Promoting a Culture of Scholarship in Higher Education

Increasing need for accountability combined with competition for educational resources necessitates movement toward a culture of scholarship at institutes of higher education Transitioning toward such a culture particularly for smaller institutions or those focused primarily on teaching can be challenging due to changing expectations on issues such as workload and productivity As part of a broader effort to build infrastructure at a single academic institution we describe a case study to inform a process of cultural change to promote scholarship We reviewed existing literature on scholarship and productivity and we interviewed 30 faculty and doctoral students at a transitioning college of social work regarding their scholarship Analyses were conducted using provisional axial and selective coding and MaxQDA software We identified five key themes for promoting a culture of scholarship including protecting time for research building staff supports engaging students developing research resources and cultivating professional growth and discourse Specific recommendations in the five areas and a checklist of strategies can be used to implement change at other institutions The suggested strategies are derived from faculty and student perspectives thereby allowing those held to expectations to take a lead role in building infrastructure within an evolving academic contex

Interpretation at the controller's edge: designing graphical user interfaces for the digital publication of the excavations at Gabii (Italy)

This paper discusses the authors’ approach to designing an interface for the Gabii Project’s digital volumes that attempts to fuse elements of traditional synthetic publications and site reports with rich digital datasets. Archaeology, and classical archaeology in particular, has long engaged with questions of the formation and lived experience of towns and cities. Such studies might draw on evidence of local topography, the arrangement of the built environment, and the placement of architectural details, monuments and inscriptions (e.g. Johnson and Millett 2012). Fundamental to the continued development of these studies is the growing body of evidence emerging from new excavations. Digital techniques for recording evidence “on the ground,” notably SFM (structure from motion aka close range photogrammetry) for the creation of detailed 3D models and for scene-level modeling in 3D have advanced rapidly in recent years. These parallel developments have opened the door for approaches to the study of the creation and experience of urban space driven by a combination of scene-level reconstruction models (van Roode et al. 2012, Paliou et al. 2011, Paliou 2013) explicitly combined with detailed SFM or scanning based 3D models representing stratigraphic evidence. It is essential to understand the subtle but crucial impact of the design of the user interface on the interpretation of these models. In this paper we focus on the impact of design choices for the user interface, and make connections between design choices and the broader discourse in archaeological theory surrounding the practice of the creation and consumption of archaeological knowledge. As a case in point we take the prototype interface being developed within the Gabii Project for the publication of the Tincu House. In discussing our own evolving practices in engagement with the archaeological record created at Gabii, we highlight some of the challenges of undertaking theoretically-situated user interface design, and their implications for the publication and study of archaeological materials

Technology, autonomy, and manipulation

Since 2016, when the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal began to emerge, public concern has grown around the threat of “online manipulation”. While these worries are familiar to privacy researchers, this paper aims to make them more salient to policymakers — first, by defining “online manipulation”, thus enabling identification of manipulative practices; and second, by drawing attention to the specific harms online manipulation threatens. We argue that online manipulation is the use of information technology to covertly influence another person’s decision-making, by targeting and exploiting their decision-making vulnerabilities. Engaging in such practices can harm individuals by diminishing their economic interests, but its deeper, more insidious harm is its challenge to individual autonomy. We explore this autonomy harm, emphasising its implications for both individuals and society, and we briefly outline some strategies for combating online manipulation and strengthening autonomy in an increasingly digital world

Computational Sociolinguistics: A Survey

Language is a social phenomenon and variation is inherent to its social nature. Recently, there has been a surge of interest within the computational linguistics (CL) community in the social dimension of language. In this article we present a survey of the emerging field of "Computational Sociolinguistics" that reflects this increased interest. We aim to provide a comprehensive overview of CL research on sociolinguistic themes, featuring topics such as the relation between language and social identity, language use in social interaction and multilingual communication. Moreover, we demonstrate the potential for synergy between the research communities involved, by showing how the large-scale data-driven methods that are widely used in CL can complement existing sociolinguistic studies, and how sociolinguistics can inform and challenge the methods and assumptions employed in CL studies. We hope to convey the possible benefits of a closer collaboration between the two communities and conclude with a discussion of open challenges.Comment: To appear in Computational Linguistics. Accepted for publication: 18th February, 201

Towards defining digital writing quality

This chapter provides a description of current views towards writing quality and promotes a move toward a definition of digital writing quality. We argue that, because new digital affordances have changed how writing is learned, taught and delivered, the nature of written products has become increasingly multi-dimensional and interactive. Traditional perspectives toward writing quality offer a foundation for understanding the textual features that are essential to defining digital writing quality, but these views largely disregard non-textual and non-linguistic abilities needed to effectively communicate in digital spaces. We thus address contemporary realia to stimulate discussion about how to consolidate various domains of knowledge for defining digital writing quality. Aligning contemporary writing demands to form a comprehensive definition of digital writing quality can help transform the design and development of future writing technologies and curriculum for an increasingly technology-adept learning audience.Englis

Leveraging Generative Agents: Autonomous AI with Simulated Personas for Interactive Simulacra and Collaborative Research

The advent of large language models (LLMs) and AI learning have fundamentally reshaped the research landscape, paving the way for novel problem-solving approaches. This paper introduces a unique framework that leverages the capabilities of autonomous AI agents with simulated personas to drive collaborative research in groundbreaking ways. Inspired by a recent study of autonomous agents mirroring human behavior, this concept encourages the use of a cadre of AI agents, each possessing specialized expertise for collective endeavors. By replicating human diversity in teamwork, this approach targets complex and hitherto unsolvable issues. The key to this strategy is persona and emotional simulation, enabling these AI agents to facilitate cross- disciplinary and interdisciplinary research within a decentered author model, and providing innovative solutions to wicked problems. Expertise can be drawn upon from disparate fields, including STEM, business, education, arts and humanities, and more. Enhanced by the advancements in AI research, specifically with LLMs like OpenAI\u27s ChatGPT 3.5 and 4, this model offers profound potential to nurture research culture within universities by identifying barriers and proposing strategies to surmount them, drawing from international models for inspiration. This proposed decentered collaborative research model, despite constraints, holds immense promise in reinventing the research paradigm

What is Feminist About Open Access?: A Relational Approach to Copyright in the Academy

In a context of great technological and social change, existing intellectual property regimes such as copyright must contend with parallel forms of ownership and distribution. Proponents of open access question and undermine the paradigm of exclusivity central to traditional copyright law, thereby fundamentally challenging its ownership structures and the publishing practices these support. In this essay, we attempt to show what it is about the open access endeavour that resonates with a feminist theory of law and society - in other words, we consider what is “feminist” about open access. First, we provide an overview of a relational feminist critique of traditional copyright law and the assumptions of possessive individualism that pervade it. We then offer a brief description of the open access movement and the way in which it reflects or responds to this criticism. In doing so, we discover vital synergies between this branch of feminist legal theory and the open access movement. Ultimately, we hope to underscore the importance of an open access policy for legal journals such as this one, whose mission is to support, advance and disseminate a feminist perspective that challenges the prevailing hegemony within traditional legal scholarship. We conclude by offering ways in which this journal can help draw out the synergies between feminist criticism and the open access movement