External examining: fit for purpose?

In a context of international concern about academic standards, the practice of external examining is widely admired for its role in defending standards. Yet a contradiction exists between this faith in examining and continuing concerns about standards. This article argues that external examining rests on assumptions about standards which are significantly open to challenge. Six assumptions relating to the conceptual context, the operation and the nature of examiners themselves are analysed drawing on a review of the available evidence. The analysis challenges the notion of a consensus on standards and the potential to vest in individuals the ability to represent that consensus when judging the comparability of academic standards in a stable and appropriate way. The issues raised have relevance to the UK and to other national systems using external examiners or seeking to guarantee academic standards by, in some cases, adopting quality assurance approaches developed in the UK

Physical studies of some metalloproteins

Imperial Users onl

What is a Service Animal? A Careful Rethinking

I argue that the discursive tactics used to maintain a clear boundary between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” service animals rely on a set of assumptions that perpetuate unequal relations of power, and ultimately harm others (human and nonhuman alike). In support of this argument, I outline my theory of crip spacetime, which draws upon the material feminist notion that disability is an intersectional and emergent phenomenon, becoming (rather than being) through intra-active environments. Thinking through the ontology of service animals and their human companions in terms of crip spacetime demands that we apply what Christine Kelly (2016) has called accessible care in relationships

Sound propagation in woodland

A review of past research into sound propagation in woodland is presented. The attenuation of sound in woodland is small between about 800 and 2000Hz and greater at low and high frequencies. Attenuation measurements made in three contrasting woodlands are presented and compared with theoretical models. Propagation models using simple one- and two-parameter impedance models are used to calculate appropriate ground parameters for the prediction of impedance of the woodland soils. The ground parameters varied on different days in a single stand due to differences in moisture content and compaction. The overall differences between the stands are not significant. The woodland soil has a considerably lower impedance than other outdoor ground surfaces such as grassland or sand. A theoretical model for the attenuation of sound by thermoviscous absorption and scattering within an array of cylinders is assessed by means of a model experiment with wooden rods in an anechoic chamber. An input density 60% lower than the actual density gives a good agreement with measured attenuation. This modified model also predicts the attenuation by the cylinders in the presence of a ground surface. The scattering model is compared with the high frequency attenuation measured in the , woodland, using sampled trunk densities and radius, this underpredicts the observed attenuation, particularly in the stands with a dense branch and foliage structure. Addition of a second. dense, array of non rigid scatterers gives a good agreement with the measured data, thus modelling the scattering and absorbing effects of trunks, branches and leaves, in the high frequencies. Finally, a combined model is presented in which the attenuation caused by ground interference effects. at low frequencies. is added to a prediction of attenuation by the scattering model. across the whole frequency range. This model reproduces the frequency dependence of the attenuation of sound in woodland

Bumblebee Pollination Ecology in a Restored Prairie Ecosystem: Foraging Rates, Pollen Sources, and Resource Partitioning

A major factor in evaluating the success of prairie, and other, ecosystem restoration projects is a determination of the extent to which pollinator communities have been reestablished along with the flora. I studied bumblebee pollination ecology of a prairie restoration project in central Minnesota to determine the extent to which the several bumblebee species were interacting with the reestablished native prairie flora and with each other to reestablish a viable pollinator community. This was accomplished by determining if the bumblebees are majoring, if they are majoring on the native prairie plant species conservation efforts are attempting to restore, and if resource partitioning is occurring. My study shows that individual bumblebees are specializing on one or a few of the restoration\u27s target plant species. Fifty-five of the 75 bumblebees sampled were majoring on at least one of ten native plant species. The combined result is that the bumblebee population as a whole is pollinating many of the native prairie plants. In addition, the data suggests the various species are demonstrating resource partitioning by concentrating on different assemblages of the available bloom. I have concluded that bumblebee portion of the prairie pollinator community is reestablishing itself

The Road To Justice: Incarcerated Students’ View On Education Behind Bars

The experience of students that are incarcerated is largely unknown. This qualitative phenomenological research study allowed four college students that are incarcerated to share their experiences. Research shows individuals who are incarcerated are less likely to reoffend this study upon release. This study will show how these individuals view their educational experience during incarceration. Interviews were conducted with each participant and data was coded and organized into themes. By utilizing a phenomenological stance, observations were made of events that led to the placement of participants in the prison system and how education has impacted their time spent incarcerated. Themes discovered included the importance of knowledge, personal benefits of correctional education, support on the inside, and a need for diversified programs. Findings from this study will help local colleges prepare education programs for prisons as federal financial aid becomes available to those who are incarcerated in July 2023. Each participant shared their educational experiences, ideas of how to move the program forward, a desire to help their peers see the opportunities even if they are behind bars, and a desire to make their families proud. Along with these experiences, the participants were open about how the education program changed their day-to-day lives. Each spoke of the importance of routine and staying busy to keep a strong mind and emphasized learning a new subject or trade helped them do this. “The most powerful weapon one can use to change the world is education” – Nelson Mandel

A construção imaginativa de cuidados: a experiência de profissionais de enfermagem em um serviço de assistência remota

Indexación: Web of Science; ScieloThe direction of care delivery goes from the action to the being; a process built from professional experience, which gains special characteristics when the service is delivered by telephone. The goal of this research was to understand the interaction between professionals and users in a remote care service; to do so, a research is presented, using Grounded Theory and Symbolic Interactionism as theoretical references. Data were collected through eight interviews with professionals who deliver care by telephone. The theoretical understanding permitted the creation of the theoretical model of the Imaginative Construction of Care, which shows the interaction processes the professional experiences when delivering care by telephone. In this model, individual and social facts are added, showing the link between the concepts, with special emphasis on uncertainty, sensitivity and professional responsibility, as essential components of this experience.http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-11692012000400009&nrm=isohttp://ref.scielo.org/44chq

External examiners' understanding and use of academic standards

'External examining provides one of the principal means for maintaining UK threshold academic standards within autonomous higher education institutions' - Chapter B7: External examining of the Quality Code. The external examining system is seen as a key tool in assuring assessment standards in the UK. It is, however, an expensive tool and there have been recurring concerns that it is no longer able to warrant comparable standards across universities (Silver and Williams 1996). Criticisms have included a lack of consistency in examiners' appointment and role (HEQC 1994) and unwelcome variability in examining practices in different programmes, subject disciplines and universities resulting from weak or inconsistent institutional processes (QAA 2005). Also noted have been anxieties about the potential for 'cosy' relationships between examiners and departments (Universities UK, Guild HE and QAA 2010), and concerns about clarity (HEFCE 2009) and authority (BIS 2009) in examiners' role in assuring standards (HEFCE 2009) as they move from arbiter of standards and having the final word to being a 'critical friend'. Solutions to these problems have concentrated on examiner recruitment, procedures and stakeholder understanding of examining (Universities UK, Guild HE and QAA 2010; Universities UK 2011) now reflected in the new Quality Code. Furthermore, in its re-design of the expectations of the external examiner role, QAA endeavoured in Chapter B7: External examining to make more 'transparent, rigorous and as consistent as possible' (QAA 2011) the processes involved in the external examining system. In this regard, it is worth noting that the data for this research was collected roughly a year after the introduction of Chapter B7 (Dec 2011). Therefore, the expectations set out with regards to the external examiner role may not yet be fully embedded in the sector. Nevertheless, the underlying UUK reports did not focus on a central tenet on which external examining rests: the capacity of examiners to hold and consistently apply a shared knowledge of academic standards. In general, previous inquiries have avoided the issue of what standards mean and how they are established, influenced and used by external examiners. This omission is despite broader research on academic judgement and grading, the outcomes of which provide little confidence regarding the consistency of academic standards in use in higher education (see summary of research and references in Bloxham and Price 2013). In the context of this broad research, is it appropriate to assume that external examiners can apply shared knowledge of academic standards and assure that these are consistent and aligned with national frameworks? The general aim of a QAA and HEA-sponsored qualitative research project on standards, the findings of which are presented in this report, was to investigate current practices in how academic standards are conceived, constructed, and applied in external examining processes

Guide to the Cheryl A. Wall Collection of Margaret Bonds and Florence Price Manuscript Scores

Cheryl A. Wall was a literary critic and English professor at Rutgers University who donated three manuscript scores to the CBMR – Troubled Water by Margaret Bonds with a handwritten autobiographical sketch by the composer on the back and two works by Florence Price, Negro Fantasy and Concerto in One Movement for three pianos. The Bonds score was given to Cheryl Wall by the composer and the two Price scores belonged to her aunt, Nannie Strayhorn Reid, a classical pianist and teacher in Chicago, Illinois.https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/cmbr_guides/1048/thumbnail.jp