A descriptive case study: Investigating the implementation of web based, automated grading and tutorial software in a freshman computer literacy course

Students in higher education require satisfactory computer skills to be successful. While today’s students may have greater exposure to technology, research shows that their actual computer knowledge and skills are superficial and narrow. As a result, the freshman computer literacy course remains an important curricular component. This study investigates the implementation of an innovative Web-based technology for delivering software proficiency training for Microsoft Office. Building upon decades of end-user computing satisfaction and technology acceptance research, the purpose of the study is to describe the instructor and student experiences that result from the implementation and use of MyITLab educational software. The nature of the study is descriptive, rather than evaluative, with the following goals: (a) to describe instructors’ experiences with the software, (b) to identify patterns of technology usage and utility, and (c) to elucidate levels of computing satisfaction and technology acceptance among users. The study applies a mixed-method, single-unit, embedded case study design to focus the inquiry on an introductory computer applications course, offered in the Fall 2011 semester at a college in western Canada. The embedded units consist of five instructors, with 322 students enrolled across 10 sections. Data were analyzed from course documents, classroom observations, instructor interviews, and a student survey that produced 149 satisfactory responses. The survey was constructed by adapting instruments based on the Wixom and Todd (2005) integrated research model and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. Results of the study are summarized into five assertions: 1) MyITLab effectively eliminates or, at least, reduces instructor grading workloads for assignments, 2) MyITLab provides students with frequent corrective feedback on assignments, 3) the step-by-step presentation of instructions in MyITLab may not solely meet the needs of solution-based learning outcomes, 4) instructors should be trained on MyITLab to maximize the software’s utility, and 5) the MyITLab solution bank of acceptable responses should be expanded to reduce potential grading inaccuracies. An enhanced Wixom and Todd (2005) model is also presented for future research of educational software. Lastly, the reader is encouraged to reconsider the information presented and generalize it for their own purposes

Over-expression of Eph and ephrin genes in advanced ovarian cancer: ephrin gene expression correlates with shortened survival

BACKGROUND: Increased expression of Eph receptor tyrosine kinases and their ephrin ligands has been implicated in tumor progression in a number of malignancies. This report describes aberrant expression of these genes in ovarian cancer, the commonest cause of death amongst gynaecological malignancies. METHODS: Eph and ephrin expression was determined using quantitative real time RT-PCR. Correlation of gene expression was measured using Spearman's rho statistic. Survival was analysed using log-rank analysis and (was visualised by) Kaplan-Meier survival curves. RESULTS: Greater than 10 fold over-expression of EphA1 and a more modest over-expression of EphA2 were observed in partially overlapping subsets of tumors. Over-expression of EphA1 strongly correlated (r = 0.801; p < 0.01) with the high affinity ligand ephrin A1. A similar trend was observed between EphA2 and ephrin A1 (r = 0.387; p = 0.06). A striking correlation of both ephrin A1 and ephrin A5 expression with poor survival (r = -0.470; p = 0.02 and r = -0.562; p < 0.01) was observed. Intriguingly, there was no correlation between survival and other clinical parameters or Eph expression. CONCLUSION: These data imply that increased levels of ephrins A1 and A5 in the presence of high expression of Ephs A1 and A2 lead to a more aggressive tumor phenotype. The known functions of Eph/ephrin signalling in cell de-adhesion and movement may explain the observed correlation of ephrin expression with poor prognosis

Smoke, curtains and mirrors: the production of race through time and title registration

This article analyses the temporal effects of title registration and their relationship to race. It traces the move away from the retrospection of pre-registry common law conveyancing and toward the dynamic, future-oriented Torrens title registration system. The Torrens system, developed in early colonial Australia, enabled the production of ‘clean’, fresh titles that were independent of their predecessors. Through a process praised by legal commentators for ‘curing’ titles of their pasts, this system produces indefeasible titles behind its distinctive ‘curtain’ and ‘mirror’, which function similarly to magicians’ smoke and mirrors by blocking particular realities from view. In the case of title registries, those realities are particular histories of and relationships with land, which will not be protected by property law and are thus made precarious. Building on interdisciplinary work which theorises time as a social tool, I argue that Torrens title registration produces a temporal order which enables land market coordination by rendering some relationships with land temporary and making others indefeasible. This ordering of relationships with land in turn has consequences for the human subjects who have those relationships, cutting futures short for some and guaranteeing permanence to others. Engaging with Renisa Mawani and other critical race theorists, I argue that the categories produced by Torrens title registration systems materialise as race

Writing settlement after Idle No More: non-indigenous responses in Anglo-Canadian poetry

This article examines the representation of settlement in Canada in the wake of Idle No More in recent Anglo-Canadian literature. It argues that Idle No More engendered a new vocabulary for settler-invader citizens to position themselves in relation to this Indigenous movement, with non-Indigenous Canadians self-identifying as “settlers” and “allies” as a means of both orienting themselves with respect to Indigenous resistance to the settler-invader nation-state and signalling an attempted solidarity with Idle No More that would not lapse into appropriation. Four very different poetic texts by non-Indigenous authors demonstrate this reconsideration of settlement in the wake of Idle No More: Arleen Paré’s Lake of Two Mountains (2014); Rachel Zolf’s Janey’s Arcadia (2014); Rita Wong’s undercurrent (2015); and Shane Rhodes’s X (2013). Although only the latter two of these collections make explicit reference to Idle No More, all four of these texts engage with historical and current colonialisms, relationships to land and water, and relationships between Indigenous peoples and settler-invaders, providing examples of new understandings and representations of (neo)colonial settlement in post-Idle No More Canada

Glen Coulthard: Fanonian Antinomies

Building on the theoretical interventions provided in "Red Skin, White Masks," Glen Coulthard\u27s presentation will interrogate the reception and application of psychiatrist-turned-anti-colonial-revolutionary Frantz Fanon\u27s theoretical work in Canadian political thought and activism from the 1960s to the present. Fanon\u27s theoretical influence in the United States has been well noted. The profound mark that Fanon in particular and Third Worldism in general left on post-war US anti-colonial radicalism led cultural theorist Stuart Hall to declare Wretched of the Earth nothing less than "The Bible of Decolonization." Interestingly, however, Fanon\u27s influence is perhaps even more pronounced in Canada. For example, Quebecois sovereigntists in the 1960s often borrowed the language of Fanonian anti-colonialism in their own struggles for national recognition, while largely ignoring both Fanon\u27s insights into the problem of recognition in colonial contexts and Quebec\u27s own problematic status as a settler-society complicit in the attempted genocide and dispossession of Indigenous peoples in the province. Fanon\u27s work was also used by high-level federalists like Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau to critique Quebecois nationalism and by multiculturalists like Charles Taylor to chart a conciliatory path between both the claims of Quebec and Canada\u27s concerns about national unity. And, of course, truer to form, Fanon was also an inspiration to both Black nationalists and "Fourth World" Indigenous nations in our respective struggles against displacement and dispossession by the provincial and federal governments. In reconstructing this historical narrative Coulthard aims to re-situate Indigenous decolonization within the global anti-colonial imaginary that once radically informed our struggles for land, freedom and dignity. SPEAKER BIO Glen Coulthard is Yellowknives Dene and an associate professor in the First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program and the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), winner of the 2016 Caribbean Philosophical Association\u27s Frantz Fanon Award for Outstanding Book, the Canadian Political Science Association\u27s CB Macpherson Award for Best Book in Political Theory, published in English or French, in 2014/2015, and the Rik Davidson Studies in Political Economy Award for Best Book in 2016

Recognition, Reconciliation and Resentment in Indigenous Politics

Dr. Glen Coulthard is an assistant professor in the First Nations Studies Program and the Department of Political Science. Glen has written and published numerous articles and chapters in the areas of contemporary political theory, indigenous thought and politics, and radical social and political thought (marxism, anarchism, post-colonialism). His most recent work on Frantz Fanon and the politics of recognition won Contemporary Political Theory’s Annual Award for Best Article of the Year in 2007. He is Yellowknives Dene First Nations

A descriptive case study: Investigating the implementation of web based, automated grading and tutorial software in a freshman computer literacy course

Students in higher education require satisfactory computer skills to be successful. While today’s students may have greater exposure to technology, research shows that their actual computer knowledge and skills are superficial and narrow. As a result, the freshman computer literacy course remains an important curricular component. This study investigates the implementation of an innovative Web-based technology for delivering software proficiency training for Microsoft Office. Building upon decades of end-user computing satisfaction and technology acceptance research, the purpose of the study is to describe the instructor and student experiences that result from the implementation and use of MyITLab educational software. The nature of the study is descriptive, rather than evaluative, with the following goals: (a) to describe instructors’ experiences with the software, (b) to identify patterns of technology usage and utility, and (c) to elucidate levels of computing satisfaction and technology acceptance among users. The study applies a mixed-method, single-unit, embedded case study design to focus the inquiry on an introductory computer applications course, offered in the Fall 2011 semester at a college in western Canada. The embedded units consist of five instructors, with 322 students enrolled across 10 sections. Data were analyzed from course documents, classroom observations, instructor interviews, and a student survey that produced 149 satisfactory responses. The survey was constructed by adapting instruments based on the Wixom and Todd (2005) integrated research model and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. Results of the study are summarized into five assertions: 1) MyITLab effectively eliminates or, at least, reduces instructor grading workloads for assignments, 2) MyITLab provides students with frequent corrective feedback on assignments, 3) the step-by-step presentation of instructions in MyITLab may not solely meet the needs of solution-based learning outcomes, 4) instructors should be trained on MyITLab to maximize the software’s utility, and 5) the MyITLab solution bank of acceptable responses should be expanded to reduce potential grading inaccuracies. An enhanced Wixom and Todd (2005) model is also presented for future research of educational software. Lastly, the reader is encouraged to reconsider the information presented and generalize it for their own purposes

Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Below the Radar podcast

Glen Coulthard is Yellowknives Dene and is an associate professor in the First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program and the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. He is also the author of the acclaimed book Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition from University of Minnesota Press. On this special episode live from the Vancouver Podcast Festival, host Am Johal sits down with Glen to talk about who and what influences his work and research, the different projects he’s been involved in over the years, and what continues to inspire him to do the work he does. Read more about Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition here:&nbsp;www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/b…kin-white-masks Read more about The Fourth World here:&nbsp;www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/b…he-fourth-world You can read more about Glen Coulthard on our blog post:&nbsp;sfuwce.org/glen-coulthard/ This episode was recorded live at the 2019 Vancouver Podcast Festival, and we’re grateful to them for their invitation to be part of their programming at the Vancouver Public Library. To learn more about the Vancouver Podcast Festival, please visit their website:&nbsp;www.vanpodfest.ca