New Methods, New Needs: Preparing Academic Library Practitioners to Address Ethical Issues Associated with Learning Analytics

Academic libraries are participating in the collection and analysis of student data. Under the umbrella of learning analytics, these practices are directed toward developing an understanding of how libraries contribute to student learning, the educational experience, and efficient operations of academic institutions. Learning analytics, however, is loaded with ethical issues, which are complicated by privacy-related values espoused by library practitioners. This work-in-progress paper discusses emerging findings from a survey of academic library practitioners. The survey identifies what ethical issues practitioners associate with leaning analytics and the degree to which they are prepared to address such issues

(Re)envisioning an information ethics/policy course for the future

This session of the ALISE Information Ethics SIG will serve as a focal point for conversations about ethics education for resilience, with a special emphasis on collaboratively developing competency-driven goals, learning objectives, and measurable outcomes. Resilience is a cross and interdisciplinary idea, residing in psychological, educational, sociological, ecological, and economic circles. The more of these perspectives are represented in a live course planning session, the greater the potential is to create well-rounded, research-grounded, teaching modules for the information ethics curriculum that can lead to sustained efforts

Effect of nitrogen supplementation and Zilpaterol-HCl on urea recycling in steers consuming corn-based diets

Cattle have the innate ability to recycle nitrogen absorbed post-ruminally back to the rumen as endogenously synthesized urea. Urea returning to the rumen provides an additional opportunity for ruminal microbes to benefit from nitrogen absorbed postruminally. Urea recycling may provide a significant benefit to cattle when protein requirements of ruminal microbes are high or when large amounts of the dietary protein escape ruminal degradation

Student Privacy in the Datafied Classroom: Privacy Practices in an Interconnected World

In an interconnected world, student privacy concerns take on increasingly higher stakes. To address the imminent concerns of student privacy, this work-in-progress study investigates faculty perspectives of student privacy and their practices in relation to emerging learning analytics tools and initiatives. The project is motivated by the team’s previous research (Jones & VanScoy, 2019) that analyzed more than 8,000 library and information science syllabi and found that there is a need to better understand how faculty perceive student privacy issues and strategize to address them in practice. The current project consists of three phases; during the first phase, , the research team is conducting a survey with faculty from diverse disciplinary backgrounds who have online and face-to-face instructional experience. For the second phase, the team will use phase-one data to pursue interviews with faculty members who participate in the survey. In the third and final phase, the team will aggregate key findings from the research phases and the extant literature to facilitate discussions between faculty and librarians. Results from the phase one survey will be available to present on the poster. Focusing on instructors’ attitudes toward personal privacy and student privacy, their knowledge of privacy policies and learning analytics, and their instructional practices, the findings will deepen our understanding of student privacy in the interconnected educational environment. Jones, K. M., & VanScoy, A. (2019). The syllabus as a student privacy document in an age of learning analytics. Journal of Documentation, 75(6), 1333-1355

Remote-site power generation opportunities for Alaska

The Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) has been working with the Federal Energy Technology Center in Morgantown, West Virginia, to assess options for small, low-cost, environmental acceptable power generation for application in remote areas of Alaska. The goal of this activity was to reduce the use of fuel in Alaskan villages by developing small, low-cost power generation applications. Because of the abundance of high-quality coal throughout Alaska, emphasis was placed on clean coal applications, but other energy sources, including geothermal, wind, hydro, and coalbed methane, were also considered. The use of indigenous energy sources would provide cheaper cleaner power, reduce the need for PCE (Power Cost Equalization program) subsidies, increase self-sufficiency, and retain hard currency in the state while at the same time creating jobs in the region. The introduction of economical, small power generation systems into Alaska by US equipment suppliers and technology developers aided by the EERC would create the opportunities for these companies to learn how to engineer, package, transport, finance, and operate small systems in remote locations. All of this experience would put the US developers and equipment supply companies in an excellent position to export similar types of small power systems to rural areas or developing countries. Thus activities in this task that relate to determining the generic suitability of these technologies for other countries can increase US competitiveness and help US companies sell these technologies in foreign countries, increasing the number of US jobs. The bulk of this report is contained in the two appendices: Small alternative power workshop, topical report and Global market assessment of coalbed methane, fluidized-bed combustion, and coal-fired diesel technologies in remote applications

Data Management Planning for an Eight-Institution, Multi-Year Research Project

While data management planning for grant applications has become commonplace alongside articles providing guidance for such plans, examples of data plans as they have been created, implemented, and used for specific projects are only beginning to appear in the scholarly record. This article describes data management planning for an eight-institution, multi-year research project. The project leveraged four data management plans (DMP) in total, one for the funding application and one for each of the three distinct project phases. By understanding researcher roles, development and content of each DMP, team internal and external challenges, and the overall benefits of creating and using the plans, these DMPs provide a demonstration of the utility of this project management tool

Developing a functioning visualization and analysis system for performance assessment

Various commercial software packages and customized programs provide the ability to analyze and visualize the geology of Yucca Mountain. Starting with sparse, irregularly spaced data a series of gridded models has been developed representing the thermal/mechanical units within the mountain. Using computer aided design (CAD) software and scientific visualization software, the units can be manipulated, analyzed, and graphically displayed. The outputs are typically gridded terrain models, along with files of three-dimensional coordinates, distances, and other dimensional values. Contour maps, profiles, and shaded surfaces are the output for visualization

Relating Molecular Morphology to Charge Mobility in Semicrystalline Conjugated Polymers

The molecular-level origins of the effects of annealing temperature and molecular weight on hole mobility in P3HT are elucidated using coarse-grained molecular dynamics, quantum chemical calculations, and kinetic Monte Carlo charge-transport simulations on a variety of realistic thin-film morphologies. The zero-field hole mobility is shown to increase as the annealing temperature or average molecular weights of samples are increased, in accordance with experimental results. Crystal structure analysis shows that the annealing temperature dependence of the mobility can be attributed to the size and structural order of the crystallites in both the chain-backbone and π-stacking directions. However, the molecular weight dependence of the mobility cannot be rationalized in the same way. Longer chains are shown to belong to more crystallites in the morphology, suggesting that the crystals become better connected as the molecular weight of the sample increases. We show that engineering samples to have an increased fraction of these long “tie chains” within the morphology improves mobility. As such, we propose that crystal connectivity in the noncrystalline portions of the morphology is similarly important in determining carrier mobility as crystallite size and order for semicrystalline conjugated polymers

Development of selective, ultra-fast multiple co-sensitization to control dye loading in dye-sensitized solar cells

Enhancing the spectral response of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC) is essential to increasing device efficiency and a key approach to achieve this is co-sensitization (i.e. the use of multiple dyes to absorb light from different parts of the solar spectrum). However, precise control of dye loading within DSC mesoporous metal oxide photo-anodes is non-trivial especially for very rapid processing (minutes). This is further complicated by dyes having very different partition (Kd) and molar extinction (ε) coefficients which strongly influence dye uptake and spectral response, respectively. Here, we present a highly versatile, ultra-fast (ca. 5 min) desorption and re-dyeing method for dye-sensitized solar cells which can be used to precisely control dye loading in photo-electrode films. This method has been successfully applied to re-dye, partially desorb and re-dye and selectively desorb and re-dye photo-electrodes using examples of a Ru-bipy dye (N719) and also organic dyes (SQ1 and D149) giving η up to 8.1% for a device containing the organic dye D149 and re-dyed with the Ru dye N719. The paper also illustrates how this method can be used to rapidly screen large numbers of dyes (and/or dye combinations) and also illustrates how it can also be used to selectively study dye loading

Urea recycling in beef cattle fed prairie hay- based diets

Maximizing utilization of native rangeland is an important aspect of the cow/calf phase of beef production. Native rangeland is often of poor quality (less than 7% crude protein). Protein content of the rangeland is important because nitrogen is a key growth factor used by ruminal microbes. Without adequate nitrogen, the ruminal ecosystem will not operate at peak efficiency, which subsequently reduces the supply of nutrients to the animal. Historically, producers have provided supplemental nutrients to their cattle to achieve maximum performance. Both supplemental protein and energy have been provided to cattle consuming low-quality forage with varying levels of success. Typically, supplemental energy without adequate protein reduces fiber digestion by cattle. On the other hand, supplemental protein consistently improves overall performance