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This study reports about a yearlong study of the initiation of novice grant writers to the activity system of National Institutes of Health grant applications. It investigates the use of cognitive apprenticeship within writing classrooms and that of social apprenticeship in laboratories, programs, departments, and universities, which introduced students to the genre system of National Institutes of Health grant proposals and helped them in moving from peripheral participation to more central participation. While cognitive apprenticeship employs devices such as modeling, scaffolding, coaching, and collaboration to enhance learning in formal settings, social apprenticeship requires socialization, interaction, and collaboration with experts, colleagues, and peers in informal settings to acquire disciplinary knowledge and experiences. The study suggests that writing instructors should acknowledge and incorporate resources in other activity systems in which students participate, i.e., their laboratories and home departments, and teach genre systems rather than specific genres to better facilitate students' enculturation to activity systems of disciplinary discourse communities. Ding, Huiling

The inferences individuals make about others' goals is an integral, but neglected, aspect of empirical and theoretical work on social interaction. An original theoretical framework is proposed to account for interindividual agreement and certainty of goal inferences. Two experiments applied the framework to explain how contextual ambiguity and tactical functionality affected agreement and certainty. Results generally support hypotheses regarding agreement, such that goal inferences converged (i.e., interobserver agreement increased) as the context and tactic became more compatible, yet results largely do not support hypotheses for inference certainty, as the only significant effect that emerged was that certainty was higher in unambiguous than ambiguous contexts. A reconsideration of the theoretical framework on goal detection is discussed and implications are advanced. Palomares, Nicholas A.

This study examines the processes by which workers in a particular Indian call center located in Kolkata expanded on, negotiated, and chose among an array of possible, especially new, identities and identifications and the ways that these choices affected changing social discourses. Our case study depicted a workplace that was simultaneously casual and urgent, temporal and spatially free and constrained, situated in both Indian and U.S. cultures, and oriented toward business and night-club ambiances. Within this particular workplace, call center employees (re)constructed and negotiated among an array of discourses that bracketed opportunities for particular identities and identifications. Through these negotiation processes, they (a) engaged in strategic identity(ies) invocations and (b) reframed work, career, and family discourses and practices. Pal, Mahuya and Patrice Buzzanell

Offers comprehensive advice to information professionals considering taking up self-employed freelance information consultancy. Draws attention to the risks associated with leaving the protection offered by corporate employment, alongside the benefits of empowerment through being self-employed. Emphasizes the need for prior business planning and offers advice on business name, web presence, logos, business cards, professional subscriptions, the need to have an accountant and register for value added tax, and dealings with banks and with the local Business Link. Advises against acquiring company status, joining trade groups, untargeted advertising, brochures and mailshots, and professional indemnity cover. Suggests ways of seeking work through networking with contacts, advises on the risks associated with imprecise agreements with clients, and emphasizes that the most important aspect of successful self-employment is self promotion. Newgass, Oriole

The need for and benefits of proactive and transparent communication about corporate social responsibility (CSR) are widely acknowledged. This study examines CSR communication undertaken by the top 100 information technology (IT) companies in India on their corporate Web sites, with an analytical focus on the dimensions of prominence of communication, extent of information, and style of presentation. The findings indicate that the number of companies with CSR information on their Web sites is strikingly low and that these leading companies do not leverage the Web sites to their advantage in terms of the quantity and style of CSR communication. Although the findings do not necessarily imply absence of CSR action on the part of IT companies in India, they attest to a general lack of proactive CSR communication. The article concludes with managerial implications for CSR communication on corporate Web sites. Chaudhri, Vidhi and Jian Wang

For about ten years, I’ve been maintaining the documentation suite for a set of niche market applications. The docs consistent of a set of user guides, quick start brochures, and help sets. A few years ago we made a decision to develop the online help using JavaHelp. I’ve recently been working to move the help to PDF using links from the application modules to named destinations in the PDF versions of the user guides. I am aware that an online user guide is not a help file. In fact, online guides are woefully unhelpful when it comes to resolve point-of-problem inquiries into an application’s knowledge base.I’m attempting to justify a business decision that I know will compromise the usability of help files. The move to PDF-based help is driven by the costs of converting a FrameMaker-based documentation suite to JavaHelp, and the need to have the help sets ship with each release of the applications. Arguments about single-sourcing aside, the quickest way to generate the help sets will be to update the PDFs named destinations with the application’s help call map IDs. I’ve not convinced myself that I feel good about this decision.I loved watching Michigan beat Florida today. I like Tebow, but Michigan has a better fight song. It was classic college football. A plethora of SEC wide-open passing and good ‘ol Big 10 ½ punch you in the mouth running. Saturday my Scarlet Knights look to make it two bowl victories in row. When’s the last time Dome fans could say that?