Charting a new course for translator and interpreter training in Africa: Lessons from the COVID-19 experience in selected countries

Translator and interpreter (T&I) training, using virtual learning environments, was largely uninterrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the Global North. This might not have been the case in the Global South, especially in African countries. Building on earlier studies which focused on a comparative analysis of a number of T&I programmes in Africa, the objective of this paper is to further investigate the T&I training situation in a number of African countries between the pre-COVID-19 (before March 2020) and the initial lockdown (March - September 2020) period. Online questionnaires were administered to T&I students and trainers in five countries: Benin, Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. The data collected were analysed qualitatively. Our preliminary findings, although not surprisingly, reveal that T&I training was interrupted by the lockdown and the attempted transition to online teaching and learning has not been smooth, due to economic challenges, insufficient technological infrastructure and skilled human resources. We find that the provision of reliable technological facilities and the implementation of blended learning are essential for strategic development in African T&I training. Trainers also require continuous professional development to enable them to acquire technological and pedagogical skills necessary to provide training that meets current T&I market demands.publishedVersio

Learning Analytics for Interpreting

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A DESIGN STUDY TO ENHANCE PERFORMANCE DASHBOARDS TO IMPROVE THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Performance dashboards are tools that can be used to improve the decision making in an organisation (Henke et al., 2016). Nevertheless, organisations have trouble finding the right person to integrate and analyse the data in an organisation (Henke et al., 2016). This is not solely because the data analyst does not have the capabilities, but also because there is an information imbalance between the management board and the data engineer. Nowadays we live in a digital era and data plays an important role for organisations (McGee, Prusak and Pyburn, 1993). This thesis aims to solve this problem by creating an artefact to improve performance dashboards with explanatory business diagnoses. This will solve the imbalance between the management board and the data engineers and will improve the decisions in the organisation. The first chapter is starts with the practical and scientific relevance and gives reasons why an artefact is needed. The research and sub questions are formulated, and the scope of this thesis is described. The second chapter focuses on the history of business intelligence (BI) and the role of BI in performance dashboard. Business intelligence and performance dashboards are related. Furthermore, the characteristics of performance dashboards and different performance dashboards are discussed. Multiple articles are combined to form four important characteristics for performance dashboards. 1. Flexibility: a performance dashboard needs to be easy to modify, used by multiple users and the ability to personalize the overview page. 2. Interactive: a performance dashboard needs to have the ability to drill down, monitor KPI’s and show not solely graphs. 3. Visual: a performance dashboard needs to give a visual overview of accurate data from the past and the present day in time. 4. External benchmarking: a performance dashboard needs to have the ability to compare the results with competitors and make prescriptive and predictive analysis based on the data. This chapter ends with a comparison of different performance dashboards to find the most suitable tool for this research. Power BI is the most suitable tool for this research because it is easy to use and free. The focus of the third chapter is on the decision-making process. The articles of Mintzberg (1970) Endsley and Garland (2000) and Eppler and Mengis (2004) form the basis of this chapter. Information influences the decision-making process, but information can also lead to information overload (Eppler and Mengis, 2004). This chapter gives an overview of important factors in the decision-making process. These factors are used to improve the performance dashboard. Chapter four is about business diagnoses and explains the model of the artefact. The artefact is based on an article of Daniels and Feelders (2001). This article states that a good business diagnosis is based on six different steps. 1. determine the actual data (normalised/absolute and scaled or not scaled); 2. determine the reference data (normalised/absolute and scaled or not scaled); 3. get model relations from star scheme; 4. compute influence of reference data to determine causes; 5. filter causes to avoid information overload; 6. visual explanation tree of causes. These steps are used to create the artefact. Chapter five analyses a new business diagnosis tool from Power BI. This tool is called the decomposition tree. This chapter finds out if it is useful for automated business diagnosis. The artefact is described in chapter six and different graphs and outcomes are displayed. The research ends with a conclusion about the advantages of the artefact, limitations and future research

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Affordances of Learning Analytics for Mediating Learning

Learning analytics acceptance and adoption is a socio-technological endeavour. Understanding how learning analytics impact practice is an important part of demonstrating their value. In the study presented in this thesis, "Mediated Learning" provides a framework through which to describe how learning analytics can impact psychological, social and material aspects of learning, from the perspective of educators and learners. It also offers a structure through which to make recommendations for improving the mediatory effects of learning analytics. A qualitative research design, based on "Grounded Theory" was implemented and 10 educators from 3 European universities were recruited through convenience and purposive sampling for exploratory interviews. A subsequent case study of the Open University provided critical perspectives from both educators (n=18) and learners (n=22) about the institutional, departmental, domain-related and epistemological factors that broadly influence perceptions of learning analytics. The study applied "Affordance Theory" to identify what participants were most easily able to recognise as beneficial to their own practice. Participant contributions were open-coded to uncover emerging themes and then organised into thematic categories and subcategories. Respondent validation, as well as triangulation of data between the exploratory interviews and focus groups support the validity of the study. Findings suggested that domain-related epistemological assumptions and previous experience influence how and why an individual could make use of learning analytics insights. Gaining stakeholder acceptance involves targeting the right training and opportunities at the appropriate disciplines. Findings also indicate that learning analytics has the strongest mediatory effect for learners when the technology is capable of exposing them to other learners' strategies, or when it assists them personally, and continually in goal orientation adoption. The implications of the study are important for higher education institutions looking to implement large-scale learning analytics initiatives, in particular, those with a diverse student body

PENGEMBANGAN MOBILE LEARNING Gen 21cs PADA PERKULIAHAN GENETIKA UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KETERAMPILAN ABAD 21 CALON GURU BIOLOGI

Partisipasi mahasiswa yang rendah karena keterbatasan waktu dalam kegiatan diskusi pembelajaran disiasati dengan diskusi online. Genetika merupakan bidang ilmu biologi yang perkembangannya pesat, perlu diintegrasikan dalam proses pembelajaran dengan diskusi berpendekatan pemecahan masalah. Kegiatan diskusi online melalui media sosial dengan menggunakan smartphone disinyalir dapat meningkatkan kemampuan 4C, yaitu komunikasi, kolaborasi, berpikir kritis dan berpikir kreatif inovatif. Kelemahan penggunaan media sosial pada kelas yang banyak, menimbulkan penurunan kinerja smartphone. Pengembangan mobile learning yang diberi nama Gen 21cs pada perkuliahan genetika merupakan solusi terbaik dalam menjawab permasalahan tersebut. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengembangkan program mobile learning Gen 21cs pada perkuliahan genetika untuk meningkatkan kemampuan 4C. Pengembangan pembelajaran mobile mengunakan Design Development Research. Implementasi program dilakukan pada mahasiswa semester V pada perguruan tinggi di Cirebon, Indonesia. Uji coba program secara terbatas dihasilkan bahwa program dapat diimplementasikan dalam kegiatan perkuliahan genetika. Implementasi program dilakukan secara eksperimental pada tiga kelompok dengan perlakuan pendekatan diskusi online yang berbeda yaitu permasalahan dari mahasiswa, dari mahasiswa dan pendidik, dan dari pendidik. Hasil uji coba luas didapatkan program mobile learning Gen 21cs pada perkuliahan genetika meningkatkan kemampuan 4C pada mahasiswa. Program mobile learning Gen 21cs berkontribusi positif kuat antar domain kemampuan 4C pada mahasiswa, berkontribusi dalam meningkatkan penguasan konsep genetika pada mahasiswa dan berkontribusi positif cukup kuat antara kemampuan 4C dengan penguasan konsep genetika pada mahasiswa

TACKLING THE CHALLENGES OF SOFTWARE PROVISION

Abstract. In this perspective, we investigate the less documented topic of software provision, aimed at bridging the community of software developers to the one of software end-users. We outline aspects of the circular flow of software development, starting from the source code, software packaging, the target platform, licensing, program documentation, and feedback. Next, we highlight challenges and opportunities of these aspects and how they contribute to the overall success and adoption of a software application. Finally, we exemplify and illustrate how these aspects were addressed with the provision of the software GWB on FAO's cloud computing platform SEPAL. The outlined reflections on software provision are of generic nature and, depending on a given software, may include many more, or different aspects. Yet, we hope that this perspective may trigger more interest and dedication to the topic of software provision and its integral function to promote and improve software development

Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining 2017 Annual Report

2017 marked the 20-year anniversary of the signing of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, which laid the ground for coordinated mine action efforts worldwide. This treaty has become a reference agreement in both the humanitarian and disarmament fields. Today still, it provides an example of how international law can effectively contribute to a safer and more secure world. It is in this spirit that the GICHD continues to promote the universalisation and implementation of the different treaties relevant to mine action. In fact, supporting national partners towards the timely fulfilment of convention obligations and completion targets remains a priority. However, disarmament lies not only in the negotiation and adoption of treaties. The goal of disarmament is to save lives and promote safety and security, as well as sustainable development. Mine action, specifically, is much more than just removing mines; mine action is ultimately about enabling and building sustainable livelihoods. Throughout and beyond the disarmament sector there is much to learn from mine action, which has been a people-focused, needs-driven sector for more than 20 years. What truly matters in our work are not the square meters of released land, but the fact that land is given back to productive use. As the GICHD and the mine action sector continue to strive towards this goal, a more comprehensive response to interconnected challenges is required, in line with the spirit of the agendas for sustainable development and for peace. Demining alone is not sufficient to rehabilitate a community: we need to plan, prioritise and work in closer coordination with all humanitarian, development and human security actors. Supporting peace mediation processes that go hand in hand with mine action efforts to create lasting peace; addressing abandoned ordnance and diversion of ammunition to counter intensified and prolonged conflict and violence; furthering the use of new technological tools that have the power to guide mine action and other decision-makers towards truly holistic action: these are but a few examples of how mine action can unite sectors in the pursuit of the sustainable development goals. This report looks back on a busy year in which the GICHD has continued to deepen its collaborations beyond the traditional mine action sector, creating opportunities to achieve true sustainability and lasting development. The Centre will continue to capitalise on synergies across different policies and sectors that truly multiply the impact of mine action interventions. The achievements of the GICHD would not have been possible without the extraordinary engagement of its donors and the women and men working at and with the Centre, whom we thank wholeheartedly

Educational visions: The lessons from 40 years of innovation

Educational Visions looks to future developments in educational technology by reviewing our history of computers and education, covering themes such as learning analytics and design, inquiry learning, citizen science, inclusion, and learning at scale. The book shows how successful innovations can be built over time, informs readers about current practice and demonstrates how they can use this work themselves. This book is intended for anyone who is involved in the study and practice of technology-enhanced learning. It includes examples from informal learning such as MOOCs and citizen science, as well as higher education. Although the foundations of this work are in the UK, its influence has spread worldwide, so it will be of interest internationally