In-Course Language Support: Working Towards Best Practice

In Australian universities, student demographics over the past decade have changed markedly. The main shift is an increase in the number of students who have English as an additional language or are the first in their family to enter higher education. As student populations diversify, many universities are recognising that language and academic support programs require different emphases. For years, the fundamentals of learning support revolved around centrally run workshops and individual consultations but recently, a number of universities have moved towards contextualised in-course support. This paper looks at a similar shift. In 2010, learning support at Edith Cowan University moved from a centralised model to being faculty based. The Faculty of Business and Law established a new Academic Skills Centre to service its diverse student population. Aiming to offer best practice, several methods have been adopted, the most successful of which is the integration of academic skills and English language support within targeted units in the School of Management

Embedding and integrating language and academic skills: An innovative approach

A growing body of research into the provision of learning support suggests that good practice is exemplified by the integration of language and academic skills (LAS) into specifically targeted core discipline units. There are many reasons offered: that contextualised support picks up weaker students who commonly fail to self-select for voluntary workshops; that students favour contextualised workshops over general workshops, often perceiving the latter to have little relevance to them; that the number of students in Australian universities with English as an additional language (EAL) has increased markedly over the past decade; and that in some units the delivery of contextualised support serves to “up-skill” academic staff. The authors of this paper argue that integrated learning support makes good use of limited resources for all stakeholders: discipline academics, learning advisors and students. The paper explores the experiences of these stakeholders in a core management unit of the MBA at Edith Cowan University over a period of three semesters. It outlines the various tasks involved in this innovative embedding project both in terms of team meetings for the discipline staff and learning advisor, and class time allocated to LAS development. It also evaluates the benefits through student feedback and interviews with members of the embedding team. The authors conclude that the approach taken in this project was effective in supporting incremental, discipline-specific LAS development for students and in raising awareness among discipline teaching staff of the importance of LAS development

Artificial Intelligence and Authorship Editor Policy: ChatGPT, Bard Bing AI, and beyond

Artificial intelligence and large-language model chatbots have generated significant attention in higher education, and in research practice. Whether ChatGPT, Bard, Jasper Chat, Socratic, Bing AI, DialoGPT, or something else, these are all shaping how education and research occur. In this Editorial, we offer five editorial principles to guide decision-making for editors, which will also become policy for the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice. First, we articulate that non-human authorship does not constitute authorship. Second, artificial intelligence should be leveraged to support authors. Third, artificial intelligence can offer useful feedback and pre-review. Fourth, transparency of artificial intelligence usage is an expectation. And fifth, the use of AI in research design, conduct, and dissemination must comply with established ethical principles. In these five principles, we articulate a position of optimism for the new forms of knowledge and research we might garner. We see AI as a mechanism that may augment our current practices but will not likely replace all of them. However, we do issue caution to the limitations of large language models including possible proliferation of poor-quality research, Stochastic Parroting, and data hallucinations. As with all research, authors should be comfortably familiar with the underlying methods being used to generate data and should ensure a clear understanding of the AI tools being used prior to deployment for research

Can Plants be used as Indicators of the Impacts of Livestock Grazing on Carabid Beetles in Upland Calcareous Grassland

The International Congress for Conservation Biology and European Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCBECCB) is a forum for addressing conservation challenges and for presenting new research and developments in conservation science and practice. The meeting theme, Mission Biodiversity: Choosing new paths for conservation, is a response to indications that many traditional methods for conserving biodiversity have proven unsuccessful. It emphasizes that rapid and ongoing biophysical and societal changes affect the way we do science and practice conservation today

Fermentation of calcium-fortified soya milk does not appear to enhance acute calcium absorption in osteopenic post-menopausal women

Ageing women may choose to drink soya milk to reduce menopausal symptoms. As fermentation enriches soya milk with isoflavone aglycones, its beneficial qualities may improve. To reduce osteoporotic risk, however, soya milk must be Ca enriched, and it is not known how fermentation affects Ca bioavailability. A randomised crossover pilot study was undertaken to compare the Ca absorption of fortified soya milk with that of fermented and fortified soya milk in twelve Australian osteopenic post-menopausal women. The fortified soya milk was inoculated with Lactobacillus acidophilus American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) 4962 and fermented for 24 h at 37°C. Ca absorption from soya milk samples was measured using a single isotope radiocalcium method. Participants had a mean age of 54·8 (sd 12·3) years, with mean BMI of 26·5 (sd 5·5) kg/m2 and subnormal to normal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (mean 62·5 (sd 19·1) nmol/l). Participants consumed 185 kBq of 45Ca in 44 mg of Ca carrier. The mean fractional Ca absorption (α) from soya milk and fermented soya milk was 0·64 (sd 0·23) and 0·71 (sd 0·29), respectively, a difference not of statistical significance (P = 0·122). Although fermentation of soya milk may provide other health benefits, fermentation had little effect on acute Ca absorption

Applying phylogenomics to understand the emergence of Shiga Toxin producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 strains causing severe human disease in the United Kingdom

Shiga Toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 is a recently emerged zoonotic pathogen with considerable morbidity. Since the serotype emerged in the 1980s, research has focussed on unravelling the evolutionary events from the E. coli O55:H7 ancestor to the contemporaneous globally dispersed strains. In this study the genomes of over 1000 isolates from human clinical cases and cattle, spanning the history of STEC O157:H7 in the United Kingdom were sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis reveals the ancestry, key acquisition events and global context of the strains. Dated phylogenies estimate the time to the most recent common ancestor of the current circulating global clone to 175 years ago, followed by rapid diversification. We show the acquisition of specific virulence determinates occurred relatively recently and coincides with its recent detection in the human population. Using clinical outcome data from 493 cases of STEC O157:H7 we assess the relative risk of severe disease including HUS from each of the defined clades in the population and show the dramatic effect Shiga toxin complement has on virulence. We describe two strain replacement events that have occurred in the cattle population in the UK over the last 30 years; one resulting in a highly virulent strain that has accounted for the majority of clinical cases in the UK over the last decade. This work highlights the need to understand the selection pressures maintaining Shiga-toxin encoding bacteriophages in the ruminant reservoir and the study affirms the requirement for close surveillance of this pathogen in both ruminant and human populations

A systematic review of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of peer education and peer support in prisons.

BACKGROUND: Prisoners experience significantly worse health than the general population. This review examines the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of peer interventions in prison settings. METHODS: A mixed methods systematic review of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness studies, including qualitative and quantitative synthesis was conducted. In addition to grey literature identified and searches of websites, nineteen electronic databases were searched from 1985 to 2012. Study selection criteria were: Population: Prisoners resident in adult prisons and children resident in Young Offender Institutions (YOIs). INTERVENTION: Peer-based interventions Comparators: Review questions 3 and 4 compared peer and professionally led approaches. OUTCOMES: Prisoner health or determinants of health; organisational/ process outcomes; views of prison populations. STUDY DESIGNS: Quantitative, qualitative and mixed method evaluations. RESULTS: Fifty-seven studies were included in the effectiveness review and one study in the cost-effectiveness review; most were of poor methodological quality. Evidence suggested that peer education interventions are effective at reducing risky behaviours, and that peer support services are acceptable within the prison environment and have a positive effect on recipients, practically or emotionally. Consistent evidence from many, predominantly qualitative, studies, suggested that being a peer deliverer was associated with positive effects. There was little evidence on cost-effectiveness of peer-based interventions. CONCLUSIONS: There is consistent evidence from a large number of studies that being a peer worker is associated with positive health; peer support services are also an acceptable source of help within the prison environment and can have a positive effect on recipients. Research into cost-effectiveness is sparse. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO ref: CRD42012002349