The contribution of rural community businesses to integrated rural development: “Local services for local people”

Policy responses to the problems facing rural areas across Europe have involved the replacement of “productivist” measures that subsidise agriculture to strategies promoting “integrated rural development”, emphasising the interconnections between various facets of the rural economy. Thus farm modernisation and product processing and marketing are linked with the promotion of a more diversified economic base centred on tourism and recreation and the maintenance of services for local residents. An essential element of this model is its reliance on collaborative actions involving a range of community or civil society actors. This paper examines the extent to which the operation of community-owned businesses in rural parts of the Yorkshire and Humber region in the UK corresponds to these ideals of integrated rural development. Evidence is presented on their geographical footprint with respect to both direct economic impacts and linkages with social and institutional networks. This allows an assessment to be made of the contribution that such enterprises make to rural economic development as a whole. The conclusion is that they do have the potential to assist integrated rural development, but only as a small part of a much wider series of economic, social and environmental actions.integrated rural development, rural community businesses, economic impacts, geographical footprint, volunteering

Who are Rural Students? How Definitions of Rurality Affect Research on College Completion

Given a revived national discourse about rural populations, more educational research on rural students is necessary, including ways that rural students transition to college and the success (or lack thereof) that they experience once there. However, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has changed the definition of rurality used in each iterative dataset over the last few decades, casting doubt on the consistency of what is meant by the term rural. The purpose of this study is to: (a) communicate to the educational research audience various ways of defining rural students, and specifically how NCES has changed their definition of rurality over their last three major data collections; (b) demonstrate how conclusions about rural students’ and their college degree completion may differ based on these alternate NCES definitions; and (c) discuss how this specific example using NCES data relates to the wider landscape of research on rural students. Results show that conclusions about college degree completion change depending on the definition of rurality used for analysis. Therefore, the education research community should consider the options for defining rural students, report transparently about the choices made, consider the sensitivity of results to the definition of rurality, and ultimately build a more robust body of literature concerning rural students’ college success. Gaining definitional clarity will be beneficial, particularly for those who wish to translate their research into practical action for the benefit of rural students

Resource‐based learning strategies: Implications for students and institutions

This paper reports some findings from a project in implementing resource‐based learning in economics, and identifies some implications for students and institutions. These include student responses to a mid‐semester evaluation and the views of the project team. The latter have been informed by action research which sought to recognize students’ individual differences, employ active learning methods and, above all, integrate IT into the curriculum. While innovative strategies are clearly welcomed, students show strong attachment to some traditional methods. Most of those who suggested changes to the range of activities asked for reinstatement of at least some lectures, generally as additions to existing activities. Implications include the need for students and staff to acquire a wide range of new skills, for large‐scale curriculum review if new learning technologies are to be fully integrated, and the need to acknowledge that, given student and staff perceptions of change, the process may be long and costly

Narrowed Gaps and Persistent Challenges: Examining Rural-Nonrural Disparities in Postsecondary Outcomes over Time

Empirical studies have concluded that rural students experience lower rates of college enrollment and degree completion compared to their nonrural peers, but this literature needs to be expanded and updated for a continually changing context. This article examines the rural-nonrural disparities in students’ postsecondary trajectories, influences, and outcomes. By comparing results to past research using similar national data and an identical design, we are able to examine change over time. Results show narrowed gaps from the 1990s into the 2000s, but with rural students still facing persistent challenges and experiencing lower average rates of college enrollment and degree completion

STEM degree completion and first-generation college students. A cumulative disadvantage approach to the outcomes gap

STEM majors offer pathways to lucrative careers but are often inac-cessible to first-generation students. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study, we conducted descriptive statistics, regression analyses, and group comparisons to examine differences between first-generation students and continuing-generation students across STEM degree, non-STEM degree, dropout, and no degree completion. Findings illuminate that generation status is related to STEM completion, but other factors are driving this association; for example, pre-college STEM factors have significant predictive power. Our implications suggest a need to further examine pre-college and transfer pathways to STEM and to explore the limitations of first-generation status as a categorization

Automated Cloud Removal on High-Altitude UAV Imagery Through Deep Learning on Synthetic Data

New theories and applications of deep learning have been discovered and implemented within the field of machine learning recently. The high degree of effectiveness of deep learning models span across many domains including image processing and enhancement. Specifically, the automated removal of clouds, smoke, and haze from images has become a prominent and pertinent field of research. In this paper, I propose an analysis and synthetic training data variant for the All-in-One Dehazing Network (AOD-Net) architecture that performs better on removing clouds and haze; most specifically on high altitude unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) images

First Generation Students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

Executive Summary First generation (First Gen) students—those who do not have a parent or guardian who attained a four-year degree—represent a third of all college students in the United States. At the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass), a quarter of the undergraduate student body is First Gen. Nationally as well as locally, First Gen students often experience lower rates of academic success due to factors such as a lack of family familiarity with the college going process, lower levels of academic preparation, and limited finances. UMass Amherst is undertaking efforts to improve conditions for success for First Gen students. As part of a steering committee on First Gen issues, the Center for Student Success Research (CSSR) led a mixed methods study of First Gen students on campus during the 2018-2019 academic year. The aim of the study is to better understand who First Gen students at UMass are, the experiences they are having, and how to better serve them