Using instructor - generated short videos in an undergraduate accounting information system course

The University of the South Pacific (USP) is a regional university, established in 1968, serves twelve independent island nations of the South, Central and North Pacific. In Semester 1 of 2017, an undergraduate introductory accounting information systems course at the University was offered on face-to-face delivery mode. This course was supplemented by an online presence via the University’s learning management system and utilised several tools for its delivery of learning and teaching. One such tool was the use of instructor-generated short videos. At the end of the Semester, data was collected on the student viewership of the videos and a survey was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness and usefulness of the instructor-generated short videos in the course, and to gauge student satisfaction on the overall quality and general appeal of these videos. This paper reports on the findings from the student viewership data and the survey. It also briefly reviews literature on the use of videos in education; in particular, short instructor-generated videos for delivery of learning and teaching experiences in the Accounting discipline, followed by the methodology adopted for the survey. The paper concludes by noting limitations of the study and recommending areas for further investigation and improvement

Faculty open educational practices at a regional university

Open educational resources (OER), which are cost-free, openly licensed educational materials available in a variety of languages and formats, have in recent years accumulated abundant evidence of disruptive potential to surmount barriers to learning. This is certainly good news to the world of education, especially higher education, which has experienced steady growth in its cost to students. Evidence also shows, however, a low uptake of this concept in higher education. A key reason for this is a lack of awareness, understanding, and acceptance of OER and their related practices amongst faculty. If one intent of a higher educational institution, such as is that of the University of the South Pacific (USP), is to provide greater affordability for students through OER, ushering faculty towards OER is thus paramount, for they are the ones who normally choose and assign educational resources. As an initial step toward moving the USP closer to its aspirations, a survey study was undertaken aiming to describe the current status of OER uptake and open educational practices (OEP) by faculty, with the purpose of gathering information for planning future activities in this area. This paper reports results from the survey examining USP faculty: teaching practices, OER awareness, OER use, participation in OEP staff development, awareness of student OER use, barriers to OER adoption, and impact of OER use. The paper concludes with a discussion of current status and expected future steps for propelling faculty towards integrating OER in USP courses

An evaluation of online proctoring tools

COVID'19 is hastening the adoption of online learning and teaching worldwide, and across all levels of education. While many of the typical learning and teaching transactions such as lecturing and communicating are easily handled by contemporary online learning technologies, others, such as assessment of learning outcomes with closed book examinations are fraught with challenges. Among other issues to do with students and teachers, these challenges have to do with the ability of teachers and educational organizations to ensure academic integrity in the absence of a live proctor when an examination is being taken remotely and from a private location. A number of online proctoring tools are appearing on the market that portend to offer solutions to some of the major challenges. But for the moment, they too remain untried and tested on any large scale. This includes the cost of the service and their technical requirements. This paper reports on one of the first attempts to properly evaluate a selection of these tools and offer recommendations for educational institutions. This investigation, which was carried out at the University of the South Pacific, comprised a four-phased approach, starting with desk research that was followed with pilot testing by a group of experts as well as students. The elimination of a tool in every phase was based on the ‘survival of the fittest’ approach with each phase building upon the milestones and deliverables from the previous phase. This paper presents the results of this investigation and discusses its key findings

An Evaluation of Online Proctoring Tools

COVID’19 is hastening the adoption of online learning and teaching worldwide, and across all levels of education. While many of the typical learning and teaching transactions such as lecturing and communicating are easily handled by contemporary online learning technologies, others, such as assessment of learning outcomes with closed book examinations are fraught with challenges. Among other issues to do with students and teachers, these challenges have to do with the ability of teachers and educational organizations to ensure academic integrity in the absence of a live proctor when an examination is being taken remotely and from a private location. A number of online proctoring tools are appearing on the market that portend to offer solutions to some of the major challenges. But for the moment, they too remain untried and tested on any large scale. This includes the cost of the service and their technical requirements. This paper reports on one of the first attempts to properly evaluate a selection of these tools and offer recommendations for educational institutions. This investigation, which was carried out at the University of the South Pacific, comprised a four-phased approach, starting with desk research that was followed with pilot testing by a group of experts as well as students. The elimination of a tool in every phase was based on the ‘survival of the fittest’ approach with each phase building upon the milestones and deliverables from the previous phase. This paper presents the results of this investigation and discusses its key findings.</p

Planning and design of online peer assessment professional development training in higher education

Due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, universities around the world have been compelled to rethink how they design and implement student assessment strategies. In addition, it has also led to a re-strategizing of how professional development of academics is carried out to mitigate this rethinking endeavor. In response, this work-in-progress paper presents an Open Educational Resource (OER) Professional Development (PD) training plan using the Learning Management System (LMS) known as MOODLE for the University of the South Pacific (USP). The proposed OER, PD training comprises of three modules and is scheduled to go live during the July semester break of 2021 over a three-week period. Module 1 - focuses on understanding the peer assessment strategy, Module 2 - presents a framework for Implementing Online Peer Assessment (OPA) using the MOODLE Workshop Tool and Module 3 - focuses on academics developing an assessment for OPA from their own courses and participating in OPA process. The paper provides considerable insights for Higher Education Institutes (HEI) in planning and designing online PD training on OPA for academics

Effect of early tranexamic acid administration on mortality, hysterectomy, and other morbidities in women with post-partum haemorrhage (WOMAN): an international, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background Post-partum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. Early administration of tranexamic acid reduces deaths due to bleeding in trauma patients. We aimed to assess the effects of early administration of tranexamic acid on death, hysterectomy, and other relevant outcomes in women with post-partum haemorrhage. Methods In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we recruited women aged 16 years and older with a clinical diagnosis of post-partum haemorrhage after a vaginal birth or caesarean section from 193 hospitals in 21 countries. We randomly assigned women to receive either 1 g intravenous tranexamic acid or matching placebo in addition to usual care. If bleeding continued after 30 min, or stopped and restarted within 24 h of the first dose, a second dose of 1 g of tranexamic acid or placebo could be given. Patients were assigned by selection of a numbered treatment pack from a box containing eight numbered packs that were identical apart from the pack number. Participants, care givers, and those assessing outcomes were masked to allocation. We originally planned to enrol 15 000 women with a composite primary endpoint of death from all-causes or hysterectomy within 42 days of giving birth. However, during the trial it became apparent that the decision to conduct a hysterectomy was often made at the same time as randomisation. Although tranexamic acid could influence the risk of death in these cases, it could not affect the risk of hysterectomy. We therefore increased the sample size from 15 000 to 20 000 women in order to estimate the effect of tranexamic acid on the risk of death from post-partum haemorrhage. All analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This trial is registered with ISRCTN76912190 (Dec 8, 2008); ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00872469; and PACTR201007000192283. Findings Between March, 2010, and April, 2016, 20 060 women were enrolled and randomly assigned to receive tranexamic acid (n=10 051) or placebo (n=10 009), of whom 10 036 and 9985, respectively, were included in the analysis. Death due to bleeding was significantly reduced in women given tranexamic acid (155 [1·5%] of 10 036 patients vs 191 [1·9%] of 9985 in the placebo group, risk ratio [RR] 0·81, 95% CI 0·65–1·00; p=0·045), especially in women given treatment within 3 h of giving birth (89 [1·2%] in the tranexamic acid group vs 127 [1·7%] in the placebo group, RR 0·69, 95% CI 0·52–0·91; p=0·008). All other causes of death did not differ significantly by group. Hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (358 [3·6%] patients in the tranexamic acid group vs 351 [3·5%] in the placebo group, RR 1·02, 95% CI 0·88–1·07; p=0·84). The composite primary endpoint of death from all causes or hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (534 [5·3%] deaths or hysterectomies in the tranexamic acid group vs 546 [5·5%] in the placebo group, RR 0·97, 95% CI 0·87-1·09; p=0·65). Adverse events (including thromboembolic events) did not differ significantly in the tranexamic acid versus placebo group. Interpretation Tranexamic acid reduces death due to bleeding in women with post-partum haemorrhage with no adverse effects. When used as a treatment for postpartum haemorrhage, tranexamic acid should be given as soon as possible after bleeding onset. Funding London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Pfizer, UK Department of Health, Wellcome Trust, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Blending media for flexible learning at a regional university

The University of the South Pacific (USP) a regional university, established in 1968, serves twelve independent island nations of the South, Central and North Pacific. The University is moving towards providing more of its programmes and courses through flexible delivery using online and blended modes. As a result there has been a gradual increase in the integration of multimedia components such as audio, video, graphics, animations, and simulations as part of courseware or course packages. This increase in demand is anticipated to have further growth. This paper focuses on the current status on the different types of multimedia currently integrated in USP coursewares, and discusses the areas of multimedia that is anticipated to grow over the next few years at USP

Near Fault Effect on the Response of Single Hinged Compliant Offshore Tower

The response of compliant offshore structure under simultaneous action of random waves and earthquake loading has been analyzed. Since earthquake forces play a significant role in affecting the response of these offshore structures, comparative studies have been carried out considering near fault and far fault seismic excitations in the presence of moderate random sea waves. The offshore tower is modeled as an inverted pendulum with a cylindrical shaft connected by an articulated joint at the base. Seismic forces are evaluated by dividing the tower shaft into finite elements with masses lumped at the nodes. The nonlinearities associated with the system owing to variable submergence, drag force, variable buoyancy along with the geometry are considered in the analysis. The nonlinear dynamic equation of motion is formulated considering Lagrangian approach, which is solved in time domain by the Newmark-beta integration scheme. The sea state conditions, more precisely the water particle kinematics are evaluated using Airy’s wave theory along with the stretching modifications, as suggested by Chakrabarti. To minimize the dynamic responses, emphasis has to be given to the variations in height and position of the buoyancy chamber in extreme wave condition. The results are expressed in the form of time histories of deck displacement, hinge rotation, hinge shear and the bending moment. Parameters like maximum, minimum, mean and standard deviation are also determined by statistical analysis of response time histories of the dynamic responses at articulated joint