Support in Assessment of Prior Learning: Personal or Online?

Assessment of Prior Learning (APL) offers significant benefits to adult learners. It reduces the gap between educational programmes and thelabour market and provides learners the possibility to shorten their prospective study programmes. APL however requires adequate support of the learners that engage in APL. This study investigates which support possibilities could be useful and efficient for APL candidates in a distance education context. Staff members of an APL provider (APL tutors and educational scientists), APL candidates and a group of experts on online support evaluated and discussed the possibilities of both embedded and personal support in APL. With regard to the different phases that can be distinguished in APL, the results show that all participants expect support particularly in the phase of gathering appropriate evidence. From the staff members’ perspective, embedded support is most appropriate and many types of support provisions are recommended. APL candidates prefer a combination of embedded and personal support, whereby the type of personal support can be limited to telephone and email support. The latter is preferred because of its personal, to-the-point and time independent character. An overview of the highest added value of support as well as support efficiency is provided. Unfortunately, the highest added value is not always the most efficient. Guidelines for the elaboration of efficient support with high added value in APL in the context of distance education are presented

Conscientious internationalisation in higher education: Contextual complexities and comparative tensions

In this paper, authors focus on how internationalisation is defined, interpreted, and responded to by Universities in Australia and Canada, two decades after de Wit’s (Strategies for the internationalisation of higher education. A comparative study of Australia, Canada, Europe and the USA. European Association for International Education, Amsterdam, 1995) comparison of internationalisation in four higher education contexts. Guided by humanitarian factors that impact internationalisation in higher education contexts, authors find convergence and divergence with de Wits earlier study. A critical policy lens is employed to further analyse, probe and pose critical questions related to people, philosophy, place, processes, and power (5Ps). Authors argue that the intent (philosophy) of institutions (place) to internationalise (process) are impacted by the interests (power) of individuals and institutions (people) and these often conflict with descriptions and ideals of internationalisation. The authors offer conscientious internationalisation (CI) to recalibrate discourse and practices embedded in the internationalisation of higher education. CI prioritises ethics over markets. It is characterized as practices and processes informed by constitutive principles and ethical practices that amplify equity, reciprocity, and integrity

Revealing and Concealing Secrets in Research: The Potential for the Absent

publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticleQualitative research accounts are characterized by absences; absences resulting from what can not be told because it is not known and from what can not be repeated because it should not be stated. This article examines the problems associated with undertaking research in conditions of secrecy in order to ask how the missing could figure as a creative resource in our accounts of the social world. It advances an overall strategy of exemplifying the negotiation of revelation and concealment experienced by researchers within the relation between the reader and author in order to convey lived experiences. Particular attention is given to secrets and absences in relation to the sub-field of autoethnography, where much of the discussion to date has been bounded by a delimiting ‘ethics of exposure’

Micro-structural bone changes in early rheumatoid arthritis persist over 1-year despite use of disease modifying anti-rheumatic drug therapy

Abstract Background We used High Resolution – peripheral Quantitative CT (HR-pQCT) imaging to examine peri-articular bone quality in early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and explore whether bone quality improved over 12-months in individuals receiving care consistent with practice guidelines. Methods A 1-year longitudinal cohort study (Baseline and 12-months) evaluating individuals with early RA compared to age/sex-matched peers. Personal demographic and health and lifestyle information were collected for all. Whereas, active joint count (AJC28), functional limitation, and RA medications were also collected for RA participants. HR-pQCT imaging analyses quantified bone density and microstructure in the Metacarpal Head (MH) and Ultra-Ultra-Distal (UUD) radius at baseline and 12-months. Analyses included a General Linear Modelling repeated measures analyses examined main effects for disease, time, and interaction on bone quality. Results Participants (n = 60, 30 RA/30 NRA); 80% female, mean age 53 (varying from 21 to 74 years). At baseline, RA participants were on average 7.7 months since diagnosis, presenting with few active joints (AJC28: 30% none, remaining 70% Median 4 active joints) and minimal self-reported functional limitation (mHAQ-DI0–3: 0.56). At baseline, 29 of 30 RA participants had received one or more non-biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARD);13 in combination with glucocorticoid and 1 in combination with a biologic medication. One participant only received glucocorticoid medication. Four RA participants withdrew leaving 26 pairs (n = 52) at 12-months; 23 pairs (n = 46) with UUD and 22 pairs (n = 44) with MH baseline and 12-month images to compare. Notable RA/NRA differences (p < 0.05) in bone quality at all three sites included lower trabecular bone density and volume, more rod-like trabeculae, and larger and more variable spaces between trabeculae; fewer trabeculae at the UUD and MH2 sites; and lower cortical bone density and volume in the MH sites. Rate of change over 12-months did not differ between RA/NRA participants which meant there was also no improvement over the year in RA bone quality. Conclusions Early changes in peri-articular bone density and microstructure seen in RA are consistent with changes more commonly seen in aging bone and are slow or resistant to recover despite well controlled inflammatory joint symptoms with early DMARD therapy