ACADEMAGOGY FOR ENHANCING ADULT ONLINE LEARNER ENGAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated the online learning revolution in tertiary education. However, the commonly applied “one-size-fits-all” paradigm poses challenges such as high attrition rates among online adult learners. This paper highlights the potential benefits and limitations of academagogy to enable the personalisation of online learning in terms of fostering better learner engagement

Coming into focus : educator and counselor perceptions of gay and lesbian youth

Many Aboriginal languages are becoming extinct due to lack of fluent speakers. Computer games offer a way to help teach these languages in a fun and engaging way. However, computer games like all technology objects are based in the culture of their creators. In this paper we describe a project where we co-designed a language application for mobile phone with the Gugu Badhun, an Aboriginal community from north Queensland Australia. The participatory action research process allowed our Aboriginal partners to embed their own culture in the games, leading to a product that supported their goals and aspirations for language renewal. This collaboration has not only provided a way to sustain their language, but also added capacity to their community in ICT development

Enhancing Social Presence while Balancing Teacher and Student Wellbeing

[Extract] The outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020 caused global disruption on an unprecedented scale, impacting every aspect of life including higher education. Within three weeks of the World Health Organisation declaring COVID-19 a pandemic, UNESCO reported that on-campus teaching at schools and universities had completely stopped in 185 countries, impacting the learning of 1.5 billion learners globally (Marinoni et al., 2020). University teachers, regardless of interest, preparation, experience or attitude towards online learning, were ill-equipped and placed in a stressful position, where they had no option but to rapidly upskill and digitally transform their teaching within a period of days or, at most, a couple of weeks to ensure the continuity of student learning (Borowiec et al., 2021; Colclasure et al., 2021; Cutri et al., 2020). This stress was further compounded for some teachers who experienced technology, health, and family issues (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020; Cutri et al., 2020; Ensmann et al., 2021). ... From this disruptive time in higher education, and from the social presence strategies that were deployed during this time, there are many lessons that can be learned. This study sought to investigate how computer science, information systems and information technology teachers at Australian universities can effectively develop sustainable and scalable social presence in online environments. It is anticipated that these strategies are directly applicable to the “new” higher education environment that is emerging in a post-pandemic era. The research questions guiding this study are: 1. How do Australian university information technology educators conceptualise social presence? 2. What strategies do Australian university information technology educators use to establish and maintain social presence in their online classes? 3. What barriers and challenges do Australian university teachers face in developing social presence in online learning environments? We commence this investigation by examining the relevant literature and theoretical frameworks underpinning this study, before discussing the methodology used for this research. Next, we discuss the findings and implications for practice. We conclude with a brief discussion of areas where further research is require

Enabling Lightweight Video Annotation and Presentation for Cultural Heritage

Collaboration-intensive research is increasingly becoming the norm in the humanities and social science arenas. eResearch tools such as online repositories offer researchers the opportunity to access and interact with data online. For the last 20 years video has formed an important part of humanities research, although dealing with multimedia in an online setting has proven difficult with existing tools. File size limitations, lack of interoperability with existing security systems, and the inability to include rich supportive detail regarding files have hampered the use of video. This paper describes a collaborative and data management solution for video and other files using a combination of existing tools (SRB and Plone integrated with Shibboleth) and a custom application for video upload and annotation (Mattotea). Rather than creating new proprietary systems, this development has examined the reuse of existing technologies with the addition of custom extensions to provide fullfeatured access to research data

National trends in total cholesterol obscure heterogeneous changes in HDL and non-HDL cholesterol and total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio : a pooled analysis of 458 population-based studies in Asian and Western countries

Background: Although high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and non-HDL cholesterol have opposite associations with coronary heart disease, multi-country reports of lipid trends only use total cholesterol (TC). Our aim was to compare trends in total, HDL and nonHDL cholesterol and the total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio in Asian and Western countries. Methods: We pooled 458 population-based studies with 82.1 million participants in 23 Asian and Western countries. We estimated changes in mean total, HDL and non-HDL cholesterol and mean total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio by country, sex and age group. Results: Since similar to 1980, mean TC increased in Asian countries. In Japan and South Korea, the TC rise was due to rising HDL cholesterol, which increased by up to 0.17 mmol/L per decade in Japanese women; in China, it was due to rising non-HDL cholesterol. TC declined in Western countries, except in Polish men. The decline was largest in Finland and Norway, at similar to 0.4 mmol/L per decade. The decline in TC in most Western countries was the net effect of an increase in HDL cholesterol and a decline in non-HDL cholesterol, with the HDL cholesterol increase largest in New Zealand and Switzerland. Mean total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio declined in Japan, South Korea and most Western countries, by as much as similar to 0.7 per decade in Swiss men (equivalent to similar to 26% decline in coronary heart disease risk per decade). The ratio increased in China. Conclusions: HDL cholesterol has risen and the total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio has declined in many Western countries, Japan and South Korea, with only a weak correlation with changes in TC or non-HDL cholesterol.Peer reviewe

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.Peer reviewe

Atrial fibrillation genetic risk differentiates cardioembolic stroke from other stroke subtypes

AbstractObjectiveWe sought to assess whether genetic risk factors for atrial fibrillation can explain cardioembolic stroke risk.MethodsWe evaluated genetic correlations between a prior genetic study of AF and AF in the presence of cardioembolic stroke using genome-wide genotypes from the Stroke Genetics Network (N = 3,190 AF cases, 3,000 cardioembolic stroke cases, and 28,026 referents). We tested whether a previously-validated AF polygenic risk score (PRS) associated with cardioembolic and other stroke subtypes after accounting for AF clinical risk factors.ResultsWe observed strong correlation between previously reported genetic risk for AF, AF in the presence of stroke, and cardioembolic stroke (Pearson’s r=0.77 and 0.76, respectively, across SNPs with p &lt; 4.4 × 10−4 in the prior AF meta-analysis). An AF PRS, adjusted for clinical AF risk factors, was associated with cardioembolic stroke (odds ratio (OR) per standard deviation (sd) = 1.40, p = 1.45×10−48), explaining ∼20% of the heritable component of cardioembolic stroke risk. The AF PRS was also associated with stroke of undetermined cause (OR per sd = 1.07, p = 0.004), but no other primary stroke subtypes (all p &gt; 0.1).ConclusionsGenetic risk for AF is associated with cardioembolic stroke, independent of clinical risk factors. Studies are warranted to determine whether AF genetic risk can serve as a biomarker for strokes caused by AF.</jats:sec

Searching heterogeneous and distributed databases: a case study from the maritime archaeology community

Much of the data from archaeological investigations currently reside in databases with dissimilar file formats and structures. In addition, data from individual excavations and other research are frequently placed in separate databases that are maintained and accessed solely by the group responsible for the project. Due to the differing file formats, lack of access via a cohesive network and issues regarding ownership and use of data, maritime archaeologists have found it difficult to query such databases in order to perform cross-site analyses. This thesis seeks to provide a framework for federating maritime archaeological databases in order to make such queries and cross-site analyses possible. During this research two important question emerged, 1. Are there tools available to federate these databases?, and 2. how can the search results be appropriately targeted when searching across such a variety of data sources? This research began by developing a case study centred on databases provided by three maritime heritage organizations in Australia. An informal analysis of feedback from these contributors and others in the maritime archaeological community informed the preliminary design of a prototype system. One of the key issues identified by the community was a lack of funding for new tools. Therefore, the decision was made to use only "open-source" software which is available at no cost. The initial prototype system developed here employed the application 'Storage Resource Broker' (SRB). This software acts as a broker by providing access to distributed sources of data via a search engine that queries the combined resources. The holders of the individual data can set access permissions so that users only see the data to which they have been granted access. As the research progressed another key issue was identified; although there are currently open source tools available which are capable of integrating distributed data sets, the tools are difficult to use, and require a significant level of time, technical ability and planning in order to fully implement. A related issue is the difficulty of combining data sets which may have with little data in common. To overcome these issues it was necessary to develop a separate application that works in concert with SRB and requires little technical ability to deposit databases. The prototype system allows a data depositor to provide a schema or description of the data itself, and to use the functionality built into the system to create a mapping between columns of data which contain similar information. Integral to the prototype is an embedded metadata catalogue (MCAT) that lists semantic metadata for each resource which allows the system to return better search results. The final results of the research show that while it is possible to integrate maritime archaeological datasets, in order to implement a data sharing strategy, data standards for archaeological resources must be established. In addition, tools geared toward the average user must be established for creating ontologies and handling other semantic issues