Our door is always open : Aligning Literacy LearningPractices in Writing Programs and Residential LearningCommunities

Writing studies has considered college students\u27 literacy development as a chronological progression and as influenced by their off-campus connections to various cultural and professional communities. This project considers students\u27 literacy development across disciplines and university activity systems in which they\u27re simultaneously involved to look at the (missed) opportunities for fostering transfer across writing courses and residential learning communities as parallel—but rarely coordinated—high-impact practices. Rather than calling for the development of additional programs, I argue for building/strengthening connections between these existing programs by highlighting shared learning outcomes focused on literacy skills development and learning how to learn

Remodelling the third sector: advancing collaboration or competition in community-based initiatives?

In the last decade, UK public agencies have increasingly been required to collaborate with non-state providers to deliver welfare services. Third sector organisations are now providers of services from early years to old age, taking a growing role in children and young people's services in socially deprived neighbourhoods. National policy has recognised third sector expertise in working with marginal groups of people. However, changing relationships with the state have drawn community organisations into new, often uncomfortable, organisational arrangements, affecting their work and their roles in relation to service users and community stakeholders. This article examines recent changes from a third sector perspective, drawing on data from a study of community-based organisations providing children and young people's services in deprived localities. It considers the changing environment of ‘new localism’ affecting these organisations, focusing on recent plans for local area commissioning of services. The article identifies some progress in supporting community services in deprived areas but illustrates how the continuing emphasis on competitive contracts and centrally driven frameworks undermines collaborative work and community trust. It argues that such mechanisms may serve short-term state interests but devalue the very community-level work, which is increasingly being promoted to address challenging social problems

An exploration of the potential of Automatic Speech Recognition to assist and enable receptive communication in higher education

The potential use of Automatic Speech Recognition to assist receptive communication is explored. The opportunities and challenges that this technology presents students and staff to provide captioning of speech online or in classrooms for deaf or hard of hearing students and assist blind, visually impaired or dyslexic learners to read and search learning material more readily by augmenting synthetic speech with natural recorded real speech is also discussed and evaluated. The automatic provision of online lecture notes, synchronised with speech, enables staff and students to focus on learning and teaching issues, while also benefiting learners unable to attend the lecture or who find it difficult or impossible to take notes at the same time as listening, watching and thinking

A legacy handbook for innovation

Legacy Handbook reviewing emda's experience of innovation activity. Identifies key achievements and draws out lessons learned that may be relevant to successor bodies active in this area

Achieving success in collaborative research: the role of virtual research environments

Due to various challenges and opportunities such as globalisation of research agenda and advancements in information and communication technologies, research collaborations (both international and national) have become popular during the last decade more than ever before. Within this context, the concept of Virtual Research Environments is an emerging concept looking at addressing the complex challenges associated with conducting collaborative research. The research reported within this paper investigated how the success factors of collaborative research can be achieved by deploying a Virtual Research Environment

Achieving success in collaborative research: the role of virtual research environments

Due to various challenges and opportunities such as globalisation of research agenda and advancements in information and communication technologies, research collaborations (both international and national) have become popular during the last decade more than ever before. Within this context, the concept of Virtual Research Environments is an emerging concept looking at addressing the complex challenges associated with conducting collaborative research. The research reported within this paper investigated how the success factors of collaborative research can be achieved by deploying a Virtual Research Environment