Using electronic voting systems data outside lectures to support learning

Many years of research into using Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) within lectures has so far led to the conclusion that EVS is of beneficial value to students’ learning by involving students directly in conversation and deeper reflection. EVS researchers have proposed that using the voting data from EVS outside the lecture theatre may also benefit learning. They suggest that an Integrated Learning Environment (ILE) presenting this data would enable students to self-direct their learning and tutors to continue the dialogue from lectures. This thesis describes the implementation of such an ILE used within an introductory programming course at the University of Glasgow, in order to investigate these proposed benefits. The results show that there are certain benefits to this approach but these are small compared to the benefits within lectures. Only some questions are likely to generate these benefits and only some students seem to have an attitude towards learning to appreciate this. The results also show that there may not be reason to build an ILE to provide these benefits. This thesis discusses to what extent students use the questions in lectures as an instigator into deeper reflection and to what extent the EVS data can be used to provide an accurate assessment of students’ attainment. This thesis also discusses what impact the instructional design of the course has on students’ learning and uses this discussion to illuminate the findings. This reasoning leads to suggested changes to the instructional design to provide better opportunity for deeper reflection amongst the students. This suggestion is currently being trialled and judging from early observations seems prosperous

CAMEA: Costing Report

The costing of the CAMEA spectrometer as proposed, involving the prices of guides and shielding, the spectrometer itself and the key pieces of sample environment equipment needed to fulfill the science goals of CAMEA, is estimated at 19.519 M€, which should be seen as an upper limit. Out of the estimate total construction cost (18.239 M€) of the instrument, 44 % is the cost of guides, shielding and shutters, 35% is the cost of the CAMEA-specific parts, i.e. analyzer tank, graphite analyzer crystals, 3He detectors, radial collimator, Beryllium filter etc. 21% of the total cost corresponds to the estimate prices of the magnets and pressure cells foreseen for CAMEA but useable on other ESS instruments as well. Salaries are estimated to be 1.28 M€

Quantum Magnetism - a strange fish

De skabninger, der bebor de dybe verdenshave, er væsensforskellige fra dem fiskehandleren sælger. De ekstreme betingelser, der hersker i 10 kilometers dybde kræver andre overlevelsesstrategier, end dem de lettere tilgængelige overfladefisk anvender. Inden for magnetisme kan ekstreme betingelser – nærmere beskrevet nedenfor – tilsvarende give anledning til fænomener, der adskiller sig kraftigt fra den klassiske ferromagnetisme, der blandt andet tillader os at sætte huskesedlen fast p°a køleskabsdøren. Man taler løst om kvantemagnetisme. I denne artikel vil vi kort introducere nogle af de fisk, man kan fange, hvis man smider fiskesnøren i det kvantemagnetiske hav

The history of hydrocarbon filling of Danish chalk fields

In an oil reservoir, the geometry of the interface between water and oil is critical in determining the volume of oil trapped below the top seal. If the interface is planar and horizontal, the volume calculation is fairly simple, but if the interface is tilted or undulating, estimation of the volume of the trapped oil is complex as it depends on the combined structural and fluid contact geometry. Since accumulation of the oil may take place over a time span of several million years, while the reservoir is experiencing burial and compaction, the charge history must be studied using dynamic methods that account for these changes and for flow in both the oil and water phases. These processes have been studied quantitatively at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) in a project that has combined the burial model with a fluid flow simulator. The modelling study shows that filling of a chalk reservoir can have a very long and complex history dominated by very low fluid flow rates (cm/year). The resulting modelled present-day situation exhibits a very irregular oil distribution and a non-planar geometry of the fluid contacts, and shows marked similarities to that shown by the field data