The Economic Implications of Epidemics Old and New

The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the winter of 2002–03 raised the specter of a new, unknown and uncontrollable infectious disease that spreads quickly and is often fatal. Certain branches of economic activity, notably tourism, felt its impact almost at once, and investor expectations of a safe and controlled investment climate were brought into question. Part of the shock of SARS was the abrupt reversal of a mounting legacy of disease control that had altered societies’ expectations from coping with waves of epidemics of smallpox, cholera, and measles, among other diseases, to complacency with the virtual elimination of disease epidemics. This paper analyzes the economic implications of the Great Plague in the fourteenth century, the 1918–19 influenza epidemic, HIV/AIDS and SARS to demonstrate the short- and long-term effects of different kinds of epidemics.severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), infectious disease, epidemics

Flexible learning within a tertiary teaching subiect

There is a growing awareness within higher education institutions of the need to provide teaching development programs for academic staff. The challenge is to provide effective programs for staff from across all disciplines, who have varying schedules of work and are under pressure to spend much of their time engaged in research in their own field of study. At the University of Wollongong the already highly effective Introduction to Tertiary Teaching (ITT) subject for academic staff has been redesigned as a flexible, modular program within a Resource Based Learning (RBL) environment. This redesign is in response to the need to eliminate barriers to participation and acceptance of the program and to provide a more learner-centred course experience. Participants\u27 initial responses to the new program design offer some early indicators of areas for further exploration in Resource Based Learning at the tertiary level

Learning about tertiary teaching: placing the lecturer at the centre of the learning experience

The attributes of effective university teachers are well documented (Ramsden, 1992). If universities wish to improve learning and teaching they need to provide academic staff with programs through which these attributes can be developed. A wide variety of courses now exist in Australian Universities that aim to develop academic staff as effective teachers (Martin & Ramsden, 1994). Some focus on developing skills through workshops and study packages, others on developing conceptions of teaching at a theoretical level or through reflective practice

Women publishers of puritan literature in the mid-seventeenth century: three case studies

This thesis looks beyond the stereotypes of women as transmitters and caretakers of businesses by focussing on the careers of three women, one a widow who remarried, one a woman with no apparent family connection with the trade, and the third another widow who carried on the business for almost ten years after the death of her husband. Their careers are reconstructed from biographical data and the details of their publishing output. Emphasis is placed on the relationship of individuals to the sectarian communities for which they published, and on the ways in which sectarian material came to be published and distributed. The studies suggest ways in which women's inferior legal status could protect them in their 'seditious' activities, and reveal the inadequacies of attempts to control the press during the period 1645-75. Hannah Allen's output demonstrates her development over a brief period of a specialized trade in books representing the strand of Independent thought which grew into Fifth Monarchism, and her emergence from economic dependency on partnerships to become a publisher in her own right. Mary Westwood's career reveals a level of publishing outside the London book trade and concerned exclusively with a Quaker market largely in-the provinces. The career of Elizabeth Calvert is examined both before and after the death of her husband in order to investigate her role in a leading radical bookseiling business. -' Her later activities provide evidence of the shortcomings of the 1662 'Licensing, Act, and confrontations between a group of 'Confederate' women and the authorities suggest how women could avoid punishment despite their persistent publishing of nonconformist and opposition literature

Curriculum design for flexible delivery - massaging the model

At the University of Wollongong undergraduate degrees will be delivered flexibly to a new satellite campus beginning in the year 2000. A training course is being developed for tutors who will work with students at the satellite campus. The course is to be highly flexible and model flexible delivery strategies. This paper maps the influences of a flexible delivery framework on curriculum design through various design iterations. A model for the design of flexibly delivered courses is outlined

The Teacher Work Sample: Candidate and Mentor Perceptions

Elementary education faculty at this university embedded a Teacher Work Sample (TWS) performance-based assessment into the student teaching experience to assess candidates’ ability to impact student learning as required by recent accreditation reforms. The authors conducted an internal evaluation of the TWS for the purposes of strengthening not only the capstone experience, but also all of the courses and field experiences that precede student teaching. This study examines quantitative and qualitative data gathered via surveys and follow-up semi-structured interviews with candidates and mentors. The results of the study indicate that while both candidates and mentors perceive the TWS as a positive tool, mentors had a significantly more positive view than candidates in several crucial areas

Building Communication Skills for Science Students in Videoconference Tutorials

For several years, students from the International Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Wollongong, Australia, have participated in ‘global learning’ subjects with students from universities in Ireland and the U.S. Weekly international videoconference tutorials have been the main teaching and learning strategy in those subjects. The Australian students explore science topics of international significance and learn through participation in discussion, debates and presentations with their peers in Europe and America, informed by preparatory readings from a broad range of perspectives and guided by academics. Data on the effectiveness of this approach were gathered through online student surveys and staff and student interviews. Coordinators, tutors and students responded positively to the global learning subjects, reporting the development of students’ communication skills and international perspectives. This case study suggests a global learning approach using international videoconference may be an effective strategy for the development of science students’ communication skills and offers recommendations for the adoption of global learning within the sciences