Use of vision-based augmented reality to improve student learning of the spine and spinal deformities. An exploratory study

Background: Knowledge of anatomy and pathology of the spine together with spinal deformities is integral to several healthcare disciplines. This knowledge is crucial for graduates for assessment and management of patients with spinal problems. Physiotherapy students generally find it difficult to conceptualise the integrity of the structure and function of the spine that affects their acquisition of related physiotherapy skills.Objective: Our first objective was to introduce and evaluate the use of a Vision-Based Augmented Reality (VBAR) mobile application to teach students the anatomy and accessory movements of the spine. A further objective was to explore student experiences of and engagement with VBAR by conducting a post-lecture survey comparing VBAR to traditional teaching.Methods: This post-intervention crossover design study included two groups: final year physiotherapy students (n = 74) and mean age of 23 (±1.8). The computing department at Teesside University developed the VBAR mobile application. Moreover, a survey adapted from a previously published article was disseminated to students to evaluate their level of understanding following the use of the VBAR application.Results: The results demonstrated that the median questionnaire scores in students’ perceived level of understanding for the VBAR group were significantly higher than for the traditional teaching group (p 0.05).Conclusion: The results of this post-intervention survey suggest that the integration of VBAR learning activities results in gains relating to students’ understanding of spinal anatomy, function, pathology and deformities. These findings suggest that VBAR could be an additional teaching tool to support student learning.Clinical implications: Greater understanding is expected to increase the quality of clinical practice.

Public Engagement in a Global Pandemic

UKRI/STFC’s Scientific Computing Department (SCD) has a long and rich history of delivering face to face public engagement and outreach, both on site and in public places, as part of the wider STFC programme. Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, SCD was forced to abandon an extensive planned programme of public engagement, alongside altering the day-to-day working methods of the majority of its staff. SCD had to respond rapidly to create a new, remote only, programme for the summer and for the foreseeable future. This was initially an exercise in improvisation, identifying existing activities that could be delivered remotely with minimal changes. As the pandemic went on, SCD also created new resources specifically for a remote audience and adapted existing activities where appropriate, using our evaluation framework to ensure these activities continued to meet the aims of the in-person programme. This paper presents the process through which this was achieved, some of the benefits and challenges of remote engagement and the plans for 2021 and beyond.

Public Engagement - More than just fun

Public Engagement (PE) with science should be more than “fun” for the staff involved. PE should be a strategic aim of any publically funded science organisation to ensure the public develops an understanding and appreciation of their work, its benefits to everyday life and to ensure the next generation is enthused to take up STEM careers. Most scientific organisations do have aims to do this, but very few have significant budgets to deliver this. In a landscape of ever tightening budgets, how can we develop a sustainable culture of PE within these organisations? UKRI/STFC’s Scientific Computing Department present how we have worked to embed a culture of PE with the department by developing our early career staff members; highlighting the impact PE makes at the departmental and project level; and linking PE to our competency framework. We will also discuss how our departmental work interacts with and complements STFC’s organisational-wide PE effort, such as making use of a shared evaluation framework that allows us to evaluate our public engagement activities against their goals and make strategic decisions about the programme’s future direction.

Researchers propose bespoke system for knowledge management and organisational learning in software team

Purpose The authors wanted to create a Web-based system of templates to enhance knowledge capture and organizational learning for small and start-up practices. Design/methodology/approach The researchers studied a software team which had been created by staff and students at a university computing department. The analysis of the team’s behaviour was based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with one manager and five software developers. Based on the interviews, they proposed the bespoke system. Findings The project templates take advantage of the knowledge and information already contained in support tools like GitLab, ActiveCollab, and Sentry. There are links to relevant documentation and components of these tools. But the templates go much further by storing detailed comments about the critical learning from projects, including the psychological insights gained from dealing with clients. The researchers felt this would help to make tacit knowledge more explicit. Originality/value Despite the large economic importance of SMEs, they tend to lack knowledge management (KM) and organisational learning (OL) resources. As a result, much of their tacit knowledge cannot be shared easily. The concepts of KM and OL are especially relevant in the software industry, which is knowledge-intensive and generates intellectual capital as its principal asset. The researchers believe that integrating KM into the development cycle will improve system development.

Implementación de Aula invertida con "hipervideos" en cursos de TI

El uso de recursos tecnológicos para mejorar el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje es hoy en día un requisito indispensable debido al enorme volumen de información, entre otras razones, que cada asignatura o curso requiere. Esto requiere no solo un mayor orden de los contenidos de cada tema, sino también una clasificación y formato más detallados. En este artículo, presentamos los resultados iniciales del uso de "hipervideos" en tres cursos diferentes del Departamento de Computación del ITESM-CEM. Mediante encuestas y calificaciones de diferentes grupos, se obtienen conclusiones iniciales de la aplicación de la técnica Aula Invertida a través de "hipervideos". The use of technological resources to improve the teaching-learning process is nowadays an indispensable requirement due to the enormous volume of information, among other reasons, that each subject or course requires. This involves not only a greater ordering of the contents of each subject, but also a more detailed classification and format. In this article, we present the initial results of the use of "hypervideos" in three different courses of the ITESM-CEM Computing Department. By means of surveys and grades of different groups, the article presents initial conclusions of application of the Flipped Classroom technique through "hypervideos".

Heuristic Evaluation of Children’s Authoring Tool for Game Making

The main purpose of the study is to evaluate the heuristic inspection of children’s authoring tools to develop games. The researcher has selected 15 authoring tools for making games specifically for educational purposes. Nine students from Diploma of Game Design and Development course and four lecturers from the computing department involved in this evaluation. A set of usability heuristic checklist used as a guideline for the students and lecturers to observe and test the authoring tools selected. The study found that, there are just a few authoring tools that fulfil most of the heuristic requirement and suitable to apply to children. In this evaluation, only six out of fifteen authoring tools have passed above than five elements in the heuristic inspection checklist. The researcher identified that to develop a usable authoring tool developer has to emphasis children acceptance and interaction of the authoring tool. Furthermore, the authoring tool can be a tool to enhance their mental development especially in creativity and skill.