David R. Stead

A review of the one-minute paper

Lecturers who use the ‘one-minute paper’ generally praise it as a learning tool, for the teacher as well as the students. This article surveys the literature on this widely applicable technique and presents new evidence on students’ opinions of it and the extent of its use in the classroom. The benefits for both students and teachers appear sizeable for such a modest amount of time and effort, and students generally perceive the one-minute paper favourably. However, the one-minute paper can be easily employed to excess, reflected in quickly declining response rates over the course of two lecture series. Survey evidence suggests that the one-minute paper is perhaps not used especially extensively in UK and US higher education, largely due to lack of knowledge of its existence and the perception that it would be too time-consuming to analyse the responses.

Risk and risk management in English agriculture, c. 1750–1850

This article scrutinizes the claim that the residual claimant in English agriculture was the fixed rent tenant farmer rather than the landlord. Examination of methods of agricultural insurance and risk management indicates that the income risks of farming were sizable, not straightforward to manage, and largely borne by the tenant. Thus the farmers profit appears to have fluctuated by more over time and space than did the rent paid to the landlord. Attempts are made to assess changes over time in the nature and size of the production and price risks to which farmers were exposed.

Economic Change in South-West Ireland, 1960–2009

This article reflects on the striking economic changes recently experienced in a part of peripheral south-west rural Ireland. In 1960, west Corks economy was largely dependent on low-productivity agriculture and was undergoing long term decline. Unexpectedly the region began to be revitalised from the turn of the 1990s, reflected in a rapid reversal of chronic depopulation and growth of employment in the service sector. Important to this process was the areas ability to capitalise on several familiar national and global socioeconomic changes, including the ‘Celtic tiger’ macroeconomic boom and the rise of counter-urbanisation and rural-urban commuting. A pioneering regional brand network has been one notable local initiative. However west Corks historic east/west division in affluence persists, and the adverse impacts of the national economic downturn during 2007–9 highlight that the fortunes of the area are somewhat fragile and still linked to those of the macroeconomy.