The Challenge of Open: Empowering Students or Eroding Privacy?

Open education can mean different things to different people. A term which frequently refers to the creation, sharing and usage of open educational resources, open education can also refer to the use of technologies which promote collaborative, flexible learning and sharing of teaching practices, thus providing new opportunities for enhancing teaching and learning and assessment practices (Cape Town Open Education Declaration, 2007). Within this context, open education is often promoted as a means of widening access to education, improving equity and enhancing the student learning experience (Creelman, Cronin and Weller 2018). However in an increasingly privacy-conscious era, where data breaches are commonly reported and surveillance practices are accepted as part of the open web, it could also be argued that open practice feeds “data capitalism” (Myers-West 2017), eroding student and educator privacy in the process. This highly reflective and evaluative panel presentation will explore existing and emerging concerns, challenges and associated privacy and ethical issues surrounding open education in an era of big data. In doing so, this panel presentation aligns with theme 1 of OER19, “Back to Basics”, exploring difficult questions such as open for whom? Whose interests are served by the open agenda and what are the implications for educators, students and for our higher education institutions

Developing all learners through analytics: a collaborative consultative approach to professional development and support

By the end of this session, delegates will be able to: -explore the potential value of learning analytics for creating a supportive educational experience for students and for increasing students’ feelings of ownership, agency and self-regulation. -examine the role of professional development resources and support in increasing staff and student digital proficiencies in using learning data and in facilitating greater evidence-based decision-making in HE. -identify how we can collaborate with our institutional colleagues and our students in the design and provision of professional development resources and support in relation to the analysis and interpretation of learning data to support student success. -consider staff, students and sectoral perspectives on the issues, challenges, potential uses and concerns surrounding the use of learning data to support students in H

Grey-box model identification via evolutionary computing

This paper presents an evolutionary grey-box model identification methodology that makes the best use of a priori knowledge on a clear-box model with a global structural representation of the physical system under study, whilst incorporating accurate blackbox models for immeasurable and local nonlinearities of a practical system. The evolutionary technique is applied to building dominant structural identification with local parametric tuning without the need of a differentiable performance index in the presence of noisy data. It is shown that the evolutionary technique provides an excellent fitting performance and is capable of accommodating multiple objectives such as to examine the relationships between model complexity and fitting accuracy during the model building process. Validation results show that the proposed method offers robust, uncluttered and accurate models for two practical systems. It is expected that this type of grey-box models will accommodate many practical engineering systems for a better modelling accuracy

Multifunctional photo/thermal catalysts for the reduction of carbon dioxide

The photochemical fixation of CO2 to energy rich products for solar energy storage or feedstock chemicals is an attractive, albeit daunting, challenge. The overall feasibility of CO2 conversion is limited by the availability of efficient photo-active materials that meet the energetic requirements for CO2 reduction and are optically matched to the solar spectrum. Surface modification of TiO2 with earth abundant metal oxides presents one approach to develop visible active photocatalysts through band gap narrowing, while providing catalytic sites to lower the activation energy for CO2 reduction. In this work density functional theory was used to model the effect of surface modification of rutile and anatase using MnOx nanoclusters. The results indicate the formation of inter-band gap states following surface modification with MnOx, but surface water can change this. Oxygen vacancies are predicted to form in supported MnOx and the interaction with CO2 was investigated. MnOx-TiO2 was synthesized and characterised using surface analytical methods and photoelectrochemistry. The interaction of CO2 with the materials under irradiation was probed using in-situ FTIR to interrogate the role of oxygen vacancies in CO2 binding and reaction. These results provide insights into the requirements of a multifunctional catalyst for CO2 conversion

Developing Data Literacy for Data Enabled Student Success

Tapping in to the potential benefits of learning analytics requires staff and students in higher education to be proficient in data literacy. This poster reports on a project to review and identify professional development needs for learning analytics, with an emphasis on the effective use of learning data to promote student success. We report on the development of an evidence based strategy and implementation plan that addresses the skills gaps and professional development requirements of students and higher education staff who teach or lead teaching and learning enhancement. The outputs will enable upskilling of staff and also facilitate students to be more aware, and make greater use of, their own data ‘footprint’. This facilitates the development of important life skills such as self-regulation and self actualisation. In the broader institutional context, this should have the resulting impact of more widespread adoption of evidence based decisions that support student success initiatives

Weaving Variability into Domain Metamodels

International audienceDomain-Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs) describe the concepts of a particular domain and their relationships, in a meta-model. From a given DSML, it is possible to describe a wide range of different models. These models often share a common base and vary on some parts. Current approaches tend to distinguish the variability language from the DSMLs themselves, implying greater learning curve for DSMLs stakeholders and a significant overhead in product line engineering of DSLs. We propose to consider variability concepts as an independent aspect to be woven into the DSML to introduce variability capabilities. In particular we detail how variability is woven and how to perform product line derivation. We validate our approach through the weaving of variability into two very different metamodels: Ecore and SmartAdapter, our aspect-oriented modelling weaver, thus adding exibility in the weaving process itself. These results emphasize how new abilities of the language can be provided by this means

Integrated “farm to fork approach” to improving food and nutrition security in the Caribbean by linking agricultural productivity and diversity on small holder farms to school feeding programs

PowerPoint presentationPresented at the International Food Security Dialogue 2014 : theme “Nutritional security ‐ relations between food, agriculture, health and nutrition”Delivered at the International Food Security Dialogue conference (2014) this presentation provides information regarding the successful Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) food security project. Slides present statistical information about farm productivity; child health and obesity; project goals, and how the integrated project model was created and implemented. Equipped with drip irrigation and other agricultural technologies, local farmers delivered about 20 tons of new nutritious produce in one year to the school feeding program (SFP) in St. Kitts – a remarkable feat in food procurement in the Eastern Caribbean

Spike timing-dependent plasticity induces non-trivial topology in the brain.

We study the capacity of Hodgkin-Huxley neuron in a network to change temporarily or permanently their connections and behavior, the so called spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), as a function of their synchronous behavior. We consider STDP of excitatory and inhibitory synapses driven by Hebbian rules. We show that the final state of networks evolved by a STDP depend on the initial network configuration. Specifically, an initial all-to-all topology evolves to a complex topology. Moreover, external perturbations can induce co-existence of clusters, those whose neurons are synchronous and those whose neurons are desynchronous. This work reveals that STDP based on Hebbian rules leads to a change in the direction of the synapses between high and low frequency neurons, and therefore, Hebbian learning can be explained in terms of preferential attachment between these two diverse communities of neurons, those with low-frequency spiking neurons, and those with higher-frequency spiking neurons

Metastatic lymph node ratio in stage III rectal cancer; prognostic significance in addition to the 7th edition of the TNM classification

International audienceOptimal staging in rectal cancer is indispensable for the decision on further treatment and estimation of prognosis. This study assesses the prognostic capacity of the metastatic lymph node ratio (LNR) in addition to the new TNM classification

Canada-Africa Relations in Changing Core-Periphery Dynamics: A Chance to "Come Back" Differently

The Department of Foreign Affairs Canada sees the dynamism at play across the African continent as calling out for Canadian engagement. Africa in the twenty-first century is no longer the continent emerging from colonial rule; it seeks new forms of relationships with international partners. The African Development Bank, for instance, has identified five priorities for inclusive growth on the continent. The challenges are huge, as is the potential for transformative change. But the conditions for international collaboration in achieving these goals have changed; African leaders are seeking new forms of associations and teamwork. Canada has an opportunity to "come back" differently if it can look beyond its narrow mining interests and become an active partner working with public authorities in need of new and bold international partnerships. Unfortunately, Trudeau's "Canada is back" campaign does not look set to change the status quo. And, in a world where the political economic power is moving east, African countries do not have much reason to listen to Canada