Open Educational Content for Digital Public Libraries

If the production of digital content for teaching -- particularly free content -- is to expand substantially, there must be mechanisms to establish a link to fame and fortune that was not perceived in a pre-digital world. How that might be done is the central question this report addresses, in the context of examining the movement for open educational content. Understanding that movement requires delving into the history of what may seem, on first pass, a totally unrelated field of endeavor. The reader's patience is requested....

Sexual and gender minorities educational content within obstetric anesthesia fellowship programs: a survey.

PurposeImproved patient-provider relationships can positively influence patient outcomes. Sexual and gender minorities (SGM) represent a wide variety of marginalized populations. There is an absence of studies examining the inclusion of SGM-related health education within postgraduate training in anesthesia. This study's objective was to perform an environmental scan of the educational content of North American obstetric anesthesia fellowship programs.MethodsAn online survey was developed based on a review of the existing literature assessing the presence of SGM content within other healthcare-provider curricula. The survey instrument was distributed electronically to 50 program directors of North American obstetric anesthesia fellowship programs. Survey responses were summarized using descriptive statistics.ResultsSurvey responses were received from 30 of the 50 program directors (60%). Of these, 54% (14/26) felt their curriculum adequately prepares fellows to care for SGM patients, yet only 19% (5/26) of participants stated that SGM content was part of their curriculum and 31% (8/26) would like to see more incorporated in the future. Perceived lack of need was chosen as the biggest barrier to curricular inclusion of SGM education (46%; 12/26), followed by lack of available/interested faculty (19%; 5/26) and time (19%; 5/26).ConclusionsOur results suggest that, although curriculum leaders appreciate that SGM patients are encountered within the practice of obstetric anesthesia, most fellowship programs do not explicitly include SGM curricular content. Nevertheless, there appears to be interest in developing SGM curricular content for obstetric anesthesia fellowship training. Future steps should include perspectives of trainees and patients to inform curricular content

Satellite-based delivery of educational content to geographically isolated communities: A service based approach

Enabling learning for members of geographically isolated communities presents benefits in terms of promoting regional development and cost savings for governments and companies. However, notwithstanding recent advances in e-Learning, from both technological and pedagogical perspectives, there are very few, if any, recognised methodologies for user-led design of satellite-based e-learning infrastructures. In this paper, we present a methodology for designing a satellite and wireless based network infrastructure and learning services to support distance learning for such isolated communities. This methodology entails (a) the involvement of community members in the development of targeted learning services from an early stage, and (b) a service-oriented approach to learning solution deployment. Results show, that, while the technological premises of distance learning can be accommodated by hybrid satellite/wireless infrastructures,this has to be complemented with (a) high-quality audio–visual educational material, and (b) the opportunity for community members to interact with other community members either as groups (common-room oriented scenarios) or individuals (home-based scenarios), thus providing an impetus for learner engagement in both formal and informal activities

Machine Learning for Tagging of Educational Content

Online education has become a popular education form in recent years, with its use increasing massively during the COVID-19 pandemic. Neddy is a start-up company created at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic with the aim of making a learning tool for teachers facing distance learning for the first time. They created Addito, an online learning platform for learning content aimed at Norwegian primary and secondary education. This thesis aims to tag educational content from Addito with subject and school year using neural networks based on LSTM, CNN and BERT architectures. The problem is solved as a multi-label classification problem as each learning resource can have multiple tags related to either subject or school year. The results show that the chosen models are able to predict subject labels with sufficient instances in the dataset quite well; however, it fails at predicting the two classes with the least instances in the dataset. None of the models are able to predict school year very well. The best results are obtained using pre-trained BERT models

CIVIC PARTICIPATION – IMPROVEMENT OF THE EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

This publication is focused on important components of civic education. During the reformation of the educational system these components are becoming important elements of the improvement of civic participation. By gathering the knowledge of various theoretical approaches the authors of the work discover the preconditions for the phenomena of the formation of civic participation and its importance in the pedagogical process of comprehensive schools. Although the question of civic society is internally complicated, the context of the Latvian political reality creates a need for a dimension of civic participation. Living in our rapidly changing time and knowing the importance of civic participation which depends on each individual, it is important to bring more attention on the improvement of civic education in comprehensive schools by enriching and structuring the educational content. As a result, the enriched educational content, containing strengthened aspects of civic participation next to a balanced learning of theoretical knowledge and practical competence, would promote the upbringing of a civically active, nationally thinking, competent person that is able to take responsibilities and that is crucial for the long term development of the country

Tools for educational content preparation and delivery

Supplemental information by the authors of the article "Problems and prospects of hybrid learning in Higher Education"N/

Open Educational Content for Public Digital Libraries

Explores the possibilities for significant expansion of digital content for teaching, with a focus on free educational material. Describes how this might occur, as well as impediments to expansion