Establishing Influential Decision Making Factors for University Library Opening Hours: An Exploratory UK Regional Study     

Clare Ravenwood  Derek Stephens  Graham Walton 《New Review of Academic Librarianship》2015,21(1):52-67

Many factors and pressures affect decisions made in UK university libraries on opening hours especially 24/7. This article reports on a project to examine the decision making process, influential factors, and stakeholders. A workshop for senior library managers in the East Midlands was held to gather data and share experiences. From analysis of the workshop a framework of influential factors was devised and the decision making process was examined. Although each library had different priorities, important factors overall included pressure from undergraduates and the student's union, and provision during exam periods. Further research to examine the framework nationally is required.  相似文献   

Communicating spending cuts: lessons for Australian university leaders     

Geoff Sharrock 《Journal of Higher Education Policy & Management》2014,36(3):338-354

In 2011 and 2012, two Australian university vice chancellors flagged spending cuts at their institutions to overcome financial problems. In both cases, union and staff opposition led to public protests, intense media scrutiny, delays and retreats. This article compares the two cases to see what lessons may be drawn for university leaders faced with the complex, difficult and risky task of introducing spending cuts, a likely feature of Australian university management in the next few years. How can they do this in ways that cause minimal damage to programmes; are acceptable to those affected; and avoid undue damage to staff morale, student interests or institutional reputation?  相似文献   

Dielectrophoretic manipulation of ribosomal RNA     

Giraud G  Pethig R  Schulze H  Henihan G  Terry JG  Menachery A  Ciani I  Corrigan D  Campbell CJ  Mount AR  Ghazal P  Walton AJ  Crain J  Bachmann TT 《Biomicrofluidics》2011,5(2):24116

The manipulation of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) extracted from E. coli cells by dielectrophoresis (DEP) has been demonstrated over the range of 3 kHz-50 MHz using interdigitated microelectrodes. Quantitative measurement using total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy of the time dependent collection indicated a positive DEP response characterized by a plateau between 3 kHz and 1 MHz followed by a decrease in response at higher frequencies. Negative DEP was observed above 9 MHz. The positive DEP response below 1 MHz is described by the Clausius-Mossotti model and corresponds to an induced dipole moment of 3300 D with a polarizability of 7.8×10(-32) F m(2). The negative DEP response above 9 MHz indicates that the rRNA molecules exhibit a net moment of -250 D, to give an effective permittivity value of 78.5 ε(0), close to that of the aqueous suspending medium, and a relatively small surface conductance value of ～0.1 nS. This suggests that our rRNA samples have a fairly open structure accessible to the surrounding water molecules, with counterions strongly bound to the charged phosphate groups in the rRNA backbone. These results are the first demonstration of DEP for fast capture and release of rRNA units, opening new opportunities for rRNA-based biosensing devices.  相似文献   

Seeing the point of perception in the primary curriculum     

Geoff Southworth 《Cambridge Journal of Education》1987,17(3):141-144

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Comics—A Medium for Racism     

Bruce Carrington  Geoff Short 《English in Education》1984,18(2):10-14

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Is job sharing worthwhile? A cost-benefit analysis in UK universities     

Geoff Harris 《Higher Education》1997,33(1):29-38

Around 60 per cent of UK universities practice job sharing. This article is based on a survey of Personnel Directors in UK universities concerning their perceptions of job sharing. These responses were then used to carry out a cost benefit evaluation of job sharing from the universities' perspective. If productivity of workers in the shared job rose by as little as 0.35 per cent – one third of one per cent – the estimated increase in Personnel Section costs would be covered. If there was a 5 per cent increase in productivity, the ratio of benefits to costs would be 14.3 to 1. Universities also save as a result of greater retention of staff, and there are also important benefits to society, particularly less overall stress and reduced unemployment levels.  相似文献   

‘Korea … it's not really actually an Asian country’: Australian children's experiences of an intercultural school partnership programme     

Jessica Walton 《Ethnography and Education》2019,14(3):264-278

ABSTRACT

In Australia, intercultural understanding has been prioritised in education and curriculum documents at both federal and state levels. Alongside this educational priority, schools have also been encouraged to demonstrate ‘engagement’ with ‘Asia’, such as through a partnership with another school in the Asia-Pacific region. My research findings are based on an ethnographic study of Year 5 and 6 Australian children's experiences of an intercultural school partnership initiative through on-line classroom exchanges over a two-year period. Through a critical analysis of ‘complexity reduction’ I draw attention to the processes through which children made sense of perceived racial and cultural differences as part of their involvement in partnership activities and conclude with some reflections on the extent to which educational initiatives such as intercultural school partnership programmes that aim to foster intercultural understanding can do so without reinforcing unequal intercultural relations and stereotypes.  相似文献   

Intelligent educational systems: identifying and decoupling the conversational levels     

Geoff Cumming  John Self 《Instructional Science》1990,19(1):11-27

Intelligent educational systems (IESs) have traditionally been thought of in terms of their functional subsystems. The three obligatory subsystems are those containing domain knowledge, a model of the learner's current state, and teaching knowledge. We argue that it is useful to reconceptualise IESs: we should think of them from the point of view of the multiple levels of conversational interaction that they support with a learner. We suggest that in many cases it is useful to identify a task level at which the learner is working, and a higher discussion level at which the learner and system converse about, and reflect on the primary task. If the two levels can be to some extent decoupled, meaning that each level has less than complete knowledge of the other level, IES development might be simplified. In some cases an IES might be built by the addition of a discussion level component to an existing computer tool, simulation, game or microworld. A critical requirement for a decoupled IES is a representation for communication between levels; study of human tutoring is needed to guide identification of suitable representations.  相似文献   

Modelling success networks to improve the quality of undergraduate education     

Geoff Woolcott  Robyn Keast  Daniel Chamberlain  Ben Farr-Wharton 《Quality in Higher Education》2017,23(2):120-137

Discussions of support and intervention in undergraduate university education are dominated by discussion of attrition. This study quests more broadly in arguing that support and intervention for undergraduate students may also benefit from models of engagement and success as well as conventional risk and failure. Supporting this proposition is a study that involved multifactorial approaches based in a combination of aspects of social network theory and social ecology theory. Analysis was enacted through social network analysis of archival data sets derived from a single cohort of 4065 undergraduate students at a regional Australian university. The findings suggest that models of academic success are suited to examination of the broader issues of student agency and undergraduate university education. The success networks developed are uniquely student-centred and place-based and may serve as more nuanced models for university intervention and support structures and mechanisms.  相似文献   

Towards adaptive open learning environments: Evaluating the precision of identifying learning styles by tracking learners’ behaviours     

Heba Fasihuddin  Geoff Skinner  Rukshan Athauda 《Education and Information Technologies》2017,22(3):807-825

Open learning represents a new form of online learning where courses are provided freely online for large numbers of learners. MOOCs are examples of this form of learning. The authors see an opportunity for personalising open learning environments by adapting to learners’ learning styles and providing adaptive support to meet individual learner needs and preferences. Identifying learning styles of learners in open learning environments is crucial to providing adaptive support. Learning styles refer to the manner in which learners receive and perceive information. In the literature, a number of learning style models have been proposed. The Felder and Silverman Learning Styles Model (FSLSM) has been selected as the most appropriate model for open learning. In previous studies two approaches have been used to automatically identify learning styles based on the FSLSM. These approaches are known as the data-driven method and the literature-based method. In the literature, the literature-based method has been shown to be more accurate in identifying learning styles. This method relies on tracking learners’ interactions with the provided learning objects based on a set of pre-determined patterns that help in inferring learning styles. The patterns are monitored based on pre-identified threshold values. This paper aims to apply the literature-based method to open learning environments and introduce the optimal patterns and threshold values for identifying learning styles based on the FSLSM. To achieve this aim, a study was conducted whereby a prototype that simulates the open learning environment was developed and piloted on an undergraduate IT course so that learner behaviour could be tracked and data could be collected. Next, different sets of threshold values from the literature were considered along with some updated threshold values considering the context of open learning environments, and the precision of identifying learning styles was calculated. Eighty-three students participated in the study and used the developed prototype. Precision results from different threshold values presented in the literature along with customised threshold values for this study are reported and analysed in this paper. It is shown that threshold values derived from literature and customised to suit open learning environments provide a high level of accuracy in identifying learning styles. The paper presents the first study of its kind in evaluating threshold values and precision in identifying learning styles based on the FSLSM in open learning environments. The results are promising and indicate that the proposed methodology is efficient in detecting learning styles in open learning environments and useful for developing an adaptive framework.  相似文献