Teaching Engineering Ethics in the Classroom through a Town Hall Meeting Activity

Engineers often contribute to projects that impact many people and have ethical implications. Some may even move to a career of political advocacy and policy-making. However, most engineering curricula have a strongly technical focus and do not require students to think critically about ethical issues related to engineering. To bridge this gap, we developed a classroom-based town hall meeting activity that demonstrates the ethical issues that may arise when engineers are advocating for or helping craft public policies. Our town hall meeting scenario, which was set in a fictional tourist town called Rainbow Town, divided a class of twenty engineering students into groups of engineers, politicians, and voters. There were two opposing political groups and two engineering groups with competing interests. The voters had individual characters with varying careers and objectives. The town hall meeting was a debate on whether Rainbow Town should undertake a construction project that would bring jobs to the city, but could potentially adversely impact fish population at the town’s natural heritage site, the main source of income for the town. The objective of the activity varied based on what role each student was playing. The politicians’ job was to further the objectives of their own party while simultaneously keeping their voter base happy. The engineers’ job was to help voters make an informed decision about which policy (or party) to vote for, while helping politicians craft the right policy. The voters’ job was to protect their own livelihoods. Despite the simplicity of the town hall meeting scenario, the students wholeheartedly donned the mantle of their assigned role, taking the objectives of their role seriously. At the post-activity debrief, students commented that the activity was harder on the engineers since they had to prove everything with facts, but the politician groups did not.Cockrell School of Engineerin

Arctic Ice Chess

Arctic Ice Chess is an interactive chess game about climate change and the Arctic and its related geopolitical issues that involve the emerging shipping routes and petroleum deposits that the melting ice reveals

How state entrepreneurial development strategies may make income inequality worse

In recent decades many US states have explored new methods of attracting new business and by extension, enhancing employment opportunities. But do these strategies benefit all workers equally? In new research which examines state policies to create an ‘innovation economy’ attractive to business, Sarah Young finds that such policies actually increase inequality between low and high wage earners; a result which is at odds with the desire of many state officials to create a labor market made up of ‘quality’ jobs

What to Do about Data: An Overview of Guidelines and Policies for Dataset Collection Development

Objective Datasets are increasingly emerging as a ‘new currency’ in collection development. While purchasing models may in some ways mirror more traditional forms of electronic information, there are many unique considerations in the collection and acquisition of datasets. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which academic libraries have formalized dataset collection development policies and to highlight some of the key considerations in the development of such policies. The focus here is on commercially available datasets, rather than datasets produced at home institutions. Methods Currently existing dataset collection development policies and guidelines will be gathered from web searches of academic library websites, calls to listservs and personal communications. Based on these existing practices, as well as a brief literature review, key considerations will be identified. Ongoing discussions at our own institution will also inform this work. Results Some existing policies have already been identified highlighting several important considerations in the development of dataset collection development policies. Those considerations include cost, individual vs. institutional access, long-term value of the data, storage and preservation, access and discoverability, licensing restrictions, among others. Conclusions While several institutions have formalized collection development policies in regards to datasets, this remains a relatively underdeveloped area of collection development. Given the growing importance of datasets as a currency of research, libraries should strive to identify their roles in dataset collection and consider guidelines for selectors, liaisons, and other librarians involved in supporting academic research

Body image and celebrity tabloids

This research aims to find a relationship between celebrity--obsessed tabloids, and the effect on body image of women ages 18-24 living in West Virginia, versus outside the state of West Virginia, based on a numeric scale

Narrative Discourse in Bilingual English-Spanish Speakers: A Case Control Study

The study explored differences in storytelling between bilingual English and Spanish speakers and monolingual English Speakers, differences between Spanish and English storytelling in bilingual speakers, and the relation between language ability used in storytelling and language ability used on a structured measure of language ability. Ten second and third grade children were targeted for this study – five of whom were monolingual English speakers and the other five were bilingual English-Spanish speakers. Bilingual children completed two sessions – one in English and one in Spanish – while monolingual children completed one session in English. Each session contained a narrative retell, unique narrative, and the core language score in the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF). The findings suggested that the bilingual and monolingual children performed similarly on the unique narratives; however, they performed significantly different on the narrative retells. Monolingual and bilingual children also scored similarly on the CELF examination. In addition, bilingual children scored similarly on the CELF examination in English and Spanish

Remembering the narrative motions: What tuberculosis can teach us about COVID-19

COVID-19 was an unexpected global interruption to the world, but it was not without precedent. The outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) also shows parallels. What can be learned from the outbreak TB is that the early days of a global health event are particularly important to take note of to see where metanarratives smooth over local stories, especially to account for a more diverse and equitable sample of stories of the COVID-19’s impact

Stress reactivity in individuals with Non-REM Parasomnias, insomnia and good sleep

To date, there is little research into either stress reactivity or the specificity of psychological characteristics in particular forms of sleep disorder. NREM parasomnias are a relatively un-studied group of sleep disorders. The purpose of this study was to gain greater insight into how people with NREM parasomnias respond to ‘threat’ and to life situations. In particular, the aim was to investigate how their responses to a psychological stressor compared to individuals with insomnia and to good sleepers by measuring autonomic arousal, as well as subjective appraisals of stress. Baseline levels of autonomic arousal were intended to provide insight into daytime arousal levels at the trait level. Participants (N = 38) were recruited from the general population and attended the University of Glasgow Sleep Centre to take part. Autonomic arousal was measured via continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings of heart rate (HR) and cardiac vagal tone (CVT) whilst participants took part in baseline, stressor (a difficult mathematical task) and recovery phases. In general, group differences were not found, however this may be partly due to the small sample size and corresponding lack of power to detect differences. The results indicated that the NREM group reacted to stress in a similar way to good sleepers. In general, it was the insomnia group but not the NREM group whose data differed from good sleepers. However, both the NREM parasomnia and Insomnia groups exhibited a relatively higher (though not statistically significant) resting baseline HR compared to the good sleeper group, suggesting a higher level of underlying sympathetic arousal. The findings of this type of study have potentially important implications for the development of treatment programmes for NREM parasomnias. However, further work needs to be done before any conclusions can be drawn. The study was intended as an exploratory study and the preliminary findings indicate that further exploration is warranted