Taking over someone else's design: implications for the tutor's role in networked learning

The experience of taking over an already designed Web-based course helps us to investigate the claims in the literature about the role that tutors have more generally in networked learning. This paper addresses this issue through a case study and brings together the tutor's experience and her reflective diary, as well as the interview data from a JISC/CALT phenomenographic study of tutors' and students' experiences. This particular case study raises issues about the tutors' role, teaching activity, design and the value of content resources and knowledge representation. Finally the paper reflects on the implications for the tutor in this situation and provides suggestions for future practice

Openness, technologies, business models and austerity

Open education emerged when the state had an active role in shaping and financing post-secondary education. In the 21st Century two pressures influence the way openness is conceived. The first is the compounding of neo-liberal economics with austerity following the financial crash of 2008. The second is the consolidation of networked and digital technologies at an institutional and infrastructural level, illustrated by Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This article examines the place of open education in this emerging climate of economic constraint and technological possibilities. The article argues that openness is not a property or feature of a technology but that such properties can result in affordances. This understanding informs a review of openness in The Open University (UK), in relation to MOOCs and in the OER movement. A relational view of affordance suggests openness depends in significant ways on the character of broad social process and that if they change then the affordances of technologies for openness change with them. The current marketization of Higher Education, the reduction in public finances and continuing economic uncertainty lead to contradictory and conflicting pressures. Arguing in favour of education as a public good the article criticises calls for a ‘business model’

Evaluating a collaborative online learning environment

Computer conferencing is used in a number of educational institutions to add openness and flexibility to courses taught on campus. This paper argues for the use of ethnographic techniques to evaluate this type of provision. The research reported is an attempt to develop an adequate understanding of group work as it occurs on-line. Examples are taken from the research to indicate how ethnographic techniques can be used to inform the design and use of groupware systems in education. In particular ethnography stresses context and refuses to use a priori categories or concentrate exclusively on the learning process

The Politics of Networked Learning in an Age of Austerity

Networked learning has always had a connection to a set of pedagogic values and it has defined itself as linked to the development of information and communication technologies. These values and the technologies which allow for the development of contemporary networked learning mean that the field has an implicit politics. In an age of austerity what are the implications for networked learning? The development of networked learning largely coincided with the development of neo-liberal politics in advanced industrial countries and the technologies deployed to enable networked learning are largely the outcome of design and development carried out by large multi-national US based corporations. This backdrop of neo-liberal corporatism was called into question by the banking crisis of 2008 and the conversion of a private debt crisis into a sovereign debt crisis. In this process public austerity has become a dominant consideration in policy for higher education. Government has changed its relationship to higher education, most notably in the UK (focused on England), and is generally trying to both reduce overall expenditure and at the same time ensure either equivalent outputs or improved levels of output. The drive for productivity gains, a drive for ‘more for less’, informs the hype and policy motivation behind xMOOCs because they seem to offer a way to enable cheaper and wider access to higher education. This paper takes a critical look at the way austerity politics are revising the values and affecting the development of technologies for networked learning and suggests ways that researchers will need to engage with resistance to aspects of austerity politics

Experience and networked learning

This paper reviews the way experience has been understood and the research agendas associated with that understanding in networked learning. In the contemporary context the student 'experience' is part of common speech and often associated with a consumerist discourse, especially in the UK and US. The widespread use of digital and networked technologies in education has also given rise to a de-centring of the subject and an identification of actors in network settings as hybrids of humans and machines (including software and code in this category) or including machines and objects as actors within a network. With a decentred subject does it still make sense to understand learning in terms of the subject's personal experience anymore? This paper explores these debates in the context of current educational discourse and in relation to prior research and theory in networked learning. Experience has a long history associated with phenomenological research and the related but distinct approach of phenomenography. It is related to central issues for education and learning, in particular the place of the 'individual' cognising subject. Experience can be thought of as either the essential distinguishing component of the individual human subject, or experience can be understood as the subjective component of one kind of element in a wider assemblage of humans and machines. In the later understanding of experience in assemblages human experience does not separate the human actor from other actors in a network and they are understood symmetrically. It is a long standing position that the human sciences have a different relationship to their objects of study than natural sciences because the human sciences can have access to interior accounts from the 'objects' they observe and because human subjects can behave in ways that are not predicable, replicable, and which depend on an active construction of experience in the world. For networked learning the position and role of the human subject is a central concern and human-human interaction has always been considered essential. This paper reasserts the need for a proper understanding of experience and explores the place of the human subject in the developing research agendas found in networked learning

The Aryne Ene Reaction

Intermolecular aryne ene reactions present opportunities to arylate a wide range of unsaturated substrates in a single step, whilst intramolecular reactions provide expedient access to valuable benzofused carbo- and heterocyclic frameworks. This short review will chart the development of the aryne ene reaction from initial reports that rationalise unexpected byproduct formation in competing [4+2] and [2+2] cycloadditions through to its exploitation in contemporary synthetic methodology

A Simple Hückel Model-Driven Strategy to Overcome Electronic Barriers to Retro-Brook Silylation Relevant to Aryne and Bisaryne Precursor Synthesis

ortho-Silylaryl triflate precursors (oSATs) have been responsible for many recent advances in aryne chemistry and are most commonly accessed from the corresponding 2-bromophenol. A retro-Brook O- to C-silyl transfer is a key step in this synthesis but not all aromatic species are amenable to the transformation, with no functionalized bisbenzyne oSATs reported. Simple Hückel models are presented which show that the calculated aromaticity at the brominated position is an accurate predictor of successful retro-Brook reaction, validated synthetically by a new success and a predicted failure. From this, the synthesis of a novel difunctionalized bisaryne precursor has been tested, requiring different approaches to install the two C-silyl groups. The first successful use of a disubstituted o-silylaryl sulfonate bisbenzyne precursor in Diels–Alder reactions is then shown

Geophysical characterization of derelict coalmine workings and mineshaft detection: a case study from Shrewsbury, United Kingdom

A study site of derelict coalmine workings near Shrewsbury, United Kingdom was the focus for multi‐phase, near‐surface geophysical investigations. Investigation objectives were: 1) site characterization for remaining relict infrastructure foundations, 2) locate an abandoned coalmine shaft, 3) determine if the shaft was open, filled or partially filled and 4) determine if the shaft was capped (and if possible characterize the capping material). Phase one included a desktop study and 3D microgravity modelling of the relict coalmine shaft thought to be on site. In phase two, electrical and electromagnetic surveys to determine site resistivity and conductivity were acquired together with fluxgate gradiometry and an initial microgravity survey. Phase three targeted the phase two geophysical anomalies and acquired high‐resolution self potential and ground penetrating radar datasets. The phased‐survey approach minimised site activity and survey costs. Geophysical results were compared and interpreted to characterize the site, the microgravity models were used to validate interpretations. Relict buildings, railway track remains with associated gravel and a partially filled coalmine shaft were located. Microgravity proved optimal to locate the mineshaft with radar profiles showing ‘side‐swipe’ effects from the mineshaft that did not directly underlie survey lines. Geophysical interpretations were then verified with subsequent geotechnical intrusive investigations. Comparisons of historical map records with intrusive geotechnical site investigations show care must be taken using map data alone, as the latter mineshaft locations was found to be inaccurate

Organizational perspectives on outdoor talking therapy: Towards a position of 'environmental safe uncertainty'.

OBJECTIVES: There is growing support within the therapy professions for using talking therapy in alternative environments, such as outdoor spaces. The aim of the present study was to further understand how the organizational culture in clinical psychology may prevent or enable practitioners to step outside the conventional indoor consulting room. DESIGN: Informed grounded theory methodology was used within a pragmatist philosophy. METHODS: Participants (N = 15; nine male, six female) were identified using theoretical sampling. The sample consisted of experts and leaders within the profession of clinical psychology (e.g., heads of services, training programme directors, chairs of professional bodies, and developers of therapy models; M years in the profession = 34.80, SD = 9.77). One-to-one interviews and analysis ran concurrently over 9 months (April-December 2020). Mason's model of safe uncertainty was drawn upon to illuminate and organize themes. RESULTS: The main themes comprised organizational factors that either support a practitioner in maintaining a position of curiosity and flexibility towards the environment where therapy is located ('environmental safe uncertainty'), or push them towards adopting a more fixed position ('environmental certainty'). Themes included influences from therapy traditions, accessibility of alternative environments, internalized risk, workplace subcultures, business models, biomedical approaches, and the COVID-19 pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Whether therapy is located in a consulting room, outdoors, clients' homes, or digitally, practitioners, clients, and services are encouraged to maintain a position of environmental safe uncertainty. PRACTITIONER POINTS: The therapy process and outcomes are influenced by the physical environment in which talking therapy is situated. Practitioners have often remained fixed in their preferred therapy environment, such as the indoor consulting room, without exploring the potential benefits of alternative environments or involving the client in this decision-making (i.e., 'environmental certainty'). Outdoor environments, as well as other alternatives to the consulting room (e.g., digital, home visits, and public places), can support access to therapy, subsequent engagement, and therefore health care equity. Practitioners and clients are encouraged to adopt a position of 'environmental safe uncertainty', which is defined as having openness, critical curiosity, and collaboration regarding the therapy environment and the possibility of other environments being more conducive to therapy

Intramolecular hydride transfer onto arynes: redox-neutral and transition metal-free C(sp(3))-H functionalization of amines

Transition metal-free intramolecular hydride transfer onto arynes is reported for the first time. This unique transformation is utilized in redox-neutral intermolecular α-functionalization reactions of different tertiary amines, generating C(sp3)-C(sp3/sp2/sp) bonds in a single synthetic operation. Deuterium labeling studies support initial cleavage of the α-C-H bond via intramolecular 1,5-hydride transfer onto the aryne, which leads to activation of a range of integrated pronucleophiles and ultimately affords a new approach to cross-dehydrogenative coupling reactions which utilize aryne intermediates