Dedication

This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Susan Vajoczki, who passed away in October 2012. As Co-Chair of the 2012 International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) Conference and a past participant in the International Network for Learning & Teaching Geography in Higher Education (INLT) Writing Groups on which the initiative described in this issue was based, Sue recognized the potential value of attempting a collaborative writing initiative in the ISSOTL context. It was she who initially proposed the idea during the 2011 conference in Milwaukee, and she contributed actively and enthusiastically to the project’s success right up until the moment of her passing. Anyone who had the privilege of working with her knows how remarkably dedicated she was to enhancing teaching and learning in higher education; the creation of this initiative and the work it has generated is still further evidence of her commitment and vision

Issues for Professionals Working with Cerebral Palsied Individuals

This practicum is the result of our participation with a grant of national significance from the Developmental Disabilities Office. The project\u27s inquiry is to describe the aging and aged developmentally disabled and to develop professional curricula based upon the findings. There are three major objectives for the grant: 1) to conduct a comprehensive survey of the aging and the aged population, 2) to develop curricula for the training of health-care professional and 3) to consult at the supervisory level with national, state and community agencies. The developmentally disabled population studied by the grant includes cerebral palsied individuals over twenty-one years of age and mentally retarded individuals over forty years of age

Exploring SoTL through international collaborative writing groups

This article outlines an initiative to explore aspects of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) through facilitating international collaborative writing groups (ICWGs) in a year-long process. The principles and methods by which the topics and groups were selected and how the writing process was supported are described, and an initial discussion of the initiative’s outcomes and the participants’experience is provided. The article concludes with a brief introduction to the set of papers produced by the groups included in this special issue

Launching a Journal About and Through Students as Partners

Editorial of first issue of the International Journal for Student as Partners

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Different Drivers: Exploring employee involvement in corporate philanthropy

Corporate Philanthropy (CP) is multi-dimensional, differs between sectors and involves both individual and organizational decision-making to achieve business and social goals. However, the CP literature characteristically focuses on strategic decisions made by business leaders and ignores the role of employees, especially those in lower status and lower paid positions. To redress this imbalance, we conducted a qualitative study of employees’ involvement in CP processes in ten workplaces in the South East of England to identify whether and how they are involved in CP decision-making and to capture their perspective on the nature of CP and the benefits generated by such activities. We specifically chose to study workplaces where employees are involved in the actual execution of the CP strategy, prioritising companies with a visible presence on the high street. The results illustrate the benefits of involving employees in CP decision-making, which we argue derives in part from the ‘liminal-like states’ that typify CP activities organised by shop floor staff, involving the temporary overturning of hierarchies, humanising of workplaces and opportunities for lower-level staff to prioritise their personal philanthropic preferences and signal their charitable identity to colleagues and customers. Whilst the data also suggests that CP decision-making remains predominantly top-down and driven by profit-oriented goals, we conclude that employees should be involved in choosing charitable causes as well as in designing and implementing workplace fundraising, in order to maximise the advantages of CP for the company and for wider society

Understanding scientific study via process modeling

This paper argues that scientific studies distinguish themselves from other studies by a combination of their processes, their (knowledge) elements and the roles of these elements. This is supported by constructing a process model. An illustrative example based on Newtonian mechanics shows how scientific knowledge is structured according to the process model. To distinguish scientific studies from research and scientific research, two additional process models are built for such processes. We apply these process models: (1) to argue that scientific progress should emphasize both the process of change and the content of change; (2) to chart the major stages of scientific study development; and (3) to define “science”

Dedication

This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Susan Vajoczki, who passed away in October 2012. As Co-Chair of the 2012 International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) Conference and a past participant in the International Network for Learning & Teaching Geography in Higher Education (INLT) Writing Groups on which the initiative described in this issue was based, Sue recognized the potential value of attempting a collaborative writing initiative in the ISSOTL context. It was she who initially proposed the idea during the 2011 conference in Milwaukee, and she contributed actively and enthusiastically to the project’s success right up until the moment of her passing. Anyone who had the privilege of working with her knows how remarkably dedicated she was to enhancing teaching and learning in higher education; the creation of this initiative and the work it has generated is still further evidence of her commitment and vision