What is K-State Doing with Science Communication?

NSF believes science is important and essential—and that communicating it is crucial…You can show them why they should care about your science and the scientific perspective, helping lead to greater public understanding of the value of NSF‐funded research. Today’s journalists are required to do it all… Jack-of-all media trades. Scientists need to learn similar skills. Communicate your own science to nonexperts. K-State Collaborations Results for Journalists Contact your Public Information Officer (PIO) or NSF Office of Legislative and Public Affairs (OLPA). When to contact NS

Evaluating Online Media Literacy in Higher Education: Validity and Reliability of the Digital Online Media Literacy Assessment (DOMLA)

While new technology continues to develop and become increasingly affordable, and students have increased access to digital media, one might wonder if requiring such technology in the classroom is akin to throwing the car keys to a teen-ager who has not completed a driver’s education course. The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable quantitative survey providing accurate data about the digital online media literacy of university-level students in order to better understand how digital online media can and should be used within a teaching/learning environment at a university. This study identifies core constructs of media literacy as recognized by noted researchers including ethical awareness, media access, media awareness, media evaluation, and media production. Because of the familiarity with media technology by today’s traditional higher education students and the expectation to incorporate these tools in the classroom, the digital divide that once was separated by socio-economic status may be shifting instead to divide generations. While this study is confined to the creation of the instrument, the survey – in the future – is intended to measure digital media literacy levels in both university students and faculty to determine if differences exist between those two groups and to better understand how digital media can and should be used within a teaching/learning environment at a university. Using a 12-step process, the study resulted in a 50-item instrument allowing a quantitative measurement of digital online media literacy. Results repeatedly showed a reliable instrument when viewed as a whole, with individual constructs indicating varying degrees of reliability on their own. The instrument was found to be reliable with a .919 overall coefficient

Impact of use of optical surface imaging on initial patient setup for stereotactic body radiotherapy treatments

Purpose To evaluate the effectiveness of surface image guidance (SG) for pre‐imaging setup of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) patients, and to investigate the impact of SG reference surface selection on this process. Methods and materials 284 SBRT fractions (SG‐SBRT = 113, non‐SG‐SBRT = 171) were retrospectively evaluated. Differences between initial (pre‐imaging) and treatment couch positions were extracted from the record‐and‐verify system and compared for the two groups. Rotational setup discrepancies were also computed. The utility of orthogonal kVs in reducing CBCT shifts in the SG‐SBRT/non‐SG‐SBRT groups was also calculated. Additionally, the number of CBCTs acquired for setup was recorded and the average for each cohort was compared. These data served to evaluate the effectiveness of surface imaging in pre‐imaging patient positioning and its potential impact on the necessity of including orthogonal kVs for setup. Since reference surface selection can affect SG setup, daily surface reproducibility was estimated by comparing camera‐acquired surface references (VRT surface) at each fraction to the external surface of the planning CT (DICOM surface) and to the VRT surface from the previous fraction. Results The reduction in all initial‐to‐treatment translation/rotation differences when using SG‐SBRT was statistically significant (Rank‐Sum test, α = 0.05). Orthogonal kV imaging kept CBCT shifts below reimaging thresholds in 19%/51% of fractions for SG‐SBRT/non‐SG‐SBRT cohorts. Differences in average number of CBCTs acquired were not statistically significant. The reference surface study found no statistically significant differences between the use of DICOM or VRT surfaces. Conclusions SG‐SBRT improved pre‐imaging treatment setup compared to in‐room laser localization alone. It decreased the necessity of orthogonal kV imaging prior to CBCT but did not affect the average number of CBCTs acquired for setup. The selection of reference surface did not have a significant impact on initial patient positioning

The Logic of Legal Reasoning in Religious and Non-Religious Cultures: The Case of Islamic Law and the Common Law

It is only reasonable to assume that dissimilar legal systems possess dissimilar patterns of legal reasoning. Inasmuch as two legal systems differ in their structure and function, they also differ in the types of arguments they employ in their service. It may well be argued that law is, in the final analysis, the product of the premises and methods from and through which it is derived. Two such legal systems which display a vast difference in their overall structure and function are Islamic law and the common law. This paper proposes to shed some light on the logic of legal reasoning in both orders as well as to analyze the reasons and background which give rise to differences and similarities in their methods of reasoning. This will be done with the intent of bringing out some of the major factors which operate on the level of the judicial process and which contribute to the creation of differences in legal orders. The focal comparison in such a study must be the relationship between the logic of the law and the amount of emphasis given to social change in secular and religious cultures

Muslim Rage and Islamic Law

In this Lecture, it is argued that a significant factor behind the recent rise of so-called Islamic fundamentalism, in both of its violent and nonviolent forms, is the structural uprooting of the Islamic legal institutions during the middle of the nineteenth century and thereafter (a factor neglected by analysts). When the colonialist powers induced western legal reforms that came to displace traditional and indigenous Islamic law, little did they realize that such a process of aggressive change was in the long run to lead to both brutal military dictatorships (during the past half century) and, more recently, to violent reactions in the heart of western commercial and political power. The current U.S. foreign policies toward the Muslim world, it is furthermore argued, can only nourish these reactions

Maqasid and the Challenges of Modernity

A central feature of public Muslim discourse over the past three decades has been the call to restore the Shari‘a in one form or another. Some reformers have proposed a new theoretical underpinning for this restoration, arguing for the adoption of foundational concepts that bear little, if any, resemblance to  their pre-modern counterparts. A central question that ineluctably emerges in this aporia is: What narrative must be adopted as the representation of the historical Shari‘a, the Shari‘a that prevailed until the early portion of the nineteenth century? If the colonial narrative is ipso facto programmatic and teleological, and if it served and still serves the purposes of all but those of the subaltern majority, then what other narrative must be adopted in the project of creating the new symbiosis? And if the jural voices of the subaltern are to come in for serious consideration, then how are we to represent them, if we can at all? And if we cannot, then into what espistemic predicament, if not a perennial aporia, does this throw both the privileged scholar and the reformer/intellectual? This article does not provide answers to these questions but rather addresses the problematics that these and related questions raise in dealing with the challenge of introducing into the modern Muslim condition one form of Islamic law or another

Science, Technology and the Nightly News: A Service Learning-Based Approach in Teaching Science Communication to Journalism Students

Journalists have often been accused of over-simplifying complex scientific stories leading to less audience engagement and information at a time when U.S news media continue to experience declining audiences. U.S. media has also experienced a gradual decline in coverage of science stories for a variety of reasons. Through a partnership with the National Science Foundation, journalism students at a university in the Midwest sought to correct this problem using a service-learning approach that produced science-based video content distributed through NSF channels. Results show improved student comprehension of scientific content may increase the quality of science stories available on television news.