Towards Analytics for Wholistic School Improvement: Hierarchical Process Modelling and Evidence Visualization

Central to the mission of most educational institutions is the task of preparing the next generation of citizens to contribute to society. Schools, colleges, and universities value a range of outcomes — e.g., problem solving, creativity, collaboration, citizenship, service to community — as well as academic outcomes in traditional subjects. Often referred to as “wider outcomes,” these are hard to quantify. While new kinds of monitoring technologies and public datasets expand the possibilities for quantifying these indices, we need ways to bring that data together to support sense-making and decision-making. Taking a systems perspective, the hierarchical process modelling (HPM) approach and the “Perimeta” visual analytic provides a dashboard that informs leadership decision-making with heterogeneous, often incomplete evidence. We report a prototype of Perimeta modelling from education, aggregating wider outcomes data across a network of schools, and calculating their cumulative contribution to key performance indicators, using the visual analytic of the Italian flag to make explicit not only the supporting evidence, but also the challenging evidence, as well as areas of uncertainty. We discuss the nature of the modelling decisions and implicit values involved in quantifying these kinds of educational outcomes

Systems thinking, systems design and learning power in engineering education

Educating Engineers in systems thinking and systems design require an approach to teaching and learning in which the purpose is to achieve competence rather than to acquire specialised subject knowledge, abstracted from its socio-technical context. Such an approach is structured by context-driven enquiry, supported by learning power, positioned at the interface of knowledge generation and use, and grounded in a commitment to sustainable development. Rather than beginning with pre-defined abstract subject knowledge, the students begin with an engineering problem in a particular territory or a place, and develop a systems architecture, a holistic way of defining that territory, which facilitates synergy as well as analysing performance. In order to do this, students need to be able to uncover the different knowledge systems through which their territory can be perceived and known, and explore the different parameters and measurements which can be applied to them. Such 'systems architecting' cannot be achieved through rote learning or the cognitive application of pre-defined knowledge, since by definition the solution to the problem to be solved cannot be known in advance. Rather it depends on the ability to learn, and to progress through an open-ended, formative, dynamic learning process. It is framed by a selected purpose, fuelled by learning power (including creativity, meaning making, curiosity and resilience) and cogenerated through knowledge structuring processes. It begins with experience and observation and concludes with a product which is a unique application of knowledge for a particular engineering purpose. One of the challenges of technology enhanced learning is how to integrate learning design in an architectural framework which leverages mobile, social and 'big' data to enhance the processes and social relationships of learning, rather than simply providing information or evaluating outcomes. The approach presented in this paper outlines what can be understood as 'learning design principles' which support the development of semantic web applications, through the application of learning power and knowledge structuring processes. A pilot study demonstrates that students who successfully undertook an assignment requiring the development of a systems architecture increased in the strategic awareness-a key dimension of learning power. This small pilot study makes a contribution to the debate about the education of Chartered Engineers characterised "by their ability to develop appropriate solutions to engineering problems, using new or existing technologies, through innovation, creativity and change" (UK Engineering Council)

Reproducibility in Research: Systems, Infrastructure, Culture

The reproduction and replication of research results has become a major issue for a number of scientific disciplines. In computer science and related computational disciplines such as systems biology, the challenges closely revolve around the ability to implement (and exploit) novel algorithms and models. Taking a new approach from the literature and applying it to a new codebase frequently requires local knowledge missing from the published manuscripts and transient project websites. Alongside this issue, benchmarking, and the lack of open, transparent and fair benchmark sets present another barrier to the verification and validation of claimed results. In this paper, we outline several recommendations to address these issues, driven by specific examples from a range of scientific domains. Based on these recommendations, we propose a high-level prototype open automated platform for scientific software development which effectively abstracts specific dependencies from the individual researcher and their workstation, allowing easy sharing and reproduction of results. This new e-infrastructure for reproducible computational science offers the potential to incentivise a culture change and drive the adoption of new techniques to improve the quality and efficiency – and thus reproducibility – of scientific exploration.Royal Society UR

Synchronized dynamics of cortical neurons with time-delay feedback

The dynamics of three mutually coupled cortical neurons with time delays in the coupling are explored numerically and analytically. The neurons are coupled in a line, with the middle neuron sending a somewhat stronger projection to the outer neurons than the feedback it receives, to model for instance the relay of a signal from primary to higher cortical areas. For a given coupling architecture, the delays introduce correlations in the time series at the time-scale of the delay. It was found that the middle neuron leads the outer ones by the delay time, while the outer neurons are synchronized with zero lag times. Synchronization is found to be highly dependent on the synaptic time constant, with faster synapses increasing both the degree of synchronization and the firing rate. Analysis shows that presynaptic input during the interspike interval stabilizes the synchronous state, even for arbitrarily weak coupling, and independent of the initial phase. The finding may be of significance to synchronization of large groups of cells in the cortex that are spatially distanced from each other.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure

The internationalisation of the Spanish SME sector

As part of a wider research program, we analysed the theoretical framework and the recent developments of the process of internationalisation (transnationalisation) of the small- and medium-sized enterprises in Spain. The paper highlights the main trends and barriers of this internationalisation process. Methodology included document analyses, interviews, and the analyses of statistical databases

UK export performance research - review and implications

Previous research on export performance has been criticized for being a mosaic of autonomous endeavours and for a lack of theoretical development. Building upon extant models of export performance, and a review and analysis of research on export performance in the UK for the period 1990-2005, an integrated model of export performance is developed and theoretical explanations of export performance are put forward. It is suggested that a multi-theory approach to explaining export performance is viable. Management and policy implications for the UK emerging from the review and synthesis of the literature and the integrated model are discussed

Control of the conformations of ion Coulomb crystals in a Penning trap

Laser-cooled atomic ions form ordered structures in radiofrequency ion traps and in Penning traps. Here we demonstrate in a Penning trap the creation and manipulation of a wide variety of ion Coulomb crystals formed from small numbers of ions. The configuration can be changed from a linear string, through intermediate geometries, to a planar structure. The transition from a linear string to a zigzag geometry is observed for the first time in a Penning trap. The conformations of the crystals are set by the applied trap potential and the laser parameters, and agree with simulations. These simulations indicate that the rotation frequency of a small crystal is mainly determined by the laser parameters, independent of the number of ions and the axial confinement strength. This system has potential applications for quantum simulation, quantum information processing and tests of fundamental physics models from quantum field theory to cosmology