Research Resurgence Amid the Pandemic

The year 2020 turned out to be a pivotal annum for the hospitality, event, entertainment, restaurant, sports, tourism and travel industries, and for UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management as well. The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic brought these industries to a halt, and at the same time boosted the demand for research in these fields. Predictive analytics and forecasts for the future are current topics of conversation for those who saw revenues dip and furloughs and layoffs increase

Micro- and nanoplastic pollution of freshwater and wastewater treatment systems

Plastic waste is a widespread and persistent global challenge with negative impacts on the environment, economy, human health and aesthetics. Plastic pollution has been a focus of environmental research over the past few decades, particularly in relation to macroplastics that are easily visible by the naked eye. More recently, smaller plastic waste at the micro- and nanoscale has become of increasing concern, resulting in extensive investment in research to advance knowledge on the sources, distribution, fate and impact of these materials in aquatic systems. However, owing to their small sizes and a lack of unified methods, adequate quantitative and qualitative assessment has been difficult. Furthermore, most of the microplastic surveys available to date have focussed in the marine environment while scarce knowledge exists of freshwater systems. Because the majority of marine debris originates on land, the role of wastewater treatment systems and natural fluvial vectors in delivering these emerging contaminants to the environment should be explored. Considering fundamental aspects pertaining to microplastic sources, distribution, mobility and degradation in these systems is crucial for developing effective control measures and strategies to mitigate the discharge of these particles to the sea

Technology and Hospitality Education – Perfect partners

Light Board recording, Microsoft HoloLens, Teams, and Zuddl are just a few of the technology advancements on the campus of the #1 college in the nation for hospitality education and research. It’s not just hardcover textbooks, library study sessions and classroom lectures when it comes to educating the future leaders of the hospitality industry, as they prepare for global careers. The tools for teaching have gone high tech

Rosen Library and STARS: Shining a Light on the Past and Illuminating the Future of Hospitality & Tourism Industry Research

The Rosen College Library\u27s print and electronic collections are rich and tailored to the college’s unique programs and degrees, but that’s just the start of what makes it unique. From access to materials both old and new, to reference support for researchers, to partnerships with industry organizations, to conducive spaces for work and study, the Rosen College Library is an integral part of the Rosen College\u27s research mission and success

Time + Talent + Treasures = Partnerships for Success

The tools for philanthropy and successful development do not come in a box with instructions. Instead, they are crafted through building positive relationships over time, which unleashes potential in like-minded individuals, enriches the human experience, and propels broad-based prosperity for the many communities positively impacted by the outcomes. At UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management, we are working to make a difference and transform lives

School-to-Work in the 1990s: Modelling Transitions with large-scale datasets

First paragraph: In this chapter we explore school to work transitions by documenting the activities of young people who reached the minimum school leaving age in the 1990s. Our starting position is that changes in the economy, education and training lead us to suspect that the landscape of social and economic conditions under which young people grew up during the 1990s were sufficiently different from those a decade before to justify exploration. Through the analysis of data from cohorts of young people who reached minimum school leaving age in the 1990s we evaluate the ‘detraditionalisation’ thesis

Between the NEET and the tidy : exploring 'middle' outcomes in Scottish school qualifications

Despite changes in the education system the qualifications that are gained at school remain important for young people’s pathways and trajectories. This paper is an element of a wider on-going programme of theoretically informed empirical analyses, which examine young people’s educational outcomes. The empirical work is situated within an overarching theoretical sociological framework which focuses on the outcomes of ‘ordinary’ young people who are neither educationally unengaged, nor part of an educational elite. In this phase of the work we focus on outcomes in Scottish school-level qualifications. This research is original in that it uses administrative data from the Scottish Qualifications Authority that is held as part of the Scottish Longitudinal Study. We begin by reconsidering challenging issues associated with measuring school-level qualifications. To address these challenges we undertake analyses of pupil’s subject-area outcomes using a latent variable modelling approach. A novel aspect of the work is that we undertake a sensitivity analysis to compare a standard technique for latent group assignment (modal assignment) with a recently proposed alternative (proportional assignment). The overall message is dispiriting because after half a century of comprehensive education in Scotland, school outcomes remain stratified both by gender and by a pupil’s social background. The analyses uncovered four main latent educational groups. One group had very positive outcomes and pupils in this group were generally more socially advantaged. By contrast another group had very poor outcomes and pupils in this group were generally more socially disadvantaged. There were two ‘middle’ groups, which both had moderate overall school Standard Grade outcomes. These two ‘middle’ groups were similar in their overall outcomes, but at the subject area-level their outcomes were notably different. One group were more likely to gain a Credit pass in English, but were relatively less likely to gain Credit passes in Mathematics and Sciences. The other group were unlikely to gain Credit passes in English and Mathematics, but were more likely to gain Credit passes in Sciences. These pupils with ‘middle’ or ‘moderate’ outcomes in school Standard Grades are a sociologically important group that should not be overlooked. The latent variable approach offers an informative set of typologies that are likely to be impactful because they can be used to better understand patterns of educational outcomes. These typologies are important because they can directly inform current debates on raising standards in Scottish schools

Collaborative systems for enhancing the analysis of social surveys: the grid enabled specialist data environments

This paper describes a group of online services which are designed to support social survey research and the production of statistical results. The 'Grid Enabled Specialist Data Environment' (GESDE) services constitute three related systems which offer facilities to search for, extract and exploit supplementary data and metadata concerned with the measurement and operationalisation of survey variables. The services also offer users the opportunity to deposit and distribute their own supplementary data resources for the benefit of dissemination and replication of the details of their own analysis. The GESDE services focus upon three application areas: specialist data relating to the measurement of occupations; educational qualifications; and ethnicity (including nationality, language, religion, national identity). They identify information resources related to the operationalisation of variables which seek to measure each of these concepts - examples include coding frames, crosswalk and translation files, and standardisation and harmonisation recommendations. These resources constitute important supplementary data which can be usefully exploited in the analysis of survey data. The GESDE services work by collecting together as much of this supplementary data as possible, and making it searchable and retrievable to others. This paper discusses the current features of the GESDE services (which have been designed as part of a wider programme of ‘e-Science’ research in the UK), and considers ongoing challenges in providing effective support for variable-oriented statistical analysis in the social sciences