OER: One Course at a Time

Open Educational Resources (OER) provide an excellent opportunity to reduce costs, increase access, and vary interaction for learners. However, locating, compiling, and distributing OER can be a daunting task and there several factors to consider, such as time, sustainability, accessibility, and instructional strategies. During this presentation, I will share how Rollins College supports the implementation of OER by offering a grant. Faculty awarded a grant collaborate with a librarian and an instructional technologist to locate, create, compile, and distribute OER. Three grants have been awarded to date, each of which has been unique, ranging from one class utilizing free online .epub files to a faculty member creating an OER from scratch. I will provide a brief overview of these projects, the process used to support each, lessons learned, and implementation strategies to consider. Additionally, I will share survey data collected during a pre- and post- OER implementation

Approaches to Implementing Virtual Reality for All

This article discusses practical approaches and strategies to help educators determine how they can start implementing virtual reality (VR) in their courses while addressing the needs of diverse learners and engaging all students in meaningful VR learning experiences. The practical approaches and strategies shared in this paper center around three main areas of access: accessibility considerations, access to available technology, and access to VR experiences

Supporting Sustainable Digital Humanities Projects: Managing the Lifecycle of Student-Created Web Content from Inception to Archiving

A Digital Archivist and an Instructional Technologist team up to discuss how, together, we manage various stages of the Digital Humanities project lifecycle in the context of a small liberal arts college. Our accomplishments and lessons learned include, but are not limited to: 1. Developing retention and archiving policies for DH projects to meet short-term and long-term project goals. 2. Educating faculty and students about the implications of sharing their identity and work online in an Open Access environment (with special consideration of FERPA), and documenting student consent regarding privacy and online publication. 3. Navigating multimedia, linked, and dynamic content when archiving class blogs at the end of a project’s life. Our collaboration has broken down the silos we previously worked in and enabled our teams to perform more effectively. Instructional Designers are now ready and empowered to suggest a variety of sustainability measures at the start of a new DH project, therein making their partnerships more impactful. The College Archives is now able to document online curricula and student work in new ways, most of which support Open Access principles and enable freer re-use of quality academic products. This session will review our approach to the full DH project lifecycle with helpful use cases and examples. In addition, we will share our policies, forms, and documentation to those who would like to reuse for their own context. Finally, we also hope to engage attendees in a conversation about how they address sustainable DH with success in their organization

OER: One Course at a Time

Open Educational Resources (OER) provide an excellent opportunity to reduce costs, increase access, and vary interaction for learners. However, locating, compiling, and distributing OER can be a daunting task and there several factors to consider, such as time, sustainability, accessibility, and instructional strategies. During this presentation, I will share how Rollins College supports the implementation of OER by offering a grant. Faculty awarded a grant collaborate with a librarian and an instructional technologist to locate, create, compile, and distribute OER. Three grants have been awarded to date, each of which has been unique, ranging from one class utilizing free online .epub files to a faculty member creating an OER from scratch. I will provide a brief overview of these projects, the process used to support each, lessons learned, and implementation strategies to consider. Additionally, I will share survey data collected during a pre- and post- OER implementation

Mapping genomic loci implicates genes and synaptic biology in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia has a heritability of 60-80%1, much of which is attributable to common risk alleles. Here, in a two-stage genome-wide association study of up to 76,755 individuals with schizophrenia and 243,649 control individuals, we report common variant associations at 287 distinct genomic loci. Associations were concentrated in genes that are expressed in excitatory and inhibitory neurons of the central nervous system, but not in other tissues or cell types. Using fine-mapping and functional genomic data, we identify 120 genes (106 protein-coding) that are likely to underpin associations at some of these loci, including 16 genes with credible causal non-synonymous or untranslated region variation. We also implicate fundamental processes related to neuronal function, including synaptic organization, differentiation and transmission. Fine-mapped candidates were enriched for genes associated with rare disruptive coding variants in people with schizophrenia, including the glutamate receptor subunit GRIN2A and transcription factor SP4, and were also enriched for genes implicated by such variants in neurodevelopmental disorders. We identify biological processes relevant to schizophrenia pathophysiology; show convergence of common and rare variant associations in schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders; and provide a resource of prioritized genes and variants to advance mechanistic studies

Mapping genomic loci prioritises genes and implicates synaptic biology in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia has a heritability of 60–80%1, much of which is attributable to common risk alleles. Here, in a two-stage genome-wide association study of up to 76,755 individuals with schizophrenia and 243,649 control individuals, we report common variant associations at 287 distinct genomic loci. Associations were concentrated in genes that are expressed in excitatory and inhibitory neurons of the central nervous system, but not in other tissues or cell types. Using fine-mapping and functional genomic data, we identify 120 genes (106 protein-coding) that are likely to underpin associations at some of these loci, including 16 genes with credible causal non-synonymous or untranslated region variation. We also implicate fundamental processes related to neuronal function, including synaptic organization, differentiation and transmission. Fine-mapped candidates were enriched for genes associated with rare disruptive coding variants in people with schizophrenia, including the glutamate receptor subunit GRIN2A and transcription factor SP4, and were also enriched for genes implicated by such variants in neurodevelopmental disorders. We identify biological processes relevant to schizophrenia pathophysiology; show convergence of common and rare variant associations in schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders; and provide a resource of prioritized genes and variants to advance mechanistic studies

Programmatic, Systematic, Automatic: An Online Course Accessibility Support Model

Over the past few years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of requests for online course material accommodations at the University of Central Florida (UCF). In response to these requests, UCF\u27s Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) formed new teams, reevaluated its processes, and initiated a partnership with UCF\u27s Student Disability Services (SDS) office to address these needs. This article presents the Online Course Accessibility Support Model that was developed and implemented by CDL. This model was designed to provide a scalable and programmatic approach to creating accessible online course materials. It identifies the following three strategies to address these needs: (1) teach faculty Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles through professional development programs regarding the ways in which UDL relates to accessible online materials for new courses; (2) provide legacy faculty members with the opportunity to update their existing online course materials to accommodate diverse learners; and (3) expedite accommodations for online course materials to address immediate needs (e.g., situations in which a student registered with SDS is currently enrolled in an online course that contains some inaccessible materials). As a result of implementing this model, communication between CDL and SDS improved, roles related to making course materials accessible were defined, and students gained access to accessible online course materials more quickly

User Acceptance Of Mobile Technology: A Campus-Wide Implementation Of Blackboard\u27S Mobile\u3csup\u3eTm\u3c/sup\u3e Learn Application

Mobile learning is a fast growing trend in higher education. This study examined how an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) could evaluate and predict the use of a mobile application in learning. A path analysis design was used to measure the mediating effects on the use of Blackboard\u27s Mobile TM Learn application in coursework (N = 77). The results indicate that the hypothesized model was a strong fit, x2(8, N = 77) = 6.84, p = 0.55. Perceived resources, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and attitude were found to be significant determinants of users\u27 acceptance of mobile application technology. The findings of this research have implications for educational leaders, mobile application designers, course instructors, and instructional technologists who want to understand why students adopt mobile learning, how to devise practical methods for integrating mobile applications into curriculum, and ways to evaluate of the acceptance and usability of the mobile learning systems

Medical Financial Aid; MARA

Medical Financial Aid Chatbot Demonstration (Logan Smith and Michael Powell) MARA: Mobile Academic Research Application (Amy Sugar, Julian Chambliss and Shree Raj Shrestha

Incorporating family factors into treatment planning for adolescent depression: Perceived parental criticism predicts longitudinal symptom trajectory in the Youth Partners in Care trial.

BackgroundThis study aimed to clarify the predictive significance of youth perceptions of parental criticism assessed using a brief measure designed to enhance clinical utility. We hypothesized that high perceived parental criticism would be associated with more severe depression over 18-months of follow-up.MethodsThe study involved secondary analyses from the Youth Partners in Care trial, which demonstrated that a quality improvement intervention aimed at increasing access to evidence-based depression treatment in primary care led to improved depression outcomes at post-treatment compared to usual care enhanced by provider education regarding depression evaluation/management. Patients (N = 418; ages 13-21) were assessed at four time points: baseline; post-treatment (six-month follow-up); 12- and 18-month follow-ups. The primary analysis estimated the effect of perceived parental criticism on likelihood of severe depression (i.e., Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale ≥ 24) over post-intervention follow-ups using a repeated-measures logistic regression model. Secondarily, a linear mixed-effects growth model examined symptom trajectories from baseline through 18-months using the Mental Health Index-5, a measure of emotional distress available at all time-points.ResultsHigh perceived parental criticism emerged as a robust predictor of clinically-elevated depression (OR=1.66, p=.02) and a more pernicious symptom trajectory over 18-months (β =-1.89, p<.0001).LimitationsThe association between the self-report perceived criticism and traditional expressed emotion measures derived from verbal and nonverbal parental behaviors was not evaluated.ConclusionsResults support perceived parental criticism as a predictor of youth depression outcomes over 18-months. This brief measure can be feasibly integrated within clinical assessment to assist clinicians in optimizing treatment benefits