Redesign on a Dime: Building a Clean, User-friendly Library Web Site Using Home-grown and Free Tools

Loras College librarians transformed their library’s website into one that responded to users’ needs while meeting the library\u27s teaching objectives and the College’s branding requirements - all with no budget, limited staff, and very little technical assistance. After learning about how this ACRL College Library Web Site of the Month was created using quick-and-dirty usability testing, open source code, and vendor-provided and home-grown widgets, attendees will have the opportunity to explore free tools discussed in the presentation at hands-on stations, including WireframePro, Jing, and card sorts. Participants will gain a knowledge of free tools that can be applied to their own library’s website

Beyond the Traditional Retention Data: A Qualitative Study of the Social Benefits of Living Learning Communities

Living Learning Communities (LLCs) have been shown to increase student retention rates and academic performance (Hotchkiss, Moore, & Pitts, 2006), as well as increase overall satisfaction with college (Baker & Pomerantz, 2000) and increase cognitive skills (Walker, 2003). These benefits have been demonstrated in a variety of institutions with diverse students (Andrade, 2007). However, these studies have relied on quantitative measures of assessment. As suggested by Taylor, Moore, MacGregor, and Lindblad (2003) and Ward and Commander (2011), more qualitative data is needed to really understand why LLCs are linked to positive outcomes. This qualitative study collected focus group data from both LLC students and non-LLC students to determine what possible social and psychological benefits students reported about their LLC or university experiences. Themes emerged from the qualitative data to reveal that LLC students do experience some of the same university life experiences that non-LLC students experience. However, LLC students reported richer connections to faculty and students, as well as additional social and academic opportunities

Engaging Millennial Students in Leadership Education

As new generations of young people mature and enter higher education, educators must adapt their teaching methodologies through an examination of theory and research related to generational differences

Complex networks: Author-editor relations and cultural change in the golden age of Victorian periodicals--Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens; Anthony Trollope and William Makepeace Thackeray; George Eliot and John Blackwood

This thesis examines three pairs of author-editor relationships, whose authors published one of their major works through a form of serialization in the Victorian periodical press. The three pairs, their works, and their respective periodicals are Elizabeth Gaskell, author of North and South, and Charles Dickens, editor of Household Words; Anthony Trollope, author of Framley Parsonage, and William Makepeace Thackeray, editor of The Cornhill Magazine; and, George Eliot, author of Middlemarch, and John Blackwood, editor of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. For each of these relationships, I analyze one-to-one correspondence and other primary sources, concluding that in tandem these pairs of authors and editors contribute to the ever-changing cultural growth occurring in the nineteenth century. Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens notoriously had a tempestuous relationship, but, in spite of their difficulties in serializing North and South, their shared legacy should be as the twin social commentators of their time. By contrast, Anthony Trollope and W. M. Thackeray maintained a businesslike relationship, with Trollope offering Framley Parsonage as the quintessential English novel to the fledgling Cornhill Magazine. In parallel fashion, Thackeray and Trollope worked to promote the new gentlemanly ideal to their middle-class public. Finally, George Eliot maintained a long and robust correspondence with her editor, John Blackwood, relying on him for encouragement to keep writing. With his consistent and abundant affirmation of her true-to-life writing style that is most fully represented in Middlemarch, Eliot and Blackwood contributed to the establishment of literary realism that was developing towards the end of the nineteenth century. Each of these authors, editors, novels, and periodicals has a story to tell, and, in combination, they helped to create a publishing culture that reflected the dynamic social and literary transformations arising in nineteenth-century Britain

BRITISH SOLDIERS' LIFE HISTORIES: GLOBAL MOBILITY, ARMY REFORM, AND BRITISH IDENTITY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

This thesis examines the memoirs of three British soldiers who served in the army during the nineteenth century, arguing that through their mobility around the world, their discussion of needs for army reform, and their deep identification as British soldiers, they served as agents of change that cultivated, nuanced, and strengthened the British empire. Scotsmen Joseph Donaldson, serving in the Peninsular War, William Douglas, participating in the Crimean War, and John Pindar, partaking primarily in the 1863 Umbeyla Campaign in India, all contributed to the imperial transformations that took place during the century. Through the pervasive influence of their published recollections, Donaldson, Douglas, and Pindar effected change, impacting the character of Britain. Donaldson instigated incipient shifts through his strong denunciations of army weakness and in his personal contrasts with the “other” in Spain. Douglas, while fully espousing his own uniqueness as a Scot, also layered English and Indian identities resulting from his travels throughout the east and embraced a proud British legacy as a Crimean War veteran. Pindar most thoroughly embodied the imperial soldier as he engaged in a broad-based journey throughout the British empire, cementing the empire’s multidimensional character, even as he challenged some late-century reforms. Spanning the century, these soldiers’ experiences combined to foster the transformation of empire geographically, in a reformed imperial army, and in the multicultural nature of both Britain at home and in the empire abroad during the nineteenth century

Access Illinois

We introduce a website that overlays the accessibility floor plans of 100+ university buildings onto Google Maps, allowing students with disabilities to dynamically navigate around campus and view the available accessibility entrances and ramps for these buildings.Ope

Functional divergence in the role of N-linked glycosylation in smoothened signaling

The G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) Smoothened (Smo) is the requisite signal transducer of the evolutionarily conserved Hedgehog (Hh) pathway. Although aspects of Smo signaling are conserved from Drosophila to vertebrates, significant differences have evolved. These include changes in its active sub-cellular localization, and the ability of vertebrate Smo to induce distinct G protein-dependent and independent signals in response to ligand. Whereas the canonical Smo signal to Gli transcriptional effectors occurs in a G protein-independent manner, its non-canonical signal employs Gαi. Whether vertebrate Smo can selectively bias its signal between these routes is not yet known. N-linked glycosylation is a post-translational modification that can influence GPCR trafficking, ligand responsiveness and signal output. Smo proteins in Drosophila and vertebrate systems harbor N-linked glycans, but their role in Smo signaling has not been established. Herein, we present a comprehensive analysis of Drosophila and murine Smo glycosylation that supports a functional divergence in the contribution of N-linked glycans to signaling. Of the seven predicted glycan acceptor sites in Drosophila Smo, one is essential. Loss of N-glycosylation at this site disrupted Smo trafficking and attenuated its signaling capability. In stark contrast, we found that all four predicted N-glycosylation sites on murine Smo were dispensable for proper trafficking, agonist binding and canonical signal induction. However, the under-glycosylated protein was compromised in its ability to induce a non-canonical signal through Gαi, providing for the first time evidence that Smo can bias its signal and that a post-translational modification can impact this process. As such, we postulate a profound shift in N-glycan function from affecting Smo ER exit in flies to influencing its signal output in mice

The influence of operational and tactical doctrine, leadership and training on the North African campaign, 1941-1942

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo