Subhash Minocha Professor of Biological Sciences and Genetics, travels to Jordan

With travel support from UNH’s Center for International Education, I was able to accept an invitation to visit the King’s Academy, Amman, Jordan,to give lectures, hold discussions and talk about my research and UNH Project SMART at the King’s Academy and the University of Jordan

Role of three-dimensional virtual environments in the globalisation of science education

In this poster, we illustrate how 3D virtual environments can facilitate science education in distance and blended education contexts, and can support collaboration amongst students and educators in geographically distributed settings and in different institutions. Three-dimensional (3D) virtual environments, also called synthetic worlds, are multimedia, simulated environments, often managed over the web, which users can ‘inhabit’ and interact via their graphical self-representations known as ‘avatars’. In a 3D virtual environment, the users, represented as avatars, experience others as being present in the same environment even though they may be geographically distributed. Users converse in real time through gestures, audio, text-based chat, and instant messaging. Three-dimensional virtual environments support synchronous communication and collaboration more effectively than two-dimensional (2D) web-based environments: by extending the user’s ability to employ traditional communication cues of face-to-face interactions, and having a sense of presence and a sense of place in a way that 2D environments do not. A 3D environment can enable students to carry out a range of authentic and practical scientific enquiries: interacting with 3D models, participating in virtual field trips; learning to control instruments; assembling apparatus and instruments; and creating 3D models. The social aspects of a 3D environment support scientific discourse and dialogues at different levels. For example, in an avatar-based 3D virtual world, the avatar can navigate, encounter other avatars, and communicate with them in real-time through gestures, voice, text, and instant messaging. They can critique experimental designs, compare results, share good practice, and look over each other’s work just as one would do in a real-life laboratory. The sense of working together in a place with other avatars provides an immersive experience that drives sustained engagement and aids visual memory

Using a wiki to facilitate learning on a Requirements Engineering course

In this paper, we describe the introduction of a wiki for collaborative activities in a Requirements Engineering course offered at a distance to part-time learners. The paper describes the course and how wiki activities were incorporated. The paper then discusses the initial feedback from the students which shows that the wiki has been largely effective for developing students' understanding of the course concepts, the effectiveness of team working in Requirements Engineering and the use of wikis in practice. However, there are particular issues related to asynchronous working in distance education/eLearning that need to be better addressed. We conclude with a discussion of how we are tackling these issues and developing the use of the wiki on the course based on the students' feedba

Long-term trends of changes in pine and oak foliar nitrogen metabolism in response to chronic nitrogen amendments at Harvard Forest, MA

We evaluated the long-term (1995–2008) trends in foliar and sapwood metabolism, soil solution chemistry and tree mortality rates in response to chronic nitrogen (N) additions to pine and hardwood stands at the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site. Common stress-related metabolites like polyamines (PAs), free amino acids (AAs) and inorganic elements were analyzed for control, low N (LN, 50 kg NH4NO3 ha−1 year−1) and high N (HN, 150 kg NH4NO3 ha−1 year−1) treatments. In the pine stands, partitioning of excess N into foliar PAs and AAs increased with both N treatments until 2002. By 2005, several of these effects on N metabolites disappeared for HN, and by 2008 they were mostly observed for LN plot. A significant decline in foliar Ca and P was observed mostly with HN for a few years until 2005. However, sapwood data actually showed an increase in Ca, Mg and Mn and no change in PAs in the HN plot for 2008, while AAs data revealed trends that were generally similar to foliage for 2008. Concomitant with these changes, mortality data revealed a large number of dead trees in HN pine plots by 2002; the mortality rate started to decline by 2005. Oak trees in the hardwood plot did not exhibit any major changes in PAs, AAs, nutrients and mortality rate with LN treatment, indicating that oak trees were able to tolerate the yearly doses of 50 kg NH4NO3 ha−1 year−1. However, HN trees suffered from physiological and nutritional stress along with increased mortality in 2008. In this case also, foliar data were supported by the sapwood data. Overall, both low and high N applications resulted in greater physiological stress to the pine trees than the oaks. In general, the time course of changes in metabolic data are in agreement with the published reports on changes in soil chemistry and microbial community structure, rates of soil carbon sequestration and production of woody biomass for this chronic N study. This correspondence of selected metabolites with other measures of forest functions suggests that the metabolite analyses are useful for long-term monitoring of the health of forest trees

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

Learner-Centred Design and Evaluation of Web-Based E-Learning Environments

Designing E-learning is a combination of pedagogical design, usability and information architecture. E-learning environments should have intuitive interfaces and clear information design, allowing learners to focus on learning. However, there is often a mismatch between what an on-line educator thinks the learner would learn, and what a learner thinks he will, and then has learned from the course. In addition, there is sometimes a mismatch between how an educator wants to teach and what is represented on the interface by the instructional designers. Such mismatches affect the learner's experience and his motivation for E-learning. In this paper, we will first discuss the source and nature of these mismatches. Next, we will discuss whether usability techniques in the HCI literature are appropriate for evaluating E-learning environments for the learner experience. We will then propose a combination of requirements elicitation and usability techniques for learner-centred design and evaluation of Web-based E-learning environments. The proposed methodology is based on our experience of conducting empirical studies for evaluating user-system interactions in E-Commerce contexts

Design guidelines for B2C e-commerce in virtual worlds

Virtual worlds are three-dimensional (3D) persistent multi-user online environments in which users interact through avatars. Virtual worlds support many kinds of activities, including education, socialising, gaming and e-commerce. Our research focuses on how virtual worlds can be used to facilitate business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce involving real items. Examples of affordances of virtual worlds for e-commerce include 3D simulations, multi-user environments and avatar-based interactions. We have conducted empirical research to gather data about consumers’ experiences in virtual worlds to understand ways to utilise their affordances for B2C e-commerce. Based on our empirical research and a literature review, we have derived design guidelines for the design and evaluation of B2C e-commerce environments involving virtual worlds. This poster presents a summary of the research project and a subset of the guidelines

Realism or non-realism: Design of learning spaces in Second Life

The designs of learning spaces in 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life can have widely different degrees of visual realism. For example, it could be a replica of a university’s real-life campus or a fantasy space with undersea areas and airships. At the Open University in the UK, we are investigating the relationship between the visual realism of the learning space design, design of pedagogical activities, and learner engagement. In this presentation, based on our empirical research involving educators, designers and students, we will present key guiding principles for designing learning spaces in 3D virtual worlds and specifically the issues of realism and fantasy that need to be considered. We hope that the guidance and recommendations from our research will support educators and designers to design learning spaces that foster students’ socialisation, informal learning, collaboration, and creativity

An assembled issue for the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research

Three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds have been employed in various domains and have been a topic for investigation for a long time. Nevertheless, the papers chosen for this assembled issue of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research all argue the need for further research into human engagement with virtual worlds and beyond a discussion of the affordances of virtual worlds and their limitations

Integrating customer relationship management strategies in (B2C) e-commerce environments

Creating value and generating a total customer experience(TCE ) is important for E -Commerce in order to attract customers. However, with increasing competition in the marketplace, it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain customers. E-Commerce, therefore, should focus on continuously providing value to the customers to build long-term relationships and reduce customer defections. We have evaluated five E -Banking sites from the UK finance industry and have shown that an organisation whose Web site is usable in HCI terms (that satisfies the Web Design heuristics / E -Commerce guidelines) might not always generate a TCE . It is important that along with usability heuristics, customer relationship management (CRM) strategies are integrated into the design of E-Commerce sites. In this paper, we have applied the service quality (SERVQUAL ) framework from the relationship marketing literature for deriving customer relationship enhancing heuristics which can be integrated into the design of E -Commerce environments