The Virtual University as a Conceptual Model for Faculty Change and Innovation     

Allison Littlejohn  Niall Sclater 《Interactive Learning Environments》2013,21(2-3):209-225

Virtual universities and virtual learning environments are becoming increasingly accessible to faculty wishing to develop Web-based courses. They can provide a convenient cognitive framework to assist educators in moving towards new technology-based teaching methods. The University of Strathclyde has developed a series of faculty development workshops based around the conceptual model of Clyde Virtual University (http://cvu.strath.ac.uk) in an attempt to promote cultural change within the institution. The virtual university, whilst providing examples of good practice in the use of the new technologies, is also used as a delivery medium for the courses themselves, and as a place where participants can communicate with each other and archive their own materials. This paper explains the necessity for such a conceptual framework to overcome barriers faculty face in developing Web-based materials. It describes the Clyde Virtual University and the way in which innovative approac hes to teaching, learning, and assessment in a virtual setting can aid the development of a fully professionalized teaching force in higher education.  相似文献   

Cosmopolitan Trade Centre or Bone of Contention? Alexandria and the Crusades, 487–857/1095–1453     

Niall Christie 《Al-Masaq: Islam & the Medieval Mediterranean》2014,26(1):49-61

Abstract

This article examines the position of Alexandria during the crusading period (487–857/1095–1453), seeking to open up the question indicated in the title for discussion. Did Alexandria's importance as a trade centre have an impact on whether or not it became the target of military attacks by the Franks? What other forms of contention was it a focus for during the period? While not claiming to provide conclusive answers, we seek at least to provide a starting point for discussion of this complex issue.  相似文献   

Three-dimensional printed millifluidic devices for zebrafish embryo tests     

Feng Zhu  Joanna Skommer  Niall P. Macdonald  Timo Friedrich  Jan Kaslin  Donald Wlodkowic 《Biomicrofluidics》2015,9(4)

Implementations of Lab-on-a-Chip technologies for in-situ analysis of small model organisms and embryos (both invertebrate and vertebrate) are attracting an increasing interest. A significant hurdle to widespread applications of microfluidic and millifluidic devices for in-situ analysis of small model organisms is the access to expensive clean room facilities and complex microfabrication technologies. Furthermore, these resources require significant investments and engineering know-how. For example, poly(dimethylsiloxane) soft lithography is still largely unattainable to the gross majority of biomedical laboratories willing to pursue development of chip-based platforms. They often turn instead to readily available but inferior classical solutions. We refer to this phenomenon as workshop-to-bench gap of bioengineering science. To tackle the above issues, we examined the capabilities of commercially available Multi-Jet Modelling (MJM) and Stereolithography (SLA) systems for low volume fabrication of optical-grade millifluidic devices designed for culture and biotests performed on millimetre-sized specimens such as zebrafish embryos. The selected 3D printing technologies spanned a range from affordable personal desktop systems to high-end professional printers. The main motivation of our work was to pave the way for off-the-shelf and user-friendly 3D printing methods in order to rapidly and inexpensively build optical-grade millifluidic devices for customized studies on small model organisms. Compared with other rapid prototyping technologies such as soft lithography and infrared laser micromachining in poly(methyl methacrylate), we demonstrate that selected SLA technologies can achieve user-friendly and rapid production of prototypes, superior feature reproduction quality, and comparable levels of optical transparency. A caution need to be, however, exercised as majority of tested SLA and MJM resins were found toxic and caused significant developmental abnormalities in zebrafish embryos. Taken together, our data demonstrate that SLA technologies can be used for rapid and accurate production of devices for biomedical research. However, polymer biotoxicity needs to be carefully evaluated.  相似文献   

Can we avoid digital structural violence in future learning systems?     

Niall Winters  Rebecca Eynon  Anne Geniets  James Robson  Ken Kahn 《Learning, Media and Technology》2020,45(1):17-30

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the concept of digital structural violence and examines the negative role it could have in future learning systems. To address it, we propose a new interdisciplinary research agenda at the intersection of three current but disparate lines of work that:

1. Use the concept of epistemic privilege to theorise the inclusion of marginalised learners in the design of learning systems, and utilise participatory action research and emancipatory methodologies to pragmatically ensure this happens;

2. Support young learners and teachers to understand and build their own artificial intelligence algorithms;

3. Develop sustainable interdisciplinary links with computer science to address digital structural violence at the algorithmic level and to make its societal implications and underlying processes more widely understood, especially by teachers.

Taken together, these provide for a material form of resistance to digital structural violence and a theoretically and methodologically coherent future research agenda for building just learning systems.  相似文献   

Cosmopolitanism in Medieval Alexandria: Introduction     

Niall Christie 《Al-Masaq: Islam & the Medieval Mediterranean》2014,26(1):3-4

  相似文献   

The urgent need for new approaches in school evaluation to enable Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence     

Niall MacKinnon 《Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability》2011,23(1):89-106

This paper presents observations on the nature of school audit methods in light of the implementation of Scotland’s incoming Curriculum for Excellence and the major normative, technological, and cultural changes affecting schools. It points to a mismatch between the concepts and structures of the incoming curriculum and that of the universalistic yet atheoretical grading schemas used in Scottish school inspections. The analysis demonstrates how school inspection with its basis in specifications and fixed measures conflicts with the formative agenda of the incoming curriculum, causing a barrier to its creative realisation in schools. An alternative framework of school developmental engagement is presented via interpretative processes, theoretically grounded purposes and systems thinking.  相似文献   

An investigation into the application of ensemble learning for entailment classification     

Niall Rooney  Hui Wang  Philip S. Taylor 《Information processing & management》2014

Textual entailment is a task for which the application of supervised learning mechanisms has received considerable attention as driven by successive Recognizing Data Entailment data challenges. We developed a linguistic analysis framework in which a number of similarity/dissimilarity features are extracted for each entailment pair in a data set and various classifier methods are evaluated based on the instance data derived from the extracted features. The focus of the paper is to compare and contrast the performance of single and ensemble based learning algorithms for a number of data sets. We showed that there is some benefit to the use of ensemble approaches but, based on the extracted features, Naïve Bayes proved to be the strongest learning mechanism. Only one ensemble approach demonstrated a slight improvement over the technique of Naïve Bayes.  相似文献   

4. PROPAGANDA     

Chris Sterling  Niall Levine 《Communication Booknotes Quarterly》2013,44(2):109-112

RESIDENTIAL BROADBAND by George Abe (Indianapolis: Macmillan Technical Publishing “Cisco Press Design and Implementation Series,”; 1997—$55.00, ISBN 1–57870–020–5, 500 pp., charts, graphs, acronyms list [inside covers], appendix directory of companies, index)

INTRODUCTION TO TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK ENGINEERING by Tarmo Anttalainen (Norwood, MA: Artech House “Communications Library,”; 1998—price not given, ISBN 0–89006–984–0, 297 pp., diagrams, chapter problem and review sets, references, index)

MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS: STANDARDS, REGULATION, AND APPLICATIONS by Rudi Bekkers and Jan Smits (Norwood, MA: Artech House “Mobile Communications Series,”; 1998—$95.00, ISBN 0–89006–806–2, 467 pp., diagrams, tables, glossary, bibliography, notes, index)

HIGH PERFORMANCE NETWORKS, PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS AND MOBILE COMPUTING by Dimitris Chorafas (Basingstoke: Macmillan “Business,”; 1997—£45.00, ISBN 0–333–66683–6, 340 pp., figures, tables, charts, list of contacts, index)

DIGITAL VIDEO BROADCASTING: TECHNOLOGY, STANDARDS, AND REGULATIONS by Ronald de Bruin and Jan Smits (Norwood, MA: Artech House “Digital Audio and Video Library,”; 1999—$73.00, ISBN 0–89006–743–0, 315 pp., diagrams, references, glossary, index)

FROM TALKING DRUMS TO THE INTERNET: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY by Robert Gardner and Dennis Shortelle (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC‐Clio, 1997—$65.00, ISBN 0–87436–832–4, 355 pp., photos, diagrams, references, bibliography, index)

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY UPDATE edited by August E. Grant and Jennifer Harman Meadows (Woburn, MA: Focal Press, 1998 [6th ed.]—$35.00, paper, ISBN 0–240–80326–4, charts, diagrams, tables, notes, chapter bibliographies, glossary)

ISDN EXPLAINED: WORLDWIDE NETWORK AND APPLICATIONS TECHNOLOGY edited by John M. Griffiths (Chichester, England and New York: John Wiley, 1998 [3rd ed.]—$74.95, ISBN 0–471–97905–8, 291 pp., charts, tables, notes, glossary, index)

DICTIONARY OF COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY: TERMS, DEFINITIONS AND ABBREVIATIONS by Gilbert Held (New York: John Wiley, 1998 [3rd ed.]—$160.00, paper, ISBN 0–471–97517–6, 672 pp., tables, charts, appendices)

RESIDENTIAL BROADBAND: AN INSIDER'S GUIDE TO THE BATTLE FOR THE LAST MILE by Kim Maxwell (New York: Wiley, 1998—$39.99, paper, ISBN 0–471–25165–8, 390 pp., diagrams, tables, bibliography, index)

MAKING MICROCHIPS: POLICY, GLOBALIZATION, AND ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY by Jan Mazurek (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press “Urban and Industrial Environments,”; 1999—$30.00, ISBN 0–262–13345–8, 245 pp., charts, references, index)

UNDERSTANDING MODERN TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY by John G. Nellist and Elliott M. Gilbert (Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1999—$49.00, ISBN 0–89006–322–2, 285 pp., photos, diagrams, charts, chapter bibliographies, glossary, index)

WORLD‐CLASS TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE DEVELOPMENT by Ellen Ward (Norwood, MA: Artech House “Telecommunications Library,”; 1998—$59.00, ISBN 0–89006–922–0, 260 pp., diagrams, acronyms list, index)

UNDERSTANDING CELLULAR RADIO by William Webb (Norwood, MA: Artech House “Mobile Communications Series,”; 1998—$59.00, ISBN 0–89006–994–8, 283 pp., diagrams, glossary, index)  相似文献   

3. PROPAGANDA STUDIES     

Christopher Sterling  Michael C. Keith  Niall Levine 《Communication Booknotes Quarterly》2013,44(3):166-169

CONSUMING ENVIRONMENTS: TELEVISION AND COMMERCIAL CULTURE by Mike Budd, Steve Craig, and Clay Steinman (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press “Communications, Media, and Culture,”; 1999— $50.00/22.00, ISBN 0–8135–2591–8 hard, 0–8135–2592–6 paper, 225 pp., photos, tables, charts, bibliography, index)

PACIFICA RADIO: THE RISE OF AN ALTERNATIVE NETWORK by Matthew Lasar (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1999—$34.95, ISBN 1–56639–660–3, 277 pp., photos, notes, index)

COPYCAT TELEVISION: GLOBALISATION, PROGRAM FORMATS AND CULTURAL IDENTITY by Albert Moran (Luton: University of Luton Press, 1998—£14.95, paper, ISBN 1–86020–537–2, 192 pp., illustrations, bibliography, index)  相似文献   

6. FOREIGN AND INTERNATIONAL     

Pascal Verhoest  Chris Sterling  Pamela Czapla  Niall Levine  James K. Bracken 《Communication Booknotes Quarterly》2013,44(1):29-34

TELECOM REFORM: PRINCIPLES, POLICIES AND REGULATORY PRACTICES by edited by William H. Melody (Lyngby, Denmark: Den private Ingeniørfond, Technical University of Denmark, 1997‐$39.00, paper, ISBN 7–7381–071–1, 557 pp., tables figures notes, index, glossary, appendix)

RADIO CANADA INTERNATIONAL: VOICE OF A MIDDLE POWER by James L. Hall (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, “Canadian Series No. 7,”; 1997—$24.95, paper, ISBN 0–87013–420–5, 295 pp., photos, notes, appendices, bibliography, index)

BITS ACROSS BORDERS: POLICY CHOICES FOR INTERNATIONAL MULTIMEDIA AND DIGITAL SERVICES: A Report of the Second Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on International Telecommunications, Berlin, Germany, June 19–22, 1996, by Kenneth G. Robinson and Charles M. Firestone (Queenstown, MD: The Aspen Institute, 1997—$10.00, ISBN 0–89843–208–1, 55 pp., appendix)

IT'S A WIRED WORLD by Anne C. Leer (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press [Universitetsforlaget], 1996—L27.50, ISBN 82–00–42310–7, 188 pp., figures, appendices, notes, glossary)

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COMMUNICATION: RETHINKING AND RENEWAL by Vincent Mosco (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996—$39.95/13.95, ISBN 0–8039–8560–6 hard, 0–8039–8561–4 paper, 320 pp., figures, tables, notes, index)

EBU YEARBOOK 1997 (Geneva: European Broadcasting Union, 1997—free by contacting the EBU, no ISSN given, 52 pp., tables, charts, photos)

LIVE, DIRECT AND BIASED? MAKING TELEVISION NEWS IN THE SATELLITE AGE by Brent MacGregor (London: Arnold/New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997—prices not given, ISBN 0–340–66224–7 hard, 0–340–66225–5 paper, 234 pp., table, references, index)

GLOBAL INFORMATION AND WORLD COMMUNICATION: NEW FRONTIERS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS by Hamid Mowlana (London: Sage, 1997 [2nd ed.] $29.95, ISBN 0–7619–5256‐X hard, ISBN 0–7619–5257–8 soft, 270 pp., figures, selected bibliography, index)  相似文献