Pedagogy First, Technology Second: teaching & learning information literacy online

This paper explores the pedagogical and technical issues, challenges and outcomes of creating an online information literacy course. Currently under development, this course will be offered as a parallel study option to Advanced Information Retrieval Skills (AIRS:IFN001 ) for QUT postgraduate students, a compulsory face-to-face course for all QUT research students. The aim of this project is to optimise students’ access to AIRS:IFN001 and meet the University’s objectives regarding flexible delivery and online teaching. Still in its developmental stages, AIRS::Online extends beyond the current notion of static online information literacy tutorials by providing a facilitated, student focussed learning environment comprising content and learning experiences enhanced by appropriate multimedia technology and resources which engage students in planned facilitated and/or self-paced learning events. Course assessment is formative and summative, and is comprised of a research log and reflective journal to provide a means for reviewing the content and key process of advanced information searching and retrieval

A Land-Use and Water-Quality History of White Rock Lake Reservoir, Dallas, Texas, Based on Paleolimnological Analyses

White Rock Lake reservoir in Dallas, Texas contains a 150-cm sediment record of silty clay that documents land-use changes since its construction in 1912. Pollen analysis corroborates historical evidence that between 1912 and 1950 the watershed was primarily agricultural. Land disturbance by plowing coupled with strong and variable spring precipitation caused large amounts of sediment to enter the lake during this period. Diatoms were not preserved at this time probably because of low productivity compared to diatom dissolution by warm, alkaline water prior to burial in the sediments. After 1956, the watershed became progressively urbanized. Erosion decreased, land stabilized, and pollen of riparian trees increased as the lake water became somewhat less turbid. By 1986 the sediment record indicates that diatom productivity had increased beyond rates of diatom destruction. Neither increased nutrients nor reduced pesticides can account for increased diatom productivity, but grain size studies imply that before 1986 diatoms were light limited by high levels of turbidity. This study documents how reservoirs may relate to land-use practices and how watershed management could extend reservoir life and improve water quality

Property and Marriage : The Law and the Practice in Early Nineteenth-Century Montreal

Between the 1820s and 1840s, the use of marriage contracts in Montreal changed. Firstly, over this period, marriage contracts were increasingly the tool of a propertied minority of the population. Secondly, a rapidly growing proportion of those signing a contract chose to keep the property of each spouse separate rather than creating a community of property. This choice was not limited to anglophones and was most pronounced when the husband was a merchant or "bourgeois". Thirdly, more and more of the wives of wealthier Montrealers appear to have had the power to administer their own personal goods. How this worked out in practice, however, has to be determined. Entre les années 1820 et 1840, trois transformations ont marqué l’utilisation des contrats de mariage à Montréal. D’abord, la signature d’un contrat devint progressivement le lot d’une minorité de possédants. Ensuite, une proportion toujours plus large choisit la séparation plutôt que la communauté de biens, surtout chez les couples dont le mari était un marchand ou un bourgeois, et cela, non seulement parmi les anglophones. Enfin, il semble que dans les familles très aisées, un nombre grandissant de femmes aient assumé la gestion de leurs biens quoiqu’on ne sache pas grand-chose sur l’exercice de ce droit

Inequality in Australia: Who is affected and why?

This report expands the information in Inequality in Australia 2020: Overview, to look deeply at the groups of people most affected by income and wealth inequality and the main contributing factors. It provides a base-line of data against which to assess the impacts wrought by the COVID19 pandemic and policy responses to it