‘But I’ve been teaching for 20 years…’: encouraging teaching accreditation for experienced staff working in higher education

The status of teaching and learning is an issue those providing and supporting higher education grapple with. The UK Higher Education Academy offers accreditation aligned to the professional standards framework (PSF). The PSF contextualises the role of teaching and supporting learning, and offers a mechanism for individuals’ commitment to be recognised. Here, we present a case-study of 19 established academics who reflected on their experiences of gaining recognition through their university’s accreditation scheme. Respondents prioritised institutional structures and outcomes such as student recruitment, job security, and status as drivers for engagement. Institutional leadership was significant in driving the accreditation agenda

Strength in diversity: enhancing learning in vocationally-orientated, master's level courses

Postgraduate education in geography, especially at the Master’s level, is undergoing significant changes in the developed world. There is an expansion of vocationally-oriented degree programmes, increasing recruitment of international students, integration of work place skills, and the engagement of non-traditional postgraduate students as departments respond to policies for a more ‘inclusive’ higher education. This paper sets the context by outlining some programmatic changes in selected countries (Australia, the UK, and the USA). We briefly reflect on how postgraduate ‘bars’ or ‘levels’ are defined and explore in detail what ‘diversity’ or ‘heterogeneity’ means in these new postgraduate settings. The paper then explores some examples of practice drawn from our own experiences, whilst recognising that relevance will vary in other contexts. Finally we consider how diversity can be harnessed as a strength that has potential to enhance taught elements of contemporary postgraduate education in and beyond the discipline

Improving neural network for flood forecasting using radar data on the Upper Ping River

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and other data-driven methods are appearing with increasing frequency in the literature for the prediction of water discharge or stage. Unfortunately, many of these data-driven models are used as the forecasting tools only short lead times where unsurprisingly they perform very well. There have not been much documented attempts at predicting floods at longer and more useful lead times for flood warning. In this paper ANNs flood forecasting model are developed for the Upper Ping River, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Raw radar reflectively data are used as the primary inputs and water stage are used as the additional inputs, also four input determination techniques (Correlation, Stepwise regression, combination between Correlation and Stepwise Regression and Genetic algorithms) are applied to select the most appropriated inputs. Normally, the ANNs model can predict up to 6 hours when only water stage used as the input data and the lead time can be increased up to 24 hours by using only radar data. In addition, combination of the input between water stage and radar data, gave the overall result better then using only water stage or radar data, also selecting different appropriated inputs could improve model's performance

Assessing the applicability of public health intervention evaluations from one setting to another: a methodological study of the usability and usefulness of assessment tools and frameworks

BACKGROUND: Public health interventions can be complicated, complex and context dependent, making the assessment of applicability challenging. Nevertheless, for them to be of use beyond the original study setting, they need to be generalisable to other settings and, crucially, research users need to be able to identify to which contexts it may be applicable. There are many tools with set criteria for assessing generalisability/applicability, yet few seem to be widely used and there is no consensus on which should be used, or when. This methodological study aimed to test these tools to assess how easy they were to use and how useful they appeared to be. METHODS: We identified tools from an existing review and an update of its search. References were screened on pre-specified criteria. Included tools were tested by using them to assess the applicability of a Swedish weight management intervention to the English context. Researcher assessments and reflections on the usability and utility of the tools were gathered using a standard pro-forma. RESULTS: Eleven tools were included. Their length, content, style and time required to complete varied. No tool was considered ideal for assessing applicability. Their limitations included unrealistic criteria (requiring unavailable information), a focus on implementation to the neglect of transferability (i.e. little focus on potential effectiveness in the new setting), overly broad criteria (associated with low reliability), and a lack of an explicit focus on how interventions worked (i.e. their mechanisms of action). CONCLUSION: Tools presenting criteria ready to be used may not be the best method for applicability assessments. They are likely to be either too long or incomplete, too focused on differences and fail to address elements that matter for the specific topic of interest. It is time to progress from developing lists of set criteria that are not widely used in the literature, to creating a new approach to applicability assessment. Focusing on mechanisms of action, rather than solely on characteristics, could be a useful approach, and one that remains underutilised in current tools. New approaches to assessing generalisability that evolve away from checklist style assessments need to be developed, tested, reported and discussed

Evaluating academic development in the higher education sector: academic developers’ reflections on using a toolkit resource

peerreview_statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope. aims_and_scope_url: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=cher2

Older LGBT+ health inequalities in the UK: setting a research agenda

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans+ (LGBT+) people report poorer health than the general population and worse experiences of healthcare particularly cancer, palliative/end-of-life, dementia and mental health provision. This is attributable to: (a) social inequalities, including ‘minority stress’; (b) associated health-risk behaviours (eg, smoking, excessive drug/alcohol use, obesity); (c) loneliness and isolation, affecting physical/mental health and mortality; (d) anticipated/experienced discrimination and (e) inadequate understandings of needs among healthcare providers. Older LGBT+ people are particularly affected, due to the effects of both cumulative disadvantage and ageing. There is a need for greater and more robust research data to support growing international and national government initiatives aimed at addressing these health inequalities. We identify seven key research strategies: (1) Production of large data sets; (2) Comparative data collection; (3) Addressing diversity and intersectionality among LGBT+ older people; (4) Investigation of healthcare services’ capacity to deliver LGBT+ affirmative healthcare and associated education and training needs; (5) Identification of effective health promotion and/or treatment interventions for older LGBT+ people, and subgroups within this umbrella category; (6) Development of an (older) LGBT+ health equity model; (7) Utilisation of social justice concepts to ensure meaningful, change-orientated data production which will inform and support government policy, health promotion and healthcare interventions

Barley heads east: Genetic analyses reveal routes of spread through diverse Eurasian landscapes

One of the world’s most important crops, barley, was domesticated in the Near East around 11,000 years ago. Barley is a highly resilient crop, able to grown in varied and marginal environments, such as in regions of high altitude and latitude. Archaeobotanical evidence shows that barley had spread throughout Eurasia by 2,000 BC. To further elucidate the routes by which barley cultivation was spread through Eurasia, simple sequence repeat (SSR) analysis was used to determine genetic diversity and population structure in three extant barley taxa: domesticated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. vulgare), wild barley (H. vulgare subsp. spontaneum) and a six-rowed brittle rachis form (H. vulgare subsp. vulgare f. agriocrithon (Åberg) Bowd.). Analysis of data using the Bayesian clustering algorithm InStruct suggests a model with three ancestral genepools, which captures a major split in the data, with substantial additional resolution provided under a model with eight genepools. Our results indicate that H. vulgare subsp. vulgare f. agriocrithon accessions and Tibetan Plateau H. vulgare subsp. spontaneum are closely related to the H. vulgare subsp. vulgare in their vicinity, and are therefore likely to be feral derivatives of H. vulgare subsp. vulgare. Under the eight genepool model, cultivated barley is split into six ancestral genepools, each of which has a distinct distribution through Eurasia, along with distinct morphological features and flowering time phenotypes. The distribution of these genepools and their phenotypic characteristics is discussed together with archaeological evidence for the spread of barley eastwards across Eurasia

Sensitivity of an antineutrino monitor for remote nuclear reactor discovery

Antineutrinos from a nuclear reactor comprise an unshieldable signal, which carries information about the core. A gadolinium-doped, water-based Cherenkov detector has been investigated for detection of reactor antineutrinos for midfield remote reactor monitoring for nonproliferation applications. Two independent reconstruction and analysis pathways have been developed and applied to a number of representative reactor signals to evaluate the sensitivity of a kiloton-scale, gadolinium-doped Cherenkov detector as a remote monitor prototype. The sensitivity of four detector configurations to nine reactor signal combinations was evaluated for a detector situated in Boulby Mine, close to the Boulby Underground Laboratory in the UK. It was found that a 22-m detector with a gadolinium-doped, water-based liquid scintillator fill is sensitive to an approximately 3-GWth reactor at a standoff of approximately 150km within 2 years in the current reactor landscape. A larger detector would be required to achieve a more timely detection or to monitor smaller or more distant reactors

School‐based interventions for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a systematic review with multiple synthesis methods

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Non-pharmacological interventions for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are useful treatments, but it is unclear how effective school-based interventions are for a range of outcomes and which features of interventions are most effective. This paper systematically reviews randomized controlled trial evidence of the effectiveness of interventions for children with ADHD in school settings. Three methods of synthesis were used to explore the effectiveness of interventions, whether certain types of interventions are more effective than others and which components of interventions lead to effective academic outcomes. Twenty-eight studies (n=1,807) were included in the review. Eight types of interventions were evaluated and a range of different ADHD symptoms, difficulties and school outcomes were assessed across studies. Meta-analysis demonstrated beneficial effects for interventions that combine multiple features (median effect size g=0.37, interquartile range 0.32, range 0.09 to 1.13) and suggest some promise for daily report card interventions (median g=0.0.62, IQR=0.25, range 0.13 to 1.62). Meta-regression analyses did not give a consistent message regarding which types of interventions were more effective than others. Finally, qualitative comparative analysis demonstrated that self-regulation and one-to-one intervention delivery were important components of interventions that were effective for academic outcomes. These two components were not sufficient though; when they appeared with personalisation for individual recipients and delivery in the classroom, or when interventions did not aim to improve child relationships, interventions were effective. This review provides updated information about the effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions specific to school settings and gives tentative messages about important features of these interventions for academic outcomes