife and is nothing but a object to her husband. It is shown in an inspector calls when Sheila would try to talk but her father s tops her and tells her to go to her room and let the men talk. Both examples show haw the men think they there better and that women don’t deserve to rise up or speak for them self. In conclusion I realised that Both Authors Steinbeck and Priestly disagree with Winston Churchill’s statement about how socialism is a philosophy of failure, they do this by  writing about social mobility and how there isn’t any because the capitalist always push the socialists down. In addition both authors clearly state the protagonists and antagonists, coincidently the protagonists were socialists and the antagonists were capitalists, the authors are telling the readers that Capitalists is pessimistic and socialists is optimistic. They also show us how capitalists have tended to be rich and have nicer houses this is because they don’t share the money resulting in the socialists living in meagre bunk houses. The authors also discreetly mention social Darwinism and that only certain people rise to the top theses certain people are the c apitalists because they are loaded. Both authors created a microcosm to show us how society was like at the time. This is called social realism. The two texts show how rich people are quick to take advantage of the poor and the vulnerable .

Ngo Essay Essay

NGOs are difficult to define and classify, and the term ‘NGO’ is not used consistently. As a result, there are many different classifications in use. The most common use a framework that includes orientation and level of operation. An NGO’s orientation refers to the type of activities it takes on. These activities might include human rights, environmental, or development work. An NGO’s level of operation indicates the scale at which an organization works, such as local, international or national. â€Å"Confronting the Classification Problem: Toward a Taxonomy of NGOs† One of the earliest mentions of the acronym â€Å"NGO† was in 1945, when the UN was created. The UN, which is an inter-governmental organization, made it possible for certain approved specialized international non-state agencies – or non-governmental organisations – to be awarded observer status at its assemblies and some of its meetings. Later the term became used more widely. Today, according to the UN, any kind of private organization that is independent from government control can be termed an â€Å"NGO†, provided it is not-profit, non-criminal and not simply an opposition political party. Professor Peter Willetts, from the University of London, argues the definition of NGOs can be interpreted differently by various organizations and depending on a situation’s context. He defines an NGO as â€Å"†an independent voluntary association of people acting together on a continuous basis for some common purpose other than achieving government office, making money or illegal activities.†[5] In this view, two main types of NGOs are recognized according to the activities they pursue: operational NGOs that deliver services and campaigning NGOs. Although Willetts proposes the operational and campaigning NGOs as a tool to differentiate the main activities of these organizations, he also explains that a single NGO may often be engaged in both activities. Many NGOs also see them as mutually reinforcing.

The Early Days of Ford Motor Essay Example

The Early Days of Ford Motor Essay Example The Early Days of Ford Motor Essay The Early Days of Ford Motor Essay For years, very few believed that a horse-less carriage would ever exist. Henry Ford was determined to prove them wrong.The crazy loon or the eccentric inventor as they called Ford, started the industrial revolution which changed daily life for the entire world (Sinclair 4). Ford built hisfirst plant in Detroit, Michigan on Mack Ave. with the help of investors that backed up his beliefs in making the world mobile.During thefirst years of Ford Motor Company, Mr. Ford took great care and interest in his employees.As years went on, the demand for automobiles increased.With demand for cars in the rise, the company found that they needed to have the employees work harder and faster to produce more cars.In order to compensate his employees for this Mr. Ford began a Sociological Department within the Ford Motor Company.The purpose of that department was to determine if his workers qualified for the standard $5 a day plus a $0.26 per hour raise and a bonus every January. In order to qualify ing for the bonus, you had to be married, had a good home, stable family life amongst many other qualifications (Sinclair 30). This program worked out for some time but at the end of that era, working conditions were worse off then ever before. For decades, the Ford workers were mistreated. Conditions inside the Ford Motor Company are completely different now than it was sixty years ago. The establishment of unions helped to better the life of all automobile workers. Upton Sinclair, the author of The Flivver King: A Story of Ford America , writes an extremely interesting historical novel about the start of the Ford Automobile Company. The story is told from the perspective of Abner Shutt, one of Fordsfirst employees. Abner lives in the times where Henry Ford began his auto design in the early 1900s till the mid 30s when Ford was known as the richest man in the world.

Free Essays on History Of Jazz And Classical Music

History of Jazz and Classical Music Upon entering a modern record store, one is confronted with a wide variety of choices in recorded music. These choices not only include a multitude of artists, but also a wide diversity of music categories. These categories run the gamut from easy listening dance music to more complex art music. On the complex side of the scale are the categories known as Jazz and Classical music. Some of the most accomplished musicians of our time have devoted themselves to a lifelong study of Jazz or Classical music, and a few exceptional musicians have actually mastered both. A comparison of classical and Jazz music will yield some interesting results and could also lead to an appreciation of the abilities needed to perform or compose these kinds of music. Let's begin with a look at the histories of the two. The music called classical, found in stores and performed regularly by symphonies around the world, spans a length of time from 1600 up to the present. This time frame includes the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Contemporary periods. The classical period of music actually spans a time from of 1750 to 1800; thus, the term Classical is a misnomer and could more correctly be changed to Western Art Music or European Art Music. European because most of the major composers up till the 20th century were European. Vivaldi was Italian, Bach was German, Mozart and Beethoven were Austrian; they are some of the more prominent composers. Not until the twentieth century with Gershwin and a few others do we find American composers writing this kind of art music. For the sake of convention, we can refer to Western Art Music as Classical music. Jazz is a distinctively American form of music, and it's history occupies a much smaller span of time. Its origins are found in the early 1900s as some dance band leaders in the southern U.S. began playing music that combined ragtime and... Free Essays on History Of Jazz And Classical Music Free Essays on History Of Jazz And Classical Music History of Jazz and Classical Music Upon entering a modern record store, one is confronted with a wide variety of choices in recorded music. These choices not only include a multitude of artists, but also a wide diversity of music categories. These categories run the gamut from easy listening dance music to more complex art music. On the complex side of the scale are the categories known as Jazz and Classical music. Some of the most accomplished musicians of our time have devoted themselves to a lifelong study of Jazz or Classical music, and a few exceptional musicians have actually mastered both. A comparison of classical and Jazz music will yield some interesting results and could also lead to an appreciation of the abilities needed to perform or compose these kinds of music. Let's begin with a look at the histories of the two. The music called classical, found in stores and performed regularly by symphonies around the world, spans a length of time from 1600 up to the present. This time frame includes the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Contemporary periods. The classical period of music actually spans a time from of 1750 to 1800; thus, the term Classical is a misnomer and could more correctly be changed to Western Art Music or European Art Music. European because most of the major composers up till the 20th century were European. Vivaldi was Italian, Bach was German, Mozart and Beethoven were Austrian; they are some of the more prominent composers. Not until the twentieth century with Gershwin and a few others do we find American composers writing this kind of art music. For the sake of convention, we can refer to Western Art Music as Classical music. Jazz is a distinctively American form of music, and it's history occupies a much smaller span of time. Its origins are found in the early 1900s as some dance band leaders in the southern U.S. began playing music that combined ragtime and...

Get Excellent Ideas for Topics of Illustration Essays

Get Excellent Ideas for Topics of Illustration Essays Writing an illustrative paper is not easy. Even more difficult is to find a suitable topic for it. But don’t worry because we’ll simplify all this for you. In this article, you learn what this kind of essay is and how to decide a topic for it. You can choose any of our suggested topics as well. They are perfect because they have been proposed by our experts who have years of experience. What Is an Illustration Essay? The Basics Before discussing the process of selection of good illustration essay topics for your papers, it is advisable to discuss the concept of this kind of paper quickly. As the name shows, it’s a paper that illustrates a topic. It can be a process, a strategy, a plan, or anything that can be described. Such essays have a lot of depth to them because the narrator has to covey intricate details to the readers. To write such a paper, you need to have: Excellent vocabulary and know-how of the technical terms involved. The ability to imagine the finest details of the process so that you can convey them. The skill to describe things and find good examples. How to Come Up with Interesting Illustration Essay Topics If the teacher has already decided the topic for you, clearly you just have to write a paper on it following the guidelines we provide about the actual writing process. But if you are leveraged to pick up a topic of your choice, don’t go for the most difficult college illustration essay topics. You might select them in an attempt to cover a unique area, and later, you might find it hard to access the relevant information. On the other hand, don’t pick the easiest topics as well. Your readers need to sense that reading the paper will add to their knowledge. So look for best illustration essay topics in the middle range between the common and rare ones. Interesting topics are related to engaging themes. They include acting, performing arts, fashion, diet, games, and vacations. You may even come up with interesting topics on the themes of education and relationships as well. Some Excellent Illustration Essay Topics for College Students In this guide, we offer you some topics that are teachers’ favorite. At the same time, they are relatively unique and have a huge potential for being informative if written the right way. Our topics relate to all sorts of areas. You will find topics related to games, education, and exercise, among other fields. We want to provide a lot of options for every writer. Therefore, our suggested topics belong to different areas of knowledge. They include: How coaches train football players? How to learn swimming for the Olympics? Difference between football and basketball. How to bring a balance between school and home activities? My first-day playing cricket. Importance of deploying psychological counselors at schools. Studying habits that make students high achievers. How to live on a budget in Dubai? Life, profession, and experiences of a teacher. How can a newcomer adjust in hostel life? How to make a cake? Easy tips to overcome your fears. Describe a fear you’ve had and how you took control over it. The role of music in exercise and workout. What is it like to be a vegan? How does it feel to be a nonnative in the country you have immigrated to? How to be proactive and avoid procrastination? Take a good look at all these great topics to write an illustration essay on. You might observe that you can demonstrate processes and/or examples in almost every single paper. That’s the beauty of this kind of paper. How to Write This Kind of Paper Finding good topics for an illustration essay is the first challenge you have to deal with. But the difficulties don’t stop there. You should know how to logically construct the paper so that all details are sufficiently covered. Let us elaborate on the process of writing with the help of an example. Suppose you have to be a writer and produce a paper on the topic – how expats live in Dubai. In the introductory section of the paper, you can identify the different categories of expats in Dubai. It’s important to identify those categories because the lifestyle of an expat depends upon a lot of factors, especially his/her origin. Suppose you identify four classes of expats in Dubai Europeans, Africans, Arab, and South Asians. You can divide the body of the paper into four paragraphs – one for each class of expats. In those paragraphs, you can touch upon several topics for illustration essay considering an average day in the life of an expat. They include people’s food, work routine, outdoor activities, shopping, and family time, etc. Finally, you will conclude your paper summing up all information. Do You Need an Expert to Suggest You a Topic? We’re sure if you needed a topic from the themes we have covered, you might have found one that you like. But if you think that the theme you wanted the topic from has not been covered, there’s still nothing to worry about. Let us know which theme or area you want the topics to be from, and our writers will devise interesting and easy illustration essay topics from that field. The process of placing an order at our site is fundamental. You just have to fill out a form, and the guru will start looking for the best topic options for you. We devise topics related to all kinds of fields, and our gurus are subject experts. You can totally count on our writers’ help. So when are you placing the order? Tell us your instructions now.

Special education (special needs students in regular classes) Essay

Special education (special needs students in regular classes) - Essay Example However, I feel Timmy really wants to succeed, and as teachers we will be able to help him do this. This website offers a nice look into the different signs of ADD/ADHD, which is good for any teacher, as they should be able to pick up and monitor these signs. It also lists a bunch of creative strategies in dealing with children with ADD/ADHD. This site offers many different links, which all offer tons of information about the different teaching methods that have been used. All off these methods have been found to be highly effective, and are of great use to us as teachers. Another great and helpful site that was written from a parent's perspective. It offers ten key points to remember when teaching children with ADHD, and I think they are all important to Timmy's success. I feel that working with Timmy will be an joyous experience for us all, however trying it may be on our patience. I think that is the first important thing to remember. Next, I often find that if Timmy feel he needs to be the center of attention, I make him that, and ask him a question or have him help me with an activity. This really seems to help. I also feel that incorporating the different elements of my research, we can continue to build an effective plan for Timmy. I feel that it is also important to make sure Timmy keeps a notebook, so he can keep track of everything he is supposed to do.

Explication Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Explication Paper - Essay Example By use of the penny symbolism, the author shows that whites in that period prefer that blacks depended on them. The hat symbolism, however, does not have defined positive implications on the authors attempt to make it look that whites and blacks were now equal. In my view, it has a more profound reflection on the Africans reaction to the integration as described bellow. Morality: this theme tries to justify the reactions of the characters in the event of change which is the driving force behind the author’s ideas. Julian’s mother is condescending, as most white people with a conscience were during the days of slavery. However, she no prejudices towards any child even black ones. She maintains this stand even in the face of conflict. Caroline, Julian’s mother’s nanny, is a true representation of the ideal black women before the integration. When Julian’s mother calls out to Caroline, it is perhaps the author’s way of portraying the security and comfort whites derived from the past state of blacks. This reflects on the types of whites the author chose; she picked poor whites to represent her ideas. On another level, it can be the author’s way of portraying whites as the victims. In retrospect, the author tries to point out that the impact of wealth on social class. Julian represents the present American; he is hiding, behind the faà §ade of education, to justify his support for change. The black woman is a representation of black people in recent times. Her aggression against condescending whites is a reflection of black people’s feelings towards slavery and segregation. Back to the hat symbolism, it reflects the blacks need to be not equal to but like the whites. Style: third person narration is a style that stands out in this text as much as racial integration. This technique in my view gives the text a futuristic tag. Though debatable, this writing is still relevant

News International - Phone Hacking Scandal Research Paper

News International - Phone Hacking Scandal - Research Paper Example The company is located in London city of the United Kingdom. It is the publisher of The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times. The company has been regarded as being one of the world’s most successful in terms of share, growth, reader engagement, and circulation (â€Å"News International,† newsint.co.uk). Despite being among the world’s most successful news publishers, and the United Kingdom’s top news publisher, the company has faced a number of problems from time to time. The most recent and most serious one was the phone hacking scandal in July 2011that led to the closure of News of the World, which was one of the publications made by News International. News of the world, which was a British newspaper published by News International was accused of hacking into phones of celebrities and invading their voice mail accounts. According to Chisholm-Burns, Vaillancourt, and Shepherd, management is the skill of promoting people’s talents and providing the m with ways to enrich themselves and opportunities for growth in order to maximize productivity (23). Management is also concerned with distribution and employment of resources to perform tasks and attain objectives. During the first decades of the twentieth century, a number of achievements were made in the field of management. This was as a result of the development of the scientific management theory by Frederick Taylor, the administrative theory by Henry Fayol, and the theory of corporate social responsibility by Milton Friedman. The major representative of scientific management is Frederick Taylor. According to Bagad, scientific management is a concept within that stresses on the application of scientific methods in work in order to be able to study and evaluate workers (6). Scientific management takes a classical management approach. Scientific management has four basic elements which include determining the one best way to do each job, selecting the best persons for each job, training the best persons for each job in the one best way to do the job, and use of monetary incentives to encourage a proper days work for a proper day’s pay. The whole approach by Taylor was essentially based on scientifically learning and weighing the labor involved in doing each job, and then choosing the only best way to accomplish the complete number of processes. Frederick Taylor determined the principles explaining how work in a company could be done. Bagad points out that â€Å"according to Taylor, once these principles were defined, all the workers could be trained to do the work â€Å"the one best way†, rather than relying on their own various rules of thumb† (8). Taylor came up with a method called time and motion study and in his scientific management theory; he made it clear that there is quite a difference in carrying out tasks, recruiting and training workers, and establishing incentives systems. Therefore, workers have the responsibility of do ing work, while the management has the responsibility of planning for recruitment, training and developing incentive systems. The modern management theory was developed by Henry Fayol. He came up with six distinct industrial and business activities and their respective functions. These activities were technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting, and administrative or managerial

Critique the relevance and validity of applying the capital asset Essay

Critique the relevance and validity of applying the capital asset pricing model in the context of investment choices - Essay Example Undeniably, the CAPM model rules out active investment and management research, and therefore abolishes many applications merely by using a pen, by virtue of the idealistic assumptions made by it (Perold, 2004). Some common applications often depend on the correctness of the modest CAPM, or rather the extensions in defining equilibrium returns. In fact, an imprecise understanding of the market portfolio may not be a vital factor in this. The approximated investment portfolio maintain an essential role in the reconstructed submission that arise from realization of the falsehood of CAPM. In this sense therefore, the application of this model to investment choices can have meaning only on condition that CAPM is false. The conclusion can be that the investment portfolio seems to play a natural role, making possible specifications errors to be unimportant (Shanken,

How can Virtual Learning Environments promote parental engagement in Literature review

How can Virtual Learning Environments promote parental engagement in children's learning - Literature review Example The literature review also identifies and defines virtual learning environments, their benefits and how virtual learning environments contribute to the promotion of parental engagement in their children’s learning. The literature review will ultimately confirm the hypothesis that virtual learning environments contribute to the promotion of parental engagement in their children’s learning. Introduction By 1997, it had become increasingly clear that parental involvement was essential for child’s educational success as parents and caregivers are decidedly not only the child’s first, but most pervasive educators (Whalley, 2004). Even so, administrators, policy-makers and educators acknowledge that parental involvement in their children’s learning continue to be a problem (Fitzgerald 2004). The challenge is therefore to get parents engaged in the child’s learning. A review of the literature highlights the significance of parental engagement in the child’s learning process and the prospects of improving parental involvement via virtual learning environments (VLE). ... I. Importance of Parental Involvement/Home-school Links Parental engagement is comprised of participating in conferences with teachers, attending student programmes; taking on voluntary activities; helping the child with their homework assignment, engaging the child in conversation about school work and school experiences and establishing constructs for activities in the home (BECTA 2009). The Department of Education and Skills (DfES) released a report in 2002 which drew on a comprehensive review of the literature. The report noted that parental involvement was key to a child’s learning proficiency from early on and until age 16. Parental involvement during the early years had a positive influence on the child’s cognitive growth as well as literacy and numeracy progress. The DfES also noted that a parent’s involvement in the child’s learning was more influential than other familial factors such as family structure, size, background and the parent’s own educational background (DfES 2002). Researchers have formulated an exhaustive list of the potential benefits of parental involvement in the child’s learning process. The list includes better school attendance, better academic performance, better study habits and higher educational expectations on the part of parents (Hornby 2005). In other words, parental involvement is believed to have a positive influence on the nature of the education the child receives. There is a prevailing view that children with parental support for learning at home and children with parents that foster a learning atmosphere at home typically perform better academically than children who do not have that kind of parental support and encouragement at home (Pugh and Duffy 2010). Essentially, the positive benefits

Critique the relevance and validity of applying the capital asset Essay

Critique the relevance and validity of applying the capital asset pricing model in the context of investment choices - Essay Example Undeniably, the CAPM model rules out active investment and management research, and therefore abolishes many applications merely by using a pen, by virtue of the idealistic assumptions made by it (Perold, 2004). Some common applications often depend on the correctness of the modest CAPM, or rather the extensions in defining equilibrium returns. In fact, an imprecise understanding of the market portfolio may not be a vital factor in this. The approximated investment portfolio maintain an essential role in the reconstructed submission that arise from realization of the falsehood of CAPM. In this sense therefore, the application of this model to investment choices can have meaning only on condition that CAPM is false. The conclusion can be that the investment portfolio seems to play a natural role, making possible specifications errors to be unimportant (Shanken,

Star Wars Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Star Wars - Essay Example While it is no doubt Star Wars deals with advanced technology many of which have not yet been established, Star Wars also talk about the existence of Force which is actually a mystical energy field that provides magical energy to Jedi. Considering both scientific elements and mystical power shown in Star Wars, can the films be seen in the genre of both sci-fi and fantasy. Today, science fiction has become a kind of reflection of â€Å"mythology of our times† (Sutton & Sutton, 1969, p.230). Myth has been described by Fontenelle as science that has been conceived in the primitive era by observing the causes of events. In the 19th century, Andrew Lang has explained that myth is human being’s effort of understanding the mysteries of the world through the lens of science. It is now no longer possible to assume myth as prescience. According to Levi-Strauss theory, myth and science are two parallel modes of explaining the universe. They are mutually exclusive and two different ways of explaining the same thing. In earlier days, myth was used by man to understand his own origins while science is used as a tool to study destiny (Sutton & Sutton, 1969, p.231). Today science fiction is accepted as mythical exploration of scientific technology, and therefore Levi-Strauss’s theory does not hold good regarding the two concepts as parallel auto nomy. There is now a clear intersection of the mythopoeic and scientific modes. According to Thoman C. Sutton and Marilyn Sutton (1969, p.231) â€Å"myth and science reflect man’s irrepressible curiosity about his origins and his destiny, they each can be seen as a particular human means of structuring the universe†. The authors consider science fiction as scientific myth more than religious myth in which man holds the major power. Star Wars is a classic story that talks about man turning evil and his son attempting to amend him. Basically it is a story about good and evil and set in another galaxy in another

Animal Farm Essay Example for Free

Animal Farm Essay This is shown perfectly in Animal Farm. In the beginning animals went against Mr. Jones due to the way they were being treated. The animals felt that the farmers received all the goods for the work they did. So they created a government named Animalism, based on the Old Major’s vision. In Animalism, there are no owners, no rich, but no poor, workers got a better life, and all animals are equal. The animals established the Seven Commandments, which were laws created by the pigs to protect animals. The goals of the government were also set up. The goals said that everyone was equal, there would be more food and sleep for all, there was to be respect for all animals, and they would build a windmill to make life better for all. All this didnt exist by the end of the book. The animals were getting less sleep, less food, and less respect. The windmill became a source of money for the leaders, not for all the animals. The seven commandments were gradually changed to suit the just the pigs until there was only one commandment left. This commandment said that some animals are more equal than others. This was the exact opposite of what they originally intended to achieve. Animalism no longer existed. The pigs began by to act more like humans, whilst at the same time changing the meaning or literally changing the laws. At the start they managed to change the meaning of all animals are equal, by asserting themselves as the â€Å"brain-workers† and taking the milk and apples. Over the years they start trading with animals, drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, making animals enemies and killing animals. Napoleon also becomes an egomaniac and has a food taster, has dogs to guard him at all times, gun is fired on his birthday, etc. this just goes on to show how he is becoming more like a human. Later on the remaining pigs also took up whips, walked on hind legs, started to wear clothes and played cards. The pigs have now taken up the role of a dictator and rule through force via the dogs, propaganda via Squealer and using the sheep’s new slogan – â€Å"four legs good, two legs better†, which destroys the whole meaning of the of the rebellion. Napoleon only cares about his wellbeing and getting as much power as possible. This is evident when he starts doing business with the humans just to get more money and when he sells Boxer to the horse slaughter for money for alcohol. The final commandment stands as a great example of how those in power manipulate language as an instrument of control. . At the beginning of the novel, the idea of â€Å"more equal† would not only have seemed contrary to the democratic socialist spirit of Animal Farm, it would have seemed logically impossible. But after years of violence, hunger, dishonesty, and fear, the spirit of Animal Farm seems lost to a distant past. Could anyone give some constructive criticism on this essay please?

Skill Requirements for IS Professionals in E-learning

Skill Requirements for IS Professionals in E-learning Skills requirements for information system professionals in the e-learning sector This research project is an investigation into the skills required for Information Systems (IS) professionals working in the commercial e-learning sector. This involved determining the perceived skill requirements for IS professionals, the actual skills held by current employees in this sector, and identifying any skills gaps that existed. The survey obtained information from a representative selection of the IS professional population. The questionnaire sample included IS professionals at all levels and grades of employment and reflected the composition of participating organizations. The table below summarises the objectives of this investigation: Identify the state of the UK IS workforce and the e-learning industry, Investigate the skills required to work as an IS professional in the e-learning industry in Berkshire, Investigate what skills gaps exist and Investigate the possible causes of these skills gaps. The main outcome of the study was a matrix of the skills required that can be used by universities and training organisations to tailor their course content to suit the constantly evolving demands of this industry. To combat the skills gaps that emerged and prevent performance problems arising, a number of recommendations need to be adopted to address the problems discovered: (1) Improve training strategies for IS professionals within the sector, majority of organisations have no set training strategy or budget; this is something that needs to change, (2) Create an annual ‘e-learning skills report’ detailing gaps and shortages, allowing education and industry to understand emerging and established skills needs. It would allow changes in demand and type of skill to be monitored. This would allow organisations to structure their internal training strategies, to eliminate skills gaps and (3) Form direct links between industry and education partners to allow course content t o be improved and improve employment prospects for graduates. The most important action is to integrate education with industry. If courses as specialist as-learning could be developed with an industry partner, the correct content would be guaranteed. 1. Introduction Many organisations have come to realise that certain new technologies can optimise efficiency and make processes more effective. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can bring industry closer to their customers, partners and suppliers through more integrated business and communication systems, and can provide enhanced educational opportunities. â€Å"There is a well-established relationship between improvements in Information Systems (IS) skills and increased productivity.† (Dress, 2001) The opportunity to gain competitive advantage through technology has consequently contributed to demand for skilled IS professionals outstripping supply. The label used to describe this effect is a ‘skills shortage’. The Computer Services and Software Association estimate that IS skills shortages will cost the UK over  £30 billion over the next three years(e-skills NTO, 2001). There is a growing recognition that the gap in skills for IS professionals is widening. The gap in skills does not only affect the ICT (primary) sector but all other sectors (secondary)which apply information technologies in their production, processes, products or services. The E-revolution of the information industries has created a new labour force, professional IS roles are becoming diversified and a generic IS curriculum will not meet all the needs for all IS jobs in the future. It seems that in any system that has an â€Å"E† placed in front of it; e-learning, e-business, e-commerce, are the development of new skills. Never before have new skills appeared at such a rate. Even if industrial structure is only changing slowly, employers of ‘IS ‘practitioners rarely found it easy to articulate their current and particularly future skill needs very precisely. â€Å"Nearly one third of the IS skills in the market today have only emerged in the last year. Sixty seven of the one hundred and thirty three internet related skills are totally new.† Chris Bennett, MD SAP Australia (Hawking, 2002) New curricula need to be developed which consist-’of separate distinctive concentrations, which target specific roles in the job market. A new stronger relationship needs to be formed between educational institutions and companies; to allow the required skills to be taught and help alleviate the current IS skills shortages. In the rapidly changing field of IS, educational programs must be continually re-evaluated and revised. â€Å"There is presently a gap between what industry wants characteristically in it IS personnel and what academia provides to them.† Gupta and Watcher( 1998) The first step in the curriculum revision process is to conduct a study to determine the expected skills and knowledge required for IS professionals in industry. This will allow academic institutions to create programs that more accurately reflect the demands of the marketplace. At present, there is no identifiable data about the requirements of IS professionals specific to the e-learning sector. This is the gap in knowledge that needs to be investigated. This dissertation has been commissioned to do precisely that; to investigate the skills required for IS professionals working in thee-learning industry. The results can then be used as a foundation for developing a suitable postgraduate course at the University level. The main outcome of the study will be a matrix of the skills required that can be used by universities and training organisations to tailor their course content to suit the constantly evolving demands of this industry. The research carried out in this project can be used by other universities to clarify the skills required for employment in this sector, allowing course content to be tailored to suit the changing demands of industry, and improve the opportunities for students seeking employment upon graduation. 2. Aims Objectives The research will be cantered on the key area of skills gap analysis. This will involve determining the perceived skill requirements for IS professionals and the actual skills held by current employees, then determining the differences. This study aims to obtain information from a representative selection of the IS professional population, and from that sample the researcher will then be able to present the findings as being representative of the population as awhile. The characteristics of the total population will be represented justly in the sample to enable the researcher to say with fair confidence that the sample is reasonably representative. The sample will include IS professionals at all levels and grades of employment and will reflect the composition of participating organisations. The study will allow users to simultaneously score both their own self-assessment of their ability and their perceptions of the levels of skill actually required by their job. The sample population will include organizations in the e-learning sector with a history of close association with Business Link Berkshire and Wiltshire. Summary of Research Objectives †¢ Identify the current state of the UK IS workforce and the e-learning industry †¢ Identify the most important/prevalent issues from the literature †¢ Investigate the skills required to work as an IS professional in the e-learning industry in the Berkshire region †¢ Identify the skill gaps from the perceived and actual skill levels †¢ Discuss the finding and compare against those of relevant previous studies 3. Literature Review The foundation for revision of curriculum process is the review of literature and investigation into the expected industry skills and knowledge for IS professionals. In the introduction chapter an outline of this study was given. This section will focus upon academic literature related to the subject area, which will go onto further support the data already mentioned. As well as academic literature, reports are of particular importance to this dissertation, due to the dynamic nature of the industry, reports are able to offer the very latest up to date information, which may take months to be peer reviewed and published in journals. There are a number of reports, which have been consulted in the preparation of this report that have provided valuable insight into the subject area. In addition the background chapter that follows this contains greater detail into the region and industry trends, separated to avoid over-powering the critical issues highlighted here. 3.1 Background The literature in general Skills Requirements Analysis (SRA) is extensive. Related areas include Training Needs Assessment (TNA) and the broader area of Learning Needs Assessment (LNA). Recent work in the area, such as that by Sine (1998) and earlier, by Kidd (1984) in knowledge acquisition adds to more traditional texts from skills training practitioners including Peterson (1998) and Major (1988). These papers all identify skills training as one of a number of initiatives to solve performance problems in an organisation. Using the performance problems identified, how far the skills identified are present, and how big is the gap between the performance objectives and the performance resulting from actual skills in place. This process is referred to as a skills audit. The skills audit links directly to the research questions in chapter one. A skills assessment or audit has three main objectives: 1. To determine what skills are required by each employee; 2. To determine which of the required skills each employee has; 3. To analyse the results and establish the specific training needs. Authors such as Hamel (1994) openly express the increasing value of employee’s skills, leading to knowledge within an organisation. More recent articles, such as Birch all and Tovstiga (1999) describe how this knowledge manifests itself primarily as organisational competencies and capabilities, leading to that all-important competitive advantage. Onaway to increase a company’s organisational competencies and capabilities in order to gain competitive advantage is through carefully implemented training and development, Schuler (1984).Education and training provision are important strategic practices in the development of organisational competence, but without understanding the precise skills needs first, how can the appropriate training be applied? 3.2 Information System Curriculum There is extensive literature surrounding the area of IS curriculum design. Although this study will not involve any design of curriculum, it is none the less useful to have an understanding of some of the issues that arise in designing IS curriculum; if the findings of this study will be used as a foundation to develop IS curricula. A common theme in the literature is the difficulty in creating curriculum that can fulfil all requirements in an industry that evolves so rapidly. Martinson and Cheung (2001) suggest that recent developments of IS industry jobs and career paths have made understanding the knowledge/skills requirement of an IS professional even more difficult. This is supported by Latham (2000) who explains that the complexity and multi-disciplinarily nature of Information Systems makes identifying a common curriculum both difficult and contentious. Skills requirements will inevitably change over time and it is important to take a strategic view of the needs of industry. There are a number of papers that highlight the differences between industry and academia strategies, and strong suggestions that these need to be merged and greater links formed between the two. Kim, Shim, and Yoon (1999) found that, â€Å"IS organisations perceive managerial and organisational issues as more important than educators†. They also found that educators consider emerging issues more important than industry organisations. Curriculum should be developed working with corporate partners. Similar work of Srinivasan, Duane, and Wright(1999) supports the importance of this idea of improving links between education and industry. In Lightfoot’s (1999) research on IS curriculum design, it was suggested that curriculum needs to be developed to satisfy both the current and future needs of the industry at the sometime. This is impossible without the links mentioned above. 3.3 Information System Skills Although the growing demand for IS professionals is evident, the exact combination of skills required is not. This could be attributed to the scope and divergence of IS roles that are now available. Hedge (now known as Dress) highlighted that â€Å"The fast-moving technological change in 1CT and rapid innovation, mean that it is much more difficult than in the past to determine the type and combination of skills that are needed† (Dee, 1999). While the reported growth of demand for IS workers is very evident, the identification of specific skills required for the variety of positions in Information Systems is not as clear† (Noll and Wilkins 2002).Research by Young and Lee (1997) and Lee, Trough, and Farwell (1995)confirm the increasing importance of these â€Å"soft skills†, which include writing, teamwork, presenting, project management, and interpersonal relationships. E-skills NTO, the industry representative body for IT skills, recently published a comprehensive report detailing the current situation regarding the supply and demand of IT and telecommunication professionals in the United Kingdom. This survey, called e-skills 21(2002) was the most comprehensive study of IT and Telecom Professionalism the UK in history, it included over 4000 interviews with professionals at all levels and across all sectors during 2001. The results of the comprehensive e-skills 21 survey mentioned earlier are characterised into technical and generic skills. More detail into what each compromises of will be given later. Aspects of the e-skills study have been used to develop the research instrument used in this study, to allow the skills gap findings to be directly compared. This E-Skills survey revealed a consensus among the companies that there was no major skill gap among the IS workers. However the one’s that did mention about a gap, pointed out the skills gap related to operating system, application usage and networking skills. It was common opinion among most of the respondents that technology was evolving at a much faster rate than they could grasp. These issues will be looked at during the study. Several studies indicate that verbal skills, work in cross-functional groups and written communications skills were the three most highly rated qualities to seek in staff Gupta and Watcher (1998) This view is supported in a recent report (lackey et al., 2000) quotes one respondent who said that: ‘There is a real lack of people who can combine ICT and business acumen.’ The biggest challenge for technical CT staff is in understanding the dynamics of business; including sales and marketing processes, supply chain processes, and internal processes. They also need to continue to develop and evolve customer facing business systems to enhance and improve the end user experience. CT staff were also identified as a central resource in teaching skills to other areas of the business; consequently communication skills and an understanding of the organisation are essential (E-skills 21, 2001). Another requirements paper by Lewinski (2003) suggests that IS skills can be more effectively developed through on-the-job training. The classification of requirements was not as specific as the other literature mentioned, but similarities can be seen in the results. With regard to technical skills; troubleshooting was required by 97 preceptor respondents, 91 services and facilitation, 82 installation of hardware/software and configuration, and 67 expressed a need for systems operation, monitoring and maintenance. Equal importance was placed upon non-technical skills, including; good communication, analytical/problem solving, flexibility and the ability to learn quickly. The only other study to include both a perceived and actual approach to skills assessment (as this study does) is by Hay (2003). The report by Hay (2003) concludes that there are four skills that are consistently higher than perceived needs of the job; basic computer use, word processing, spread sheet and database use. The areas repeatedly below the required level were presentation and graphics software, and use of a browser. There was also a reported â€Å"clear gap in the market† in the areas of knowledge of operating systems and networking. These skills gaps are readily identifiable by the employees themselves, with over 50% of participants lacking the required skills in at least one area. There are so many papers, with so many different classifications that comparing them directly was extremely difficult in writing this literature review. The common themes that came out were the technical and generic split of skills. There is a need for combination of both sets of skills. The skills gaps appear to be entered on OS and Networking skills on the technical side, and all skills related to the generic side. The only way to breakdown the mixture of skills from various papers to be able to understand and compare in a scientific way is by using an industry standard framework. The chosen framework and a number of other frameworks are described inspection 3.5. 3.4 E-Learning Skills Any employee, in any role, requires some overall, understanding of the business within which they work. Therefore, as this study is of IS professional skills in the e-learning industry each individual employed is required to have some understanding of the basics of teaching, tallow them to function as part of an educational organisation. The skills mentioned in this section will be required, though the depth of pedagogical skills will by dependant on the individual’s role. For example, the pedagogical skills of a training professional should be considerably stronger than that of a programmer. There was surprisingly little literature in the area of IS professionals working in-learning. The most useful research found was by Massy (2000 and2001). Both these studies were critically analysed by the Scottish enterprise research report published on their website. Both the papers suggested that the skills and competencies required by on-line training professionals can be broadly categorised as technical, pedagogical and managerial. Massy (2001) pointed out that there has been a consistent shift from the importance laid on Information Communication Technologies skills requirements with increased efforts now being placed on the acquisition of the above mentioned categories. The SFIA framework appears to cover every aspect of IS skills, the area of education and training was looked at closely being of particular importance to this study, and was found to give enough detail for IS professionals in general. Although more detail was required in the design of the instrument used in this study. â€Å"In line with developments in technology generally, the impact of technology-supported learning (TSL), and in particular e-learning(EL), has given rise to new combinations of skills, featuring how people learn with a sound understanding of the available technology in the design of learning experiences.† (Massy, 2000a cited in SERR, 2005) The first survey by Massy (2000) showed some interesting differences from the follow-up survey (2001). There was a marked change in focus of skills from technical (ICT) to pedagogical skills. The key concern in2000, was that technology had become the central focus for e-learning development, appeared to have been address in the 12 months that passed before the second survey. Greater emphasis was now being placed on the managerial and pedagogical attributes required for producing and presenting e-learning. In the same 12 month period, over 60% of respondents had taken part in some informal training, and a further 30% formal classroom-based learning. The step down in attaining ICT skills was reportedly due to the basic fluency being established and the focus being directed to attaining new skills in e-learning content design. This requires a greater understanding of management and pedagogy. The study by Martin and Jennings (2002) followed the same approach as Massy. In this survey a distinction was made between users and suppliers of e-learning. Unfortunately it is not possible to make that distinction, as more often than not they are the same person. This problem of identifying groups was also expressed in the report, â€Å"Unreality, most user organisations are also providers of e-learning, such as universities.† Suppliers identified an increased interest in gaining in-depth Information Communication skills; others suggesting this were a major problem. Stronger leadership and ‘championing’ of projects is also required. The most important ICT skills identified, with regard to-learning were: To effectively utilise web-page design, including text, audio and video conferencing materials, E-mail, Bulletin boards, Discussion forums for communication with and between learners (SERR,2005). These are relatively common and well-developed skills for IS professionals. Another important issue, which has continued to braised throughout this literature review, is the need for better collaboration between industry (supplier) and academia. To aid this it is also suggested that e-learning needs to be integrated further in to university and college education. 3.5 Information System Frameworks IS management and occupational analysts in different-organisations and countries have tried to distil the structure of the industry, from the constantly evolving picture, so it is understandable that a number of different occupational frameworks have therefore emerged. The most important frameworks to this study are those that have been used for surveys. While there are broad similarities, different surveys, using different frameworks, produce different results, and although they may enrich the overall picture of the industry, they cannot generally be usefully compared. A number of academics have developed their own skills frameworks. Allot these follow the same format of grouping technical and business skills, against various levels of competency. Examples of academic frameworks developed include early research by Ashen Hurst (1972) that identified 37 skills and abilities that a student in a graduate IS program should expect to acquire into six categories: people, models, systems, computers, organizations, and society. Similarly the work of Todd et al. (1995) classified IS knowledge into seven categories: hardware, software, business, management, social, and problem solving, and development methodology. It was also reasoned that interpersonal and managerial skills are more important than any technical skills for IS managers. Nelson (1991) classified 30 skills into six groups: organizational knowledge, organizational skills, organizational unit, general IS knowledge, technical skills, and IS product. This paper found that IS personnel were deficient in general IS knowledge followed by organizational knowledge, technical skills, organizational skills, IS product, and organizational units (in that order). Lee and Gosling (1999) classified three key abilities of IS professionals: ability to learn new technologies, ability to focus on technology as a means (not an end), and ability to understand technological trends into technology management knowledge and other technology-related knowledge into technical specialized knowledge. There port classified non-technology-related knowledge into business functional knowledge, interpersonal and management skills, letting interpersonal and management skills contain some personal traits. Also included was the ability to teach others interpersonal and management skills. It was found that non-technological knowledge is now more important than technical skills. A skills framework gives organisations: A clear, well-structured view of their staffs skills; A tool for more accurate planning and management of resources; A tool for accurate development of careers, so improving retention; A better way of targeting training; A method of risk assessment for the loss of key skills; A tool for accurate and efficient recruitment (Taken From Skills Framework ). In the UK, in June 2001 e-skills NTO published a Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). It provides a common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to develop effective Information Systems making use of Information Communications Technologies. It appeared to be a simple and coherent two-dimensional framework consisting of areas of work on one axis and levels of responsibility on the other (SFIA ). Previously there was no industry benchmark for organisation to measure the skill levels of their organisation. The methodology for this study will be developed to allow the results to be mapped directly onto the framework. Therefore, the findings can be compared to those of previous research carried out by-skills NTO. 3.6 Summary The literature presented has highlighted some important issues, provided grounding for this study and has helped eliminate some of the preconceptions of what was expected. The purpose of identifying skills gaps is to allow the appropriate training to be adopted, therefore eliminating the performance problems that exist. The career paths of the IS industry are no longer straight forward and the complexity and diversity of the sector makes understanding it in a scientific way very difficult. The literature suggests that as the industry is so dynamic, relationships must be improved between education and industry. The problems that exist relate to academic and training practitioners not providing the correct skills in their graduates. Research focused academia tends to provide graduates with the latest emerging technologies, these skills quickly become out-of-date, while the more fundamental technologies appear to be neglected. This is expressed in the views of many industry speakers, it is assumed that an IS professional will be capable of learning new programming languages, once the method of logical thinking has been established. It is more important to develop the established fundamental technologies, and allow the professional to develop the niche skills required as they move into a specialist area, for example e-learning. The technical skills gaps that exist are focused around Microsoft Programs; including Windows/NT, MS Application skills (especially MS Access), and Networking technologies. The generic skills gaps that exist include both written and oral communication, user IT skills, industry awareness, and problem solving. The combinations of these two types of skills gaps are from literature that investigated the whole IS industry. It will be interesting to see how they compare with thee-learning sector, which you would presume at this stage to have stronger focus on generic skills. The literature that was focused one-learning highlighted all forms of communication (e.g. oral, written, and electronic) as the most important generic skills. The most important technical skills required included web related technologies and presentation or audio visual skills. The final area to look into was to see if the focus change from technical to pedagogical was visible in this study. This could not be done in the same way as the literature by repeating the study again after a 12 month period. As different approach the structure of the instrument could be written in way to allow comparisons to be made between importance levels of the three categories of skill. The main reasons cited for skills gaps in the ICT sector are a lack of skills/experience of new technologies and organisations failing to train/develop staff sufficiently to meet their needs. This in turn causes difficulty in introducing technological change. The other effects highlighted include delays in the development of new products/services and difficulties meeting business objectives. Much of the literature suggests the most obvious actions to address the problem of skills gaps would be to provide further training and increase recruitment of direct staff. These can be included in the changing of working practices. The chapter on research methods will explain exactly what instruments are used and the approach taken. The literature was used extensively to create the instruments and followed previous research to allow comparisons of the results to be made. They follow the form set out in this review; combining technical, generic and pedagogical skills. Instruments used in the literature were modified and extended for the purposes of this study. The results chapter also uses some of the literature as a source of ideas for the descriptions and highlighting the most significant findings. This is to allow direct comparison with previous studies. The main gap identified in the literature is with regard to quantifying the pedagogical skills mentioned. In Masons work the skills are mentioned but not in enough detail. In the e-learning industry the pedagogical skills will not match that of a â€Å"normal† teacher or lecturer, as there is not only a significant difference between the methods of teaching and learning, but also in content provision. The student in an e-learning environment is a researcher, which is quite different from classroom based taught learning. There are also further technical skills that are only required in this sector that need to be assessed. This study should provide the reader with an understanding of the requirements of an IS professional working in e-learning and highlight the gaps that currently exist in this sector in Berkshire. It will be of particular benefit to persons working within the industry or closely linked to it. This study can be used as a basis to start an investigation into the requirements of an IS e-learning undergraduate or postgraduate course. 3.7 Research Hypothesis Null Hypothesis is defined as ‘The state opposite to that suggested in a hypothesis, postulated in the hope of rejecting its form and therefore proving the hypothesis.’ Hence the null hypothesis for this research may be stated as H0: â€Å"There is no skills gap among Information system professionals in the e-learning sector.† The following research hypothesis is derived from the literature and will be tested using the primary research conducted by the researcher. H1: â€Å"There exists a skills gap among Information system professional in the e-learning sector† 4. Research Methodology 4.1 Introduction An appropriate research methodology is a general plan of how the researcher will go about answering the research questions considering the sources to collect data and the constraints that one might have(access to data, time, location and money, etc.). It should reflect the fact that the researcher has thought carefully about why a particular strategy/method has been employed. Data intended for almost any study can be obtained from two sources: Primary Data and Secondary Data. This chapter describes the process of method selection and justification for the method chosen. The sample selection method is described and the design of the instrument used is included. There is an introduction into how the results were analysed before the results chapter which holds greater detail. Then there is a short description of how the methods chosen could have been improved or expanded on given greater time or financial resources. 4.2 Choice of Methodology A small-scale research study of this kind can use a survey to obtain large amounts of data in a short space of time. This study has produced a statistical analysis of the skills r Skill Requirements for IS Professionals in E-learning Skill Requirements for IS Professionals in E-learning Skills requirements for information system professionals in the e-learning sector This research project is an investigation into the skills required for Information Systems (IS) professionals working in the commercial e-learning sector. This involved determining the perceived skill requirements for IS professionals, the actual skills held by current employees in this sector, and identifying any skills gaps that existed. The survey obtained information from a representative selection of the IS professional population. The questionnaire sample included IS professionals at all levels and grades of employment and reflected the composition of participating organizations. The table below summarises the objectives of this investigation: Identify the state of the UK IS workforce and the e-learning industry, Investigate the skills required to work as an IS professional in the e-learning industry in Berkshire, Investigate what skills gaps exist and Investigate the possible causes of these skills gaps. The main outcome of the study was a matrix of the skills required that can be used by universities and training organisations to tailor their course content to suit the constantly evolving demands of this industry. To combat the skills gaps that emerged and prevent performance problems arising, a number of recommendations need to be adopted to address the problems discovered: (1) Improve training strategies for IS professionals within the sector, majority of organisations have no set training strategy or budget; this is something that needs to change, (2) Create an annual ‘e-learning skills report’ detailing gaps and shortages, allowing education and industry to understand emerging and established skills needs. It would allow changes in demand and type of skill to be monitored. This would allow organisations to structure their internal training strategies, to eliminate skills gaps and (3) Form direct links between industry and education partners to allow course content t o be improved and improve employment prospects for graduates. The most important action is to integrate education with industry. If courses as specialist as-learning could be developed with an industry partner, the correct content would be guaranteed. 1. Introduction Many organisations have come to realise that certain new technologies can optimise efficiency and make processes more effective. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can bring industry closer to their customers, partners and suppliers through more integrated business and communication systems, and can provide enhanced educational opportunities. â€Å"There is a well-established relationship between improvements in Information Systems (IS) skills and increased productivity.† (Dress, 2001) The opportunity to gain competitive advantage through technology has consequently contributed to demand for skilled IS professionals outstripping supply. The label used to describe this effect is a ‘skills shortage’. The Computer Services and Software Association estimate that IS skills shortages will cost the UK over  £30 billion over the next three years(e-skills NTO, 2001). There is a growing recognition that the gap in skills for IS professionals is widening. The gap in skills does not only affect the ICT (primary) sector but all other sectors (secondary)which apply information technologies in their production, processes, products or services. The E-revolution of the information industries has created a new labour force, professional IS roles are becoming diversified and a generic IS curriculum will not meet all the needs for all IS jobs in the future. It seems that in any system that has an â€Å"E† placed in front of it; e-learning, e-business, e-commerce, are the development of new skills. Never before have new skills appeared at such a rate. Even if industrial structure is only changing slowly, employers of ‘IS ‘practitioners rarely found it easy to articulate their current and particularly future skill needs very precisely. â€Å"Nearly one third of the IS skills in the market today have only emerged in the last year. Sixty seven of the one hundred and thirty three internet related skills are totally new.† Chris Bennett, MD SAP Australia (Hawking, 2002) New curricula need to be developed which consist-’of separate distinctive concentrations, which target specific roles in the job market. A new stronger relationship needs to be formed between educational institutions and companies; to allow the required skills to be taught and help alleviate the current IS skills shortages. In the rapidly changing field of IS, educational programs must be continually re-evaluated and revised. â€Å"There is presently a gap between what industry wants characteristically in it IS personnel and what academia provides to them.† Gupta and Watcher( 1998) The first step in the curriculum revision process is to conduct a study to determine the expected skills and knowledge required for IS professionals in industry. This will allow academic institutions to create programs that more accurately reflect the demands of the marketplace. At present, there is no identifiable data about the requirements of IS professionals specific to the e-learning sector. This is the gap in knowledge that needs to be investigated. This dissertation has been commissioned to do precisely that; to investigate the skills required for IS professionals working in thee-learning industry. The results can then be used as a foundation for developing a suitable postgraduate course at the University level. The main outcome of the study will be a matrix of the skills required that can be used by universities and training organisations to tailor their course content to suit the constantly evolving demands of this industry. The research carried out in this project can be used by other universities to clarify the skills required for employment in this sector, allowing course content to be tailored to suit the changing demands of industry, and improve the opportunities for students seeking employment upon graduation. 2. Aims Objectives The research will be cantered on the key area of skills gap analysis. This will involve determining the perceived skill requirements for IS professionals and the actual skills held by current employees, then determining the differences. This study aims to obtain information from a representative selection of the IS professional population, and from that sample the researcher will then be able to present the findings as being representative of the population as awhile. The characteristics of the total population will be represented justly in the sample to enable the researcher to say with fair confidence that the sample is reasonably representative. The sample will include IS professionals at all levels and grades of employment and will reflect the composition of participating organisations. The study will allow users to simultaneously score both their own self-assessment of their ability and their perceptions of the levels of skill actually required by their job. The sample population will include organizations in the e-learning sector with a history of close association with Business Link Berkshire and Wiltshire. Summary of Research Objectives †¢ Identify the current state of the UK IS workforce and the e-learning industry †¢ Identify the most important/prevalent issues from the literature †¢ Investigate the skills required to work as an IS professional in the e-learning industry in the Berkshire region †¢ Identify the skill gaps from the perceived and actual skill levels †¢ Discuss the finding and compare against those of relevant previous studies 3. Literature Review The foundation for revision of curriculum process is the review of literature and investigation into the expected industry skills and knowledge for IS professionals. In the introduction chapter an outline of this study was given. This section will focus upon academic literature related to the subject area, which will go onto further support the data already mentioned. As well as academic literature, reports are of particular importance to this dissertation, due to the dynamic nature of the industry, reports are able to offer the very latest up to date information, which may take months to be peer reviewed and published in journals. There are a number of reports, which have been consulted in the preparation of this report that have provided valuable insight into the subject area. In addition the background chapter that follows this contains greater detail into the region and industry trends, separated to avoid over-powering the critical issues highlighted here. 3.1 Background The literature in general Skills Requirements Analysis (SRA) is extensive. Related areas include Training Needs Assessment (TNA) and the broader area of Learning Needs Assessment (LNA). Recent work in the area, such as that by Sine (1998) and earlier, by Kidd (1984) in knowledge acquisition adds to more traditional texts from skills training practitioners including Peterson (1998) and Major (1988). These papers all identify skills training as one of a number of initiatives to solve performance problems in an organisation. Using the performance problems identified, how far the skills identified are present, and how big is the gap between the performance objectives and the performance resulting from actual skills in place. This process is referred to as a skills audit. The skills audit links directly to the research questions in chapter one. A skills assessment or audit has three main objectives: 1. To determine what skills are required by each employee; 2. To determine which of the required skills each employee has; 3. To analyse the results and establish the specific training needs. Authors such as Hamel (1994) openly express the increasing value of employee’s skills, leading to knowledge within an organisation. More recent articles, such as Birch all and Tovstiga (1999) describe how this knowledge manifests itself primarily as organisational competencies and capabilities, leading to that all-important competitive advantage. Onaway to increase a company’s organisational competencies and capabilities in order to gain competitive advantage is through carefully implemented training and development, Schuler (1984).Education and training provision are important strategic practices in the development of organisational competence, but without understanding the precise skills needs first, how can the appropriate training be applied? 3.2 Information System Curriculum There is extensive literature surrounding the area of IS curriculum design. Although this study will not involve any design of curriculum, it is none the less useful to have an understanding of some of the issues that arise in designing IS curriculum; if the findings of this study will be used as a foundation to develop IS curricula. A common theme in the literature is the difficulty in creating curriculum that can fulfil all requirements in an industry that evolves so rapidly. Martinson and Cheung (2001) suggest that recent developments of IS industry jobs and career paths have made understanding the knowledge/skills requirement of an IS professional even more difficult. This is supported by Latham (2000) who explains that the complexity and multi-disciplinarily nature of Information Systems makes identifying a common curriculum both difficult and contentious. Skills requirements will inevitably change over time and it is important to take a strategic view of the needs of industry. There are a number of papers that highlight the differences between industry and academia strategies, and strong suggestions that these need to be merged and greater links formed between the two. Kim, Shim, and Yoon (1999) found that, â€Å"IS organisations perceive managerial and organisational issues as more important than educators†. They also found that educators consider emerging issues more important than industry organisations. Curriculum should be developed working with corporate partners. Similar work of Srinivasan, Duane, and Wright(1999) supports the importance of this idea of improving links between education and industry. In Lightfoot’s (1999) research on IS curriculum design, it was suggested that curriculum needs to be developed to satisfy both the current and future needs of the industry at the sometime. This is impossible without the links mentioned above. 3.3 Information System Skills Although the growing demand for IS professionals is evident, the exact combination of skills required is not. This could be attributed to the scope and divergence of IS roles that are now available. Hedge (now known as Dress) highlighted that â€Å"The fast-moving technological change in 1CT and rapid innovation, mean that it is much more difficult than in the past to determine the type and combination of skills that are needed† (Dee, 1999). While the reported growth of demand for IS workers is very evident, the identification of specific skills required for the variety of positions in Information Systems is not as clear† (Noll and Wilkins 2002).Research by Young and Lee (1997) and Lee, Trough, and Farwell (1995)confirm the increasing importance of these â€Å"soft skills†, which include writing, teamwork, presenting, project management, and interpersonal relationships. E-skills NTO, the industry representative body for IT skills, recently published a comprehensive report detailing the current situation regarding the supply and demand of IT and telecommunication professionals in the United Kingdom. This survey, called e-skills 21(2002) was the most comprehensive study of IT and Telecom Professionalism the UK in history, it included over 4000 interviews with professionals at all levels and across all sectors during 2001. The results of the comprehensive e-skills 21 survey mentioned earlier are characterised into technical and generic skills. More detail into what each compromises of will be given later. Aspects of the e-skills study have been used to develop the research instrument used in this study, to allow the skills gap findings to be directly compared. This E-Skills survey revealed a consensus among the companies that there was no major skill gap among the IS workers. However the one’s that did mention about a gap, pointed out the skills gap related to operating system, application usage and networking skills. It was common opinion among most of the respondents that technology was evolving at a much faster rate than they could grasp. These issues will be looked at during the study. Several studies indicate that verbal skills, work in cross-functional groups and written communications skills were the three most highly rated qualities to seek in staff Gupta and Watcher (1998) This view is supported in a recent report (lackey et al., 2000) quotes one respondent who said that: ‘There is a real lack of people who can combine ICT and business acumen.’ The biggest challenge for technical CT staff is in understanding the dynamics of business; including sales and marketing processes, supply chain processes, and internal processes. They also need to continue to develop and evolve customer facing business systems to enhance and improve the end user experience. CT staff were also identified as a central resource in teaching skills to other areas of the business; consequently communication skills and an understanding of the organisation are essential (E-skills 21, 2001). Another requirements paper by Lewinski (2003) suggests that IS skills can be more effectively developed through on-the-job training. The classification of requirements was not as specific as the other literature mentioned, but similarities can be seen in the results. With regard to technical skills; troubleshooting was required by 97 preceptor respondents, 91 services and facilitation, 82 installation of hardware/software and configuration, and 67 expressed a need for systems operation, monitoring and maintenance. Equal importance was placed upon non-technical skills, including; good communication, analytical/problem solving, flexibility and the ability to learn quickly. The only other study to include both a perceived and actual approach to skills assessment (as this study does) is by Hay (2003). The report by Hay (2003) concludes that there are four skills that are consistently higher than perceived needs of the job; basic computer use, word processing, spread sheet and database use. The areas repeatedly below the required level were presentation and graphics software, and use of a browser. There was also a reported â€Å"clear gap in the market† in the areas of knowledge of operating systems and networking. These skills gaps are readily identifiable by the employees themselves, with over 50% of participants lacking the required skills in at least one area. There are so many papers, with so many different classifications that comparing them directly was extremely difficult in writing this literature review. The common themes that came out were the technical and generic split of skills. There is a need for combination of both sets of skills. The skills gaps appear to be entered on OS and Networking skills on the technical side, and all skills related to the generic side. The only way to breakdown the mixture of skills from various papers to be able to understand and compare in a scientific way is by using an industry standard framework. The chosen framework and a number of other frameworks are described inspection 3.5. 3.4 E-Learning Skills Any employee, in any role, requires some overall, understanding of the business within which they work. Therefore, as this study is of IS professional skills in the e-learning industry each individual employed is required to have some understanding of the basics of teaching, tallow them to function as part of an educational organisation. The skills mentioned in this section will be required, though the depth of pedagogical skills will by dependant on the individual’s role. For example, the pedagogical skills of a training professional should be considerably stronger than that of a programmer. There was surprisingly little literature in the area of IS professionals working in-learning. The most useful research found was by Massy (2000 and2001). Both these studies were critically analysed by the Scottish enterprise research report published on their website. Both the papers suggested that the skills and competencies required by on-line training professionals can be broadly categorised as technical, pedagogical and managerial. Massy (2001) pointed out that there has been a consistent shift from the importance laid on Information Communication Technologies skills requirements with increased efforts now being placed on the acquisition of the above mentioned categories. The SFIA framework appears to cover every aspect of IS skills, the area of education and training was looked at closely being of particular importance to this study, and was found to give enough detail for IS professionals in general. Although more detail was required in the design of the instrument used in this study. â€Å"In line with developments in technology generally, the impact of technology-supported learning (TSL), and in particular e-learning(EL), has given rise to new combinations of skills, featuring how people learn with a sound understanding of the available technology in the design of learning experiences.† (Massy, 2000a cited in SERR, 2005) The first survey by Massy (2000) showed some interesting differences from the follow-up survey (2001). There was a marked change in focus of skills from technical (ICT) to pedagogical skills. The key concern in2000, was that technology had become the central focus for e-learning development, appeared to have been address in the 12 months that passed before the second survey. Greater emphasis was now being placed on the managerial and pedagogical attributes required for producing and presenting e-learning. In the same 12 month period, over 60% of respondents had taken part in some informal training, and a further 30% formal classroom-based learning. The step down in attaining ICT skills was reportedly due to the basic fluency being established and the focus being directed to attaining new skills in e-learning content design. This requires a greater understanding of management and pedagogy. The study by Martin and Jennings (2002) followed the same approach as Massy. In this survey a distinction was made between users and suppliers of e-learning. Unfortunately it is not possible to make that distinction, as more often than not they are the same person. This problem of identifying groups was also expressed in the report, â€Å"Unreality, most user organisations are also providers of e-learning, such as universities.† Suppliers identified an increased interest in gaining in-depth Information Communication skills; others suggesting this were a major problem. Stronger leadership and ‘championing’ of projects is also required. The most important ICT skills identified, with regard to-learning were: To effectively utilise web-page design, including text, audio and video conferencing materials, E-mail, Bulletin boards, Discussion forums for communication with and between learners (SERR,2005). These are relatively common and well-developed skills for IS professionals. Another important issue, which has continued to braised throughout this literature review, is the need for better collaboration between industry (supplier) and academia. To aid this it is also suggested that e-learning needs to be integrated further in to university and college education. 3.5 Information System Frameworks IS management and occupational analysts in different-organisations and countries have tried to distil the structure of the industry, from the constantly evolving picture, so it is understandable that a number of different occupational frameworks have therefore emerged. The most important frameworks to this study are those that have been used for surveys. While there are broad similarities, different surveys, using different frameworks, produce different results, and although they may enrich the overall picture of the industry, they cannot generally be usefully compared. A number of academics have developed their own skills frameworks. Allot these follow the same format of grouping technical and business skills, against various levels of competency. Examples of academic frameworks developed include early research by Ashen Hurst (1972) that identified 37 skills and abilities that a student in a graduate IS program should expect to acquire into six categories: people, models, systems, computers, organizations, and society. Similarly the work of Todd et al. (1995) classified IS knowledge into seven categories: hardware, software, business, management, social, and problem solving, and development methodology. It was also reasoned that interpersonal and managerial skills are more important than any technical skills for IS managers. Nelson (1991) classified 30 skills into six groups: organizational knowledge, organizational skills, organizational unit, general IS knowledge, technical skills, and IS product. This paper found that IS personnel were deficient in general IS knowledge followed by organizational knowledge, technical skills, organizational skills, IS product, and organizational units (in that order). Lee and Gosling (1999) classified three key abilities of IS professionals: ability to learn new technologies, ability to focus on technology as a means (not an end), and ability to understand technological trends into technology management knowledge and other technology-related knowledge into technical specialized knowledge. There port classified non-technology-related knowledge into business functional knowledge, interpersonal and management skills, letting interpersonal and management skills contain some personal traits. Also included was the ability to teach others interpersonal and management skills. It was found that non-technological knowledge is now more important than technical skills. A skills framework gives organisations: A clear, well-structured view of their staffs skills; A tool for more accurate planning and management of resources; A tool for accurate development of careers, so improving retention; A better way of targeting training; A method of risk assessment for the loss of key skills; A tool for accurate and efficient recruitment (Taken From Skills Framework ). In the UK, in June 2001 e-skills NTO published a Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). It provides a common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to develop effective Information Systems making use of Information Communications Technologies. It appeared to be a simple and coherent two-dimensional framework consisting of areas of work on one axis and levels of responsibility on the other (SFIA ). Previously there was no industry benchmark for organisation to measure the skill levels of their organisation. The methodology for this study will be developed to allow the results to be mapped directly onto the framework. Therefore, the findings can be compared to those of previous research carried out by-skills NTO. 3.6 Summary The literature presented has highlighted some important issues, provided grounding for this study and has helped eliminate some of the preconceptions of what was expected. The purpose of identifying skills gaps is to allow the appropriate training to be adopted, therefore eliminating the performance problems that exist. The career paths of the IS industry are no longer straight forward and the complexity and diversity of the sector makes understanding it in a scientific way very difficult. The literature suggests that as the industry is so dynamic, relationships must be improved between education and industry. The problems that exist relate to academic and training practitioners not providing the correct skills in their graduates. Research focused academia tends to provide graduates with the latest emerging technologies, these skills quickly become out-of-date, while the more fundamental technologies appear to be neglected. This is expressed in the views of many industry speakers, it is assumed that an IS professional will be capable of learning new programming languages, once the method of logical thinking has been established. It is more important to develop the established fundamental technologies, and allow the professional to develop the niche skills required as they move into a specialist area, for example e-learning. The technical skills gaps that exist are focused around Microsoft Programs; including Windows/NT, MS Application skills (especially MS Access), and Networking technologies. The generic skills gaps that exist include both written and oral communication, user IT skills, industry awareness, and problem solving. The combinations of these two types of skills gaps are from literature that investigated the whole IS industry. It will be interesting to see how they compare with thee-learning sector, which you would presume at this stage to have stronger focus on generic skills. The literature that was focused one-learning highlighted all forms of communication (e.g. oral, written, and electronic) as the most important generic skills. The most important technical skills required included web related technologies and presentation or audio visual skills. The final area to look into was to see if the focus change from technical to pedagogical was visible in this study. This could not be done in the same way as the literature by repeating the study again after a 12 month period. As different approach the structure of the instrument could be written in way to allow comparisons to be made between importance levels of the three categories of skill. The main reasons cited for skills gaps in the ICT sector are a lack of skills/experience of new technologies and organisations failing to train/develop staff sufficiently to meet their needs. This in turn causes difficulty in introducing technological change. The other effects highlighted include delays in the development of new products/services and difficulties meeting business objectives. Much of the literature suggests the most obvious actions to address the problem of skills gaps would be to provide further training and increase recruitment of direct staff. These can be included in the changing of working practices. The chapter on research methods will explain exactly what instruments are used and the approach taken. The literature was used extensively to create the instruments and followed previous research to allow comparisons of the results to be made. They follow the form set out in this review; combining technical, generic and pedagogical skills. Instruments used in the literature were modified and extended for the purposes of this study. The results chapter also uses some of the literature as a source of ideas for the descriptions and highlighting the most significant findings. This is to allow direct comparison with previous studies. The main gap identified in the literature is with regard to quantifying the pedagogical skills mentioned. In Masons work the skills are mentioned but not in enough detail. In the e-learning industry the pedagogical skills will not match that of a â€Å"normal† teacher or lecturer, as there is not only a significant difference between the methods of teaching and learning, but also in content provision. The student in an e-learning environment is a researcher, which is quite different from classroom based taught learning. There are also further technical skills that are only required in this sector that need to be assessed. This study should provide the reader with an understanding of the requirements of an IS professional working in e-learning and highlight the gaps that currently exist in this sector in Berkshire. It will be of particular benefit to persons working within the industry or closely linked to it. This study can be used as a basis to start an investigation into the requirements of an IS e-learning undergraduate or postgraduate course. 3.7 Research Hypothesis Null Hypothesis is defined as ‘The state opposite to that suggested in a hypothesis, postulated in the hope of rejecting its form and therefore proving the hypothesis.’ Hence the null hypothesis for this research may be stated as H0: â€Å"There is no skills gap among Information system professionals in the e-learning sector.† The following research hypothesis is derived from the literature and will be tested using the primary research conducted by the researcher. H1: â€Å"There exists a skills gap among Information system professional in the e-learning sector† 4. Research Methodology 4.1 Introduction An appropriate research methodology is a general plan of how the researcher will go about answering the research questions considering the sources to collect data and the constraints that one might have(access to data, time, location and money, etc.). It should reflect the fact that the researcher has thought carefully about why a particular strategy/method has been employed. Data intended for almost any study can be obtained from two sources: Primary Data and Secondary Data. This chapter describes the process of method selection and justification for the method chosen. The sample selection method is described and the design of the instrument used is included. There is an introduction into how the results were analysed before the results chapter which holds greater detail. Then there is a short description of how the methods chosen could have been improved or expanded on given greater time or financial resources. 4.2 Choice of Methodology A small-scale research study of this kind can use a survey to obtain large amounts of data in a short space of time. This study has produced a statistical analysis of the skills r