Supporting and Enabling Scholarship: Developing and Sharing Expertise in Online Learning and Teaching

In a highly competitive, rapidly changing higher education market, universities need to be able to generate pedagogical expertise quickly and ensure that it is applied to practice. Since teaching approaches are constantly evolving, partly responding to emerging learning technologies, there is a need to foster ways to keep abreast on an ongoing basis. This paper explores how a small-scale project, the Teaching Online Panel (TOP), used scholarship investigations and a bottom-up approach to enhance one particular aspect of academic practice – online learning and teaching. The experiences of TOP are useful for identifying: - how a scholarship approach can help develop academic expertise - its contribution to enhancing understanding of staff’s different roles in the University - ways of developing the necessary supportive network for those undertaking such scholarship - the effectiveness of staff development which is peer-led rather than imposed from above - how practical examples can stimulate practice development - the relevance of literature on communities of practice and landscapes of practice for scholarship - the important role of ‘brokers’ to facilitate the dissemination of scholarship findings - the benefits to the brokers’ own professional roles - the challenges of sustaining such an approach and lessons learnt. This study has relevance for those involved in supporting scholarship or delivering staff development in Higher Education

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?: CONSTRAINTS OF POPULATION,TEMPERATURE RISE, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS: A CONCEPT PAPER.

How Much Is Enough? Can be thought of generally in terms of sustainability. This paper broadly adopts that approach but also mentions The Sufficiency Economy (SE) Thailand which is derived from Buddhist philosophy and which promotes the idea that we should open our mind and implement practices to the needs (not wants) of all people and that those needs be modest i.e. sufficient.  Proponents of this sufficiency economy were EF Schumacher (19111977) of the UK and King Bhumibol Adulyadejj (Rama 9 (reign from 05-05-1950 to 13-102016) in Thailand.  This concept paper considers major factors influencing the Sufficiency Economy worldwide (not only for Thailand) namely: population (whether it involves growth, stability or decline); changes to global climate; preferred political system/s; preferred economic system/s; preferred standard-of-living; employment opportunity

Community environment, cognitive impairment and dementia in later life: results from the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study

Background: Few studies have investigated the impact of the community environment, as distinct from area deprivation, on cognition in later life. This study explores cross-sectional associations between cognitive impairment and dementia and environmental features at the community level in older people. Method: The postcodes of the 2424 participants in the year-10 interview of the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study in England were mapped into small area level geographical units (Lower-layer Super Output Areas) and linked to environmental data in government statistics. Multilevel logistic regression was conducted to investigate associations between cognitive impairment (defined as MMSE3 in GMS-AGECAT) and community level measurements including area deprivation, natural environment, land use mix and crime. Sensitivity analyses tested the impact of people moving residence within the last two years. Results: Higher levels of area deprivation and crime were not significantly associated with cognitive impairment and dementia after accounting for individual level factors. Living in areas with high land use mix was significantly associated with a nearly 60% reduced odds of dementia (OR: 0.4; 95% CI: 0.2, 0.8) after adjusting for individual level factors and area deprivation, but there was no linear trend for cognitive impairment. Increased odds of dementia (OR: 2.2, 95% CI: 1.2, 4.2) and cognitive impairment (OR: 1.4, 95% CI: 1.0, 2.0) were found in the highest quartile of natural environment availability. Findings were robust to exclusion of the recently relocated. Conclusion: Features of land use have complex associations with cognitive impairment and dementia. Further investigations should focus on environmental influences on cognition to inform health and social policies

A Transfer of Sequence Function Via Equivalence in a Connectionist Network

Connectionist networks may provide useful models of stimulus equivalence and transfer of function phenomena. Such models have been applied to a range of behavioral tasks and have demonstrated transfers of function via equivalence relations following appropriate training, with networks accurately simulating the behavior of human subjects. In the current study, a connectionist network was pretrained on a series of equivalence and sequence tasks to simulate the preexperimental experience of an adult subject. It was then exposed to the equivalent of six conditional discriminations, and was tested for the formation of three 3-member equivalence classes (corresponding to A 1-A2-A3, B1-B2-B3, C1-C2-C3). It was subsequently trained to produce a pair of four part sequences (corresponding to B1 -+B2-+Ct1 -+B3 and B3-+ B2-+Ct2-+ B1 , where Ct1 and Ct2 represented contextual cues) before being tested for transfer, through equivalence, of the sequence responses to the C stimuli. Following appropriate pretraining, the network showed the formation of three equivalence classes and a transfer of sequence function to the nontrained C stimuli (producing the novel sequences C1 -+C2-. Ct1 -+C3 and C3-+C2-+Ct2-+C1) . A control network, which was not exposed to conditional discrimination training, failed to demonstrate equivalence and the transfer of sequence function, as predicted by findings from experimental demonstrations with human participants. Network performance was analyzed as a function of amount of pretraining and a number of psychologically plausible training methods are presented. The data suggest that connectionist networks may provide accurate and plausible models of stimulus equivalence and transfer of function phenomena in natural language

Community environment, cognitive impairment and dementia in later life: results from the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study

Background: Few studies have investigated the impact of the community environment, as distinct from area deprivation, on cognition in later life. This study explores cross-sectional associations between cognitive impairment and dementia and environmental features at the community level in older people. Method: The postcodes of the 2424 participants in the year-10 interview of the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study in England were mapped into small area level geographical units (Lower-layer Super Output Areas) and linked to environmental data in government statistics. Multilevel logistic regression was conducted to investigate associations between cognitive impairment (defined as MMSE3 in GMS-AGECAT) and community level measurements including area deprivation, natural environment, land use mix and crime. Sensitivity analyses tested the impact of people moving residence within the last two years. Results: Higher levels of area deprivation and crime were not significantly associated with cognitive impairment and dementia after accounting for individual level factors. Living in areas with high land use mix was significantly associated with a nearly 60% reduced odds of dementia (OR: 0.4; 95% CI: 0.2, 0.8) after adjusting for individual level factors and area deprivation, but there was no linear trend for cognitive impairment. Increased odds of dementia (OR: 2.2, 95% CI: 1.2, 4.2) and cognitive impairment (OR: 1.4, 95% CI: 1.0, 2.0) were found in the highest quartile of natural environment availability. Findings were robust to exclusion of the recently relocated. Conclusion: Features of land use have complex associations with cognitive impairment and dementia. Further investigations should focus on environmental influences on cognition to inform health and social policies

Regional anti-corruption effort, political connections and firm innovation effort: Evidence from China

This paper examines how firm characteristics and local anti‐corruption effort moderate the influence of political connections on enterprises’ private R&D investment using data from 2,587 Chinese A‐share listed enterprises. Our results show that the local anti‐corruption institutional environment significantly moderates the strong relationship between political connections and enterprises’ private R&D investment. Firm characteristics (i.e., firm size and firm age) also show a moderating effect on the relationship between political connection and enterprises’ private R&D investment; larger and older enterprises are more likely to have innovative resources and business cooperation partners, and thus are able to reduce their degree of reliance on political connections and government funding. The results of our study suggest the importance of having a transparent and fair institutional environment for enterprise innovation activities

Flaunting it on Facebook: Young adults, drinking cultures and the cult of celebrity

Copyright © Antonia Lyons; Tim McCreanor; Fiona Hutton; Ian Goodwin; Helen Moewaka Barnes; Christine Griffin; Kerryellen Vroman; Acushla Dee O’Carroll; Patricia Niland; Lina Samu Print publication available from: http://www.drinkingcultures.info/Young adults in Aotearoa/New Zealand (NZ) regularly engage in heavy drinking episodes with groups of friends within a collective culture of intoxication to ‘have fun’ and ‘be sociable’. This population has also rapidly increased their use of new social networking technologies (e.g. mobile camera/ video phones; Facebook and YouTube) and are said to be obsessed with identity, image and celebrity. This research project explored the ways in which new technologies are being used by a range of young people (and others, including marketers) in drinking practices and drinking cultures in Aotearoa/NZ. It also explored how these technologies impact on young adults’ behaviours and identities, and how this varies across young adults of diverse ethnicities (Maori [indigenous people of NZ], Pasifika [people descended from the Pacific Islands] and Pakeha [people of European descent]), social classes and genders. We collected data from a large and diverse sample of young adults aged 18-25 years employing novel and innovative methodologies across three data collection stages. In total 141 participants took part in 34 friendship focus group discussions (12 Pakeha, 12 Maori and 10 Pasifika groups) while 23 young adults showed and discussed their Facebook pages during an individual interview that involved screencapture software and video recordings. Popular online material regarding drinking alcohol was also collected (via groups, interviews, and web searches), providing a database of 487 links to relevant material (including websites, apps, and games). Critical and in-depth qualitative analyses across these multimodal datasets were undertaken. Key findings demonstrated that social technologies play a crucial role in young adults’ drinking cultures and processes of identity construction. Consuming alcohol to a point of intoxication was a commonplace leisure-time activity for most of the young adult participants, and social network technologies were fully integrated into their drinking cultures. Facebook was employed by all participants and was used before, during and following drinking episodes. Uploading and sharing photos on Facebook was particularly central to young people’s drinking cultures and the ongoing creation of their identities. This involved a great deal of Facebook ‘work’ to ensure appropriate identity displays such as tagging (the addition of explanatory or identifying labels) and untagging photos. Being visible online was crucial for many young adults, and they put significant amounts of time and energy into updating and maintaining Facebook pages, particularly with material regarding drinking practices and events. However this was not consistent across the sample, and our findings revealed nuanced and complex ways in which people from different ethnicities, genders and social classes engaged with drinking cultures and new technologies in different ways, reflecting their positioning within the social structure. Pakeha shared their drinking practices online with relatively little reflection, while Pasifika and Maori participants were more likely to discuss avoiding online displays of drinking and demonstrated greater reflexive self-surveillance. Females spoke of being more aware of normative expectations around gender than males, and described particular forms of online identity displays (e.g. moderated intake, controlled selfdetermination). Participants from upper socio-economic groups expressed less concern than others about both drinking and posting material online. Celebrity culture was actively engaged with, in part at least, as a means of expressing what it is to be a young adult in contemporary society, and reinforcing the need for young people to engage in their own everyday practices of ‘celebritising’ themselves through drinking cultures online. Alcohol companies employed social media to market their products to young people in sophisticated ways that meant the campaigns and actions were rarely perceived as marketing. Online alcohol marketing initiatives were actively appropriated by young people and reproduced within their Facebook pages to present tastes and preferences, facilitate social interaction, construct identities, and more generally develop cultural capital. These commercial activities within the commercial platforms that constitute social networking systems contribute heavily to a general ‘culture of intoxication’ while simultaneously allowing young people to ‘create’ and ‘produce’ themselves online via the sharing of consumption ‘choices’, online interactions and activities

Relocation at older age: results from the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study.

BACKGROUND: Community environment might play an important role in supporting ageing in place. This paper aims to explore relocation at older age and its associations with individual and community level factors. METHODS: The postcodes of the 2424 people in the year-10 interview of the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (CFAS) in England were mapped onto Enumeration Districts and linked to their corresponding Townsend deprivation score and the 2011 rural/urban categories. Multilevel logistic regression was conducted to examine the influence of the baseline individual (age, gender, education and social class) and community (rural/urban categories and area deprivation) level factors on relocation over 10 years. RESULTS: One-third of people moved residence after the age of 65 years and over. Older age, low education, low social class and living in rural areas at baseline were associated with higher probability of moving later in life. The likelihood of relocation in later life increased from least to most deprived areas (odds ratio: 2.0, 95% confidence interval: 1.4, 2.8). CONCLUSIONS: Urban/rural contexts and area deprivation are associated with relocation at older age and indicate that community environment may be relevant to ageing in place.Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (MRC CFAS) was funded by the Department of health and the Medical Research Council (grant number G9901400); F.E.M. and A.M.P. are supported by the Medical Research Council (grant number U105292687 and MR/K021907/1); Y.-T.W. received a PhD scholarship from Cambridge Trust, University of Cambridge. We thank the participants, their families, general practitioners and their staff, and the primary care trusts for their cooperation and support.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdv05

Community volunteer support for families with young children: Protocol for the volunteer family connect randomized controlled trial

Background: Use of community volunteers to support vulnerable families is a widely employed strategy with a long history. However, there has been minimal formal scientific investigation into the effectiveness of volunteer home visiting programs for families. There is also a need for research examining whether volunteer home visiting leads to improved outcomes for volunteers. Objective: The objective of this paper is to describe the research protocol for a pragmatic randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Volunteer Family Connect intervention, a volunteer home visiting program designed to support families of young children who experience social isolation or a lack of parenting confidence and skills. The project is being conducted in partnership with 3 leading not-for-profit organizations, designed to contribute to the body of evidence that informs decisions about appropriate family support services according to the level of need. It is the first study to examine outcomes for both the families and the volunteers who deliver the service. Methods: The RCT is being conducted in 7 sites across Australia. We aim to recruit 300 families to the study: 150 control (services as usual) and 150 intervention (services as usual + volunteer home visiting) families. Intervention families will receive the service for 3-12 months according to their needs, and all participants will complete 6 data collection points over 15 months. A minimum of 80 volunteers will also be recruited, along with a matched community comparison group. The volunteers will complete 3 data collection points over 12 months. Primary outcomes include community connectedness and parenting competence. Secondary outcomes include parent physical and mental health; general parent well-being; parent empowerment; the child-parent relationship; sustainability of family routines; child immunization; child nutrition or breastfeeding; number of accidental injury reports; and volunteer health, well-being, and community connectedness. Results: This effectiveness trial was funded in 2016, and we aim to complete data collection by the end of 2018. The first results are expected to be submitted early in 2019. Conclusions: There is a need to rigorously assess volunteer home visiting and whether it has a unique and important role on the service landscape, complementary to professional services. This research is the first trial of a volunteer home visiting program to be conducted in Australia and one of the largest of its kind worldwide