Abstract

This paper will review existing literature on Open Educational Resources (OER). It is intended to examine and critique the theories which underpin the promotion of OER in higher education, not provide guidance on their implementation. (1) I will introduce the concepts of positive and negative liberty to suggest an under-theorisation of the term ?open?. (2) OER literature will be shown to endorse a two-tiered system, in which the institution is both maintained and disaggregated. (3) I will highlight a diminishing of ...

Abstract

http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/intro.html ...

Abstract

Audits of 23 degree programmes in eight universities showed wide variations in assessment patterns and feedback. Scores from Assessment Experience Questionnaire returns revealed consistent relationships between characteristics of assessment and student learning responses, including a strong relationship between quantity and quality of feedback and a clear sense of goals and standards, and between both these scales and students? overall satisfaction. Focus group data helped to explain students? learning responses but also identified ambivalent responses to the use of formative-only assessment, particularly ...

Abstract

Abstract In education research, statistical significance and effect size are 2 sides of 1 coin; they complement each other but they do not substitute for each other. Good research practice requires that, to make sound research decisions, both sides should be considered. In a simulation study, the sampling variability of 2 popular effect-size measures (d and R 2) was examined. The variability showed that what is statistically significant may not be practically meaningful, and what appears to be practically meaningful could ...

Abstract

New technologies and developments in media are transforming the way that individuals, groups and societies communicate, learn, work and govern. This new socio-technical reality requires participants to possess not only skills and abilities related to the use of technological tools, but also knowledge regarding the norms and practices of appropriate usage. To be ?digitally literate? in this way encompasses issues of cognitive authority, safety and privacy, creative, ethical, and responsible use and reuse of digital media, among other topics. A lack ...

Abstract

Previous work indicates that over the past 20 years, the highest quality work have been published in an increasingly diverse and larger group of journals. In this paper we examine whether this diversification has also affected the handful of elite journals that are traditionally considered to be the best. We examine citation patterns over the past 40 years of 7 long-standing traditionally elite journals and 6 journals that have been increasing in importance over the past 20 years. To be among the top 5% or 1% cited ...

Abstract

Online social media tools can be some of the most rewarding and informative resources for scientists—IF you know how to use them. ...

Abstract

There are many pressures on academics to ‘satisfy’ students’ needs for feedback, not least the inclusion of questions about feedback. Many have commentated on the lack of student engagement with summative feedback while most believe that feedback is necessary to improve individual student performance. Several have looked at a range of reasons why students do not collect their feedback, but investigated in this article is how many students collected summative feedback and why they did so. This article outlines an action ...

Abstract

The focus of this paper is a project conducted in 2011, exploring the use of YouTube in the classroom. The project conducted a number of focus groups for which highlighted a number of issues surrounding independent informal learning environments. The questions posed by this research are concerned with what constitutes learning in these spaces; how valid this is perceived to be by the students and how they engage with materials in this space. A question also posed was how cognisant the ...

Abstract

This paper describes a literature review, institutional audit and analysis of practice in the area of digital literacy provision, based on research across the UK Higher Education sector. It concludes that institutions need to place greater value on ‘literacies of the digital’, and better prepare their students and their own organizational processes to thrive in an age of digital knowledge practices. It extends the debate about individual entitlement and provision to ask whether digital literacy offers an opportunity for the academy ...

Abstract

The Net Generation (those born in or after 1980) rely heavily on ICTs for social and professional interactions, and it has been suggested that they have the expectation that technology will be an integral part of their education. At the same time, it is argued that Facebook has educational potential, and that today's learners should be encouraged and supported to use Web 2.0 technologies for learning in formal education. However, there is growing evidence that the value of Facebook in the ...

Abstract

Background and aims There are anecdotal reports that men who wear (Scottish) kilts have better sperm quality and better fertility. But how much is true? Total sperm count and sperm concentration reflect semen quality and male reproductive potential. It has been proven that changes in the scrotal temperature affect spermatogenesis. We can at least affirm that clothing increases the scrotal temperature to an abnormal level that may have a negative effect on spermatogenesis. Thus, it seems plausible that men should wear ...

Abstract

Most texts on writing style encourage authors to avoid overly-complex words. However, a majority of undergraduates admit to deliberately increasing the complexity of their vocabulary so as to give the impression of intelligence. This paper explores the extent to which this strategy is effective. Experiments 1–3 manipulate complexity of texts and find a negative relationship between complexity and judged intelligence. This relationship held regardless of the quality of the original essay, and irrespective of the participants' prior expectations of essay quality. ...

Abstract

This report has been prepared for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) by a project team comprising SQW Limited, the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI) at the Open University and NOP Research Group. The study had two main components: • to identify good practice by higher education institutions (HEIs) in collecting quantitative and qualitative feedback from students and to make recommendations on the design and implementation of mechanisms for use by individual institutions. The focus of this part ...

Abstract

Road mortality is probably the best-known and visible impact of roads upon wildlife. Although several factors influence road-kill counts, carcass persistence time is considered the most important determinant underlying underestimates of road mortality. The present study aims to describe and model carcass persistence variability on the road for different taxonomic groups under different environmental conditions throughout the year; and also to assess the effect of ...

Abstract

Emotions can bias human decisions- for example depressed or anxious people tend to make pessimistic judgements while those in positive affective states are often more optimistic. Several studies have reported that affect contingent judgement biases can also be produced in animals. The animals, however, cannot self-report; therefore, the valence of their emotions, to date, could only be assumed. Here we present the results of an experiment where the affect-contingent judgement bias has been produced by objectively measured positive emotions. We trained ...

Abstract

▪ Abstract Folsomia candida Willem 1902, a member of the order Collembola (colloquially called springtails), is a common and widespread arthropod that occurs in soils throughout the world. The species is parthenogenetic and is easy to maintain in the laboratory on a diet of granulated dry yeast. F. candida has been used as a “standard” test organism for more than 40 years for estimating the effects of pesticides and environmental pollutants on nontarget soil arthropods. However, it has also been employed as ...

Abstract

Humans accurately read other humans' emotional facial expressions. Little research was found examining human ability to read dogs' expressions. Cross-species research extended facial expression research to chimpanzees, and there is much research on dogs' auditory signaling to humans. To explore humans' ability to identify dogs' facial displays, photographs of a dog's face were taken under behaviorally defined conditions expected to elicit specific emotions. Dog experts ...

Abstract

Occasional fog is a critical water source utilised by plants and animals in the Namib Desert. Fog basking beetles (Onymacris unguicularis, Tenebrionidae) and Namib dune bushman grass (Stipagrostris sabulicola, Poaceae) collect water directly from the fog. While the beetles position themselves optimally for fog water collection on dune ridges, the grass occurs predominantly at the dune base where less fog water is available. Differences in ...

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To describe the epidemiology of genital injuries caused by trouser zips and to educate both consumers and the caregivers of patients who sustain such injuries. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, a dataset validated to provide a probability sample of patients who present to emergency departments (EDs) in the USA with injuries, was analysed to characterize zip-related genital injuries occurring between ...

Abstract

Abstract This case study examines the utilization of Twitter as a communication channel among primary school children. This study tries to answer the following questions: "What are the cases for primary school children's use of Twitter for communication?" and "What are primary school children's experiences of utilizing Twitter for communication?" Participants were 7th grade students (17 female, 34 male; age 13 years) studying in a ...

Abstract

It has been suggested human female breast size may act as signal of fat reserves, which in turn indicates access to resources. Based on this perspective, two studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that men experiencing relative resource insecurity should perceive larger breast size as more physically attractive than men experiencing resource security. In Study 1, 266 men from three sites in Malaysia varying in relative socioeconomic status (high to low) rated a series of animated figures varying in breast ...

Abstract

Audience response systems (ARS) or clickers, as they are commonly called, offer a management tool for engaging students in the large classroom. Basic elements of the technology are discussed. These systems have been used in a variety of fields and at all levels of education. Typical goals of ARS questions are discussed, as well as methods of compensating for the reduction in lecture time that ...

Abstract

This article presents a thematic analysis of the research evidence on assessment feedback in higher education (HE) from 2000 to 2012. The focus of the review is on the feedback that students receive within their coursework from multiple sources. The aims of this study are to (a) examine the nature of assessment feedback in HE through the undertaking of a systematic review of the literature, (b) identify and discuss dominant themes and discourses and consider gaps within the research literature, (c) ...

Abstract

The Visitors and Residents model of internet use suggests a continuum of modes of engagement with the online world, ranging from tool use to social spaces. In this paper, we examine evidence derived from a large cohort of students to assess whether this idea can be validated by experimental evidence. We find statistically significant differences between individuals displaying ?Visitor? or ?Resident? attitudes, suggesting that the Visitors and Residents model is a useful typology for approaching and understanding online behaviour. From our ...

Note (first note only)

Free version: https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/27783

Abstract

Published literature suggests that many clinicians are not fully equipped to evaluate and apply research reports for the care of their patients. In this article, we introduce and illustrate five basic statistical concepts that can significantly impact the interpretation of the medical literature and its application to the care of patients, drawing examples from the vaccine literature: (i) consider clinical and statistical significance separately, (ii) evaluate absolute risks rather than relative risks, (iii) examine confidence intervals rather than p values, (iv) ...

Abstract

Evaluation of scientific work underlies the process of career advancement in academic science, with publications being a fundamental metric. Many aspects of the evaluation process for grants and promotions are deeply ingrained in institutions and funding agencies and have been altered very little in the past several decades, despite substantial changes that have taken place in the scientific work force, the funding landscape, and the ...

Abstract

Drinking games have become a ubiquitous part of the college student drinking culture and are associated with drinking to intoxication and increased alcohol consequences. Contemporary research commonly considers drinking games holistically, with little to no consideration to the different drinking game types. The current study describes the creation of a novel DG categorization scheme and reports differences between DG categories. Participants were 3421 college students ...

Abstract

One of the implicit aims of higher education is to enable students to become better judges of their own work. This paper examines whether students who voluntarily engage in self-assessment improve in their capacity to make those judgements. The study utilises data from a web-based marking system that provides students with the opportunity to assess themselves on each criterion for each assessment task throughout a programme of study. Student marks were compared with those from tutors to plot changes over time. ...

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated an increased energy expenditure with novel tasks. With practice, the energy cost decreases as the body more efficiently recruits motor units. This study examined whether one becomes more efficient after repeated bouts of backward walking. The subjects were 7 healthy subjects between the ages of 23 and 49 years. A backward walking speed was calculated to elicit a VO(2) equal to ...

Abstract

We present a practice-based case study of curriculum redesign in a large-enrolment introductory physics course taught at the University of Edinburgh. The course has been inverted, or “flipped”, in the sense that content and material is delivered to students for self-study in advance of lectures, via a combination of home-grown electronic course materials, textbook reading and external web resources. Subsequent lectures focus on problems students are still having after self-study of the material, which have been self- reported by them as ...

Abstract

The term technology-enhanced learning (TEL) is used to describe the application of information and communication technologies to teaching and learning. Explicit statements about what the term is understood to mean are rare and it is not evident that a shared understanding has been developed in higher education of what constitutes an enhancement of the student learning experience. This article presents a critical review and assessment of how TEL is interpreted in recent literature. It examines the purpose of technology interventions, the ...

Abstract

Human collective behavior can vary from calm to panicked depending on social context. Using videos publicly available online, we study the highly energized collective motion of attendees at heavy metal concerts. We find these extreme social gatherings generate similarly extreme behaviors: a disordered gas-like state called a mosh pit and an ordered vortex-like state called a circle pit. Both phenomena are reproduced in flocking simulations demonstrating that human collective behavior is consistent with the predictions of simplified models. ...

Abstract

The rapid molecular evolution of reproductive genes is nearly ubiquitous across animals, yet the selective forces and functional targets underlying this divergence remain poorly understood. Humans and closely related species of great apes show strongly divergent mating systems, providing a powerful system to investigate the influence of sperm competition on the evolution of reproductive genes. This is complemented by detailed information on male reproductive biology and unparalleled genomic resources in humans. Here, we have used custom microarrays to capture and sequence ...

Abstract

To investigate the neural processes of decision-makings between attractive females and money, we recorded 18 male participants' brain event-related potentials (ERPs) when they performed a novel task of deciding between viewing an attractive female's fuzzy picture in clear and gaining a certain amount of money. Two types of attractive females were included: sexy females and beautiful females. Several new electrophysiological discoveries were obtained as following. First, the beautiful females vs. money task (task B) elicited a larger positive ERP deflection (P2) ...

Abstract

All current evidence of visual perspective taking in dogs can possibly be explained by dogs reacting to certain stimuli rather than understanding what others see. In the current study, we set up a situation in which contextual information and social cues are in conflict. A human always forbade the dog from taking a piece of food. The part of the room being illuminated was then varied, for example, either the area where the human was seated or the area where the ...

Abstract

Nutritional infertility is very common in societies where women fail to eat enough to match their energy expenditure and such females often present as clinical cases of anorexia nervosa. The cellular and molecular mechanisms that link energy balance and central regulation of reproduction are still not well understood. Peripheral hormones such as estradiol, testosterone and leptin, as well as neuropeptides like kisspeptin and neuropeptides Y (NPY) play a potential role in regulation of reproduction and energy balance with their primary target ...

Note (first note only)

Alternate day complete fasting led to 30-40% reduction in calorie intake. Take home message - don't overdo the fasting, especially in young animals.

Abstract

There is a debate about the advantages and disadvantages of using social media in education. Drawing on interviews and surveys with students and teachers in three Swedish schools, this study finds that students as well as teachers find much of the students' social media use distractive to learning. We investigate this by means of an interpretative study of students' and teachers' experiences. We find that concerns relate to how social media use makes students less social, how weaker students are more ...

Abstract

Les cours d’initiation à la statistique ont traditionellement visé les consomammateurs de la statistique avec l’intention de produire une population capable de faire une analyse critique des statistiques élémentaires publiées. Plus récemment, les professeurs de la statistique ont tenté d’orienter les cours d’initiation vers des données réelles, afin de motiver les élèves d’un part, et de créer un cours plus pertinent d’autre part. Le succès de cette approche repose sur une provision de données que les étudiants considèrent comme réels et ...

Abstract

Numerous studies exist examining how college students use Facebook and how this affects aspects of their college experience; however, all of these studies have relied on self-report measures of Facebook use. Research in other areas of human behavior has shown that self-report measures are substantially inaccurate when compared to actual behaviors. This study provides the first test of the criterion validity of measures of Facebook frequency by comparing self-reported time spent on the site and number of logins against actual usage ...

Abstract

This essay examines the implications of the ubiquitous use of the term ?digital literacies? in higher education and its increasing alignment with institutional and organisational imperatives. It suggests that the term has been stripped of its provenance and association with disciplinary knowledge production and textual practice. Instead it is called into service rhetorically in order to promote competency-based agendas both in and outside the academy. The piece also points to a tendency to position teachers in deficit with regard to their technological ...