scholarly journals Establishing a baseline of science communication skills in an undergraduate environmental science course

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rashmi Shivni ◽  
Christina Cline ◽  
Morgan Newport ◽  
Shupei Yuan ◽  
Heather E. Bergan-Roller
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Environmental Science ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Science Students ◽  
Early Step ◽  
Effective Science ◽  
Media Types ◽  
Undergraduate Science ◽  
The Right

Abstract Background Seminal reports, based on recommendations by educators, scientists, and in collaboration with students, have called for undergraduate curricula to engage students in some of the same practices as scientists—one of which is communicating science with a general, non-scientific audience (SciComm). Unfortunately, very little research has focused on helping students develop these skills. An important early step in creating effective and efficient curricula is understanding what baseline skills students have prior to instruction. Here, we used the Essential Elements for Effective Science Communication (EEES) framework to survey the SciComm skills of students in an environmental science course in which they had little SciComm training. Results Our analyses revealed that, despite not being given the framework, students included several of the 13 elements, especially those which were explicitly asked for in the assignment instructions. Students commonly targeted broad audiences composed of interested adults, aimed to increase the knowledge and awareness of their audience, and planned and executed remote projects using print on social media. Additionally, students demonstrated flexibility in their skills by slightly differing their choices depending on the context of the assignment, such as creating more engaging content than they had planned for. Conclusions The students exhibited several key baseline skills, even though they had minimal training on the best practices of SciComm; however, more support is required to help students become better communicators, and more work in different contexts may be beneficial to acquire additional perspectives on SciComm skills among a variety of science students. The few elements that were not well highlighted in the students’ projects may not have been as intuitive to novice communicators. Thus, we provide recommendations for how educators can help their undergraduate science students develop valuable, prescribed SciComm skills. Some of these recommendations include helping students determine the right audience for their communication project, providing opportunities for students to try multiple media types, determining the type of language that is appropriate for the audience, and encouraging students to aim for a mix of communication objectives. With this guidance, educators can better prepare their students to become a more open and communicative generation of scientists and citizens.

scholarly journals Evaluating science communication

2018 ◽  
Vol 116 (16) ◽  
pp. 7670-7675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baruch Fischhoff
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
National Research Council ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Vaccination Rates ◽  
Communication Processes ◽  
Effective Science ◽  
The Right

Effective science communication requires assembling scientists with knowledge relevant to decision makers, translating that knowledge into useful terms, establishing trusted two-way communication channels, evaluating the process, and refining it as needed. Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda [National Research Council (2017)] surveys the scientific foundations for accomplishing these tasks, the research agenda for improving them, and the essential collaborative relations with decision makers and communication professionals. Recognizing the complexity of the science, the decisions, and the communication processes, the report calls for a systems approach. This perspective offers an approach to creating such systems by adapting scientific methods to the practical constraints of science communication. It considers staffing (are the right people involved?), internal collaboration (are they talking to one another?), and external collaboration (are they talking to other stakeholders?). It focuses on contexts where the goal of science communication is helping people to make autonomous choices rather than promoting specific behaviors (e.g., voter turnout, vaccination rates, energy consumption). The approach is illustrated with research in two domains: decisions about preventing sexual assault and responding to pandemic disease.

scholarly journals How To Publish: Preparing Manuscripts for Clarity, Transparency, Scholarly Integrity, and Success

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 858-858
Author(s):  
Suzanne Meeks
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Round Table ◽  
Open Science ◽  
High Impact ◽  
Publication Ethics ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Scholarly Writing ◽  
Annual Symposium ◽  
The Right

Abstract The GSA publications team sponsors this annual symposium to assist prospective authors to successfully publish their gerontological scholarship in GSA’s high impact and influential journals. The first part of the session will include five brief presentations from the Editors-in-chief of Journals of Gerontology-Series B, Social and Psychological Sciences, The Gerontologist, and Innovation in Aging, plus one of GSA’s managing editors. We will integrate practical tips with principles of publication ethics and scholarly integrity. The topics will be as follows: (1) preparing your manuscript, including how to choose the right journal; (2) strong and ethical scholarly writing for multidisciplinary audiences; (3) transparency, documentation, and Open Science; (4) successfully responding to reviews; and (5) working with Scholar One. Following these presentations, we will hold round table discussions with editors from the GSA journals portfolio. At these roundtables, editors will answer questions related to the podium presentations and other questions specific to each journal. Intended audiences include emerging and international scholars, and authors interested in learning more about best practices and tips for getting their scholarly work published.

scholarly journals Scene Complexity: A New Perspective on Understanding the Scene Semantics of Remote Sensing and Designing Image-Adaptive Convolutional Neural Networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 742
Author(s):  
Jian Peng ◽  
Xiaoming Mei ◽  
Wenbo Li ◽  
Liang Hong ◽  
Bingyu Sun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Feature Learning ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Complex Scene ◽  
Feature Representations ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

Scene understanding of remote sensing images is of great significance in various applications. Its fundamental problem is how to construct representative features. Various convolutional neural network architectures have been proposed for automatically learning features from images. However, is the current way of configuring the same architecture to learn all the data while ignoring the differences between images the right one? It seems to be contrary to our intuition: it is clear that some images are easier to recognize, and some are harder to recognize. This problem is the gap between the characteristics of the images and the learning features corresponding to specific network structures. Unfortunately, the literature so far lacks an analysis of the two. In this paper, we explore this problem from three aspects: we first build a visual-based evaluation pipeline of scene complexity to characterize the intrinsic differences between images; then, we analyze the relationship between semantic concepts and feature representations, i.e., the scalability and hierarchy of features which the essential elements in CNNs of different architectures, for remote sensing scenes of different complexity; thirdly, we introduce CAM, a visualization method that explains feature learning within neural networks, to analyze the relationship between scenes with different complexity and semantic feature representations. The experimental results show that a complex scene would need deeper and multi-scale features, whereas a simpler scene would need lower and single-scale features. Besides, the complex scene concept is more dependent on the joint semantic representation of multiple objects. Furthermore, we propose the framework of scene complexity prediction for an image and utilize it to design a depth and scale-adaptive model. It achieves higher performance but with fewer parameters than the original model, demonstrating the potential significance of scene complexity.

An Aid in Selecting the Brand, Size and Other Strategic Choices for a Hotel

1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard C. Morey ◽  
David A. Dittman
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Operations Management ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Facility Design ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Suggested Approach ◽  
Brand Building ◽  
Explicit Consideration ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Right

The “go/no-go” decision for a candidate property, i.e., whether or not to actually acquire the site, choose the brand (flag), build and operate the hotel, requires the explicit consideration of the interconnectedness of the many myriad elements affecting the property's potential profits. The many facility design decisions (number and mix of rooms, capacity for F&B operations etc.) as well as other strategic choices (e.g., size of marketing program, level of service aimed for) must recognize the site's competitive features and interactions with the above. Also, the particular design and operational features for a given property will affect its different revenue streams, fixed and variable costs, efficiency and profits. The authors consider developers contemplating acquiring a given site, choosing a brand, building and operating a new hotel. They offer a normative approach for this type of decision which arrives endogenously at possibly attractive options for the brand, design and strategic choices for the site. The final decision as to which option to actually use, if any, should be based on subjecting the above identified scenarios, as well as others, to traditional feasibility analyses where judgment and expert opinion are applied. The authors' implementable approach integrates a “best practices” benchmarking methodology with regression analysis to yield a mathematical programming optimization model. A key advantage of this approach lies in its contrast to conventional approaches for site selection which often ignore the more detailed design and strategic choices. The approach deals explicitly with the complex interfaces between marketing and operations management as the endogenous site and competitive environmental factors interact with the endogenous brand and facility design choices. By identifying attractive options to be further explored (that might otherwise be overlooked), several types of errors are avoided: i) an incorrect “go/no go” decision could be recommended for the site in question; ii) even if the right decision to proceed is made, the forecasted level of annualized profits could be in error, leading to an incorrect priority for the activity; iii) the incorrect brand and facility design choices could be made for the site. Other key advantages of the suggested approach are that 1) various substitution possibilities (between more or less capital, labor, materials etc.) are considered; 2) not only is the best brand and configuration identified, but also a ranking of other brands is available if the “best” brand is not available; 3) the “best practices” at other specific sites (which serve as the basis for the recommendations) are identified, thereby enabling management (possibly through site visits) to isolate the actual cultures, processes and procedures to be transported and emulated at the candidate site. This paper illustrates the approach for two different sites.

scholarly journals Crossing Boundaries: Steps Toward Measuring Undergraduates’ Interdisciplinary Science Understanding

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. ar8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brie Tripp ◽  
Sophia A. Voronoff ◽  
Erin E. Shortlidge
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Science Students ◽  
Interdisciplinary Science ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
Assessment Development ◽  
New Instrument ◽  
Science Understanding ◽  
Interdisciplinary Framework ◽  
Undergraduate Science

A desired outcome of education reform efforts is for undergraduates to effectively integrate knowledge across disciplines in order to evaluate and address real-world issues. Yet there are few assessments designed to measure if and how students think interdisciplinarily. Here, a sample of science faculty were surveyed to understand how they currently assess students’ interdisciplinary science understanding. Results indicate that individual writing-intensive activities are the most frequently used assessment type (69%). To understand how writing assignments can accurately assess students’ ability to think interdisciplinarily, we used a preexisting rubric, designed to measure social science students’ interdisciplinary understanding, to assess writing assignments from 71 undergraduate science students. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 25 of those students to explore similarities and differences between assignment scores and verbal understanding of interdisciplinary science. Results suggest that certain constructs of the instrument did not fully capture this competency for our population, but instead, an interdisciplinary framework may be a better model to guide assessment development of interdisciplinary science. These data suggest that a new instrument designed through the lens of this model could more accurately characterize interdisciplinary science understanding for undergraduate students.

Păstoritul de pe Valea Argeșului – coordonate spațiale

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 39-70
Author(s):  
Cristian Micu
Keyword(s):  
Field Research ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Mountain Area ◽  
Pastoral System ◽  
Spatial Coordinate ◽  
Spatial Coordinates ◽  
Village Communities ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Village ◽  
Daily Travel

"Shepherding on Argeș Valley – spatial coordinates This paper presents the essential elements that define the spatial coordinate characteristic of shepherding which is practised in the sub-Carpathian villages on the Argeș Valley, following the documentary attestations of the villages, the genesis and evolution of the village boundaries, the evolution of land ownership and the right to use lands (in condominium or individually). Also within the spatial coordinate, there are researched the traditional ways in which the potential of the rural land fund is highlighted, as a result of its geomorphological, pedological, climatic qualities, etc., the study taking into consideration all the areal types with pastoral potential, not only those on the administrative territory of the villages, but also those in the mountain area destined for summer grazing. If for the presentation of origins, attestations, borderline fixation of the villages from the studied areal, documents, monographic studies and other categories of specialized works have been used, for the understanding of the manner of pastoral, individual and especially collective exploitation of the land fund by the village communities, of valorizing the fodder qualities of the different types of surfaces, it was necessary to carry out field research in the three targeted villages: Albeștii de Argeș, Corbeni and Arefu, all in the Argeș County. The visit of sheepfolds from Lespezi, Lipitoarea, Ciocanu, Podeanu, Oticu, in the alpine hollow of the Făgăraș Mountains, were necessary both for studying some elements related to the spatial coordinate (sheepfold location, daily travel routes, travel routes from the village hearth to the mountains, etc.) as well as for conducting interviews, based on an elaborate questionnaire, interviews generating unique and extremely useful information also for researching the other coordinates of the pastoral system practiced in the area. Keywords: shepherding, Argeș Valley, spatial coordinate, pastoral system, field research "

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