<i>WhatsApp</i> use among African international distance education (IDE) students: transferring, translating and transforming educational experiences

Much of the research on how social media is embedded into the educational practices of higher education students has a Western orientation. In concentrating on a case study of the varied ways in which African International Distance Education (IDE) students actively use social media to shape their learning experiences, we discuss an under-researched group. The paper draws on analysis of 1295 online questionnaires and 165 in-depth interviews with IDE students at UNISA, South Africa, one of the largest providers of IDE globally. WhatsApp emerges as ‘the’ key social media tool that opens up opportunities for IDE students to transfer, translate and transform their educational journey when studying ‘at a distance’. Although WhatsApp does provide a ‘space of opportunity’ for some students, this is framed through socio-technical marginalisation, itself a reflection of demographic legacies of inequality. Exploring social media practices though the case of African IDE students places these students centre stage and adds to the awareness of the multiple centres from which international education is practiced

Constrained metal-on-metal hip arthroplasty: ever heard of a 50-year survival story?

Background The history of total hip arthroplasty dates back to the first half of the twentieth century. Data on hip endoprostheses implanted during the 1960s and 1970s suggest widely varying survival rates of the prosthesis. Case A case of a patient who underwent total hip arthroplasty in 1972 using a Sivash prosthesis, developed in 1956 in the former Soviet Union, is presented in this article. The prosthesis has remained unrevised in the patient’s body for 50 years and he continues to be widely free of implant-related symptoms. Despite the constrained metal-on-metal design of the implant, which can lead to adverse reactions to metal debris, no elevated systemic metal ion levels were detected. Conclusion The likelihood of encountering patients with prosthesis survival beyond 50 years is still rare. Nevertheless, changing demographics and the steadily improving designs and materials of hip endoprostheses may likely result in such cases

The use of open data as a material for learning

Open data has potential value as a material for use in learning activities. However, approaches to harnessing this are not well understood or in mainstream use in education. In this research, early adopters from a diverse range of educational projects and teaching settings were interviewed to explore their rationale for using open data in teaching, how suitable activity designs could be achieved, and the practical challenges of using open data. A thematic analysis was conducted to identify patterns and relationships in these open data-based practices that have already emerged. A document analysis of teaching materials and other related artefacts was used to augment and validate the findings. Drawing on this, common approaches and issues are identified, and a conceptual framework to support greater use of open data by educators is described. This paper also highlights where existing concepts in education and educational technology research, including inquiry-based learning, authenticity, motivation, dialogue, and personalisation can help us to understand the value and challenges of using open data in education

The \u3cem\u3eChlamydomonas\u3c/em\u3e Genome Reveals the Evolution of Key Animal and Plant Functions

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a unicellular green alga whose lineage diverged from land plants over 1 billion years ago. It is a model system for studying chloroplast-based photosynthesis, as well as the structure, assembly, and function of eukaryotic flagella (cilia), which were inherited from the common ancestor of plants and animals, but lost in land plants. We sequenced the ∼120-megabase nuclear genome of Chlamydomonas and performed comparative phylogenomic analyses, identifying genes encoding uncharacterized proteins that are likely associated with the function and biogenesis of chloroplasts or eukaryotic flagella. Analyses of the Chlamydomonas genome advance our understanding of the ancestral eukaryotic cell, reveal previously unknown genes associated with photosynthetic and flagellar functions, and establish links between ciliopathy and the composition and function of flagella

Finite Element Analysis of Osteosynthesis Screw Fixation in the Bone Stock: An Appropriate Method for Automatic Screw Modelling

The use of finite element analysis (FEA) has grown to a more and more important method in the field of biomedical engineering and biomechanics. Although increased computational performance allows new ways to generate more complex biomechanical models, in the area of orthopaedic surgery, solid modelling of screws and drill holes represent a limitation of their use for individual cases and an increase of computational costs. To cope with these requirements, different methods for numerical screw modelling have therefore been investigated to improve its application diversity. Exemplarily, fixation was performed for stabilization of a large segmental femoral bone defect by an osteosynthesis plate. Three different numerical modelling techniques for implant fixation were used in this study, i.e. without screw modelling, screws as solid elements as well as screws as structural elements. The latter one offers the possibility to implement automatically generated screws with variable geometry on arbitrary FE models. Structural screws were parametrically generated by a Python script for the automatic generation in the FE-software Abaqus/CAE on both a tetrahedral and a hexahedral meshed femur. Accuracy of the FE models was confirmed by experimental testing using a composite femur with a segmental defect and an identical osteosynthesis plate for primary stabilisation with titanium screws. Both deflection of the femoral head and the gap alteration were measured with an optical measuring system with an accuracy of approximately 3 µm. For both screw modelling techniques a sufficient correlation of approximately 95% between numerical and experimental analysis was found. Furthermore, using structural elements for screw modelling the computational time could be reduced by 85% using hexahedral elements instead of tetrahedral elements for femur meshing. The automatically generated screw modelling offers a realistic simulation of the osteosynthesis fixation with screws in the adjacent bone stock and can be used for further investigations

The Go-GN Open Research Handbook

This Handbook draws together work done between 2020 and 2023 by members of the Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN). GO-GN is a network of PhD candidates around the world whose research projects include a focus on open education. GO-GN is currently funded through the OER programme of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and administered by the Open Education Research Hub from the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University, UK. In our current phase of activity, we began these collaborative writing efforts with a Research Methods Handbook which was created during the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic. Working together at distance provided an important way to strengthen community links when meeting in person was not possible. The Research Methods Handbook was well received by a much larger audience than we anticipated, and went on to win an Open Research Award. We followed this up with a sister publication, our Conceptual Frameworks Guide. This explores a less well traversed (but nonetheless important) area of scholarly focus. Together, these two explore open approaches to the theory and practice of research in open education. One distinctive feature of our presentation is to foreground the authentic experiences of doctoral researchers who have used specific approaches in researching open education. While it is not possible to cover all approaches in this detail, we hope that important insights are presented in this form of open practice. Throughout 2020-2022 we also regularly engaged our membership through collective reviews of recently published papers and articles. The Research Reviews serve as an overview of recent research but also as a snapshot of the critical responses recorded by doctoral and post-doctoral researchers working in relevant areas. No one volume can claim to comprehensively contain the diversity and variety of open approaches, and this is no exception. But one virtue of openness is that we can draw on the openly licensed works of others to increase our coverage of relevant areas. The Additional Resources at the end of this volume bring together a range of openly licensed texts on open education research and suggests places for further reading and research. Consequently, the information contained here represents a wide range of contributors and collaborators. The original and intended audience for this volume is the doctoral student working on an open education research project - in short, the typical student member of GO-GN and the profile the network exists to support. However, we’ve learned through feedback and analytics that the potential audience for works like this is much larger. Many people who wouldn’t describe themselves as researchers still do research and evaluation. Presenting accessible insights into research foundations and practices helps with this and can be understood as a form of open practice

Is Mixed Methods Social Network Analysis Ethical?

This book chapter aims to explore the affordances and limitations of Mixed Methods Social Network Analysis (MMSNA) from an ethics perspective. In line with Ifenthaler and Schumacher (2016) we define ethics as “a system of fundamental principles and universal values of right conduct”. There may be substantial ethical considerations when conducting MMSNA research in comparison to more ’standard’ social science approaches: lack of anonymization; potential to identify non-respondents; and identification of “hidden” sub-groups. We will use one practical example to highlight potential ethical issues when conducting MMSNA research. We hope that by raising awareness of the potential ethical issues, researchers, practitioners, and the actual participants will become more mindful of the affordances and limitations of MMSNA research approaches