Market For Courses Research Articles

The Industrial Organization of Online Education

Online education has flexibility and cost advantages over in-class teaching and these advantages will grow with improvements in information technology. We consider likely market structures given that the quality aspects of online education exhibit endogenous fixed costs. Concentration in the market for courses could be high, as it is currently in the market for textbooks. The not-for-profit sector will exhibit lower costs, lower concentration, and possibly zero price.

Membership survey of the Australasian College of Legal Medicine: Quality assurance

IntroductionThe Council of the Australasian College of Legal Medicine (ACLM) considered it timely to survey its membership to determine how to best accommodate its members' needs. MethodsA questionnaire was devised, piloted and circulated amongst the 219 College members (excluding the 13 Honorary Fellows). Yield was maximised with 4 direct mailings, 4 questionnaire insertions in the quarterly College newsletter, 3 targeted emails and follow-up phone calls. ResultsThe survey achieved 160 (73%) response rate of whom ∼40% were substantially involved in legal and forensic medicine and ∼40% were occasionally involved. Thirty-five participants (23%) specialised in forensic medicine and 101 (63%) held Fellowship status in other recognised medical specialities. Equal ⅓ of the members had been so for >10 years, 5–10 years or <5 years, demonstrating the dynamic nature of the College. Of them 53% were Fellows, 26% Members and 21% Associates with 50% of the latter groups willing to train towards Fellowship. About half the respondents (48%) regularly attended the Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) and favoured the Eastern border for such meetings. The collegiate nature of the College was deemed its most positive aspect with a dichotomy of views regarding seeking alternative strand affiliation for specialist recognition, although 80% indicated they would retain College membership even if such affiliation occurred. Those who attended College educative programs found them useful but attendance was between 32 and 49%, depending on the course. DiscussionThere appeared widespread satisfaction with College performance and activities but a low uptake of educative courses, other than Annual Scientific Meetings, thereby identifying marketing of courses as needing extra attention.

Personal Development under Market Conditions: NLP and the Emergence of an Ethics of Sensitivity Based on the Idea of the Hidden Potential of the Individual

Courses in personal development have become the site of a remarkable alliance between modern working life and new religious forms over recent decades. Firms and public organisations in Denmark and other European countries have adopted personal development as part of their mission statements and added it to their human resources policies and general values. Work on the transformation of the self, one's thoughts, and ideas is not just seen as the way to a better working life, but also to economic wellbeing. This has created a market for courses in personal development, which brings consultants and human resource managers together in companies and organisations. This article is based on a study of the transpersonal method known as Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). It describes this as the emergence of an ‘ethics of sensitivity’, closely connected to the changes in management and employee strategies now necessary to ensure a successful career. This article focuses on the relationship between New Age practices and modern management, and the development of a new work ethic based on sensitivity. What is the economic aspect of this new ethic? What is its rationale and in what sense is it linked to a market?

Quality in nurse education: an exploration of the concept of students as customers

The issues of Quality and Quality Assurance in nurse education, have become prominent in the design, management and marketing of courses. However, quality is a concept which has many meanings. One of the central ideas which has emerged from the current discourses on quality, is that of the ‘customer’. In the new business jargon of the 1990s, with its emphasis on the market and competition, the importance of ‘satisfying the needs of the customer/consumer’ has been a dominant theme. One of the customers of nurse education is seen as the student. The reconceptualization of the student as customer may carry with it, connotations which do not readily fit into the context of education and learning as a jointly negotiated process. A collaborative, rather than consumerist model is proposed as a preferable basis for the ensuring of quality, and the involvement of students in that process. Such a model, would be in line with a truly student-centred approach to nurse education, where power is shared between those involved in the process. The importance of the current inequality of power in student-teacher relationships is a barrier to such an approach and true student participation, rather than tokenism is called for.

German Literature and Generation X

Is there still a market for courses in German literature at North American undergraduate institutions? Large numbers of faculty employed in field continue to behave as if there were. Yet nagging reminders and occasional crisis in our professional environments suggest that Germanists may be only people still convinced of value of studying German literature within a university education. At smaller institutions like my own, administrators regularly call department heads to account for low enrollments in upper-level courses, pointing out that closing them down in favor of well subscribed language courses would be a more efficient use of resources. Once large German departments, now reduced by falling student numbers and hiring freezes, find themselves consolidated with Asian Studies, Classics, Slavic Studies, or whatever departments were down to, say, less than five faculty members. It is left to motley new omnidepartment to define what it has to offer. Often, this means foreign language instruction a la carte, general humanities courses that teach about other cultures in English translation, interdisciplinary courses that attempt to lure students from stronger departments, and for a small handful of majors, selective introductions to literature in original language. At best, this institutional arrangement is perceived as an interesting mix; at worst, as an incoherent muddle. These symptoms of marginalization of Germanistik and of its current identity crisis are familiar enough. Others have described and thoughtfully analyzed them (see for instance Nollendorfs; Van Cleve and Willson). Clearly a serious mismatch has developed between what field has traditionally offered and what its potential consumers-above all students--want or need. Because this is a situation experienced by many colleagues as a painful loss, reactions of denial, anger, or depression are perhaps understandable. On hand, trend toward interdisciplinary collaborations such as German Studies programs has been a creative and often quite successful response to shrinking demand for our services. It encourages one to hope that Germanists will eventually succeed, not merely in repackaging their field in response to external pressures, but in actively transforming it. A key question in this process of transition remains, What can German literature, even broadly defined, actually teach? Critics and observers commonly stress that any re-thinking of field must address pedagogical concerns that are specific to North American post-secondary context. This means, for instance, that teaching practice should take into account essential foreignness of German texts for our students, and that reading lists should reflect our own teaching aims rather than a canon rooted in culture of German-speaking Europe (see, e.g., Nollendorfs 9; Rankin 24). While this is certainly to be applauded, my impression is that much of talk about pedagogy as a factor driving reform occurs over heads of our students. Like faculty in humanities and especially in literature departments, Germanists tend to define their pedagogical aims in terms of their diverse disciplinary and methodological allegiances within academia and its distinct culture (Nollendorfs 4-6). So, for instance, Colleague A teaches the best which has been thought and said by authors of acknowledged greatness, Colleague B teaches feminist approaches to writing and gender, and Colleague C teaches communication theory informed by Frankfurt School. The only thing that seems to make them all Germanists is language of their study examples. But they may well have one thing in common: unques-