Learning Without Limits: Identifying the Barriers and Enablers to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in IS Education

Inclusion in Information Systems (IS) has received significant attention in recent years, but inclusion in IS curriculum design and delivery is comparatively underdeveloped. Understanding and working with diversity in IS student groups has implications for how we prepare students for a diverse workplace and the design and development of IS systems. Although progress has been made towards inclusive higher education, institutions have not transformed into multicultural diverse organizations. This paper showcases an initiative to apply principles of Universal Design in the particular context of an IS postgraduate programme in a leading Irish business school. This initiative is set within the context of two connected research projects seeking to identify barriers to inclusion experienced by students generally, and particularly by certain student groups, in the same school. The findings demonstrate the persistence of inclusion issues in higher education, including in IS, that Universal Design principles are effective in developing more inclusive teaching and learning practices, and that small actions can have a big impact in this regard. A set of key recommendations is provided; while not exhaustive, these contribute to the wider discourse on inclusion and offer practical suggestions to educators on the design and delivery of inclusive programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate level

Tomando forma, creando mundos: Las editoriales cartoneras en América Latina

Un fenómeno editorial y un proyecto artístico, la edición cartonera nació con la crisis económica argentina de 2001. Impulsada por un espíritu rebelde, las editoriales se han multiplicado, con cientas de editoriales en América Latina y Europa que producen libros coloridos de bajo costo con portadas de cartón recolectado de la calle. Basado en una investigación interdisciplinaria realizada en México, Brasil y Argentina, el libro demuestra los múltiples modos por los cuales esta práctica ha fomentado una red de escritores, artistas y lectores comprometidos. Más que un movimiento social, las editoriales cartoneras usan sus libros, talleres, encuentros y exposiciones para apoyar y activar a sus comunidades a través de formas abiertas que reúnen elementos artísticos y sociales. Para varios grupos, como los recicladores de base, las comunidades indígenas, los niños de zonas rurales y las mujeres encarceladas, las editoriales cartoneras ofrecen un medio único para contar historias y generar colaboraciones que hacen caer los muros de la "ciudad letrada". En contextos de estigmatización y exclusión, los colectivos cartoneros dan forma a una estética decolonial de resistencia, abriendo espacios de experimentación creativa en los cuales toman forma mundos plurales

Exploring staff perceptions of the utility of clinician connections when working with emotionally dysregulated clients

Background: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is considered to be a challenging condition for clinicians to treat. Clinicians routinely working with individuals who experience severe emotional dysregulation often do not receive appropriate training and support to work with this client group. This article describes an intervention, Clinician Connections (CC), which was developed to support practitioners who work with individuals with BPD. CC aims to increase practitioner’s knowledge of BPD, develop a skillset to work with emotionally dysregulated individuals and enhance practitioner’s self-efficacy with regard to working effectively with this client group. The aim of this study is to investigate the perceived utility and acceptability of CC, and identify areas for further development of the intervention. Method: A seven-hour CC workshop was provided to Emergency Department and community mental health clinicians. Three focus groups were completed following completion of the intervention with 13 clinicians (12 female; 1 male) and were audio recorded. The study utilised a thematic analysis framework. Results:Six master themes emerged from the focus group data which included 10 subordinate themes. The master themes identified were: the need for training; a new understanding; validation; barriers to applying new skills; overcoming barriers to skill application; and future direction: practical application of skills. Participants reflected on how their new understanding of transactions and their own experiences affects their practice. They also noted improved client interactions and client relationships resulting from the use of validation. While there was an increase in participants’ self-efficacy in working with individuals with BPD, a need for further skills and practice was also highlighted. Conclusion:The evidence presented here suggests that CC is both beneficial and feasible. Qualitative feedback suggests there is a need for further support in the strengthening and generalisation of skills. Suggestions were made by practitioners regarding potential improvements to the delivery of the workshop. Future research could evaluate the changes made to CC and focus on a quantitative approach to quantify the impact of CC

Teorizando a dobradiça cartonera: pesquisa trans-formal para uma prática transformadora

Trata-se de uma tradução do capítulo “Methods: Trans-Formal Research for Transformational Practice”, parte do livro Taking Form, Making Worlds: Cartonera Publishers in Latin America (2022). Ao longo do artigo, os autores acompanham as atividades das cartoneras mexicanas La Rueda Cartonera e Viento Cartonero para teorizar sobre o fazer cartonero e, ao mesmo tempo, elaborar uma reflexão sobre a metodologia para fazê-lo, partindo de uma visão interdisciplinar. Nesse processo, Bell, Flynn e O’Hare defendem o conceito de “dobradiça” para nomear um duplo caminho desse tipo de projeto social e editorial: a presença da estrutura sociopolítica nas práticas cartoneras e, por sua vez, o impacto das cartoneras nas práticas sociopolíticas

Teorizando a dobradiça cartonera: pesquisa trans-formal para uma prática transformadora

Trata-se de uma tradução do capítulo “Methods: Trans-Formal Research for Transformational Practice”, parte do livro Taking Form, Making Worlds: Cartonera Publishers in Latin America (2022). Ao longo do artigo, os autores acompanham as atividades das cartoneras mexicanas La Rueda Cartonera e Viento Cartonero para teorizar sobre o fazer cartonero e, ao mesmo tempo, elaborar uma reflexão sobre a metodologia para fazê-lo, partindo de uma visão interdisciplinar. Nesse processo, Bell, Flynn e O’Hare defendem o conceito de “dobradiça” para nomear um duplo caminho desse tipo de projeto social e editorial: a presença da estrutura sociopolítica nas práticas cartoneras e, por sua vez, o impacto das cartoneras nas práticas sociopolíticas.This is a translation of the chapter “Methods: Trans-Formal Research for Transformational Practice”, part of the book Taking Form, Making Worlds: Cartonera Publishers in Latin America (2022). Throughout the article, the authors follow the activities of the Mexican cartoneras La Rueda Cartonera and Viento Cartonero to elaborate a theory of cartonera practice and, at the same time, to offer a reflection on the methodology they have developed to work on and with cartonera, based on an interdisciplinary vision. In this process, Bell, Flynn and O’Hare propose the concept of the “double fold” to name a double path of this type of social and artistic project: the presence of the sociopolitical structures in cartonera practices and, in turn, the impact of cartoneras in sociopolitical practices

Feeling stretched: parents’ narratives about challenges to resilience when their child has a tracheostomy

This study aimed to examine how parents develop personal resilience when facing the challenges of caring for a child with tracheostomy. This study employed a longitudinal qualitative design. Unstructured narrative interviews with 12 parents (from 9 families), whose child had a new tracheostomy, were undertaken at three time points over 12 months. Data were analysed using a socio-narratology method. Findings reveal the journey parents experienced, how their feelings changed, and the processes involved in developing resilience over the first 12 months of their child having a tracheostomy. Stories told by parents early in their journey revealed emotional upheaval, negative emotions, stress, and shock. Due to medical need, parents had little or no choice for their child to have a tracheostomy. Once their child’s life was out of danger, parents started to reframe their experiences and beliefs. Resilience played a major part in how parents perceived and faced their situation, allowing them to deal with what came their way and to move forward with their lives. Different aspects of resilience such as self-awareness, grit, gratitude, internal locus of control and reframing came to the fore at different time points. Parents talked feeling stretched by the challenges they faced and reframing their perspectives about their child’s tracheostomy. Parents’ resilience and reframing is discussed in relation to the ABC-X model. This study identifies a theoretical model (ABC-X Model of Parental Resilience and Reframing) that explains this process of change. This results in transferable knowledge, useful for understanding and explaining the experience of other parents and families

A framework for conceptualising early intervention for eating disorders

OBJECTIVE: This paper outlines the evidence base for early intervention for eating disorders; provides a global overview of how early intervention for eating disorders is provided in different regions and settings; and proposes policy, service, clinician and research recommendations to progress early intervention for eating disorders. METHOD AND RESULTS: Currently, access to eating disorder treatment often takes many years or does not occur at all. This is despite neurobiological, clinical and socioeconomic evidence showing that early intervention may improve outcomes and facilitate full sustained recovery from an eating disorder. There is also considerable variation worldwide in how eating disorder care is provided, with marked inequalities in treatment provision. Despite these barriers, there are existing evidence-based approaches to early intervention for eating disorders and progress is being made in scaling these. CONCLUSIONS: We propose action steps for the field that will transform eating disorder service provision and facilitate early detection, treatment and recovery for everyone affected by eating disorders, regardless of age, socioeconomic status and personal characteristics

White dwarfs with hydrogen-deficient atmospheres and the dark matter content of the Galaxy

The nature of the several microlensing events observed by the MACHO team towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is still a subject of debate. Low-mass substellar objects and stars with masses larger than ~M_{sun} have been ruled out as major components of a Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Object (MACHO) Galactic halo, while stars of half a solar mass seem to be viable candidates. Main sequence stars have been already discarded, and there are tight restrictions on the role played by white dwarfs with hydrogen-dominated atmospheres. In this paper we evaluate the contribution to the dark matter content of the Galaxy of white dwarfs with hydrogen-deficient atmospheres. For this purpose we use a Monte Carlo simulator which incorporates up-to-date evolutionary sequences of white dwarfs with hydrogen-rich and hydrogen-deficient atmospheres. We also take into account detailed descriptions of the thick disk and the halo of our Galaxy as well as of a reliable model of the LMC. We find that the contribution of white dwarfs with hydrogen-deficient atmospheres moderately increases the theoretical estimate of the optical depth with respect to the value obtained when only hydrogen-rich white dwarfs are considered. We also find that the contribuiton of the thick disk population of white dwarfs is comparable to the halo contribution. However, the contributions of both the halo and the thick disk white-dwarf populations are still insufficient to explain the number of events observed by the MACHO team. Finally, we find that the contribution to the halo dark matter of the entire population under study is less than 10% at the 95% conficence level.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Using geographically weighted regression to explore the spatially heterogeneous spread of bovine tuberculosis in England and Wales

An understanding of the factors that affect the spread of endemic bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is critical for the development of measures to stop and reverse this spread. Analyses of spatial data need to account for the inherent spatial heterogeneity within the data, or else spatial autocorrelation can lead to an overestimate of the significance of variables. This study used three methods of analysis—least-squares linear regression with a spatial autocorrelation term, geographically weighted regression (GWR) and boosted regression tree (BRT) analysis—to identify the factors that influence the spread of endemic bTB at a local level in England and Wales. The linear regression and GWR methods demonstrated the importance of accounting for spatial differences in risk factors for bTB, and showed some consistency in the identification of certain factors related to flooding, disease history and the presence of multiple genotypes of bTB. This is the first attempt to explore the factors associated with the spread of endemic bTB in England and Wales using GWR. This technique improves on least-squares linear regression approaches by identifying regional differences in the factors associated with bTB spread. However, interpretation of these complex regional differences is difficult and the approach does not lend itself to predictive models which are likely to be of more value to policy makers. Methods such as BRT may be more suited to such a task. Here we have demonstrated that GWR and BRT can produce comparable outputs

Facilitating primary care non-antiretroviral drug prescribing in people living with HIV: the ‘THINK ARV’ initiative

Objectives: Older people living with HIV (PLWH) have higher rates of multimorbidity, polypharmacy and an associated increased risk of potential drug–drug interactions (DDIs). We describe the development, implementation and evaluation of an intervention to increase community prescribers’ access to specialist prescribing advice. Methods: Phase One: a survey evaluating General Practitioners’ (GPs’) knowledge of, and confidence detecting DDIs affecting PLWH, was circulated to eight General Practices in one UK city. Phase Two: co-production was used to develop the THINK ARV intervention for prescribers in city-wide General Practices: a dedicated mobile phone and e-mail advice service staffed by HIV specialist pharmacists. Queries were audited for 6 months pre- and post-intervention. A user-satisfaction survey was emailed to enquirers. Results: Phase One: 42 GPs responded, of whom 62% requested further support identifying DDIs among PLWH. Phase Two: the number of queries received increased from 25 (6 months before ‘THINK ARV’ launch) to 63 in the following 6 months (152% increase). 94% of the queries were specifically about DDIs. Conclusions: Increasing community prescribers’ access to specialist telephone and e-mail advice resulted in increased awareness and detection of DDIs. Similar interventions could be embedded within different healthcare settings to optimise medicines and avoid potential patient harm