All hands on deck: CREWED for technology-enabled learning

The University of New South Wales’ (UNSW’s) Faculty of Engineering is introducing a new process for designing and developing blended and fully online (distance) courses, as part of action research to support curriculum renewal. The process, referred to as CREWED (Curriculum Renewal and E-learning Workloads: Embedding in Disciplines), is being used to develop key courses that add flexibility to student progression pathways. By integrating the design of learning activities with the planning and organization of teaching and support work, CREWED addresses some of the known barriers to embedding innovative use of learning technologies within disciplines. CREWED incorporates key features of two course development models from the UK, one emphasising team building and the other emphasising pedagogical planning. It has been piloted in priority curriculum development projects, to ensure that the disciplinary organizational context is supportive. One pilot is a fully online distance version of a postgraduate course. The other is a blended version of an undergraduate course. Both are core (required) courses in accredited professional engineering degree programs and were previously available only in face-to-face mode. The UNSW pilots have confirmed the importance of articulating clear pedagogical models, and of planning ahead for the resources required to put these models into practice, as part of departmental capacity building, especially where teaching has primarily been treated as an individual classroom-based activity that competes with disciplinary research for academic staff time and resources

All Hands on Deck Mentorship Program

At the beginning of our freshman year, we were assigned the project of addressing a “wicked� problem, or a problem that is unsolvable. Being tasked with this, we decided to address an issue that directly affected us, and thousands of others: stress on college campuses. With this in mind, we set out to cure the stress of an everyday college student. From here, we decided to host events that would be helpful for students in stress relief. Our idea was to hold events to help reduce stress. After conducting more than 100 interviews, we learned that students felt that these events would be more of a distraction from their stress, than a solution. We then decided that we should produce a more permanent solution to stress through mentorship. We decided to create a program in which incoming freshmen could participate to help relieve the stress of the transition. The program would be optional, yet highly encouraged. For the program, an upperclassman would be paired with freshmen based on their major. We planned to work with an Honors 2000 group, who would be our control group, and unfortunately we had very few responses. Left with no participants and what seemed to be a lack of interest, our group decided to pivot once again. We decided to create a Facebook page for Honors students, similar to “Rate my Professor�. Several people joined the Facebook page, however, no one besides our group posted. We were at another dead end, and we had no more ideas to turn to. With no idea how to proceed, we met with Dr. Majewski and learned about her interest in our mentorship idea. The program would be implemented inside of gateway residence hall. All incoming Honors freshmen, and all returning upperclassmen, would be required to participate. Freshmen would be paired with upperclassmen and they would be required to meet a couple times a semester. This program would serve to help freshmen with their stress by providing them with a mentor that can answer any question they may have. This program has been implemented in the Fall of 2019, and will continue to be implemented for other years. Our ultimate goal of “All Hands on Deck� is to provide freshmen with a less stressful first semester, and also provide an opportunity to develop lasting friendships within the Honors College

All hands on deck

Navigating the unchartered graduate labour market waters during and in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic presents unprecedented challenges to new graduates

All Hands on Deck: Creating Subject Guidelines

Subject guidelines serve as a planning tool, a guide for selectors, and as a communication tool for library users, staff, administrators, and other libraries. The Ottenheimer Library at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock recently completed subject guidelines for most of the academic programs at the university. A team of three librarians and one paraprofessional developed a template for library selectors to use in creating subject-specific guidelines and guided the process to its completion. The poster session presenters described their role in creating the guidelines and shared their experiences working as a team. One of the completed guidelines was available for review

All Hands on Deck: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Emerging Infectious Disease

The increasing burden of emerging infectious diseases worldwide confronts us with numerous challenges, including the imperative to design research and responses that are commensurate to understanding the complex social and ecological contexts in which infectious diseases occur. A diverse group of scientists met in Hawaii in March 2005 to discuss the linked social and ecological contexts in which infectious diseases emerge. A subset of the meeting was a group that focused on ‘‘transdisciplinary approaches’’ to integrating knowledge across and beyond academic disciplines in order to improve prevention and control of emerging infections. This article is based on the discussions of that group. Here, we outline the epidemiological legacy that has dominated infectious disease research and control up until now, and introduce the role of new, transdisciplinary and systems-based approaches to emerging infectious diseases.Wedescribe four cases of transboundary health issues and use them to discuss the potential benefits, as well as the inherent difficulties, in understanding the social–ecological contexts in which infectious diseases occur and of using transdisciplinary approaches to deal with them