In this experimental paper, I will share my hypotheses for the recently commenced study on the economic activities of several Asian business communities in eighteenth-century Melaka. In recent... Show moreIn this experimental paper, I will share my hypotheses for the recently commenced study on the economic activities of several Asian business communities in eighteenth-century Melaka. In recent years Asian merchants and entrepreneurs – e.g. Chinese, Malay, Chettiar, Gujarati, Arab, Bugi, Armenian, and Jewish traders – and their relation to the Indian Ocean World have received increasing attention from scholars. These studies show that such social groups had major stakes in both regional and global trade networks, both thanks to and despite of the presence of the colonial trade companies and imperial governments. Moreover, the persistent presence and activities of such communities showcase their capacity to navigate, utilise, or evade European colonial efforts to control and monopolise commerce – offering us an insight into how such communities dealt with and lived under (or regardless of) European colonial rule. In this paper, and my project at large, I want to take a next step by considering how the activities of such trade communities collectively helped shape and transition institutions, structures, and networks on a global scale that were previously mostly accredited to Western colonialism in an Age of Revolutions – such as capitalism, modern economic, legal and bureaucratic institutions, and forced labour regimes. Through three vignettes centred around the colonial port city of Melaka (1750-1820), I explore to what extent stories extracted from colonial archives can help reconstruct such dynamic historical processes and transitions from a more diversifying perspective – moving beyond binaries like colonial/local, occidental/oriental, and western/non-western. Show less
Differentiated instruction concerns adapting education to students’ needs. However, relatively little is known about how students experience the degree to which their teachers fulfill their... Show moreDifferentiated instruction concerns adapting education to students’ needs. However, relatively little is known about how students experience the degree to which their teachers fulfill their individual educational needs. In the current study, the Differentiated Instruction from Students’ Perspective (DISP) questionnaire was developed and administered among 458 students of grade 4 to 6 of 22 primary school teachers in the Netherlands. The internal consistency of the DISP instrument was considered good. Students in general were moderately positive about the level of differentiation they experienced and few differences between DISP-ratings of students with varying mathematics achievement levels were identified. It is concluded that the DISP questionnaire is a suitable instrument to study students’ perspectives and can be used by researchers as well as by teachers who would like to gain insights in and improve their differentiation practice. Show less
Recent years have seen a rise in awareness around “responsible metrics” and calls for research assessment reforms internationally. Yet within the field of quantitative science studies and in... Show moreRecent years have seen a rise in awareness around “responsible metrics” and calls for research assessment reforms internationally. Yet within the field of quantitative science studies and in research policy contexts, concerns about the limitations of evaluative bibliometrics are almost as old as the tools themselves. Given that many of the concerns articulated in recent reform movements go back decades, why has momentum for change grown only in the past ten years? In this paper, we draw on analytical insights from the sociology of social movements on collective action frames to chart the emergence, development, and expansion of “responsible metrics” as a professional reform movement. Through reviewing important texts that have shaped reform efforts, we argue that hitherto, three framings have underpinned the responsible metrics reform agenda: the metrics scepticism framing, the professional-expert framing, and the reflexivity framing. We suggest that while these three framings have co-existed within the responsible metrics movement to date, the “truce” negotiated between these framings may not last indefinitely, especially as the responsible metrics movement extends into wider research assessment reform movements. Show less
Schleiffert, H.; Steegers, E.A.P.; Velpen, P. van der; Sombroek-van Doorm, M.P.; Rijlaarsdam, C.W. 2022
Several initiatives have been taken to promote the open availability of bibliographic metadata of scholarly publications in Crossref. We present an up-to-date overview of the availability of six... Show moreSeveral initiatives have been taken to promote the open availability of bibliographic metadata of scholarly publications in Crossref. We present an up-to-date overview of the availability of six metadata elements in Crossref: reference lists, abstracts, ORCIDs, author affiliations, funding information, and license information. Our analysis shows that the availability of these metadata elements has improved over time, at least for journal articles, the most common publication type in Crossref. However, the analysis also shows that many publishers need to make additional efforts to realize full openness of bibliographic metadata. Show less
Previous regulatory models for the online environment have been designed with a foundation and premise that users are fictional Homo Economicus – beings capable of optimizing all available... Show morePrevious regulatory models for the online environment have been designed with a foundation and premise that users are fictional Homo Economicus – beings capable of optimizing all available information into order to make sound decisions. Sometime these decisions will be rational and predictable. However, on other occasions users will make irrational, yet predictable mistakes; other times those errors will be unpredictably irrational. To overcome these shortcomings in rational economist models, behavioural economists like Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky and Richard Thaler and lawyers like Cass Sunstein have advocated using lessons from psychology to help people make better decisions. By deploying 'choice’ architecture to overcome less than rational decisions, Homo Sapiens can be 'nudged' to making better choices. Building from this foundation, our paper inquires what role big data may play in developing better regulation. For example, can insights from big data help to overcome erroneous assumptions that regulators may make about the way users rationally behave in online environments? What potential is there for harnessing ‘big data’ to provide insights into user behaviour? Can big data be used as an additional tool by lawmakers to improve regulatory settlements? Show less
This paper explores explicit and implicit forms of intertextuality in the rhetoric of Nelson Mandela. Intertextuality is viewed as a mechanism of thought and part of the process of dianoia in... Show moreThis paper explores explicit and implicit forms of intertextuality in the rhetoric of Nelson Mandela. Intertextuality is viewed as a mechanism of thought and part of the process of dianoia in Classical rhetoric as conceptualised by Aristotle and is also considered crucial in the ethos of a rhetor. The research is founded on the idea that all rhetors have a particular rhetorical imprint, that is a deep-seated impression derived from a cognitive core structure ordering experience and communication and present in all the rhetoric of that individual. Intertextual cues were sought in Mandela's corpus of speeches, biographies, autobiography, anthologies of personal documents, the historical context and discourse communities he engaged with. When read against the historical context of the time, these texts provide insight into the dynamics of message production, personal relationships, personal beliefs and the contexts surrounding the production of certain texts and the discourse communities he engaged with. Biographical cues were sought in his upbringing in Xhosa culture, his mission school education, his political awakening in Johannesburg, his life in the struggle, his long prison term, the years after release and presidency. Thus far, explicit mappings include Afrikaans literary voices, Shakespeare and the 'classics', colleagues and friends from the struggle period, instances of self-referential intertextuality as well as intercontextuality of signs and symbols. The implicit mapping includes Churchill, the Gandhi-Nehru web of intertextuality, a Marxist-Socialist web including voices such as Castro and biblical allusion. To date, the most significant intertextuality found in Mandela's rhetoric is the Gandhi-Nehru web with Nehru playing a particularly influential role in Mandela's conception of struggle and his own life in that struggle. Show less
