Open educational resources and widening participation in higher education: innovations and lessons from open universities

This paper, which references a European Lifelong Learning project under the Erasmus Virtual Campus programme, briefly reviews the role of open educational resources, open and distance learning and widening participation within European higher education. It also examines and analyses policies and practices from various European open universities, practices undertaken to widen the audience for higher education knowledge, increase engagement with higher education materials and improve participation in formal access higher education courses and programmes. It presents a framework for understanding the role of open educational resources and open and distance learning in widening participation based on their availability, accessibility, and acceptability. The paper concludes that open educational resources are beginning to influence educational opportunities in Europe, but that new policies and practices are required at all levels in the higher education system to address issues of openness and open educational resources in higher education study and the role that they can play in increasing and widening engagement and participation. There needs to be better collaboration between the various stakeholders if OER are not to be seen as a way of simply widening the audience for higher education knowledge rather than widening participation in formal studies

Towards European-wide Quality and Benchmarking of Open Educational Resources

Empowered by a multi-partner Consortium, MORIL will deliver high-quality Open Educational Resources (OER) with pedagogically-rich content, specifically designed and developed for distance learning. MORIL refers to "Multilingual Open Educational Resources for Independent Learning". It constitutes a New Generation of open resources, having a strong focus on development and delivery of quality-assured materials for off-campus target groups. MORIL is value added, as face-to-face didactics are not obligatory, contrary to on-campus education. Besides open offers, formal offers are fronted as well, establishing a transparent prospective learning path into higher education for those that seek recognition and/or certification. MORIL will provide a single European access point for lifelong open and flexible learning: a referatory to participating local repository portals. For courses of interest to domestic markets, universities can utilise multilingual versioning and localisation. Blending MORIL with leading edge quality assurance and benchmarking, truly provides the Consortium with a head start. European-wide quality and benchmarking is enabled by E-xcellence: a web-based instrument to assess the quality of e-learning in higher education. Although many instruments already exist, which cover the organisational and content-related quality assurance of higher education institutions and programmes, only few exist which have developed a focus on the parameters of quality assurance that govern e-learning and even fewer or none, have their focus on OER. E-xcellence as such being supplemented to MORIL, is to cater for open and accessible quality and benchmarking. MORIL is supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Report Open Course Programme Wageningen UR, 2010

Annually, the Wageningen UR open course programme for mid-career professionals provides some six hundred individuals with the opportunity to update their competencies and insights. EL&I co-finances this course programme with the aim to maintain close linkages with international policy priorities and to support course innovation and development. This report provides an overview of the outputs over 2010 in relation to the commitment number 1400002642. The demand driven programme was highly successful with over six hundred participants in some 23 courses. Individual course developments are indicated and the annex provides a strategy update indicating how the programme addresses the new government’s policy priorities on international cooperation

The practical and theoretical feeding of laying hens.

Citation: Van Dorp, Fred. The practical and theoretical feeding of laying hens.. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1905.Morse Department of Special CollectionsIntroduction: The subject of stock-feeding as related to poultry, is hardly appreciated by most farmers and poultry breeders of this State. Poultry keeping as a special business or an extended branch of other farming is not carried on as yet to any extent. In the Eastern part of the United States, especially, this is an important occupation, and all of the State Experiment Stations are doing considerable work along this line. To the general farmer of this State, a little knowledge of how to feed his flock of hens would increase his winter income as does the improved methods of feeding his other livestock. But to the one who keeps laying hens on an extended scale for the most profit, this subject is of the greatest importance. Is he feeding more than is necessary for the maintenance and the maximum egg production? Is he feeding protein in one find of feed when he can feed it in a different form for one fourth less money? Is he feeding nutrients in the proper proportions? These are questions to be studied. The present haphazard methods require it. Each has his own method, which his own narrow experience has taught him is the most successful. No two poultry –men feed alike, and on a great many feeding questions they have many diverse opinions of what is correct. The common method is to throw them what grain they will eat, usually corn, and let them do the rest. Balanced rations are as necessary for poultry, as for other stock. They do not always work out to be the best in practice, with the stock on the farm, but in the majority of cases they prove to be the most economical. All of the most successful dairy -men feed their cows reasonably well balanced rations. A balanced ration is necessary for the most economical consumption of food with poultry for the same reasons as other stock

Improving Nutrition through Agriculture : Viewing agriculture-nutrition linkages along the smallholder value chain

This report is a synthesis of existing global knowledge on improving nutrition through agriculture using a smallholder value chain approach. The smallholder value chain model used by the desk review concentrates on both producers and consumers and is centred around three pathways: improved nutrition resulting from increased production for own consumption, improved nutrition through increased income from selling agricultural products, and improved nutrition through increased income resulting from farmers’ involvement in local or regional procurement programs. The report identifies key conditions for agricultural interventions to significantly contribute to nutrition as well as important knowledge gaps pertaining to agriculture-nutrition linkages

Determinants of gonadal function after childhood cancer

Each year, 600–700 children are diagnosed with cancer in the Netherlands. Over the last decades, the overall long-term survival of childhood cancer has increased up to ~75%. Due to the expansion of the childhood cancer survivor population, chronic health sequelae resulting from cancer and its treatment have become more prevalent and require our attention. Approximately 75% of the childhood cancer survivors have developed at least one long-term complication of cancer treatment. Gonadal dysfunction is one of the important late effects. The impact of cancer treatment on gonadal function has extensively been studied. However, the extent of loss of gonadal function differs between equally treated childhood cancer survivors. Information on determinants of ovarian function in childhood cancer survivors other than previous cancer treatment is largely lacking. Therefore, in this thesis we aimed to identify determinants of gonadal function and its potential recovery after childhood cancer, and, where possible, to evaluate alternative fertility options for survivors of childhood cancer

Talalgias en la artritis psorásica: asociación con hallazgos radiológicos

Treball Final de Grau de Podologia, Escola Universitària d'Infermeria, Universitat de Barcelona, curs: 2014-2015, Tutor: Jesús Rodríguez MorenoUna característica distintiva de la artritis psoriásica (APs) es la entesopatía: la afectación de los sitios de unión del tendón, ligamento, fascia o cápsula articular al hueso. Objetivos. Este estudio pretende determinar 1) la relación entre la presencia y el tipo de espolón con variables clínicas y demográficas de la APs, 2) determinar la asociación entre la talalgia y presencia radiológica de espolón plantar calcáneo (EP) y/o retrocalcáneo, (ERC) 3) la relación entre tres medidas angulares de la radiografía del pie en perfil y la presencia de espolón plantar, 4) la morfología más frecuente de EP y ERC y 5) la asociación entre la presencia de EP y ERC con alteraciones radiológicas en otras localizaciones de las articulaciones del antepié. Metodología y métodos. Se analizaron características cualitativas y cuantitativas de radiografías de perfil y dorso plantares de 66 individuos con APs. Las observaciones cualitativas consistieron en observar la morfología del espolón, la cortical y presencia de erosiones; las medidas cuantitativas consistieron en tres medidas angulares: ángulo del arco interno, ángulo de inclinación calcáneo y ángulo de declinación del astrágalo; y tres lineales: longitud de la base del espolón, longitud del segmento medio y longitud total. Las observaciones cualitativas se basaron en determinar la existencia de alteraciones en las articulaciones del antepié. Resultados. No se ha hallado asociación entre talalgia y variables clínicas de la APs presencia de EP y ERC. Tampoco se ha encontrado asociación entre las medidas angulares con la presencia de espolón plantar. Sí que existe asociación entre la presencia de espolón y alteraciones estructurales radiológicas en otras localizaciones del antepié. Conclusiones. La asociación entre la presencia de espolón y alteraciones en otras localizaciones articulares del antepié, sugiere que la entesopatía en la APs es una manifestación de la proliferación ósea de tipo inflamatori

Open educational resources in Europe: A triptych of actions to support participation in higher education

In contrast to the face-to-face learning of campus based universities and the focus on traditional students, distance teaching universities focus on a mix of distance learning, e-learning, open learning, virtual mobility, learning communities, and the integration of earning and learning. In doing so, they are taking a leading role in helping to increase and widen participation in lifelong open and flexible learning in higher education by non-traditional groups. This paper discusses three leading-edge European Open Educational Resource initiatives. The initiatives are special in nature and differ from the offers of traditional universities in the sense that they: consist of pedagogically-rich learning materials, specifically designed and developed for distance learning and intended for independent self-study; are compiled in the national languages, with the EADTU initiative being multilingual, reflecting the European dimension; and, support and are supported by the policies of the national governments and the European Commission