Communicating Campus Sexual Assault: A Mixed Methods Rhetorical Analysis

ABSTRACT

This article reports on a mixed methods rhetorical analysis of a data set of news reports on campus sexual assault. A macro-level qualitative analysis of narratives combined with micro-level quantitative content analysis of verb voice offers insight into how news media shapes perceptions of power, blame, and agency in reporting. These findings offer implications for how public actors discuss campus sexual assault and implications for the teaching and practice of research methods in technical communication.     

Strategic and bonding effects of enhancing the student feedback process

In order to produce distinctiveness that leads to competitive advantage, higher education institutions must remain cognizant that students are co-creators. Thus, to create genuine value in educational service delivery, there is a need for a more highly developed understanding of the student-institutional intersection. The present research contributes to the marketing of higher education by developing and testing a model related to the antecedents of a broader conception of student feedback as part of student/customer orientation and co-creation. Conceived as customer feedback, student feedback to an educational institution can be positive (compliment), negative (complaint), or be an idea for an improvement to any person, or service group of the institution. Perceived ease of the feedback process and perceived usefulness, customer orientation and affective commitment are found as antecedents to intention to provide feedback. The result is a model with conceptual and managerial implications for strategically bonding students to universities.     

Teaching Thermodynamics to Physics Students using the Keller Plan

Summaries

English

An experimental Keller Plan programme for teaching thermodynamics to second‐year students at a Spanish university, is described. The evaluation of the programme, made in comparison with conventionally taught students, showed Keller Plan teaching to result in an improvement of students’ study habits and a more positive attitude towards examinations and tests. On the negative side, however, students following the Keller Plan programme performed less well in actual calculations and problem‐solving than their counterparts. A modified Keller Plan scheme has recently been adopted.     

The changing discourse on race in contemporary Cuba

During the last decade, the positivist perspective of social reality has lost credibility in education and other fields, giving way to a wide range of alternative conceptions of social science. This proliferation is welcome but confusing. This paper examines several intellectual traditions within the “post‐positivist camp” and identifies a number of approaches to decoding social reality as guidelines for field‐based research.     

The impact of national culture on e‐learning implementation: a comparative study of an Argentinean and a Swedish university

This paper analyses and suggests possible technological innovation strategies in higher educational institutions in Africa. The paper describes management issues in the implementation of eLearning with particular reference to its usage in higher education abroad and in Africa, and also suggests appropriate approaches for technological innovation of higher education in Africa. The major findings of the paper, which are based on three case studies, suggest that eLearning needs to be implemented within a strategically developed framework based on a clear and unified vision and a central educational rationale. The findings further highlight the importance of using a combination of strategies – top–down, bottom–up and inside–out – during the diffusion process to attain coherence, collegiality and ownership. The process of technological transformation is not a smooth translation process but one of dislocations, dilemmas and uncertainties and it is an art to effect change and sustainable technological transformation since people are central to this transformation process.

L'innovation technologique et les stratégies de management pour l'enseignement supérieur en Afrique: L'Harmonisation du réalisme et du l'idéalisme

Cet article analyse et suggére des stratégies d'innovation dans des établissements d'enseignement supérieur en Afrique. Il décrit les problèmes de management qui pose l'introduction du e‐Learning avec une référence particulière pour son usage dans l'enseignement supérieur à l'étranger et en Afrique et suggére les approches appropriées pour l'innovation technologique dans l'enseignement supérieur en Afrique. Les résultats principaux exposés dans cet article qui sont fondés sur trois études de cas suggérent que le e‐Learning doit être introduit dans un cadre stratégique fondé sur une vision clariment unifiée et une rationalisation centrale de l'éducation. De plus ces résultats mettent en évidence l'importance de l'utilisation combinée de plusieurs stratégies : stratégies autant en bas, de bas en haut, d'intérieur et d'extérieur pendant le processus de diffusion afin d'aboutir à la cohérence, la collégialité et la possession. Le processus de transformation technologique n'est pas un processus de translation sans à compris mais un de dislocation, de dilemmes, d'incertitudes et c'est un art de procéder au changement et à une transformation technologique soutenue puisque les hommes sont au c?ur de ce processus de transformation.

Technologische Innovations‐ und Umsetzungsstrategien für höhere Bildung in Afrika: Realität und Idealismus aufeinander abstimmen

Dieser Beitrag analysiert technologische Innovationstrategien und stellt Vorschläge für deren Einführung in höhereren Bildungsinstitutionen in Afrika zur Diskussion. Das Papier beschreibt Managementangelegenheiten bei der Umsetzung von eLearning unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Anwendung in der höheren Bildung im Ausland und in Afrika und schlägt auch entsprechende Ansätze für die technologische Innovation im Bereich der höheren Bildung in Afrika vor. Das wesentliche Ergebmiss dieser Arbeit, die auf drei Fallstudien beruht, ist, dass eLearning innerhalb eines strategisch entwickelten Rahmens, basierend auf einer klaren und einheitlichen Sichtweise und einer zentralen bildungslogischen Grundlage eingeführt werden muß. Die Befunde heben weiter die Wichtigkeit hervor, eine Kombination von Strategien zu verwenden: Top‐Down, Bottom‐Up und Inside‐Out Strategien während des Ausbreitungsprozesses, um Kohärenz, Kollegialität und Eigentumsrechte zu erlangen. Der Prozeß technologischer Transformation ist nicht etwa eine sanfte Überleitung, sondern von Verfremdung, Dilemmata und Unsicherheit begleitet. Es ist eine Kunst, Änderung und nachhaltige technologische Transformation zu bewirken, da ja die Menschen das zentrale Element dieses Transformation-sprozesses sind.     

Popularizing the ancestry of man: Robert Ardrey and the killer instinct

This essay examines Robert Ardrey (1908-1980)-American playwright, screenwriter, and prolific author-as a case study in the popularization of science. Bringing together evidence from both paleoanthropology and ethology, Ardrey became in the 1960s a vocal proponent of the theory that human beings are innately violent. The essay shows that Ardrey used his popular scientific books not only to consolidate a new science of human nature but also to question the popularizer's standard role, to reverse conventional hierarchies of scientific expertise, and to test the boundaries of professional scientific authority. Understanding how he did this can help us reassess the meanings and uses of popular science as critique in Cold War America. The essay also shows that E. O. Wilson's sociobiology was in part a reaction to the subversive political message of Ardrey's science.     

Making Meaning on the Mall: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival as a Constructivist Museum

George Hein, museum education theorist, asserts that there are five qualities a “constructivist exhibition” must have (1998, 35). The authors, assembling observations of visitor engagement and qualitative data from the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, compare the event to Hein's constructivist exhibition criteria, to assess whether the Festival allowed visitors to “make meaning,” and to see whether visitor meaning‐making meshed with the goals of the curators. The answers have the potential to help improve visitor experiences and learning outcomes at museums and other curated cultural events.     

A conceptual approach to secure electronic elections based on patterns

Electoral processes are complex and need to be secure, reliable, and auditable. It is then important to define ways to evaluate their functional completeness and correction as well as their security and reliability. Many solutions to specific aspects of voting have been proposed but we do not know of any holistic view of this process. We present a unified approach to elections based on a conceptual model built using software patterns. A set of analysis patterns describe the structure and management of an election. The patterns describe voter registration, ballot structure, election day management, voting process, and the complete election. A conceptual model is built from the analysis patterns and defines precisely the functional properties of such a system together with its security requirements. The conceptual model is defined using UML diagrams that can be extended or complemented with formal methods to make the system verifiable. We show how to continue to the design phase for this system. While the model will not apply exactly to all elections it can be used as a reference architecture for voting applications and to show explicitly the security considerations for these kind of events. It can also be used for existing elections to verify that they have the required security provisions. The model can also be used as a reference for researchers to integrate their solutions in the complete process.