Systems and environmental decision-making: postgraduate open learning with the Open University

Environmental issues affect everyone though the ways in which people engage with them varies a great deal. The Open University''s Masters program in environmental decision making has at its core a modular course that enables students to incorporate environmental factors into their decision making from a starting point of identifying their own environmental issues using a systems approach. Students carry out a project based on their own experience in a decision-making situation of their own choice. A framework for environmental decision making is introduced and students learn how to use the framework systematically, systemically and critically. The course has evolved since it was first introduced in 1997 as both students and the course team have learnt about environmental decision making together. This paper analyses and interprets some of the data that have emerged from students projects since the course began

Between Subject and Tech Expertise: Collaborating with Faculty for Digital Humanities Projects [presentation]

Libraries are well-positioned for partnership with digital humanities efforts in several ways. The management of digital items and the description of information resources for future researchers make libraries natural partners in digital humanities projects. Often Humanities scholars will reach out to the library for support or even guidance in these projects. At Marquette University, the Gothic Archive exemplifies the development of this collaboration. Though the Archive started as a humble collection of digitized and transcribed gothic chapbooks, it is being developed into an interwoven collection of digitized materials and contextual objects and promises to become a full-fledged digital humanities tool. In this presentation, librarians from Marquette and a member of the project team from the English Department will discuss the Gothic Archive as a case study for faculty-library collaboration in developing a digital humanities project. Starting from the beginning with the development of the initial seed collection with a faculty member from English, the presenters will describe the partnership and how it contributed to the evolution of the project. Along the way, presenters will discuss strategies for discussing synthesis of materials with their faculty partners and how to relate these strategies to their faculty partners. How they adapted static repository software to house a dynamic digital humanities project, and what role Gothic Archive plays and promises to play in Humanities research and teaching will also be discussed

SISO Space Reference FOM - Tools and Testing

The Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) Space Reference Federation Object Model (SpaceFOM) version 1.0 is nearing completion. Earlier papers have described the use of the High Level Architecture (HLA) in Space simulation as well as technical aspects of the SpaceFOM. This paper takes a look at different SpaceFOM tools and how they were used during the development and testing of the standard.The first organizations to develop SpaceFOM-compliant federates for SpaceFOM development and testing were NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), the University of Calabria (UNICAL), and Pitch Technologies.JSC is one of NASA's lead centers for human space flight. Much of the core distributed simulation technology development, specifically associated with the SpaceFOM, is done by the NASA Exploration Systems Simulations (NExSyS) team. One of NASA's principal simulation development tools is the Trick Simulation Environment. NASA's NExSyS team has been modifying and using Trick and TrickHLA to help develop and test the SpaceFOM.The System Modeling And Simulation Hub Laboratory (SMASH-Lab) at UNICAL has developed the Simulation Exploration Experience (SEE) HLA Starter kit, that has been used by most SEE teams involved in the distributed simulation of a Moon base. It is particularly useful for the development of federates that are compatible with the SpaceFOM. The HLA Starter Kit is a Java based tool that provides a well-structured framework to simplify the formulation, generation, and execution of SpaceFOM-compliant federates.Pitch Technologies, a company specializing in distributed simulation, is utilizing a number of their existing HLA tools to support development and testing of the SpaceFOM. In addition to the existing tools, Pitch has developed a few SpaceFOM specific federates: Space Master for managing the initialization, execution and pacing of any SpaceFOM federation; EarthEnvironment, a simple Root Reference Publisher; and Space Monitor, a graphical tool for monitoring reference frames and physical entities.Early testing of the SpaceFOM was carried out in the SEE university outreach program, initiated in SISO. Students were given a subset of the FOM, that was later extended. Sample federates were developed and frameworks were developed or adapted to the early FOM versions.As drafts of the standard matured, testing was performed using federates from government, industry, and academia. By mixing federates developed by different teams the standard could be tested with respect to functional correctness, robustness and clarity.These frameworks and federates have been useful when testing and verifying the design of the standard. In addition to this, they have since formed a starting point for developing SpaceFOM-compliant federations in several projects, for example for NASA, ESA as well as SEE

Teacher 2020. On the Road to Entrepreneurial Fluency in Teacher Education

No abstract available