Gender and Rules of Procedure in Constituent Processes: A Comparative Discussion in Support of the Chilean Constitutional Convention

On 6 August 2021 International IDEA, in partnership with the Law Faculty of UniversidadAdolfo Ibáñez, Corporación Humanas and ComunidadMujer, held a virtual seminar on gender and rules of procedure in constituent processes. Its objective was to share comparative information about designing rules of procedure (regulations) for constituent processes from a gender-equality perspective with members of the newly constituted Chilean Constitutional Convention, Chilean civil society, academics and legal practitioners. The open-invitation online event brought together a panel of women constitution-makers from constituent processes in Bolivia, Kenya, South Africa and Tunisia. The experts discussed their respective experiences and the benefits and drawbacks of the rules of procedure that guided their constituent processes. Representatives from the implementing partners moderated expert panel sessions and question-and-answer discussions.

Virtual Seminar on Coronavirus 2019 for the US-Mexico Border Region: Building Opportunities for Communication and Collaboration

While the US-Mexico border region has had increasing restrictions due to coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), the economically and socially integrated region continues to facilitate necessary movement between the two countries. Binational partners representing universities, government, and health delivery worked together to develop a COVID-19 Virtual Seminar for the US-Mexico Border Region, which consisted of weekly sessions in Spanish designed to better facilitate communication and collaborative systems between border states. In total 835 participants registered for the virtual seminar with attendance ranging from 394 in Session 1 to 269 in Session 6. From evaluation surveys (n = 297), organizers observed a large plurality of healthcare professionals, followed by students, researchers, and government employees. The seminar’s contribution to increasing collaborative and communication systems identified major needs in the region surrounding surveillance and monitoring; increased resources for migrant shelters to control outbreaks; an increase in personal protective equipment; tracking binational cases.

Designing "Virtual Social Europe Days"—An International Collaborative Seminar across Closed Borders

"Social Europe Days” is a collaborative four-day international seminar held yearly near Brussels, Belgium, by a network of ten European universities from eight different countries. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the seminar had to be offered virtually and redesigned. The final design included synchronous and asynchronous activities, informal and formal interactions, and a focus on empathy for the existential problems faced by participating students and faculty during the pandemic. This article describes the design challenges, the design choices and decisions that led to the virtual seminar design, and reflections based on lead faculty notes, member checking, and student evaluations.

Virtual vs Traditional Seminar Course Satisfaction Among Two Groups of Pharmacy Students: Survey Observational Study

Background:Distance learning in pharmacy schools has gained importance with the growth of technology. However, facing the COVID-19 pandemic governments worldwide have dramatically accelerated the pace of implementing virtual learning not only to prevent the spread of the virus but also to ensure continuity of education. Studies have provided emerging evidence assessing the distance learning environment, barriers, obstacles, perceptions, and attitudes of educators as well as learners since the outbreak. Objectives: To evaluate students’ satisfaction in seminar course conducted virtually due to distance learning model in comparison to previous conventional seminar presentation.Materials and Methods: A total of 102 students’ responses to 8-questions survey were collected and analyzed. The responders were 42 students from batch 5, the conventional in-class seminar model (41%) and 60 students from batch 6 students, the virtual seminar model 59%) were included. The survey score was compiled for all questions to reflect the students’ satisfaction. In this study, we have used the descriptive statistics like mean and standard deviation and to find the comparison between group-1 (Batch 5) and group-2 (batch-6) using independent sample t-test, p<0.05 was fixed as level of significant.Results: Virtual seminar model (batch 6) reported a conveniently high satisfaction like the conventional in-class seminar model (batch 5).Conclusion: The college of pharmacy at King Saud bin Abdul Aziz University for Health Science was successfully able to modify the seminar course due to the COVID-19 outbreak to ensure the safety of students and staff while maintaining the quality of the course, and further improving the students’ satisfaction.

Pharmacotherapy virtual attachment during COVID-19 pandemic: Use of online experiential assessment in a Malaysian pharmacy school

This case study aims to report the efforts made by International Islamic University Malaysia to pursue the experiential pharmacotherapy attachment for the final-year of pharmacy students via online mediums in the light of the COVID-19 restrictions on face-to-face clinical experiential learning. A four-week virtual pharmacotherapy experiential attachments were redesigned and conducted via an online platform (Google Meet). Students were required to have a two-hour virtual discussion and consultation session with their preceptors twice a week throughout the attachment period. In each week, students were provided with real-life clinical cases that were chosen by their preceptors from the Department of Pharmacy Practice’s clinical case repository. Students were assessed via clinical case reports, virtual seminar presentations, weekly virtual discussions with preceptors, and virtual objective structured clinical examinations. All the virtual sessions were conducted on a synchronous basis to assure students’ active participation. Alongside this, a revised online final assessment was also designed.

The European virtual seminar on sustainable development as an opportunity for staff ESD competence development within university curricula

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the current and potential value of the European Virtual Seminar on Sustainable Development (EVS) as an opportunity for professional development in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for teaching staff at university level. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents and reflects on the specific case of EVS, including its competence-based approach and educational staff roles. Particular attention is paid to the development of ESD competences of tutors through participation in EVS, based on the UNECE (2011) competence framework and supported by the results from a small-scale questionnaire. Three major aspects of EVS as a professional opportunity in ESD are elaborated: EVS as an on-the-job training opportunity, EVS as an international staff mobility opportunity and EVS as an active learning and innovation community. Findings EVS is an effective opportunity for developing a range of ESD competences, especially for junior university staff. The contribution of EVS to professional development in ESD currently extends to a partnership of ten universities from across Europe, but given its features, the EVS approach has the potential to be adopted at a much larger scale. Possible limitations in scaling up are rigid rules for integration of new courses in curricula and the need to form new EVS-like partnerships. Practical implications This case study of EVS shows that Web-based, internationally networked courses with a pedagogical approach and design focused on ESD have a large potential in providing effective opportunities for the development of teachers’ ESD competences, but to realize this potential, active uptake of the approach by the existing networks for ESD in higher education is needed. Originality/value The paper presents a promising option to address the observed lack of opportunities within university curricula to acquire and practice ESD competences for teaching staff.