Refining lecturers’ assessment practices through formal professional development at Rhodes University, Grahamstown
- Authors: Sayigh, Elizabeth
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:6080 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008584
- Description: In recent years, the so-called Accreditation and Registration of Assessors has given rise to much debate in the Higher Education sector. The idea that anyone assessing student learning should be required to train in order to gain a formal qualification and register as an assessor originated with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) and was soon challenged within the higher education community. The Study Team appointed to investigate the implementation of the NQF (National Qualifications Framework) in 2001 recommended that registration of assessors should not be required of individuals teaching in the higher education sector if employed by an accredited institution and this recommendation was later accepted by the Department of Education and the Department of Labour in their joint consultative document entitled ‘An Interdependent National Qualifications Framework System’ (Department of Education, Department of Labour 2003). The waiving of the requirement to register assessors has been welcomed within the public higher education sector. But despite this, the need to train and qualify assessors of students’ learning remains important due to the emphasis placed on assessment by the HEQC (Higher Education Quality Committee) in its ‘Criteria for Institutional Audits’ (2004). The central issue has become how higher education institutions are to successfully train lecturers as assessors in higher education.
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- Date Issued: 2003
The biogeography of the Prosopistomatidae, with a particular emphasis on Southern African species
- Authors: Barber-James, Helen M
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:6998 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008378
- Description: The mayfly family Prosopistomatidae consists of the single genus Prosopistoma Latreille. Its known distribution includes species from Africa, Madagascar, the Comores, Europe, the Levant, India, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and northern Australia. A tropical Gondwanaland origin of the family has been suggested. No species are currently known from the Neotropical or Nearctic regions, though the family may yet be discovered in northeastern South America, since this region separated from West Africa only c.120 mya. Focussing on southern Africa, several undescribed species have recently been discovered, with interesting implications to the biogeography on a more localised scale. In the western Cape, a prosopistomatid species has been collected in the Olifants River, extending the distribution of this family further south into a more temperate region. Geological evidence indicates that the Olifants River was connected to the Orange River during the Tertiary period. Prosopistomatidae are known from the Orange River today, and the presence of the family in the Olifants River in the western Cape supports the geological evidence of the historical link between these two rivers. Another unexpected discovery was from the Buffalo River in the eastern Cape, at 33ºS. A subtropical zone extends along the east coast of South Africa as a result of the warm Agulhas current offshore, allowing the southerly extension of the distribution of more tropical species. , Research Update on Ephemeroptera & Plecoptera: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Ephemeroptera, 8-11 August 2001, Perugia, Italy. University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy, pp. 263-270.
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- Date Issued: 2003