Chapter 04. Framework to understand postgraduate students' adaption of academics' teaching materials as OER

This chapter addresses a way of responding to one of the key challenges of OER contribution, namely academics' lack of time to re-purpose teaching materials originally intended for campus-based face-to-face lectures as stand-alone Open Educational Resources (OER). It describes how masters' students, tutors and interns at the University of Cape Town have been engaged to support the innovative practice of adapting academics' existing teaching materials into OER

The role of postgraduate students in co-authoring open educational resources to promote social inclusion: a case study at the University of Cape Town

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Distance Education on 24 Jul 2012, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01587919.2012.692052.Like many universities worldwide, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa has joined the open educational resources (OER) movement, making a selection of teaching and learning materials available through its OER directory, UCT OpenContent. However, persuading and then supporting busy academics to share their teaching materials as OER still remains a challenge. In this article, we report on an empirical study of how UCT postgraduate students have assisted in the process of reworking the academics' teaching materials as OER. Using the concept of contradictions (Engeström, 2001), we endeavor to surface the various disturbances or conflicts with which the postgraduate students had to engage to make OER socially inclusive, as well as Engeström's “layers of causality" (2011, p. 609) to explain postgraduate students' growing sense of agency as they experienced the OER development process as being socially inclusive

The Leishmania major BBSome subunit BBS1 is essential for parasite virulence in the mammalian host

Bardet–Biedl syndrome (BBS) is a human genetic disorder with a spectrum of symptoms caused by primary cilium dysfunction. The disease is caused by mutations in one of at least 17 identified genes, of which seven encode subunits of the BBSome, a protein complex required for specific trafficking events to and from the primary cilium. The molecular mechanisms associated with BBSome function remain to be fully elucidated. Here, we generated null and complemented mutants of the BBSome subunit BBS1 in the protozoan parasite, Leishmania. In the absence of BBS1, extracellular parasites have no apparent defects in growth, flagellum assembly, motility or differentiation in vitro but there is accumulation of vacuole-like structures close to the flagellar pocket. Infectivity of these parasites for macrophages in vitro is reduced compared with wild-type controls but the null parasites retain the ability to differentiate to the intracellular amastigote stage. However, infectivity of BBS1 null parasites is severely compromised in a BALB/c mouse footpad model. We hypothesize that the absence of BBS1 in Leishmania leads to defects in specific trafficking events that affect parasite persistence in the host. This is the first report of an association between the BBSome complex and pathogen infectivity

Beyond crime rates and community surveys: A new approach to police accountability and performance measurement

In this conceptual piece, we argue that the current approach to police performance measurement typically based on the use of traditional police metrics has failed to achieve the desired results and that a different strategy is required. Traditional police metrics have a narrow focus on crime and the police response to it. They provide little information on how well police organizations are performing. Importantly, traditional police metrics do not incorporate input from police stakeholders in goal identification, nor do they use specifically designed indicators to assess progress towards achieving these goals. Following an analysis of the criticisms levelled at the use of traditional police metrics, and subsequent attempts to address these issues, we argue that a networked governance approach represents a more promising foundation for undertaking police organizational performance assessment. Such an approach would engage stakeholders more directly in goal identification and performance assessment, and potentially lead to more successful, responsive and accountable policing

The tear behaviour of some tri-block copolymer elastomers.

Four SBS block copolymers were subjected to extensive chemical examination to determine block molecular weights and styrene fractions.Casting from different solvent systems into sheet form resulted in a range of microstructural formations for the normally dispersed styrene phase. These morphological details were studied using transmission electron microscopy and low angle X-ray scattering.Dynamic mechanical tests, on sheet material cast from different solvent systems, in both shear and tension over a wide temperature range, and static tensile tests at +20°C, revealed significant differences in viscoelastic properties between the materials. These differences were related to changes in morphological detail by the use of a model for composite materials. The large strain behaviour at +20°C is modelled by the inverse Langevin function and a debonding parameter which is related to void growth in the material.The conventional analysis of tear behaviour, developed originally for vulcanised rubbers, whilst ranking SBS block copolymers alongside the most tear resistant vulcanised materials over wide ranges of temperature and tearing rate, was found to be suspect for this class of materials. An alternative interpretation, however, succeeds in relating tear strength to tensile properties for the temperatures and tear rates studied, and also relates the tearing behaviour of these elastomers to that of a wide variety of other materials