A Legend for Teaching Normal Probability Plotting

The concept of the Legend as a teaching device is introduced and illustrated by a Legend devised to aid in the teaching of Normal Plotting. Readers are challenged to devise and submit further Legends.     

University alumni mentoring programs: a win-win?

Alumni-student mentoring programs have become commonplace at many universities, and yet, scholarly research has rarely explored the impact of these programs on participating students and alumni. To address this, we investigated three alumni mentoring programs at a large research-intensive university in Australia. Using a mixed methods approach (a web based survey and interviews), we sought both students' and mentors' perceptions of their alumni mentoring program and how their involvement may have impacted their perceptions of the university (n=197). The findings highlight that alumni mentoring programs provide distinct benefits to both students and alumni and may result in improved university engagement. Our results also indicate new revelations about alumni mentoring programs, including the challenges associated with mentoring postgraduate students and recommended best practice to ensure the success of alumni mentoring programs.     

Co-creation in higher education: towards a conceptual model

Students have begun to show interest in adopting active and participatory roles that allow them to interact and work collaboratively with educators. One important aspect of students as partners is a process known as value co-creation. Value co-creation is the process of students’ feedback, opinions, and other resources such as their intellectual capabilities and personalities, integrated alongside institutional resources, which can offer mutual value to both students and institutions. This paper presents the first conceptual model of value co-creation in higher education using a lens of co-creation cultivated through business and marketing literature. The model includes key components of value co-creation, co-production, and value-in-use as well as links to the anticipated benefits of value co-creation. The model can be used to inform and guide practice for the faculty and administration within higher education as well as to broaden the foundation of value co-creation literature.     

Film Production

Mollie Gregory, Making Films Your Business (New York: Schocken Books, 1979 -- paper/$14.95 hardcover)

Sheldon Thomberg, Making Money Making Movies: The Independent Movie-makers Handbook (New York: New Viewpoints/Vision Books, 1980 -- $9.95).

Donn Delson, A Dictionary of Marketing and Related Terms in the Motion Picture Industry (Write Bradson Press, 120 Longfellow Street, Thosand Oaks, California 91360 -- $7.95 paper).

Milton Lustig, Music Editing for Motion Pictures (New York: Hastings House, 1980 -- $15.95)

Fred B. Basten, Glorious Technicolor: The Movies Magic Rainbow (South Brunswick, A.S. Barnes, 1980 -- $30.00).

Al Taylor and Sue Roy, Making a Monster (New York: Crown Publishers, 1980 -- $14.95).     

On-chip collection of particles and cells by AC electroosmotic pumping and dielectrophoresis using asymmetric microelectrodes

The recent development of microfluidic "lab on a chip" devices requiring sample sizes <100 μL has given rise to the need to concentrate dilute samples and trap analytes, especially for surface-based detection techniques. We demonstrate a particle collection device capable of concentrating micron-sized particles in a predetermined area by combining AC electroosmosis (ACEO) and dielectrophoresis (DEP). The planar asymmetric electrode pattern uses ACEO pumping to induce equal, quadrilateral flow directed towards a stagnant region in the center of the device. A number of system parameters affecting particle collection efficiency were investigated including electrode and gap width, chamber height, applied potential and frequency, and number of repeating electrode pairs and electrode geometry. The robustness of the on-chip collection design was evaluated against varying electrolyte concentrations, particle types, and particle sizes. These devices are amenable to integration with a variety of detection techniques such as optical evanescent waveguide sensing.     

Virtual and Valued: A Review of the Successes (and a Few Failures) of the Creation,Implementation, and Evaluation of an Inaugural Virtual Conference and Monthly Webinars

Planning and implementing online professional development opportunities is challenging but attainable. This paper explains how a group of librarians from different institutions worked to plan, market, implement, and evaluate monthly webinars as well as an inaugural online conference, despite never meeting in person. The web conferences began in-state and grew to include presenters and attendees from across the nation. A review of available web-conferencing technologies will be provided, including free and open-source options. This paper includes details about the planning process, including subcommittee collaborations, social media marketing, and day-of logistics. Failures during event planning and execution—and tips to avoid them—will be discussed, as well as next steps looking forward.     

‘Sinigurisha! (You are not for sale!)’: exploring the relationship between access to school,school fees,and sexual abuse in Rwanda

In Rwanda, many victims do not report rape to the police because the perpetrators financially support their basic living needs and/or education. Victims who are impregnated by their perpetrators are even more financially dependent on them, both because of the additional expense of raising a child and because the possibilities of returning to school and increasing job prospects are more limited. Over the course of February–September 2011, qualitative fieldwork in the form of in-depth interviews was conducted in two Eastern Province rural sectors and in Kigali. Interviewees included victims of sexual abuse who were impregnated by their abusers, family members of victims, and NGO workers. In addition, stories written by youth concerning sexual abuse present themes of both financial dependency and forgiveness.