Ministry of Education and Research

This report discusses the most relevant issues concerning using student test results in OECD countries. Initially the report provides an overview of how student test results are reported in OECD countries and how stakeholders in these countries use and perceive of the results. The report then reviews the literature relating to using student test results for accountability and improvement purposes. Two general findings can be drawn from the literature: (1) accountability based on student test results can be a powerful tool for changing teacher and school behaviour, but it often creates unintended strategic behaviour, and (2) no test can be a perfect indicator of student performance. Drawing from these findings the report discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using student test results for accountability and improvement. The discussion touches upon four themes: (1) assessment design, (2) the use of test results, (3) stakeholder involvement, and (4) implementation.

AIM: To provide a method for assessing the degree of interpersonal continuity adapted to context and to measure and assess the degree of interpersonal continuity for long-term recipients dependent on daily home health care. BACKGROUND: Interpersonal continuity is important to the quality of care for long-term dependents. In high-frequency home healthcare services where patients receive daily care from many nurses or other health personnel over time, interpersonal continuity may be difficult to attain. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study with a descriptive design. METHODS: Information concerning 79 patients receiving long-term frequent care was collected during four weeks in a maximum variation sample of Norwegian municipalities, from January 2009-May 2010. We measured interpersonal continuity objectively using indices of dispersion and the next-day sequence of health personnel. For each measure, we computed the highest feasible level of continuity that could be attained in this home healthcare context given a standard shift plan. This level was then used as benchmark against which the actual level of continuity was assessed. RESULTS: Patients received on average 51 visits from a mean of 17 different carers during four weeks. The results revealed a low degree of interpersonal continuity in practice, far below what was feasible according to the benchmarks. CONCLUSION: High-frequency home health care was characterized by interpersonal discontinuity, but with potential for improvement. Objective measures of interpersonal continuity, when the benchmark is adapted to the context, are useful tools for planning and surveying continuity of care.

Purpose This article aims to contribute to futures theory building by assessing the inherent ontological and epistemological presumptions in foresight studies. Such premises, which are usually embedded in foresight studies, are contrasted with sociological imagination and contemporary social science discourse. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a conceptual analysis of theoretical assumptions embedded in foresight studies. Findings Sociological lenses, including concepts like anticipation, latency, time, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, change and plurality of images, offer clarity in terms of both futures studies and foresights. Research limitations/implications Explicating presumptions embedded in foresight methods helps recognition of how such methods shape the concepts of future and time. This is vital for assessment of the analytical products of foresights studies. Originality/value This research contributes to the ambition of linking the theoretical world of futures research and the practical world of foresights closer together by explicating key concepts and implicit assumptions in both fields.

This study presents an analysis of 2,216 European higher education institutions (HEIs) from 27 countries. It investigates determinants of participation in the European Union’s Framework Programme for research and innovation (EU FP), Horizon 2020, and empirically assesses how influential network position affects the chances of applying for and receiving funding in collaborative projects. Having a strong, influential network position in collaborative EU research is found to affect participation in H2020 greatly—suggesting ‘closed clubs’, to the detriment of less influential HEIs. Greater access to resources and capabilities significantly strengthens the effect of network position on EU FP participation.

The governance of complex, decentralised, multi-level education systems poses two fundamental questions for both policy- and research discussions: What are innovative contemporary governance strategies for the central level in education systems? How can these approaches be described and analysed to identify commonalities that might help to understand how and if they work? In addressing these questions, this paper’s aim is twofold: first, to inform the policy-discussion by presenting empirical examples of new governance mechanisms that central governments use to steer systems across their levels; and second, to contribute to the conceptual discussion of how to categorise and analyse the evolution of new governance structures. To do so, the paper starts with identifying core features of multi-level governance and the respective conceptual gaps it produces. It then introduces a simple analytical categorisation of modes of governance. An analysis of three empirical cases (an institutionalised exchange between governance levels in Norway, a capacity building programme in Germany, and the Open Method of Coordination within the European Union) then shows how various education systems address these gaps and design the role of the central level in complex decision-making structures. A comparison of the three cases identifies – despite the heterogeneity of the cases – several communalities, such as multi-staged policy processes, transparency and publicity, and soft sanctions. The paper concludes that the Open Method of Coordination, even though often criticised for its inefficiencies, might serve as a promising template for national approaches to soft governance in education. Further research on OECD education systems is needed to gather more empirical examples; these may help to get a better understanding of what is needed for successful steering from the central level in decentralised contexts.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between fetal growth pattern and cognitive function at 5 and 9 years and regional brain volumes at 15 years. METHODS: Eighty-three term-born small-for-gestational-age (SGA) neonates and 105 non-SGA neonates in a control group were available for follow-up. Based on serial fetal ultrasound measurements from gestational weeks 25-37, SGA neonates were classified with fetal growth restriction (n=13) or non-fetal growth restriction (n=36). Cognitive function was assessed at 5 and 9 years, and brain volumes were estimated with cerebral magnetic resonance imaging at 15 years. RESULTS: Small-for-gestational-age children had lower performance intelligence quotient at 5 years compared with those in a control group (107.3 compared with 112.5, P<.05). Although there were no differences between the SGA non-fetal growth restriction and control groups, the SGA fetal growth restriction group had significantly lower performance intelligence quotient at 5 years (103.5 compared with 112.5, P<.05) and 9 years (96.2 compared with 107.5, P<.05) compared with those in the control group. There were some brain volume differences at 15 years between SGA children and those in the control group, but after adjustment for total intracranial volume, age at examination, and sex, there were only significant differences between the SGA fetal growth restriction and control groups for thalamic (17.4 compared with 18.6 cm, P<.01) and cerebellar white matter volumes (21.5 compared with 24.3 cm, P<.01). CONCLUSION: Small-for-gestational-age children had lower intelligence quotient scores at 5 and 9 years and smaller brain volumes at 15 years compared with those in the control group, but these findings were only found in those with fetal growth restriction, indicating a possible relationship to decelerated fetal growth. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II.

According to the Rational Partisan Theory of business cycles (“RPT”), ex ante uncertainty about the outcome of elections will generate post‐election output growth fluctuations. This paper employs vote prediction equations and opinion polls to compute election win probability estimates for 62 elections in seven OECD economies. The probability estimates are used to calibrate partisan intervention terms entered in output growth regressions. For the UK and, to some extent, Canada and Australia, our results are supportive of the RPT. For the US, the calibrated intervention terms are dominated by a partisan dummy variable turned on after each election.

This note refers to the article by Johan Galtung on 'Violence, Peace, and Peace Research' (Journal of Peace Research, No. 3, 1969), in which he suggests the following definition: 'Violence is here defined as the cause of the difference between the potential and the actual'. While accepting Galtung's point that a concept of violence relating only to somatic incapacitation is too narrow, I find it difficult to attach a precise meaning to his extended concept. It appears to raise the same kind of difficulties as attempts by engineers to find a purely technical definition of optimality. The first problem is the question of technical feasibility. Galtung recognizes this point, e. g. by accepting the curing of tuberculosis as a relatively recent aspect of 'the potential'. Yet, the technically feasible at a given point of time is not easy to define; and in a dynamic perspective, even technical feasibility is clearly a function of economic factors, the resources available and their allocation. Also in a static situation, however, there will always be a major discrepancy between the technically feasible and the economically possible. The existence of a method for heart transplantation, at extremely high costs, is part of our technical potential today. As a general cure for heart failures, it is far from being part of our economic potential, unless we devote a substantial part of available resources to this specific purpose. Doing so would, on the other hand, reduce our chances of making use of the existing technical potential in other areas.

While widely applied to political coalitions in national assemblies and cabinets, theories of coalition formation have seldom been tested at the local level of government. This article presents a model of coalition formation in connection with mayoral elections in Norwegian local councils and tests it on the basis of the first systematic collection of data on the election of mayors from a large number of municipalities. It finds small significant effects on the probability that oversized coalitions will be formed. Contrary to “common” knowledge, the size of a municipality has a positive influence on the conflictual climate, and thus on the size of the coalitions formed, which implies that the probability that an oversized coalition will form is higher in a large than in a small municipality. It also finds that the possibility that an oversized coalition will form increases if one party controls a majority of the councilors on its own, and if the majority is non‐socialistically controlled. The assumption of a strong norm for reaching consensus‐based decisions, reinforced by the design of the local political institutions, is supported.

A bstract The harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina ) has its northernmost distribution at the Norwegian arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Little information exists on this particular harbor seal population. The present paper summarizes this information, and gives the result of surveys of harbor seals conducted in Svalbard in 1984, 1985 and 1987. These surveys show that harbor seals in Svalbard are limited to the area around Prins Karls Forland, the westernmost island in the archipelago. The harbor seal population at Prins Karls Forland numbers at least five to six hundred animals.

Abstract A coastal zone management program called LENKA—Nationwide Assessment of the Suitability of the Norwegian Coastal Zone and Rivers for Aquaculture— was started in 1987 and ended in the summer of 1990. The program aims to develop an efficient and standardized tool for coastal zone planning. In the program consideration is taken of all important existing utilization and judicial aspects connected to the Norwegian coastal waters. As part of the program a methodology for assessing the suitability of marine areas for aquaculture has been developed. The marine areas ‘ holding capacity is determined by a developed model. The main steps in the development of the capacity assessment are as follows: (1) An assessment of the maximum acceptable organic loading of the water body of the marine areas, which is arrived at by subtracting the existing inputs of organic loading and nutrients from the natural capacity of the area to tolerate organic loading and nutrients. (2) An assessment of the area available for aquaculture development, which is arrived at by subtracting all unsuitable areas and all areas already occupied from the total area. The LENKA program shows that 9 percent of the Norwegian coastal areas are suitable and available for aquaculture purposes using current techniques. The annual production of salmon and trout, which in 1990 was 161,000 tonnes, can be increased by approximately 600,000 tonnes without causing detrimental effects on the environment. Keywords: coastal zone managementaquacultureenvironmentcurrent utilizationinfrastructureholding capacityNorway

The objective of the present study was to determine the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in Norwegian women with cervical cancer. We used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Southern blot techniques to assess the prevalence of HPV in cervical biopsies of 133 women admitted to the Norwegian Radium Hospital for treatment of cervical cancer. At the time of sampling (from February 1988 to April 1989) about 85% of Norwegian women with cervical cancer were treated at the Norwegian Radium Hospital. HPV was found in biopsies of 91 (68%) of women with cancer; 70 (53%) biopsies contained HPV type 16, 19 (14%) HPV type 18, 4 (3%) HPV type 33, 2 (1.5%) HPV type 11, and 3 (2%) HPV DNA of unknown type (HPVX). Five percent of biopsies were doubly infected, chiefly with HPV 16 + 18. We found a significant association between HPV 18 and low age, poorly differentiated tumors and adenocarcinomas. Our results show that there is an association between HPV types 16 and 18 and cervical cancer also in a Norwegian setting. PCR was more sensitive than Southern blotting for detection of HPV. Thirty-six (27.5%) of cancer biopsies were positive by PCR but negative by Southern blotting, as against 49 (73.5%) positive by both methods; we also encountered 4 samples positive by Southern blotting and negative by PCR. In 23/53 cancer biopsies positive by Southern blotting we found evidence for integrated or rearranged HPV genomes.

Abstract This article argues that the opportunity in Phase I of the IEA’s Civic Education Study to include the new democracies’ experiences of citizenship education have not been sufficiently exploited. ‘Borrowing’ citizenship education from abroad and citizenship education for ‘civil society’ have been chosen as examples of problems in the new democracies which have not been exploited. The final section focuses on the question of why new and recurring problems in citizenship education, which occurred in post‐communist Europe, have not been identified, described or analysed in the IEA’s publication New paradigms and new recurring paradoxes in education for citizenship: an international comparison. The paper also points to some of the circumstances that seem to have had an impact on which problems were analysed in the study and which problems were largely ignored.

While it is generally assumed that the aim of teacher evaluation is to formatively support teachers’ professional development, research finds that teacher evaluation practices are predominantly summative. This paper describes a Norwegian governmental policy experiment aiming to overcome this fallacy through a bargaining process, where experience-based knowledge was combined with research evidence. When preparing to introduce teacher evaluation, the Ministry of Education and Research commissioned a group of researchers and a group representing practitioners to identify teacher evaluation practices that are conducive for educational quality. Drawing on experiences from the policy experiment, the article discusses three approaches to teacher evaluation: the political, the administrative and the professional. The analysis indicates that successful implementation of interventions needs a new educational infrastructure and professional school leadership. One conclusion is that teacher evaluation cannot be successfully implemented through traditional linear approaches. A more productive approach is to treat it as a wicked problem.

This study presents a cross-disciplinary revision of the Little Ice Age (LIA) advance of Nigardsbreen glacier, an outlet from Jostedalsbreen ice cap in western Norway. The associated glacier foreland is characterised by a well-preserved moraine series succeeding the 1748 CE LIA culmination, and a robust age control of individual moraines exists from abundant historical written and pictorial information as well as extensive lichenometric studies. The retreat dynamics of Nigardsbreen ever since the LIA maximum extent was attained is considered well-known. The timing of initiation of the LIA advance and dynamics of the glacier growth prior to reaching its maximum extent, however, is less understood as any moraines predating 1748 CE have been subsequently overridden. Potential archives available for exploring the glacier advance are therefore mostly confined to historical data such as for example, tax records, paintings, and church books, which has resulted in a present-day consensus of the LIA onset of Nigardsbreen c. 1710 CE. However, we show that a lack of adequate critical analysis on the accuracy of published historical data has allowed erroneous ages of glacier terminus positions to manifest in literature, resulting in for example, overestimated glacial advance rates. Here, we combine a novel data set of local tax load directly reflecting glacial impact on farming productivity with a cross-disciplinary assessment of published historical data, including rejection of several data points of former glacier extents. As a result, we present a revised glacier length curve for the LIA advance of Nigardsbreen towards its maximum extent.

Abstract The second workshop of the project "Lifelong Learning for Equity and Social Cohesion: A New Challenge to Higher Education" had as its focus "Application of the new information and communication technologies (ICT) in lifelong learning." The workshop was held in Catania, Sicily (Italy), and was attended by forty-nine participants from thirty-one countries (delegates of member states, presenters, members of the Working Party on Lifelong Learning, member of the Higher Education and Research Committee of the Council of Europe and General Rapporteur), as well as observers from the European Commission, ESIB [National Unions of Students in Europe], and AAEN [Alternative Academic Educational Network]. The essential contributions from the representatives of the Council of Europe Secretariat, the Secretariat of the University of Catania, and the interpreters, together with constructive presentations and debate, led to a successful workshop.

Norway adopted the ecosystem approach to ocean management in 2002. A management plan for its implementation in the Barents Sea and the sea areas off the Lofoten Islands was presented in 2006. The preparation of the management plan was overseen by a steering group with representatives of many ministries, and the work was carried out by a large number of government agencies. Several reports were prepared that summarized the scientific knowledge on the area and the results from environmental impact assessments (EIAs) for key sectors (fisheries, petroleum development, shipping and external pressures), as well as overall. There were also reports on identification of particularly valuable and vulnerable areas, and indicators or variables that could be used as a basis for setting environmental quality objectives. Three coordination groups with broad representation of relevant agencies were established as part of a new management regime: an advisory group on monitoring, a forum on risk management and a management forum that reports on need for measures to a steering group of ministries. A monitoring system based on indicators or variables with reference levels and action thresholds for management intervention has been put in place and is operated by the advisory management group. The management regime also includes a reference group with participation of relevant stakeholders. The management plan is to be revised on a regular basis, the first time in 2010. A similar management plan for the Norwegian Sea is now under development (to be finished in 2009) and one for the Norwegian part of the North Sea is being planned.

Prey capture rate (number of prey s −1 ) and the mode of feeding of Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus were studied by performing foraging experiments with two sizes (1·1 and 1·8 mm) of Daphnia longispina prey. Arctic charr were particulate feeders at all densities tested. Adjusted for the effect of prey density, the capture rate showed a hump‐shaped relationship with Arctic charr size for both sizes of D. longispina . Estimated attack rates ( a ) also tended to show a hump‐shaped relationship with fish size. The estimated size‐scaling exponent of the attack rate function, however, was relatively small, implying small changes in attack rate over fish sizes. Simultaneous estimations of a and handling time were used in combination with published data on fish metabolism and dry mass rations of prey to estimate maintenance resource density of prey as a function of Arctic charr mass. Maintenance resource densities increased monotonically with Arctic charr size, and rapidly as optimum fish size relative to attack rate on prey was passed.

Abstract This article investigates decisions taken at the project level in establishing and managing collaborative ICT projects under the European Framework Programme Horizon 2020. Based on interviews with project coordinators from European research organizations, we offer a detailed examination of how projects are built and managed, and how decisions influence the formation of collaborative networks. Projects are typically set up in three stages. In the first, a smaller group that has worked together before decides on the main idea. This leads in the second stage to a gradual invitation of partners to satisfy professional and formal demands, which also defines the structure of the project. If funded, more detailed decisions on ownership and interaction are taken in the third stage. Coordinators are under pressure from the regulatory control of the EU Commission, which can explain the strong preference for well-known partners, but the formal monitoring also provides tools for project managers.

Summary Twinflower (Linnaea borealis L.) is a widespread circumboreal plant species belonging to Linnaeaceae family (previously Caprifoliaceae). L. borealis commonly grows in taiga and tundra. In some countries in Europe, including Poland, twinflower is protected as a glacial relict. Chemical composition of this species is not well known, however in folk medicine of Scandinavian countries, L. borealis has a long tradition as a cure for skin diseases and rheumatism. It is suggested that twinflower has potential medicinal properties. The new study on lead secondary metabolites responsible for biological activity are necessary. This short review summarizes very sparse knowledge on twinflower: its biology, distribution, conservation status, chemical constituents, and describes the role of this plant in folk tradition of Scandinavian countries.