Factors Affecting the Adoption of Faculty-Developed Academic Software: A Study of Five iCampus Projects

Instruction in higher education must adapt more rapidly to: changes in workforce needs, global issues, advances in disciplines, and resource constraints. The pace of such improvement depends on the speed with which new ideas and materials are adopted across institutions. In 1999 Microsoft pledged $25 million and staff support for iCampus, a seven-year MIT project to develop pioneering uses of educational technology. The TLT Group studied five iCampus projects in order to identify factors affecting institutionalization and widespread dissemination. Among the factors impeding adoption: lack of rewards and support for faculty to adopt innovations; faculty isolation; and a lack of attention to adoption issues among projects selected for funding. The study made recommendations for universities, foundations, government agencies and corporations: 1) continue making education more authentic, active, collaborative, and feedback-rich; 2) create demand to adopt ideas and materials from other sources by encouraging all faculty members to improve and document learning in their programs, year after year; 3) nurture coalitions for instructional improvement, across and within institutions; 4) create more effective higher education corporate alliances; and 5) improve institutional services to support faculty in educational design, software development, assessment methods, formative evaluation, and/or in sharing ideas with others who teach comparable courses

Using shared goal setting to improve access and equity : a mixed methods study of the Good Goals intervention in children's occupational therapy

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Breast tumour angiogenesis

The central importance of tumour neovascularization has been emphasized by clinical trials using antiangiogenic therapy in breast cancer. This review gives a background to breast tumour neovascularization in in situ and invasive breast cancer, outlines the mechanisms by which this is achieved and discusses the influence of the microenvironment, focusing on hypoxia. The regulation of angiogenesis and the antivascular agents that are used in an antiangiogenic dosing schedule, both novel and conventional, are also summarized

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Does an open source strategy matter?: Lessons learned from the iLabs project

This chapter describes one particular type of open source innovation—middleware called iLabs (supported largely by the Microsoft-MIT iCampus Alliance) that enables users to run experiments remotely over the Web. First, we will briefly describe the development of remote labs at MIT and the development of the iLabs middleware. Then we will discuss some of the factors that have hindered the spread of this potent use of the Web, and draw a few tentative conclusions about how these issues affect the dissemination of educational innovation based on open source software

Factors Affecting the Adoption of Faculty-Developed Academic Software: A Study of Five iCampus Projects

Initiated in 1999, iCampus is a research collaboration between Microsoft Research and MIT whose goal is to create and demonstrate technologies with the potential for revolutionary change throughout the university curriculum. The program was made possible by a $25 million research grant from Microsoft to MIT, and involves extensive collaboration between MIT and Microsoft staff.This assessment study by the TLT Group addresses the question: The TLT Group has been asked, In light of the experience of iCampus, especially those projects selected by MIT and Microsoft for close study, what can be learned about priorities for educational technology initiatives in the future and about how the spread of such innovations can be more effectively supported?The major conclusions are that the five projects studied improved important elements of an MIT education by making learning more authentic, active, collaborative, and feedback-rich. Nevertheless, wider adoption beyond MIT was extremely difficult to achieve, largely due to structure issues in universities that make it difficult for educational technology to spread beyond the initial innovators, even to other departments within the same institution. The report includes recommendations for universities, external sponsors, and for MIT in particular, about steps to take to achieve more effective dissemination