iKnow: information skills in the 21st Century workplace

The iKnow (Information and Knowledge at Work) project at The Open University (OU) set out to explore and articulate the information skills requirements of the 21st century workplace. Although some existing research had highlighted the costs of ineffective information searching in the workplace, there appeared to be little online material to remedy this. The project was run in three phases, which involved identifying the key competencies, developing some prototype ‘bite-size’ materials and piloting them for their effectiveness in a variety of workplaces. The results of the study show that participants not only perceived the skills as relevant and useful, but also found that the bite-size model made training easier to schedule into a working day. The project team found that these materials could potentially be an important link between informal and formal learning, of particular relevance in the current economic climate

The Open University Library in your pocket

The Open University library is working to support mobile learners through provision of mobile access to information management skills tutorials, the library website, and the library helpdesk. In 2007, we joined hands with the Athabasca University library team to develop the first mobile-friendly version of our library website. Since then, we have been actively researching and developing around other mobile library services, and more recently have consulted users to identify their requirements and what services they–d prefer to access through mobile phones. Recommendations from this user consultation (and from other sources, including regular users' feedback and by tracking user behavior through Google Analytics) include revamping the mobile version of the Library website to offer only the most used services on the home page, implementing SMS (Short Messaging Service) such as loan reminders or library reference service, and developing a consolidated search to offer results from various sources including the library catalogue and e-journals collection

'You've got dry macular degeneration, end of story': a qualitative study into the experience of living with non-neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: To investigate the impact of non-neovascular (dry) age-related macular degeneration (AMD) on the person with respect to diagnosis, vision loss and coping strategies. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Volunteers with dry AMD with a range of disease severity were given an eye examination and asked to describe aspects of their experience with dry AMD in a semi-structured interview. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and subjected to Framework analysis. Overarching themes were pre-defined, whilst subthemes were derived from the data. RESULTS: Twenty-seven participants (81% female), with early (n = 3), intermediate (n = 16) and advanced dry AMD (GA; n = 8) were interviewed. Median (interquartile range) age (years), logMAR binocular visual acuity and Pelli-Robson contrast sensitivity were 76 (71, 80), 0.2 (0.18, 0.40) and 1.65 (1.35, 1.93), respectively. Overarching themes (and subthemes) were: diagnosis (relationship with healthcare professional, psychological impact of diagnosis, and knowledge of AMD, both pre- and post-diagnosis), impact of visual loss (functional and psychological) and coping strategies (help from others and personal strategies). Many participants reported feelings of distress at the time of diagnosis and, particularly noteworthy, several reported a constant fear of their condition worsening. CONCLUSIONS: Dry AMD, for which there is currently no treatment, can have a significant impact on individuals, even in its early stages, before significant functional vision loss is manifest, as well as in its intermediate and advanced stages. Results from this study offer important insight into the experience of living with dry AMD not previously explored. Moreover, the results have the potential to serve as an educational resource for eyecare professionals

Organizing communication and introspection in a multi-agent blocksworld scenario

The implementation of a simple blocksworld-scenario simulation-program is described. The blocksworld is modeled according to the multi-agent paradigm of distributed artificial intelligence. Each block is viewed as an agent. The agents have capabilities like to move, to communicate, to plan or to gain a small amount of introspective knowledge which are necessary to transform the initial scene of a problem into the goal scene. The structure of the system is oriented along the ideas of the specification of RATMAN described in (BMS91). RATMAN was reduced to its two central modules and their concepts were implemented with means as simple as possible. The result was a system, that allows to experimentally develop concepts for communication, planning and introspection, that are (for this simple toy-domain) sufficient to solve the problems without any global problem solver, but by the cooperative behavior in the society of agents

Levi Pennington to Aunt Dora, May 3, 1946

Letter from Levi Pennington to his aunt Dora dated May 3, 1946. Friendly letter discussing recent illness, May Day at Pacific College, and recent trips.https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/levi_pennington/1048/thumbnail.jp