Thursday, October 10, 2019


BACS22215

ANTHROPOLOGY – GROUP1



UNESCO ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODS

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris, France. Its declared purpose is to contribute to promoting international collaboration in education, sciences, and culture in order to increase universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the United Nations Charter. It is the successor of the League of Nations' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.

Introduction

• This module provides guidance for the design of standardized questionnaires that are to be administered in school systems to students, teachers, and school heads. The module is divided into four sections that cover initial planning, the design of questions, examples of question types, and moving from a draft to a final questionnaire.

After reading this module, the reader should be able to design a quality survey questionnaire that is suitable for addressing the research issues at hand. He or she will know how to:

• Decide on the target population for the questionnaire.

• Identify the variables and indicators that will address the research issues and hypotheses on which data are to be collected.

• Develop demographic, knowledge, attitude, and practice questions.

• ‘Close’ open ended quantitative and qualitative questions and design skip, filter, and contingency questions, where appropriate.

• Decrease response bias and maximize response rates.

• Design probe questions and interviewer or respondent instructions on the questionnaire.

Initial planning

This section reviews the steps required to determine the need for a new questionnaire and looks at how a general research problem needs to be translated into several specific research questions and hypotheses. It examines the problem of valid cross-national instruments and provides helpful hints and recommendations for using comprehensive and precise definitions of key educational concepts.

Why a new questionnaire – and when?

This module addresses the planning and design of standardized questionnaires. A formal standardized questionnaire is a survey instrument used to collect data from individuals about themselves, or about a social unit such as a household or a school. A questionnaire is said to be standardized when each respondent is to be exposed to the same questions and the same system of coding responses. The aim here is to try to ensure that differences in responses to questions can be interpreted as reflecting differences among respondents, rather than differences in the processes that produced the answers.

Standardized questionnaires are often used in the field of educational planning to collect information about various aspects of school systems. The main way of collecting this information is by asking people questions – either through oral interviews (face to face or telephone), or by self-administered questionnaires, or by using some combination of these two methods.



Relationships between research problems, research hypotheses, and variable construction

A research hypothesis is a tentative answer to a research problem expressed in the form of a clearly stated relation between independent (cause’) and dependent (‘effect’) variables. Hypotheses are built around a more general research problem. These research problems can be translated into research hypotheses as follows:

• The stability of school staff is greater in rural schools than in urban schools.

• Equipment and supplies are more widely available in schools dependent on private funding than they are in schools dependent on public funding.

Educational research hypotheses should have the following characteristics.

• Describe clearly and provide identification of the most important variables in operational terms.

• Specify expected relationships among independent, dependent, and control variables.

• Present a statement in a form that is testable with available research methods.

• Be value free in the sense that they exclude the personal biases of the researcher.

Specifying variables and indicators

Following the identification of the research problem and the formulation of researchable hypotheses, it is necessary to prepare a tentative list of variables and indicators for measuring the specific research questions and hypotheses of interest. Once the indicators and variables of interest have been identified and their components have been defined, one may begin designing the corresponding questionnaire items. It is important to note that the number of questions in a questionnaire does not coincide necessarily with the number of variables. Sometimes more than one question needs to be asked to operationalize one variable.

The design of questions

This section is concerned with types of questions and response formats. It examines and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of three key types of question structure: open, closed, and contingency. It then gives writing tips for structuring questions and the response categories that accompany them. The section ends with advice on how to avoid response bias and pitfalls in question writing.

Question structure

Two important aspects of questionnaire design are the structure of the questions and the decisions on the types of response formats for each question. Broadly speaking, survey questions can be classified into three structures: closed, open-ended, and contingency questions.



Student background

Demographic questions are designed to elicit information from respondents concerning their personal characteristics and social background. This type of information is important for explaining variations in educational outcomes and behavioral patterns. The most frequently used demographic questions focus on gender, age, level of education, income level, marital status, level of parents’ education, religion, and ethnic background. A number of these areas cover sensitive and person. Gender and age

Data on student gender is critically important for examining issues of gender equity in all school systems. This information can be gathered from the class attendance register or can be asked as part of a student questionnaire.

Moving from initial draft to final version of the questionnaire

This section looks at the ordering of questions in the questionnaire, the training of interviewers and administrators, pilot testing, and the preparation of a codebook. It gives advice on how to design the layout of the questionnaire, including instructions to respondents, interviewer instructions and introductory and concluding remarks. Guidance is provided on how to trial test and then use the results of this to improve the final form of the questionnaire.

In the conclusion, the various research methods are the Introduction method, Initial planning method Student background method and Moving from initial draft to final version of the questionnaire.









Reference



Quantitative research methods in educational planning

Maria Teresa Siniscalco and Nadia Auriat

Modulo 8.


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Wednesday, October 9, 2019

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Covering thought leadership in journalism

Words & ReflectionsEroding Freedoms: Secrecy, Truth and Sources

June 15, 2005
Nieman ReportsSummer 2005

Journalism and the Public Interest

‘… an old-time journalist finds it a matter of sorrow that the press, at the height of its influence, is at a depth of its public approval.’

Article by

Daniel Schorr

In the spring of 2005 Oxford University Press published “The Press,” the most recent installment in its ongoing series “The Institutions of American Democracy” that examine various democratic institutions. For this book, National Public Radio Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr wrote a chapter entitled “Journalism and the Public Interest.” What follows are excerpts from his chapter.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” —The First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment, ratified in 1791, its reach extended to the states by the 14th Amendment in 1868, makes the press the only private industry afforded specific constitutional protection. It was intended to protect printers and pamphleteers like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine against censorship imposed by the politicians they criticized. The framers of the Constitution, who regarded a free press as vital to a democracy, could not have conceived that one day this cloak would embrace vast empires of newspaper chains, radio and television conglomerates, and Internet outlets that stretched the very meaning of journalism.
The press (now more commonly called the news media) continue to insist on constitutional shelter in the public interest while primarily serving substantial private interests and sometimes being accused of acting against the public interest.
The guarantee of press freedom has, since the 18th century, been subject to attacks, legal and otherwise …. [The U.S. Supreme Court has] generally heeded the advice of James Madison that “a popular government without popular information or the means to acquiring it is but the prologue to a farce or tragedy.” And the advice of Woodrow Wilson, “Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair assumption that secrecy means impropriety.”
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the government has found other ways of influencing the press. One way is to appeal to patriotism at a The tension between press and government about keeping secrets is heightened by the knowledge that classification goes far beyond real need ….time when the nation is engaged in a war against terrorism. In October 2001, Condoleezza Rice, then President George W. Bush’s national security advisor, arranged a telephone conference call with six television news executives, urging them to limit the use of videotaped addresses by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which might have a negative effect on the American public and might even contain coded messages to al-Qaeda followers. Never mind that bin Laden’s statements are available to anyone with a satellite receiver. Most of the news executives agreed to cut back on the use of such tapes.
The tension between press and government about keeping secrets is heightened by the knowledge that classification goes far beyond real need, activated more by fear of personal embarrassment than a threat to national security. J. William Leonard, a National Archives official, testified before a House committee, “It is no secret that the government classifies too much information.”
Pressures on the media are enormous. Walter Isaacson, the former president of Cable News Network (CNN), has commented on the media’s constant whipsawing between “the Patriotism Police,” demanding support of the government, and “the Lapdog Police,” complaining of a too compliant attitude toward the government.
“In this war we need to return to our nation’s tradition of cooperation and self-defense,” said Attorney General John Ashcroft in a speech in June 2003.
The battle between secrecy and disclosure has generated periodic clashes over leaks and confidential sources. For the news media, freedom of press implies freedom to use information from confidential sources. The Supreme Court, in a 1972 decision [Branzburg v. Hayes], recognized a limited reporters’ “privilege” but said that it had to yield to the needs of grand juries for information that they could not acquire any other way.
In the early 2000’s, two major “sources” issues were being fought out before the courts. In Washington, five reporters representing The Associated Press, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times had been cited for contempt by a federal judge. They refused to answer questions about confidential sources in a civil defamation suit brought by Wen Ho Lee, a Los Alamos nuclear laboratory scientist who claimed he was wrongly accused of espionage. In another such controversy, reporters for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC News were subpoenaed by a special prosecutor investigating the leak in 2003 of the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA undercover employee.
Hostility to the press often emanates from the Oval Office itself and sometimes with good reason. At least three recent Presidents could attribute their greatest woes to journalists and journalism. Richard M. Nixon was embarked on the road to disgrace in June 1972 because of reports in The Washington Post followed by those of other media organizations. The Post linked a breakin into Democratic headquarters in the Watergate office building to the Nixon campaign committee. There followed disclosures about disbursement of campaign money for illicit purposes and, in the end, a draft bill of impeachment in the House forced Nixon to resign. William Safire, a Nixon speechwriter then, quoted Nixon as saying, “The press is the enemy.”
Ronald Reagan, who once said, “I’m up to my keister in leaks,” was damaged by the Iran-Contra scandal that started, oddly, with a story in a little weekly magazine in Beirut, Lebanon, called al- Shiraa. Obviously planted by the Iranian authorities to embarrass the Reagan administration, the story revealed that former national security advisor Robert McFarlane had flown to Tehran with a planeload of antitank missiles, which he hoped to barter for the release of American hostages held by pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. Subsequently it emerged that the proceeds of the arms sale were to be used to arm the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, something that Congress had specifically forbidden. The prestige of a popular President was shaken by the revelations that started with that little Beirut weekly.
Bill Clinton was started down the road to impeachment by the news media— in this case, the Internet. On the night of January 17, 1998, gossipmonger Matt Drudge posted word on his Web site that Newsweek magazine was working on a story of the President’s relationship with a White House intern. Drudge was quoted the next morning on ABC television, and within days the story was all over the print and electronic media, and the ordeal of President Clinton had begun.
In making Presidents accountable for their misdeeds, the press clearly served the public interest. Yet an oldtime journalist finds it a matter of sorrow that the press, at the height of its influence, is at a depth of its public approval. Protected by the Constitution as the guardian of the public interest, the news media are not regarded by most Americans as dedicated to the public interest as they strive for circulation, ratings and profits.
One Roper–Freedom Forum poll found that fewer than 20 percent of respondents rated journalistic ethics as high. Sixty-five percent thought that there are times when publication or broadcast should be “prevented” in the public interest. Did we win the fight over prior restraint in the Supreme Court only to lose it in the court of public opinion?
In the television world of today news has come to occupy a corner of a vast entertainment stage, sharing the techniques and values of entertainment. It is perhaps because of the blurring of the line between reality and fantasy that several journalists have tried to build careers on invented stories. In 1980 The Washington Post had to return a Pulitzer Prize awarded to Janet Cooke for a made-up story about an eight-yearold child hooked on drugs. Two-thirds of the stories written by Stephen Glass for The New Republic between 1995 and 1998 turned out to be fabricated. The champion liar was Jayson Blair, who filed many stories for The New York Times using false datelines naming places Blair had never been. In 2004 Jack Kelley resigned from USA Today after a series of dramatic but untrue stories, such as witnessing a suicide bombing in Jerusalem.
Opinion polls beginning in the late 1990’s have registered growing public distrust of the increasingly concentrated, profit-driven news media. In 2002, 46 corporations controlled more than 50 percent of the news media—an array that included some 1,800 daily newspapers, 11,000 magazines, 2,000 television stations, and 11,000 radio stations. All of the principal television networks are extensions of large corporations— ABC’s parent company is the Walt Disney Company, NBC’s is General Electric, Viacom owns CBS, and Time Warner, CNN.
On February 22, 1971, more than a year before Watergate, President Nixon, his words recorded on Oval Office tape, remarked to his counsel, John Dean, “Well, one helluva lot of people don’t give one damn about the issue of the suppression of the press ….”
Cynical, but perceptive. Yet no one demonstrated better than Nixon that, for all its faults and failings, the press, at crucial moments, is there to defend the public interest.

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The Importance of Intellectual Property Valuation and Protection





A recent spate of initial public offerings, high-profile mergers and acquisitions, and litigation has thrust intellectual property (IP) into an increasingly critical position in global economics. However, many organizations often fail to understand the value of and the risks to their IP, even when that IP accounts for a high percentage of the company’s value.

With limited resources and bottom -ine pressures from stakeholders, companies need a high rate of return on their intellectual property (IP) investments and appropriate protection for it. Not taking action could pose a serious threat to the success of the organization.

What Is Intellectual Property?


Intellectual property is a general term for the set of intangible assets owned and legally protected by a company from outside use or implementation without consent. Stemming from its ability to provide a firm with competitive advantages, defining IP as an asset aims to provide it the same protective rights as physical property. Obtaining such protective rights is critical as it prevents replication by potential competitors—a serious threat in a web-based environment or the mobile technology sector, for example.

An organization that owns IP can realize value from it in several ways, namely through utilizing it internally—for its own processes or provision of goods and services to customers—or sharing it externally. The latter can be achieved through legal mechanisms such as royalty rights.

There is an extensive international system for defining, protecting, and enforcing intellectual property rights, comprising both multilateral treaty schemes and international organizations. Examples of such treaties and bodies include the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), World Customs Organization (WCO), United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), World Trade Organization (WTO), and European Union (EU). Nonetheless, there are variations in the respect for and enforcement of rights at a local level.

Types of Intellectual Property


IP as an asset category can be divided into four distinct types—copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.

Copyrights

Copyrights, among the most widely used types of IP, are a form of protection granted to the authors of original works of authorship, both published and unpublished. A copyright protects a tangible form of expression (i.e. a book, work of art, or music), rather than the idea or subject matter itself. In the United States, under the original Copyright Act of 1909, publication was generally the key to obtaining a federal copyright. However, the Copyright Act of 1976 changed this requirement, and copyright protection now applies to any original work of authorship immediately from the time that it is created in a tangible form.


What does copyright protect?


Copyright confers automatic protection on an original literary or artistic work that takes a certain form:

"literary and artistic works"

The term "literary and artistic works" is interpreted broadly to include, for example, manuscripts, photographs, architectural plans, software codes, furniture, designs, packaging and shapes of products (not only products that represent a certain design but also technically oriented products), meeting reports, advertisements, etc.

"original"

A work that bears the stamp of its author's personality will be considered original, without any particular artistic or aesthetic characteristics being required. As far as architectural plans are concerned, for example, such plans will be considered an original work if they result from an intellectual effort by the author and are not dictated solely by a technical requirement that would have led to the same result regardless of the architect's identity. This "personal stamp" requirement presupposes that the primary source of the work is not a prior creation but rather the author's own independent conception.

"that takes a certain form"

This requirement implies that a mere idea cannot be protected by copyright. A concept for a computer program, for example, will not qualify for protection until it has been set down in lines of code.

Who benefits from the protection?


As a general rule, copyright benefits the author of the work, namely the natural person that created the work. Business leaders should thus ensure that the company's employment contracts and service agreements contain an IP clause, providing for the assignment to the company of all copyright in created works, in the broadest sense possible. In this regard, the law sets forth precise rules which must be respected. It should be noted that there is a significant exception for computer programs. Indeed, in the absence of a provision to the contrary, copyright and all other "economic rights relating to computer programs created by one or more employees or agents in the performance of their duties or further to the employer's instructions" are deemed assigned to the employer.

What are the advantages of copyright over other intellectual property rights?


This question is important because, in certain cases, a creation can be protected by different types of rights. Thus, for example, software is covered by copyright but can also benefit from patent protection, provided notably that the application of the software has a technical effect. The same holds true for slogans, logos or product packaging which qualify for copyright protection but can also benefit from trademark protection if they fulfil certain conditions.

One important advantage of copyright protection is that it is automatic. Thus, no investment is required to obtain or maintain it. Moreover, thanks to the effect of various international conventions, such as the Berne Convention which has been signed by one hundred sixty-four countries, copyright protection extends to much of the world. Conversely, both patents and trademarks require the filing of an application with the competent national or international registration organisations. Such filings, which are generally handled by patent or trademark agents, can be quite costly if protection is sought in numerous countries.

Another advantage of copyright protection is its duration: seventy years from the author's death.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that, given the absence of a register of all copyright-protected works, it is not possible to verify in advance if a work is protected or not. The best way of avoiding the risk of reproducing a protected work is not to copy original works.


Trademarks

Trademarks are another common type of IP. A trademark, as defined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), is “any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others.” While it is not as robust as the international protection regime for copyrights, the Trademark Law Treaty Implementation Act provides some international protection for U.S.-registered trademarks.

Patents

As compared to other types of intellectual property, patents are among the most valuable, costly, and difficult to obtain. A patent is defined by the PTO as “the grant of a property right to the inventor,” providing the owner “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing the invention.”

Patentable items may include objects or processes such as new technology or business methods, but excludes more abstract items such as web sites or ideas. Sufficient documentation from the applicant coupled with verification of originality by the PTO is required before the grant can occur, and is then typically valid for 20 years from the date of application.

Once received, a patent owner may grant licenses to others for use of the invention or its design and may charge a fee for such usage. Patents are valid only within the United States, including territories and possessions; however, 130 countries have agreed to honor patents across borders through instruments such as the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

THE IMPORTANCE OF PATENT PROTECTION TO YOUR BUSINESS

Any business which invests in research and development cannot afford to ignore the power that patents have in protecting that investment.

Patent protection provides a means of obtaining a monopoly in a desired country or countries for a term of up to 20 years from the date of filing for an invention, whether the invention is a product or a process.

Strategic patenting ensures that the benefits of research and development can be wrapped up, retained and protected to give you a competitive edge in the marketplace. Combined with effective policing of patent rights, a business can establish itself firmly in a particular field, and can prevent its competitors from riding on the wave of its investment.

Although patenting can be reasonably expensive, a patent has a high presumption of validity, because the claims of a patent are thoroughly searched by the Patent Office and the claims are examined in detail by a Patent Examiner. This high presumption of validity means that companies respect patent rights and do not tend to infringe patents deliberately. The cost of bringing a patent action before the courts is high, but infringements rarely come to court, with disputes usually being settled early.

A patent may protect an invention, but this does not necessarily mean that the invention is free for use by the patentee. It is possible that someone else may already have protected core features associated with the same invention. This situation can arise, for example, when a company takes a competitor’s product and improves it. Although the improvement may well be patentable in its own right, it may also be covered by the competitor’s earlier patent. In this position, patent protection of the improvement can be vital in order to negotiate, for example, a cross-licence agreement to enable the improvement to be sold.

In today’s marketplace, we believe that it is more important than ever to be IP-aware. Keep your competitors at bay with strategic IP protection and give certainty to retaining your market share.


Trade Secrets

Any idea or fact that is not disclosed by a business comprises the fourth type of intellectual property: trade secrets. A trade secret is a unique form of IP in that it does not have a defined time horizon—an issue could remain secret simply while filing for a patent, or it could remain closely guarded for the lifetime of the firm (i.e. Coca-Cola’s recipe).

A trade secret, by definition, is proprietary or business-related information that a company or individual uses or to which they possess exclusive rights. To be deemed a trade secret, the information must meet several requirements: that it is genuine and not obvious, provides the owner with competitive or economic advantage and thus has value, and is reasonably protected against disclosure. Examples of trade secrets include the aforementioned recipes, business methods, strategies, tactics, or any other piece of information that gives the business a competitive advantage.

Why Value Intellectual Property?


Changes in the global economic environment have influenced the development of business models where IP is a central element establishing value and potential growth. In addition to these systemic changes, U.S. and international accounting practices place pressure on firms to recognize and value all identifiable intangible assets of a firm as part of a transaction (in a merger or acquisition, for example).

As a result of these trends, proper valuation of IP, followed by measures to protect that value, have become a key element of the success and viability of a modern firm. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently validated this notion during the “New Building Blocks for Jobs and Economic Growth” conference, where he discussed the importance of intangible capital and that its accumulation has accounted for more than half of the increase in U.S. output-per-hour during the past several decades.

Valuing Intellectual Property—Methodology


There are three methods of valuing intellectual property: cost-based, market–based, and income-based valuations.

  • Cost-based valuation takes into consideration both how much it cost to create the asset historically and how much it would cost to recreate it given current rates.
  • Market-based valuation looks at comparable market transactions, whether sale or purchase, of similar assets to arrive at conclusions of value.
  • Income-based valuation looks at the stream of income attributable to the intellectual property based on the historical earnings and expected future earnings.

These methods can be applied concurrently in a combined approach to arrive at a final valuation.

There are several important factors to establish and take into consideration when performing an IP valuation. These include:

  • Clear identification of the IP.
  • Unambiguous title to the asset.
  • Qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the IP.
  • Earnings capacity and profitability relating to the IP.
  • Market share supported by, or as a result of, the IP.
  • Legal rights and restrictions, competition, barriers to entry, and risks associated with the IP.
  • Product life cycles and positioning.
  • Historical growth and prospects for the future.

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