scholarly journals Moving Mountains: Lessons Learned from a Campus-wide Free Textbook Initiative in Response to a Global Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Werth ◽  
Katherine Williams ◽  
Tyler Kroon
Keyword(s):  
Underserved Populations ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Success Stories ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Central Appalachia ◽  
The Face ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Free Material

Students are experiencing enormous economic precarity as a result of COVID-19. Reports indicate that those hardest hit by job loss due to the coronavirus are of lower income (Beer, 2020). While economic recovery is underway for more affluent workers, the same cannot be said for those toward the bottom of the wage scale, particularly underserved populations (Long, 2020). The University of Pikeville (UPIKE) in Central Appalachia recognizes the impact that emerging and existing financial inequities have on our institution’s most vulnerable populations. Even pre-pandemic, students had indicated the costs of purchasing textbooks was stressful and discouraging. As a result, the institution decided in April 2020 to convert all classes to free materials by the start of the Fall 2020 semester. Written by those who supported faculty in this transition, the goal of this article is threefold: To describe our research methods in seeking out appropriate free material for instructors and how we guided faculty in developing their own knowledge in search strategies, To detail the process we established for faculty to apply for funding when appropriate materials could not be found, and To share the lessons we learned along with emerging success stories. We hope that this guidance will encourage other institutions to implement similar initiatives. Based on anecdotal experiences as well as our own ongoing research, we believe similar efforts are essential in addressing systemic inequities and creating cross-campus collaboration, particularly in the face of unprecedented challenges that were not created by, but have been exacerbated because of the global pandemic.

Documenting contemporary regional history: the Utah COVID-19 digital collection

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-414
Author(s):  
Anna L. Neatrour ◽  
Jeremy Myntti ◽  
Rachel J. Wittmann
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Digital Collections ◽  
Content Type ◽  
University Of Utah ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
Digital Collection ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

Purpose When faced with events, such as the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), libraries have a unique opportunity to develop a community facing response through born-digital collections. These collections provide challenges for metadata creation, collection development policies, workflows, and digital preservation. This paper aims to provide an overview of the Utah COVID-19 digital collection, with a discussion of impact and lessons learned. Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a case study of a born-digital collection initiative undertaken at the University of Utah in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project prompted engagement with the University of Utah communities and people across the state. Workflows, metadata management and partnerships are discussed, to provide a model for institutions developing similar projects during a time of crisis. Findings While the project was launched with open-ended and flexible goals, the response from the community has been both surprising and gratifying. Statistics and examples demonstrating reuse of collection materials are provided to highlight the impact and potential of community engagement. Originality/value Digital collecting projects during a historical event are not new, however the restrictions placed upon people worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic created interesting circumstances for building this collection. Several lessons were learned throughout the project which will be useful for other institutions embarking upon related projects.

scholarly journals Analysis and Assessment of New Permanent Teacher Training Activities under the Erasmus+ Program from the Perspective of the Participants of Spain in Times of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 11222
Author(s):  
Daniel Salcedo-López ◽  
Mercedes Cuevas-López
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Student Mobility ◽  
The European Union ◽  
International Mobility ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Training Activities ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

The Erasmus+ program (2014–2020) is one of the main initiatives developed by the European Commission in the field of education and is the final joint evolution of other minor and prior actions that provide schools and teachers with funding to carry out international mobility projects with a variety of formative activities. The benefits of carrying out international mobility activities to strengthen student learning and teacher training are well known and have been researched or reported even from the early stages of a program that was born back in the 1980s but has always been focused on the university level. When considering teachers at early levels (schools and high schools), the 2014–2020 Erasmus+ program was the main source of funding to grant Spanish teachers permanent training activities abroad with a direct positive impact on their careers. The year 2020 is the last year of the first evolution of the Erasmus+ program, which has been renewed, extended, and strengthened for a new six-year term (2021–2027). However, 2020 has also been a significant year. The COVID-19 global pandemic continues to affect the mobility of citizens within the different territories of the union and, thus, have a direct negative impact on international teacher and student mobility. Being 2020 the end of a cycle and a critical moment, it is the perfect time to conduct an analysis of the data associated with the participation of teachers and schools in Spain, their perceptions of the program, the different activities carried out, and the impact of the pandemic. This research study is based on an analysis of an opinion survey through a nationwide sample of teachers participating in KA101 Erasmus+ projects. This paper gathers and presents data and conclusions using information previously not available that most of the time is published in official reports globally without considering the particularities of the different states of the European Union.

scholarly journals Investigating the Impact of EFL Students’ Misuse of Prosodic Features on their Face-to-face Interactions from University Instructors’ Perspectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-64
Author(s):  
Bahram Sattar Abdulrahman
Keyword(s):  
Kurdistan Region ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Iraqi Kurdistan ◽  
University Instructors ◽  
The Face ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Special Classes

The present study aims at investigating the use of prosodic features by Kurdish EFL undergraduates in their face-to-face interactions inside/outside the classroom from the university instructors’ perspectives. The study hypothesizes that the majority of Kurdish EFL undergraduates are not fully aware of the fact that any misuse of prosodic features would probably affect the emotions, feelings, and attitudes that the face-to-face interaction is intended to convey. Building on an analysis of a questionnaire given to 54 university instructors at 10 Iraqi Kurdistan Region different universities, the study concludes that the majority of problems the students face can be related to the misuse of stress, intonation, and other prosodic features. Therefore, EFL instructors should pay more attention to make students learn how to use prosodic features and enable them to send messages adequately while engaging in face-to-face interactions. This would require special classes about prosodic features so that EFL students can overcome the misuse they have in face-to-face communication. This is inevitable because accuracy and fluency in communication require EFL students to master both features: segmental and suprasegmental. The reason behind this necessity could be attributed to the fact that broken and/or incorrect pronunciation can be considered as one of the most prominent factors behind misunderstandings in communication.

scholarly journals Lessons Learned from the Development of Open Educational Resources at Post-Secondary Level in the Field of Environmental Modelling: An Exploratory Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quazi K. Hassan ◽  
Khan R. Rahaman ◽  
Kazi Z. Sumon ◽  
Ashraf Dewan
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Environmental Modelling ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Creative Commons ◽  
Student Ratings Of Instruction ◽  
University Of Calgary ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

Open educational resources (OER) have become increasingly popular in recent times. Here, the aim was to synthesise the lessons learned through the development of OER materials for a university-level course called “environmental modelling”. Consequently, the topics of discussion included: (i) how to choose an appropriate creative commons license; (ii) ways of incorporating materials from other sources, such as publicly available sources, other open access materials, and an author’s own published materials if not published under a creative commons license; (iii) the impact of the developed OER in the field of environmental modelling; and (iv) the challenges in developing OER material. Upon developing the materials, we observed the following: (i) students enrolled in the course did not purchase textbooks; (ii) our OER materials ranked as one of the most accessed (i.e., number 7) materials according to the usage data that summed the number of file downloads and item views from PRISM (i.e., the hosting platform maintained by the University of Calgary); (iii) the students learned relatively better as per the data acquired by the University of Calgary’s universal student ratings of instruction (USRI) instrument; and (iv) other universities expressed interest in adopting the materials.

Lessons Learned About Outreach and Engagement at the Michigan State University Institute for the Study of Youth Sports

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 303-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Gould
Keyword(s):  
Youth Sports ◽  
Community Outreach ◽  
Sports Participation ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Michigan State University ◽  
State University ◽  
The Face ◽  
The University

The mission of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (ISYS) is to provide leadership, scholarship, and outreach that “transforms” the face of youth sports in ways that maximize the beneficial physical, psychological, and social effects of participation for children and youth while minimizing detrimental effects. Since its inception in 1978, ISYS has partnered with numerous organizations to promote healthy youth sports participation. In this article, the general steps ISYS takes to form and facilitate partnerships are addressed. Four long-term partnerships are also described. The services provided to these organizations are described and the advantages and challenges of working with partners, in general, are delineated. How these partnerships are used to facilitate the teaching, outreach-engagement, and scholarship components of the Michigan State University land grant mission are also described. The case of ISYS shows that conducting community outreach and engagement projects greatly enhance the scholarly mission of the university.

scholarly journals The Transition Online: A Mixed-Methods Study of the Impact of COVID-19 on Students with Disabilities in Higher Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Laura E Mullins ◽  
Jennifer Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
World Health ◽  
Online Classroom ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
University Experience ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

Following the World Health Organization’s announcement of the global pandemic because of the Coronavirus Disease 2019, most Canadian universities transitioned to offering their courses exclusively online. One group affected by this transition was students with disabilities. Previous research has shown that the university experience for students with disabilities differs from those of their non-disabled peers. However, their unique needs are often not taken into consideration. As a result, students can become marginalized and alienated from the online classroom. In partnership with Student Accessibility Services, this research revealed the impact of the transition to online learning because of the pandemic for university students with disabilities. Students registered with Student Accessibility Services completed a survey about the effects of online learning during a pandemic on the students’ lives, education, and instructional and accommodation. It was clear from the results that online education during COVID-19 affected all aspects of the students’ lives, particularly to their mental health. This research provided a much-needed opportunity for students with disabilities to share the factors influencing their educational experience and identified recommendations instructors should consider when developing online courses to increase accessibility and improve engagement. 

scholarly journals The impact of face masks on emotion recognition performance and perception of threat

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melina Grahlow ◽  
Claudia Rupp ◽  
Birgit Dernt
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Face Mask ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Perception Of Threat ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Impact

Facial emotion recognition is crucial for social interaction. However, in times of a global pandemic, where wearing a face mask covering mouth and nose is widely encouraged to prevent the spread of disease, successful emotion recognition may be challenging. In Study 1, we investigated whether emotion recognition, assessed by a validated emotion recognition task, is impaired for faces wearing a mask compared to uncovered faces, in a sample of 790 participants between 18 and 89 years. Additionally, perception of threat for faces with and without mask was assessed. We found impaired emotion recognition for faces wearing a mask compared to faces without mask, especially for those depicting anger, sadness and disgust. Further, we observed that perception of threat was altered for faces wearing a mask. In Study 2, we compared emotion recognition performance for faces with and without face mask to faces that are occluded by something other than a mask, i.e. a bubble as well as only showing the upper part of the faces. We found that, for most emotions and especially for disgust, there seems to be an effect that can be ascribed to the face mask specifically, both for emotion recognition performance and perception of threat. Methodological constraints as well as the importance of wearing a mask despite temporarily compromised social interaction are discussed.

scholarly journals DISTRIBUTION OF IMPACT INDUCED PRESSURES AT THE FACE OF UNIFORMLY SLOPED SEA DIKES: PRELIMINARY 2D EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (33) ◽  
pp. 74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitris Stagonas ◽  
Gerald Muller ◽  
Karunya Ramachandran ◽  
Stefan Schimmels ◽  
Alec Dane
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Tactile Sensor ◽  
Breaking Waves ◽  
Horizontal Distribution ◽  
Breaking Wave ◽  
The Face ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Sea Dikes ◽  
Sea Dike

Although existing knowledge on the vertical distribution of impact pressures on sea-dikes is well established only very little is known with respect to their horizontal distribution. A collaboration developed between the University of Southampton, Uk and FZK, Hannover looks in more detail at the distribution of pressures induced by waves breaking on the face of a sea-dike. For this, 2D large scale experiments with waves breaking on a 1:3 sea dike were conducted but instead of pressure transducers a tactile pressure sensor was used to map the impact pressures. Such sensors were initially used with breaking waves in the University of Southampton and their use for large scale experiments was attempted here for the first time. In the current paper the calibration and application of the tactile sensor for experiments involving up to 1m high and 8sec long waves are initially described. Preliminary results illustrating the simultaneous distribution of impact induced pressures over an area of 426.7x487.7mm are then presented. Based on these pressure maps the vertical and horizontal location of maximum breaking wave induced pressures is also deduced.

scholarly journals It’s How Many Terabytes?! A Case Study on Managing Large Born Digital Audio-visual Acquisitions

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-75
Author(s):  
Laura Uglean Jackson ◽  
Matthew McKinley
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Digital Audio ◽  
Digital Collections ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Digital Collection ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Policy And Procedure

In October 2014, the University of California Irvine (UCI) Special Collections and Archives acquired a born digital collection of 2.5 terabytes – the largest born digital collection acquired by the department to date. This case study describes the challenges we encountered when applying existing archival procedures to appraise, store, and provide access to a large born digital collection. It discusses solutions when they could be found and ideas for solutions when they could not, lessons learned from the experience, and the impact on born-digital policy and procedure at UCI Libraries. Working with a team of archivists, librarians, IT, and California Digital Library (CDL) staff, we discovered issues and determined solutions that will guide our procedures for future acquisitions of large and unwieldy born digital collections. 

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON PUBLIC HEALTH DURING THE FIRST WAVE OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC: LESSONS LEARNED FOR DESIGNING EFFECTIVE CONTAINMENT MEASURES TO COPE WITH SECOND WAVE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Coccia
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Fatality Rate ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second Wave

AbstractWhat is hardly known in the studies of the COVID-19 global pandemic crisis is the impact of general lockdown during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic both public health and economic system. The main goal of this study is a comparative analysis of some European countries with a longer and shorter period of national lockdown during the first wave of COVID-19 from March to August 2020. Findings suggests that: a) countries with shorter period of lockdown have a variation of confirmed cases/population (%) higher than countries with longer period of lockdown; b) countries with shorter period of lockdown have average fatality rate (5.45%) lower than countries with longer period of lockdown (12.70%), whereas variation of fatality rate from August to March 2020 suggests a higher reduction in countries with longer period of lockdown (−1.9% vs 0.72%). However, Independent Samples Test and the Mann-Whitney test reveal that the effectiveness of longer period of lockdown versus shorter one on public health is not significant. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic associated with longer period of lockdown has a higher negative impact on economic growth with consequential social issues in countries. Results of the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on public health and economies of some leading countries in Europe, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, can provide vital information to design effective containment strategies in future waves of this pandemic to minimize the negative effects in society.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document