The experiences of academic and research bloggers: a phenomenological enquiry

Our research project investigates the experience of academics (i.e. educators working in higher education) and researchers using blogs in their work. The three objectives are: 1) to identify reasons why academics and researchers begin writing and maintain a blog as part of their practice, 2) the contribution of blogging to the academics' and researchers' personal and professional development and 3) the challenges they experience. One component of the research involves conducting individual open-ended interviews by email with academic/research bloggers. The interviews are analysed using descriptive phenomenology, to gain an understanding of both the idiosyncratic aspects and the general essence of the bloggers' experiences. Findings reveal that bloggers think of others through their blog: beginners feel encouraged to blog by following advice from others or examples of experienced bloggers; the more experienced consider blogging an opportunity to disseminate and exchange information with others. Therefore, blogging does not mediate relationships only between bloggers and readers, but also with people outside the readership but still connected to the blog. For some academics and researchers, blogging is an 'experiment' to think through ideas and find a voice in the public arena. This form of experimentation and exploration fosters both personal reflection and social interaction. However, public experimentation triggers feelings of anxiety and uncertainty amongst some academics/researchers. This seems due to the unfamiliar way in which blogs occupy an intermediate space among established writing forms (i.e. academic papers, journalistic articles, diaries), thereby blurring the private-public and formal-informal divide

An Investigation Into The Blogging Practices Of Academics And Researchers

This research project investigated the experiences of academics and researchers using blogs to support their practice. The three research questions were: to identify the academics' and researchers' motivations for beginning and maintaining a blog, the contribution of blogging to their learning in the profession, and the challenges experienced. The research questions were investigated using several methods. Five datasets were collected from 26 participants. A questionnaire was first administered to collect background information about the bloggers, and was analysed quantitatively. Then, an initial unstructured interview of one open-ended question was conducted by email. The unstructured interview was analysed using descriptive phenomenology. A follow-on semi-structured interview was conducted and analysed by applying thematic analysis. Blog content was collected in parallel: textual extracts were analysed using discourse analysis and visual extracts by applying thematic/saliency analysis. Results revealed varied reasons for beginning a blog. For example, the blog can be used as a repository of 'half-baked' ideas. Blogging contributed to the academics' and researchers' learning in the profession in multiple ways. Academic bloggers, for example, can quickly reach a wider audience compared to other forms of academic publishing. Among the challenges, there were concerns over managing confidential information in public, and intellectual property issues. Regarding the methodological contribution of the research, suggestions on strategies for mixing and matching different research methods for data collection and analysis have been provided. An empirically-grounded framework of blog use in academia and research has been derived based on research findings and scholarship models in the literature. The framework describes how characteristics of digital scholarship such as openness and sharing, are manifested through blogging. The framework can be used to guide academics and researchers who are interested in taking up blogging as a scholarly practice. Finally, empirically-grounded guidelines on using blogs in academia and research have been derived. The guidelines were evaluated by four practitioners. Future work includes recruiting more practitioners to evaluate the guidelines

An empirically grounded framework to guide blogging for digital scholarship

This research project investigated how openness and sharing of knowledge are manifested through scholarly blogging. We aimed to identify the academics’ and researchers’ motivations for starting a blog; the contribution of blogging to their personal and professional development; and any challenges. Twenty-six participants were recruited. A pre-interview questionnaire was first emailed to the participants to collect background information. An initial unstructured interview was conducted by email, followed by a synchronous semi-structured interview. Textual and visual extracts of blog content were also collected. The datasets were analysed using different techniques. The findings revealed varied reasons for blogging. Some academics/researchers began a blog for its accessibility to self and others. Blogging aided the academics’ and researchers’ personal and professional development in several ways. Bloggers can quickly reach a wider audience compared to other forms of academic publishing. Among the challenges, there were concerns over validity of online content. Based on previous scholarship models and on our findings, we have derived an empirically grounded framework of blog use in academia and research. The framework describes how characteristics of digital scholarship such as openness and sharing are manifested through blogging. The framework can be used to guide academics and researchers who are interested in taking up blogging as a scholarly practice

The Scholarship of Teaching MOOC-Based Degree Programs: Opportunities and Challenges

This paper explores the teaching component of scholarship in the Digital Age, with a focus on teaching online Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) aligned to degree programs. Instructors are increasingly embracing online teaching as part of their scholarly portfolio, including MOOC development and teaching. There is some empirical research on the impact of teaching stand-alone MOOCs on the instructors’ practices and on learners’ experiences. The impact of teaching MOOC-based degree programs on the instructors’ professional development has not been investigated to this date. This study explores the instructors’ experiences teaching program-aligned MOOCs, with a focus on the online MBA at the University of Illinois, which combines non-credit courses with traditional credit-bearing courses, and the impact teaching a MOOC-based degree has on their professional practice as digital scholars. Preliminary findings suggest that the experience of designing and delivering a MOOC informed the instructors' teaching practice, and they often reused MOOC content in their face-to face and blended classrooms. MOOC teaching may not replace traditional online teaching but is perceived as a complementary form of scholarship in teaching. Challenges noted are the time-consuming process of designing and developing the MOOC-based MBA course, and delivering instruction on two Learning Management Systems at the same time: Coursera for the non-credit MOOC component, and Blackboard for the credit-bearing portion of the online course. Further work will involve determining ways to design MOOCs that positively impact on the instructor’s teaching practices and instructor-learner interaction, with a view of increasing the performance and motivation of global learners and MOOC-based degree enrolled students.Ope

Optimizing Accessibility Training in Online Higher Education

In higher education and technology-enhanced learning environments, there is an increasing need for faculty members, instructional designers, and other learning professionals to be aware of and to use technologies and other learning and teaching tools that are accessible to all students, regardless of disability or other additional need. In this study, we evaluated our experience in training faculty members and eLearning professionals in accessibility and universal design principles, and we investigated the impact of these training workshops on the professional lives of faculty and eLearning professionals, as well as the impact on the overall quality of the University's course design and instructional materials. The aim of this study was to best address the specific needs of faculty and eLearning professionals in a wide variety of discipline areas, such as Veterinary Medicine, Business, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Liberal Arts and Sciences. Overall, our training analysis is aimed at empowering faculty and eLearning professionals to effectively create and deliver more universally designed instruction. As such, the ultimate beneficiaries of our study will be the students, who will have access to more accessible educational materials created according to universal design principles.Ope

Conducting empirical research with older people

We are investigating the role of online communities on the quality of life and wellbeing of people aged 65 years and over. We have conducted workshops and one-to- one semi-structured interviews, and have had free- flowing informal exchanges with our participants who have shared stories and incidents with us. In this paper, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of conducting empirical research with older people

Older people and online social interactions: an empirical investigation

We are investigating the role of online social interactions on the quality of life and well-being of people aged 65 years and over. We have conducted workshops and one-to-one semi-structured interviews, and have had free-flowing informal exchanges with our participants who have shared stories and incidents with us. Initial findings indicate that older people need an incentive to get and stay online; that relatives and trainers need to structure their help and use repetitive strategies to aid retention; that social networking is a step further than most older people take while email, Skype, and closed mailing lists or forums related to their interests are the most common applications for social interactions. Using social capital theory as a lens to look at the evidence, we find that existing social capital inherent in family and neighbourly ties seem to motivate older people to go online. Being online then allows people to maintain and renew relationships. We have yet to gather firm evidence for creation of new online relationships by older people

Teaching and Learning Under COVID-19 Public Health Edicts: The Role of Household Lockdowns and Prior Technology Usage

Public health edicts necessitated by COVID-19 prompted a rapid pivot to remote online teaching and learning. Two major consequences followed: households became students\u27 main learning space, and technology became the sole medium of instructional delivery. We use the ideas of digital disconnect and digital divide to examine, for students and faculty, their prior experience with, and proficiency in using, learning technology. We also explore, for students, how household lockdowns and digital capacity impacted learning. Our findings are drawn from 3806 students and 283 faculty instructors from nine higher education institutions across Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. For instructors, we find little evidence of a digital divide but some evidence of a digital disconnect. However, neither made a difference to self-reported success in transitioning courses. Faculty instructors were impacted in a myriad of diverse ways. For students, we show that closure and confinement measures which created difficult living situations were associated with lower levels of confidence in learning. The digital divide that did exist among students was less influential than were household lockdown measures in undermining student learning

Global variation in diabetes diagnosis and prevalence based on fasting glucose and hemoglobin A1c

Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) are both used to diagnose diabetes, but these measurements can identify different people as having diabetes. We used data from 117 population-based studies and quantified, in different world regions, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes, and whether those who were previously undiagnosed and detected as having diabetes in survey screening, had elevated FPG, HbA1c or both. We developed prediction equations for estimating the probability that a person without previously diagnosed diabetes, and at a specific level of FPG, had elevated HbA1c, and vice versa. The age-standardized proportion of diabetes that was previously undiagnosed and detected in survey screening ranged from 30% in the high-income western region to 66% in south Asia. Among those with screen-detected diabetes with either test, the age-standardized proportion who had elevated levels of both FPG and HbA1c was 29-39% across regions; the remainder had discordant elevation of FPG or HbA1c. In most low- and middle-income regions, isolated elevated HbA1c was more common than isolated elevated FPG. In these regions, the use of FPG alone may delay diabetes diagnosis and underestimate diabetes prevalence. Our prediction equations help allocate finite resources for measuring HbA1c to reduce the global shortfall in diabetes diagnosis and surveillance

Worldwide trends in underweight and obesity from 1990 to 2022: a pooled analysis of 3663 population-representative studies with 222 million children, adolescents, and adults

Background Underweight and obesity are associated with adverse health outcomes throughout the life course. We estimated the individual and combined prevalence of underweight or thinness and obesity, and their changes, from 1990 to 2022 for adults and school-aged children and adolescents in 200 countries and territories. Methods We used data from 3663 population-based studies with 222 million participants that measured height and weight in representative samples of the general population. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends in the prevalence of different BMI categories, separately for adults (age ≥20 years) and school-aged children and adolescents (age 5–19 years), from 1990 to 2022 for 200 countries and territories. For adults, we report the individual and combined prevalence of underweight (BMI <18·5 kg/m2) and obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2). For schoolaged children and adolescents, we report thinness (BMI <2 SD below the median of the WHO growth reference) and obesity (BMI >2 SD above the median). Findings From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity in adults decreased in 11 countries (6%) for women and 17 (9%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 that the observed changes were true decreases. The combined prevalence increased in 162 countries (81%) for women and 140 countries (70%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. In 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity was highest in island nations in the Caribbean and Polynesia and Micronesia, and countries in the Middle East and north Africa. Obesity prevalence was higher than underweight with posterior probability of at least 0·80 in 177 countries (89%) for women and 145 (73%) for men in 2022, whereas the converse was true in 16 countries (8%) for women, and 39 (20%) for men. From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of thinness and obesity decreased among girls in five countries (3%) and among boys in 15 countries (8%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80, and increased among girls in 140 countries (70%) and boys in 137 countries (69%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. The countries with highest combined prevalence of thinness and obesity in school-aged children and adolescents in 2022 were in Polynesia and Micronesia and the Caribbean for both sexes, and Chile and Qatar for boys. Combined prevalence was also high in some countries in south Asia, such as India and Pakistan, where thinness remained prevalent despite having declined. In 2022, obesity in school-aged children and adolescents was more prevalent than thinness with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 among girls in 133 countries (67%) and boys in 125 countries (63%), whereas the converse was true in 35 countries (18%) and 42 countries (21%), respectively. In almost all countries for both adults and school-aged children and adolescents, the increases in double burden were driven by increases in obesity, and decreases in double burden by declining underweight or thinness. Interpretation The combined burden of underweight and obesity has increased in most countries, driven by an increase in obesity, while underweight and thinness remain prevalent in south Asia and parts of Africa. A healthy nutrition transition that enhances access to nutritious foods is needed to address the remaining burden of underweight while curbing and reversing the increase in obesit