Engaging Alumni and Prospective Students Through Social Media

Social media provides institutions an opportunity for a new level of engagement with prospective students, alumni, donors and community members. This chapter begins with an overview of social media in higher education, who is using it and for what, then provides a few talking points to consider with others before beginning a push into social media. The remainder of the chapter includes a few examples of ways in which social media are used to engage alumni and prospective students, including utilizing Twitter as a free SMS service to provide updates to prospective students during their recruitment, creating an iPhone application for alumni weekend as both an information and engagement tool, and using live tweets from alumni during homecoming to provide an authentic look at the day’s events

From Cradle to Grave: The Life Cycle of a Digital Learning Object

Most librarians have probably experienced finding that a website they liked has disappeared, perhaps a video on YouTube, a tutorial, or even just an informative webpage. Sometimes the URL has simply changed, and the item can be found again. Other times the item has truly been retired. Without trying to track down the original creator or hosting body, we may never know exactly what happened nor why. Since we also place links to some of these items on our library webpages, disappearing websites create broken links or “link rot.”1 Librarians are also creators of some of these disappearing websites

Problems and Promises of Using LMS Learner Analytics for Assessment: Case Study of a First-Year English Program

Learning management systems (LMS) are widely used in education. They offer the potential for assessing student learning, but the reality of using them for this is problematic. This case study chronicles efforts by librarians at Marquette University to use LMS data to assess students’ information literacy knowledge in Marquette’s first-year English program

Introduction to the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm: An Online Course for Librarians

This article discusses the development and delivery of a three-week asynchronous online course in Jesuit history, education, and the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) for librarians working in Association of Jesuit Colleges and University (AJCU) institutions. Created by two instruction librarians and one instructional designer from a pair of AJCU institutions, the course explores incorporating the IPP—a contemplative learning model—into a one-shot, single class library instruction session. Included is a practical description of the development, revision, marketing, and success of the online course, along with a list of the class contents. Over three course offerings in 2017 and 2018, thirty-one participants discussed readings and videos, and shared ideas about their current teaching practices. They reflected on how the IPP, or at least some elements of it, might become part of their teaching, despite the time and content constraints. Other topics included the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) “Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education,” critical librarianship, and social justice. The intent of the article is to raise awareness of the course for interested librarians and to offer guidance to anyone working to develop an online course related to Ignatian pedagogy and teaching

Single spin optical read-out in CdTe/ZnTe quantum dot studied by photon correlation spectroscopy

Spin dynamics of a single electron and an exciton confined in CdTe/ZnTe quantum dot is investigated by polarization-resolved correlation spectroscopy. Spin memory effects extending over at least a few tens of nanoseconds have been directly observed in magnetic field and described quantitatively in terms of a simple rate equation model. We demonstrate an effective (68%) all-optical read-out of the single carrier spin state through probing the degree of circular polarization of exciton emission after capture of an oppositely charged carrier. The perturbation introduced by the pulsed optical excitation serving to study the spin dynamics has been found to be the main source of the polarization loss in the read-out process. In the limit of low laser power the read-out efficiency extrapolates to a value close to 100%. The measurements allowed us as well to determine neutral exciton spin relaxation time ranging from 3.4 +/- 0.1 ns at B = 0 T to 16 +/- 3 ns at B = 5 T.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev.

Measuring Readers Flow State with a High Medium Interactivity Online News Story

The rapid maturation of the Internet has enabled journalists and news media companies to push the boundaries of traditional journalistic narrative by utilizing the techniques of literary journalism to integrate pictures, audio, video and other multimedia elements into interactive and immersive multimedia rich stories. These immersive stories, while aesthetically stunning, are neither easy nor cheap to create. This study uses expectation confirmation theory and the theory of flow, with uses and gratifications as an umbrella theory to examine whether individuals who read interactive stories experience higher levels of media disorientation than readers of stories presented in a traditional online story format. The study results demonstrated that medium interactivity of an online news story does not impact a participant\u27s state of flow

Create or Curate: An Environmental Scan of Digital Learning Object Development

A 2012 survey focused on the sharing of information literacy teaching materials (PDF) found that current practice amongst many librarians creating digital resources is to find existing learning materials before developing their own. In 2017 we conducted a survey to examine whether this continued to be true for librarians creating or reusing Digital Learning Objects (DLOs) and what best practices regarding design and development of DLOs were being used. We adopted the New Media Consortium (NMC) definition for DLOs which describes them as “any grouping of materials that is structured in a meaningful way and is tied to an educational objective.” Examples include: a video on YouTube, an interactive online module, or a stand-alone activity or website that includes a mix of videos, and interactive components

SSRI Use in Pregnancy and Congenital Heart Defects: A Meta-Analysis of Population Based Cohort Studies

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimate that 10-23% of pregnant women in the US face depression at some point during their pregnancy. However, no clear recommendations regarding the treatment of depression in pregnancy are available. Antidepressants are commonly used during pregnancy without clear evidence of their safety. A study of 1,106,757 women in 47 states found that 89,980 (8.1%) had taken an antidepressant at some point during their pregnancy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 298 (4.5%) of 6582 women in 10 states between the years of 1998 and 2005 had taken an antidepressant at some time during a pregnancy or up to three months before pregnancy. Of the women, 250 (3.8%) used a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) making them the most commonly used type of antidepressant in pregnancy. A major concern with SSRI use during pregnancy is the potential risk for congenital malformations, including congenital heart defects (CHD). Therefore, the study purpose is to determine if risk of CHD is associated with the use of SSRIs during pregnancy. After an extensive review of the biomedical literature and extraction of data from existing studies of CHD risk with SSRI using during pregnancy, a meta-analysis will be completed. Few meta-analyses examine the effects of the SSRI class on CHDs; existing meta-analyses focus on paroxetine. The goal of this meta-analysis is to pool data from studies meeting inclusion criteria to examine a possible connection between the use of SSRIs during pregnancy and CHD. An extensive data search was performed using three databases: PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Databases. From all searches, a total of 1,417 results were found, including duplicates. Studies were narrowed based on topic relevance, medications studied, and study type. Eight studies were selected for further analysis based on several criteria. Studies included in the analysis were all population-based cohort studies with specific data including: number of women exposed and unexposed to SSRIs, and number of CHDs in both exposed and unexposed women. Studies were excluded if they included women exposed to antidepressants other than SSRIs. From the eight studies included in the analysis a total of 65,710 women were exposed to SSRIs during pregnancy and 719 reports of CHD were reported. Of the 2,960,492 women who were not exposed to an SSRI during their pregnancy, 27,405 CHD outcomes were reported. The studies included in the analysis show mixed results individually. Three of the studies found no association between SSRI use and CHD (Huybrechts et al, Margulis et al, Winchman et al). Five studies found an association between SSRI use and CHD (Berard et al, Kundsen et al, Jimenez-Solem et al, Malm et al, Pedersen et al). Even within the studies variation is found. For example, in Berard et al., cardiac malformations were not significant with SSRI use; however, when further analyzed by type of malformation, ventricular and atrial septal defects were associated with SSRI use. Based on the lack of knowledge about the effect of SSRIs on CHD, this meta-analysis will help to clarify this much-debated topic. The results will help women and their providers make an educated assessment regarding the potential risks from SSRI use during pregnancy and balance that knowledge with the risks of not treating depression during pregnancy

Optical alignment and polarization conversion of neutral exciton spin in individual InAs/GaAs quantum dots

We investigate exciton spin memory in individual InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots via optical alignment and conversion of exciton polarization in a magnetic field. Quasiresonant phonon-assisted excitation is successfully employed to define the initial spin polarization of neutral excitons. The conservation of the linear polarization generated along the bright exciton eigenaxes of up to 90% and the conversion from circular- to linear polarization of up to 47% both demonstrate a very long spin relaxation time with respect to the radiative lifetime. Results are quantitatively compared with a model of pseudo-spin 1/2 including heavy-to-light hole mixing.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure