scholarly journals Then & Now Arts at Warwick Student Project

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Kathryn Woods ◽  
Pierre Botcherby
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Academic Experience ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
Academic Activities ◽  
Pedagogic Practices ◽  
Complex Project ◽  
The University

This article overviews the ‘Then & Now: Arts at Warwick’ student-led research and public engagement project that took place at the University of Warwick from January to August 2020. It discusses the methods of student co-creation and student-led research that underpinned the project and provides a detailed description of the pedagogic practices employed. The value and challenges of student co-creation are examined alongside the experience of managing a complex project in the crisis situation of Covid-19. The project’s impact in building learning community and enhancing the student academic experience is evaluated, and critical commentary is provided on some aspects of the project’s design. This article demonstrates the benefits of utilising digital technology for the facilitation of student co-creation in the arenas of research and public engagement, and for the development of learning that enables students to participate in ‘real life’ academic activities and shape the pedagogic approaches that are used in their teaching.

scholarly journals How to leverage virtual learning communities for teaching agile communication skills? The eGroups case at the University of Muenster in Germany and Massey University in New Zealand

2011 ◽  
pp. 644-664
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Internet Technology ◽  
Global Business ◽  
Applied Design ◽  
The University

Global business life nowadays is marked by quickly evolving forms of cooperation. These are often set in virtual space where various members from different countries are brought together in order to collaborate. This trend calls for specific abilities in communication that respond to the challenges evoked by the ever evolving and newly forming nature of international virtual project teams. In this paper, these abilities are called “agile communication skills”. The paper reports on the conceptualisation and implementation of a Virtual Learning Community (VLC) in a longitude study designed to foster so-called “agile communication skills”. Our research presents an approach where VLCs are used in order to create authentic evolving cooperations between students. For this matter internet technology seemed to prove as a key enabler. However, the mere use of technology does not suffice on its own. We, thus, identified design principles of VLCs that appear to be critical factors for successfully implementing such communities. We applied design-oriented research by grounding our model in prior work and formatively evaluating it in multiple case studies over a period of two years. In this paper we present the matured model and show what features characterise an eLearning environment to teach agile communication skills in a university setting. In addition we report on evaluating this model in a real-life application scenarios by giving illustrating examples from the final case study between the players involved: the Massey University in New Zealand and the University of Münster in Germany.

Undoing Difference: Academic Historians and theDownton AbbeyAudience

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-41
Author(s):  
Charles Upchurch
Keyword(s):  
Public Engagement ◽  
First World War ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
World War ◽  
Academic History ◽  
Voting System ◽  
Popular Interest ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The University ◽  
First World

A number of proposals have been put forward in recent years by historians in both the British and American academies for increasing the audience for academic history. In part this is due to the significant reduction in support for history programmes in both countries since the 2008 financial crisis. Absent from those proposals, however, is a call to use the popular interest generated by programmes such as Downton Abbey to foster an appreciation for academic history outside the university. Drawing on theories of fan culture developed within media and cultural studies, this article argues for the compatibility of academic history and communities created by fans. It discusses my experience of using Downton Abbey to lecture on the pre-First World War British voting system, utilising the biographies of the show's characters to demonstrate the ways in which British voting was far more restricted in practice than it seemed. The article argues that even those committed to the most traditional forms of academic history can take advantage of opportunities presented by shows like Downton Abbey. It then explores the connections between this method of public engagement and Judith Butler's arguments in Undoing Gender, which examine how conditions for recognition and communication across ideological and cultural divisions can be created.

Experiential Learning in Graduate Archival Education at the University of Botswana

Mousaion ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olefhile Mosweu
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Records Management ◽  
Archival Theory ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
The Real ◽  
The University

Most curriculum components of archival graduate programmes consist of contextual knowledge, archival knowledge, complementary knowledge, practicum, and scholarly research. The practicum, now commonly known as experiential learning in the global hub, is now widely accepted in library and information studies (LIS) education as necessary and important. It is through experiential learning that, over and above the theoretical aspects of a profession, students are provided with the opportunity to learn by doing in a workplace environment. The University of Botswana’s Master’s in Archives and Records Management (MARM) programme has a six weeks experiential learning programme whose purpose is to expose prospective archivists and/or records managers to the real archival world in terms of practice as informed by archival theory. The main objective of the study was to determine the extent to which the University of Botswana’s experiential learning component exposes students to real-life archival work to put into practice theoretical aspects learnt in the classroom as intended by the university guidelines. This study adopted a qualitative research design and collected data through interviews from participants selected through purposive and snowball sampling strategies. Documentary review supplemented the interviews. The data collected were analysed thematically in line with research objectives. The study determined that experiential learning does indeed expose students to the real world of work. It thus helps to bridge the gap between archival theory and practice for students without archives and records management work experience. For those with prior archival experience, experiential learning does not add value. This study recommends that students with prior archives and records management experience should rather, as an alternative to experiential learning, undertake supervised research, and write a research essay in a chosen thematic area in archives and records management.

Hope and Positive Development in the Third Decade of Life. A Theoretical Perspective on Tertiary Education Students in Cameroon

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fariha Azalea
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Adults ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Positive Development ◽  
Education Students ◽  
The Third ◽  
Academic Activities ◽  
Transition Into Adulthood ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The University

University is relatively considered a stressful moment in the life of students due to numerous academic workloads and academic activities. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that some university students are in emerging adulthood, a developmental period which is psychologically fraught with uncertainty, instability and identity issues among others. Added to these, the context of most universities like Cameroon which is marred with political, economic and social turbulence common to other developing societies in the sub Saharan region makes life unbearable. Looking at the challenges that confront tertiary education students in the third decade of life, increases possibilities of fears that they will founder thus narrowing the route to a blossomed transition into adulthood and through the university from home into the world of work. However, observations reveal that some have remained hopeful as they continuously believe in themselves and their worth. As such, they have resiliently shrugged off the vast burden placed on them by the adult society as they struggle intentionally with continuous efforts to succeed. Being hopeful and self-efficacy beliefs are observed to be some of the effective drivers that pull emerging adults through the storms of university transition thus facilitating positive development into subsequent life stages. Unfortunately just a paucity of literature albeit theoretically actually narrates via scholarly corridors the monumental successes recorded by students as they sail flourishingly through university in the midst of storms an in the third decade of life. This paper examines and addresses the foregoing through the lenses of some theories.

Sustaining University-Community Partnerships in Indigenous Communities: Five Lessons from Papakōlea

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 35-63
Author(s):  
Robert Agres ◽  
Adrienne Dillard ◽  
Kamuela Joseph Nui Enos ◽  
Brent Kakesako ◽  
B. Puni Kekauoha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Urban And Regional Planning ◽  
Culture Of Learning ◽  
Community Values ◽  
University Of Hawai'i ◽  
The University

This resource paper draws lessons from a twenty-year partnership between the Native Hawaiian community of Papakōlea, the Hawai‘i Alliance for Community-Based Economic Development, and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawai‘i. Key players and co-authors describe five principles for sustained partnerships: (1) building partnerships based upon community values with potential for long-term commitments; (2) privileging indigenous ways of knowing; (3) creating a culture of learning together as a co-learning community; (4) fostering reciprocity and compassion in nurturing relationships; and (5) utilizing empowering methodologies and capacity-building strategies.

scholarly journals A Better Learning Community: Mixed-Methods Reveal Medical Student Preferences with Implications for Learning Community Design and Implementation

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 238212052110148
Author(s):  
Jasna Vuk ◽  
Steven McKee ◽  
Sara Tariq ◽  
Priya Mendiratta
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Free Form ◽  
University Of Arkansas ◽  
Medical Sciences ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
School Learning ◽  
The University

Background: Medical school learning communities benefit students. The College of Medicine (COM) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) provides medical students with academic, professional, and personal support through a learning community (LC) made of 7 academic houses. Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of the academic house model at UAMS utilizing a mixed-methods survey. The aims were to: (1) assess student experience and satisfaction with academic houses, (2) describe the realms of advising and guidance, and (3) identify areas for improvement. Method: An online survey was assigned to 723 COM students (all students enrolled, first through fourth years) at UAMS in March 2019. The survey was comprised of 25 items (10 multiple-choice, 8 on the Likert scale, and 7 open-ended questions). Data was depicted using frequency and percentages and/or thematic review of free-form responses. Results: The survey response rate was 31% (227 students). The majority of students responding (132, 58.1%) attended 2 or more face-to-face meetings with the faculty advisor within the preceding year. However, 27 (11.9%) students did not have any meetings. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with the guidance and direction provided by their advisors [very satisfied (n = 83; 36.6%); satisfied (n = 77; 33.9%)]. Themes that emerged from student generated areas for improvement include time constraints, advisor/advisee interest mismatch, and perceived inadequacy of advising content/connections. Conclusions: This study confirms the effectiveness of the LC model for advising and mentoring in the COM at UAMS. Uniquely, this study identifies not only learners’ satisfaction with their LC but also highlights areas for improvement which are widely generalizable and important to consider for institutions with or planning to start an LC.

scholarly journals DOLARS, a Distributed On-Line Activity Recognition System by Means of Heterogeneous Sensors in Real-Life Deployments—A Case Study in the Smart Lab of The University of Almería

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 405
Author(s):  
Marcos Lupión ◽  
Javier Medina-Quero ◽  
Juan F. Sanjuan ◽  
Pilar M. Ortigosa
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Activity Recognition ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Recognition System ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Heterogeneous Sensors ◽  
On Line ◽  
The University

Activity Recognition (AR) is an active research topic focused on detecting human actions and behaviours in smart environments. In this work, we present the on-line activity recognition platform DOLARS (Distributed On-line Activity Recognition System) where data from heterogeneous sensors are evaluated in real time, including binary, wearable and location sensors. Different descriptors and metrics from the heterogeneous sensor data are integrated in a common feature vector whose extraction is developed by a sliding window approach under real-time conditions. DOLARS provides a distributed architecture where: (i) stages for processing data in AR are deployed in distributed nodes, (ii) temporal cache modules compute metrics which aggregate sensor data for computing feature vectors in an efficient way; (iii) publish-subscribe models are integrated both to spread data from sensors and orchestrate the nodes (communication and replication) for computing AR and (iv) machine learning algorithms are used to classify and recognize the activities. A successful case study of daily activities recognition developed in the Smart Lab of The University of Almería (UAL) is presented in this paper. Results present an encouraging performance in recognition of sequences of activities and show the need for distributed architectures to achieve real time recognition.

Decolonizing Science, Digitizing the Occult: Theory from the Virtual South

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-104
Author(s):  
Sasha Newell
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Western Science ◽  
The World ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University ◽  
Second World ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

AbstractIn this article Newell uses two case studies to explore one of the central threads of Mbembe’s Abiola lecture, the idea that there is a relationship between the plasticity of digital technology and African cosmologies of the deuxième monde. One case concerns the viral YouTube video #sciencemustfall, in which students at the University of Cape Town criticize “Western” science and demand that African forms of knowledge such as witchcraft be incorporated into the meaning of science. The second case considers fieldwork among the brouteurs of Côte d’Ivoire, internet scammers who build intimate relationships on false premises using social media. They acquire shocking amounts of wealth in this way which they display on their own social media accounts. However, they are said to use occult means to seduce and persuade their virtual lovers, trapping their prey in the sticky allure of the world wide web. Newell uses both examples to highlight the overlaps between the transformational efficacies embedded in both occult ontologies and digital worldings, calling for the possibility of using African cosmologies of the second world to produce a ‘theory from the south’ of virtual sociality.

Integrating Image Computation in Undergraduate Level Data-Structure Education

1998 ◽  
Vol 12 (08) ◽  
pp. 1071-1080 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudeep Sarkar ◽  
Dmitry Goldgof
Keyword(s):  
Image Processing ◽  
Image Analysis ◽  
Data Structure ◽  
Data Structures ◽  
Science Curriculum ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Real Life ◽  
South Florida ◽  
The University ◽  
Structure Education

There is a growing need for expertise both in image analysis and in software engineering. To date, these two areas have been taught separately in an undergraduate computer and information science curriculum. However, we have found that introduction to image analysis can be easily integrated in data-structure courses without detracting from the original goal of teaching data structures. Some of the image processing tasks offer a natural way to introduce basic data structures such as arrays, queues, stacks, trees and hash tables. Not only does this integrated strategy expose the students to image related manipulations at an early stage of the curriculum but it also imparts cohesiveness to the data-structure assignments and brings them closer to real life. In this paper we present a set of programming assignments that integrates undergraduate data-structure education with image processing tasks. These assignments can be incorporated in existing data-structure courses with low time and software overheads. We have used these assignment sets thrice: once in a 10-week duration data-structure course at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the other two times in 15-week duration courses at the University of South Florida, Tampa.

scholarly journals AB1192 THE UNDERWORLD OF DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN RHEUMATIC DISEASES: OVERLOOKED, UNRECOGNIZED OR UNPERCEIVED?

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 1886.2-1887
Author(s):  
F. Ingegnoli ◽  
T. Schioppo ◽  
T. Ubiali ◽  
V. Bollati ◽  
S. Ostuzzi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Rheumatic Diseases ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Severe Depression ◽  
Mild Depression ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Online Study ◽  
Social Burden ◽  
Patient Health ◽  
The University

Background:The concomitant presence of depressive symptoms and rheumatic diseases (RDs) impose a considerable economic and social burden on the communities as they are associated with numerous deleterious outcomes such as increased mortality, work disability, higher disease activity and worsening physical function, higher pain levels and fatigue. Despite growing interest on depressive symptoms burden in RDs, current patient perception on this topic is unknown.Objectives:Italian patients with RDs were invited to participate in an online study gauging the presence and the perception of depressive symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9).Methods:This was a cross-sectional no-profit online study to screen the presence and the perception of depressive symptoms in RDs patients. All participants gave their consent to complete the PHQ-9 and they were not remunerated. Completion was voluntary and anonymous. The PHQ-9 rates the frequency of symptoms over the past 2 weeks on a 0-3 Likert-type scale. It contains the following items: anhedonia, depressed mood, trouble sleeping, feeling tired, change inappetite, guilt or worthlessness, trouble concentrating, feeling slowed down or restless, and suicidal thoughts. Patients were stratified as: <4 not depressed, 5-9 sub-clinical or mild depression, 10-14 moderate depression, 15-19 moderately severe depression and 20-27 severe depression. The survey was disseminated by ALOMAR (Lombard Association for Rheumatic Diseases) between June and October 2019.Results:192 patients took part in the study: 170 female with median age 50 years. Among respondents only 35 (18.2%) were not depressed. Depression was sub-clinical or mild in 68 (35.4%), moderate in 42 (21.9%), moderately severe in 30 (15.6%), and severe in 17 (8.9%). 16 (8.3%) of respondents declared to have depressive symptoms and 7 of 16 were under psychiatric therapy.Moreover, patients were grouped according to diagnosis.124 respondents had inflammatory arthritis (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis). 23 (18.5%) were not depressed. Depression was sub-clinical or mild in 41 (33%), moderate in 26 (21%), moderately severe in 21 (17%), and severe in 13 (10.5%). Among them, 8 (6.5%) declared to have depressive symptoms depressed and 3 of 8 were under psychiatric therapy.49 respondents had a connective tissue disease or vasculitis. 11 (22.5%) were not depressed. Depression was sub-clinical or mild in 19 (38.8%), moderate in 13 (26.5%), moderately severe in 2 (4%), and severe in 4 (8.2%). Among them, 3 (6%) declared to have depressive symptoms and 1 of 6 were under psychiatric therapy.19 respondents had other rheumatic diseases. 1 (5.3%) was not depressed. Depression was sub-clinical or mild in 8 (42.1%), moderate in 3 (15.8%), moderately severe in 7 (36.8%). Among them, 5 (26.3%) declared to be depressed and 3 of 5 were under psychiatric therapy.Conclusion:Our study confirmed that the overall real-life burden of depressive symptoms is relevant in all RDs. At the same time, these results highlighted that depressive symptoms are overlook by physicians and unperceived by patients since fewer that half of respondents (46.4%) had a clinical depression (PHQ-9>10). These results suggested that screening for depression should form part of the routine clinical assessment of RD patients.Acknowledgments:We thank the Lombard Association of Rheumatic Diseases (ALOMAR) for its contribution to design and disseminate the survey, the group that sustain systemic sclerosis (GILS), and the IT service of the University of Milan.Disclosure of Interests:Francesca Ingegnoli: None declared, Tommaso Schioppo: None declared, Tania Ubiali: None declared, Valentina Bollati: None declared, Silvia Ostuzzi: None declared, Massimiliano Buoli: None declared, Roberto Caporali Consultant of: AbbVie; Gilead Sciences, Inc.; Lilly; Merck Sharp & Dohme; Celgene; Bristol-Myers Squibb; Pfizer; UCB, Speakers bureau: Abbvie; Bristol-Myers Squibb; Celgene; Lilly; Gilead Sciences, Inc; MSD; Pfizer; Roche; UCB

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