Database-Driven Website Development for Non-Profit Agencies

poster abstractThe Near Eastside Legacy Initiative grant program was created to give non-profit agencies the funds to further their missions to serve neighborhoods in Indianapolis. Two non-profit organizations were selected to receive grant funds in Spring 2013 and chose to apply those proceeds to the development of new websites to significantly increase their presence and community engagement opportunities. Students from the Computer Information and Graphics Technology department at IUPUI were asked to develop the websites as part of the grant project. Twelve students volunteered for the project and were split into three teams, each of which completed the entire website development process independently over the course of eight weeks. The teams conducted client interviews, researched existing software, created and edited visual elements, and produced websites backed by the Wordpress content management system. After further consultation with the clients, updates were made and the student teams produced training materials with specific task-based instructions so that the websites could be maintained by the agencies. The organizations expect to launch their new database-driven websites in spring 2013. The students gained valuable experience working directly with clients, responding to a variety of business needs, a deeper understanding of creating software for non-technical individuals, and solid exposure to a typical scenario that developers of all types face every day

Do Students Like the Flipped Classroom? An Investigation of Student Reaction to a Flipped Undergraduate IT Course

The flipped classroom pedagogy has achieved significant mention in academic circles in recent years. "Flipping" involves the reinvention of a traditional course so that students engage with learning materials via recorded lectures and interactive exercises prior to attending class and then use class time for more interactive activities. Proper implementation of a flipped classroom is difficult to gauge, but combines successful techniques for distance education with constructivist learning theory in the classroom. While flipped classrooms are not a novel concept, technological advances and increased comfort with distance learning have made the tools to produce and consume course materials more pervasive. Flipped classroom experiments have had both positive and less-positive results and are generally measured by a significant improvement in learning outcomes. This study, however, analyzes the opinions of students in a flipped sophomore-level information technology course by using a combination of surveys and reflective statements. The author demonstrates that at the outset students are new - and somewhat receptive - to the concept of the flipped classroom. By the conclusion of the course satisfaction with the pedagogy is significant. Finally, student feedback is provided in an effort to inform instructors in the development of their own flipped classrooms

The demographics of student device ownership: An examination of the personal computing ecosystems of students in higher education

Higher education has become dependent on the use of digital materials, which may include texts, audiovisual content, and software applications. Because students in higher education are largely responsible for providing the computing devices they are required to use to interact with their digital course materials, instructors and instructional designers are often unaware of the personal computing ecosystems in use by their students. This study describes a large-scale survey of student ownership and use of computing devices at a large public university in the midwestern United States. The results demonstrate that students generally have access to devices that allow them to engage with their digital course materials, but age and demographic factors correlated with socioeconomic status appear to impact the type and quality of devices owned. The study also shows that students have access to a variety of device types and that most students perform their computing tasks on a single screen. Understanding the personal computing ecosystems of students will allow instructors and instructional designers to develop course materials that are accessible to students on the devices in use and can inform the decision-making process when an institution considers adoption of new learning technologies. This data can also be used as a foundation for future studies that examine the influence of a student’s technology access and ownership on their academic outcomes

Integrating DevOps Into the Web Development Curriculum with AWS

poster abstractCurrently within IUPUI’s Computer and Information Technology curriculum, students are responsible for hosting content on three main servers throughout the course of the degree program. Not only have these three main servers been preconfigured for the students but also they are typically reset at the conclusion of each semester resulting in lost files if the student has not saved their work locally. The overall goal of this research project is to study the benefits and feasibility of implementing a unified hosting service through the Amazon Web Services Educate program within the CIT curriculum. By implementing a unified hosting service, students will be provided with an experiential learning opportunity to manage their own AWS account from the 100 level courses throughout their entire undergraduate program. Ultimately, AWS has the ability to enable students on high-performance computing, prepare students for careers in cloud computing, and integrate a consistent platform into a variety of courses. Mentor: Rob Elliott, Department of Computer Information and Graphics Technology, Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, IUPU

Interview with Elliott Johnston

Don Dunstan Oral History Project interview transcripts. Conditions of use: No conditions are imposed on the reuse of this transcript by the interviewee. However, further publication in full by others is not permitted without permission from the State Library of South Australia, and any partial use or quoting in research publications requires proper acknowledgement of the State Library of South Australia.Interview with Elliott Johnston (AO QC) by Rob Linn on 12th November 2004

The regional economic impact of wildfires::evidence from Southern Europe

This is the final version. Available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record. We estimate the impact of wildfires on the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) and employment of regional economies in Southern Europe from 2011 to 2018. To this end we match Eurostat economic data with geospatial burned area perimeters based on satellite imagery for 233 Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 3 level regions in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Our panel fixed effects instrumental variable estimation results suggest an average contemporary decrease in a region's annual GDP growth rate of 0.11–0.18% conditional on having experienced at least one wildfire. For an average wildfire season this leads to a yearly production loss of 13–21 billion euros for Southern Europe. The impact on the employment growth rate is heterogeneous across economic activity types in that there is a decrease in the average annual employment growth rate for activities related to retail and tourism (e.g., transport, accommodation, food service activities) of 0.09–0.15%, offset by employment growth in insurance, real estate, administrative, and support service related activities of 0.13–0.22%.European Union’s Horizon 202

THE USE OF MOBILE DEVICES FOR FORMAL LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: INVESTIGATING STUDENT BEHAVIORS AND EXPECTATIONS

The use of mobile devices has transformed the way we live, work, and study. Nearly every student in higher education owns a smart phone and the majority of those that do report that they use those devices, at least in part, to conduct academic work. Institutes of higher education (IHEs) have widely adopted technologies to connect instructors and students, and most instructors incorporate digital materials into their curriculum. However, the selection of these learning technologies is often the domain of the institution or the instructor. Students are expected to provide the personal technology required to utilize these systems, which may include their mobile device. The purpose of this study is to discover what types of academic work students would like to perform on their mobile devices, what barriers to doing so they have encountered, how their learning behavior differs based on the device in use, and students' preferred instructional design practices for designing learning activities on mobile devices. A mixed-methods approach was used to answer these questions. Surveys and focus groups asked students about the personal technology that they own, the learning activities they perform, and how different devices are used to complete those activities. The log data of the Canvas learning management system was also analyzed to detail student behavior in the context of the device being used to interact with the system. The results show that students do use their mobile devices for significant amounts of academic work and consider them to be an important educational tool, but they are generally selective about the types of activities in which they will engage on a mobile device. Students tend to use their mobile devices for activities that are most convenient to them but identified several factors that prevented them from using those devices to engage in more detailed work. This study will inform instructors and instructional designers who produce academic content for students and assist IHEs in their decision-making process when adopting course materials and technologies

USABILITY TESTING AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMPUTER LITERACY AND EFFECTIVE USE OF A CHEMICAL KNOWLEDGE BASE BY FIRST-SEMESTER ORGANIC CHEMISTRY STUDENTS

poster abstractUsability testing is a technique that allows for the examination of a spe-cific user’s effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in achieving goals (Law, Hvannberg, 2002). This user-focused design process has been found to be particularly important in early site development. In this study, multiple inter-faces of the knowledge base will be examined comparatively, changing only the aesthetics. Using a think-aloud process, users will be walked through seven scenarios in the IUPUI Chemistry Knowledge Base, and asked to vo-calize their thoughts as they attempt each situation. Completion of user questionnaires and a post-test System Usability Scale (SUS) will provide recommendations from which improvements may be made to the design, layout and management of the Knowledge Base (Brooke, 1996)

How To Get the Most From Canvas: Best Practices and Lessons Learned

This engaging presentation offers a wealth of insights, tips and recommendations for how to get the most from Canvas, including tools included or accessible via Canvas and Canvas Analytics. Reflecting rich diversity in subject expertise, the presenters have been teaching and taking online courses for more than 30 years combined. Specific topics to be covered: Enhancing Student Engagement and Collaboration, Canvas Analytics and Course Organization: Pages versus Modules

Research 4.0 : Research in the age of automation

Executive Summary There is a growing consensus that we are at the start of a fourth industrial revolution, driven by developments in Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, robotics, the Internet of Things, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, 5G, new forms of energy storage and quantum computing. This wave of technical innovations is already having a significant impact on how research is conducted, with dramatic change across research methods in recent years within some disciplines, as this project’s interim report set out. Whilst there are a wide range of technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution, this report primarily seeks to understand what impact Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having on the UK’s research sector and what implications it has for its future, with a particular focus on academic research. Following Hall and Pesenti in their recent government review of the UK’s AI industry, we adopt the following definition: “[AI is] an umbrella term to cover a set of complementary techniques that have developed from statistics, computer science and cognitive psychology. While recognising distinctions between specific technologies and terms (e.g., artificial intelligence vs. machine learning, machine learning vs. deep learning), it is useful to see these technologies as a group, when considering how to support development and use of them.” Hence, we will use ‘AI’ as an umbrella term throughout the report to cover a range of different technologies (e.g., machine learning, data visualisation, robotics). Building on our interim report, we find that AI is increasingly deployed in academic research in the UK in a broad range of disciplines. The combination of an explosion of new digital data sources with powerful new analytical tools represents a ‘double dividend’ for researchers. This is allowing researchers to investigate questions that would have been unanswerable just a decade ago. Whilst there has been considerable take-up of AI in academic research, steps could be taken to ensure even wider adoption of these new techniques and technologies, including wider training in the necessary skills for effective utilisation of AI, faster routes to culture change and greater multidisciplinary collaboration. We also envisage a range of possible scenarios for the future of UK academic research as a result of widespread use of AI. Steps should be taken to steer us towards desirable futures. The research sector is not set in stone; it can and must be shaped by wider society for the good of all. We consider how to achieve this in our recommendations below. We recognise that the Covid-19 pandemic means universities are currently facing significant pressures, with considerable demands on their resources whilst simultaneously facing threats to income. As a result, we acknowledge that most in the sector will be focused on fighting this immediate threat instead of thinking about the long-term future of research. But as we emerge from the current crisis, we urge policy makers and universities to consider our recommendations and take steps to fortify the UK’s position as a place of world-leading research. Indeed, the current crisis has only reminded us of the critical importance of a highly functioning and flourishing research sector