Regulating research: The problem of theorizing community on LambdaMOO

This article considers ongoing attempts to regulate or even ban researchon LambdaMOO. Industry, private individuals, and research institutionshave supported MOOs, or multi-user object-oriented worlds. The earlyresearch on MOOs by Pavel Curtis, who was one of the key designers,suggests that these systems are part of a research project and have beenresearched since they were originally designed. However, a group ofMOOers have grown increasingly uncomfortable about the quotation ofcertain texts on web sites and academic journals and the potentiallypanoptic effect of research. Some of these practices have breachedcommunity conventions. Yet, such things as testing, invisibly watching,freely quoting characters, and ignoring certain rules have always beenaspects of the system. The dispute over research ethics and theparticipation of varied researchers within this setting indicate thatdiverse values are represented among MOOers and different expectationsexist about how the MOO might be a community. The term ``community' andthe presumption that online characters are people may have alsoincorrectly informed the research debate by making it seem that onlinesettings provide immediate access onto spaces, bodies, and individuals.Many MOOers may believe that research threatens individuals andcommunity. However, critical histories and analysis are needed in orderto explain the system to new users and encourage alternative forms ofdevelopment. Such work can only be produced if online systems are opento research and critique.     

The Value of Education: A Reply to Andrew Reid

Andrew Reid's essay on the value of education in this journal distinguished the intrinsic features of education from what education is for, the latter being ultimately located in the promotion of personal well-being. At a meta-ethical level, this response accepts Reid's claim about ultimate location, but challenges his view that prudential goods are desire-independent, arguing for a desire-dependent conception based on supra-individual, but not always universal-human, preferences. It also questions his claim that the source of educational value lies in the intrinsic features of education, rejecting the suggestion that epistemological rather ethical considerations should be the starting-point.     

Feedback complexity and corrective efficiency

College undergraduates read a 2400-word passage, responded to 16 multiple-choice questions, and received one of four types of feedback following their responses. Complexity of feedback was inversely related to both error correctability and criterion efficiency taken as a ratio of feedback study time to post-test corrects. The results were discussed in terms of depth of processing and instructional comprehension.     

The effect of breast support and breast pain on upper-extremity kinematics during running: implications for females with large breasts

The relationship between inappropriate breast support and upper-extremity kinematics for female runners is unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of breast support and breast pain on upper-extremity kinematics during running. Eleven female recreational runners with larger breasts (UK D and E cup) completed a 7 min 20 s treadmill run (2.58 m · s^?1) in a high and low breast support condition. Multi-planar breast and upper-extremity kinematic data were captured in each breast support condition by eight infrared cameras for 30 s towards the end of the run. Breast pain was rated at the end of each treadmill run using a numeric analogue scale. The high support bra reduced breast kinematics and decreased breast pain (P < 0.05). Upper-extremity kinematics did not differ between breast support conditions (P > 0.05), although some moderate positive correlations were found between thorax range of motion and breast kinematics (r = 0.54 to 0.73). Thorax and arm kinematics do not appear to be influenced by breast support level in female runners with large breasts. A high support bra that offers good multi-planar breast support is recommended for female runners with larger breasts to reduce breast pain.     

A dialogic about using Facebook status updates for education research: a PhD student's journey

Facebook status updates provided the data for a study about the transition learning experiences of 1st-year university students. Strict ethical guidelines were proposed by the PhD researcher from the outset of the study. Anonymity was considered important for the approved ethical clearance for both the university and the participants. Phenomenography was adopted and adapted for the study because it both conceptually and methodologically managed anonymity as well as questions of authenticity. An ethical dilemma arose during the research because the archival parameters were expanded by the researcher to allow the collection of data from the participants’ network. Questions of consent in an online space and how to report findings, which included data from people unaware of their involvement in the research, needed to be considered.     

Discipline-specific feedback literacies: A framework for curriculum design

Higher Education - Feedback literacy is an important graduate attribute that supports students’ future work capacities. This study aimed to develop a framework through which...     

The Researcher and the Studier: On Stress,Tiredness and Homelessness in the University

Recent European policy has seen a shift from a concern with lifelong learning in the Lisbon Strategy to research and innovation in the Horizon 2020 programme. Accordingly, there has been an increased policy focus on the researcher who, like the lifelong learner must be entrepreneurial, adaptable, mobile, but who must also find new ways in which to develop and deploy her skills and competences and smart solutions to current problems in order to ensure sustainability. The subject position of the researcher, therefore, is not a figure distinctive to the university today, but rather one required of us all. For the excellent researcher in the university, resources exist to enable her to identify those aspects of herself that are in need of development in order to keep all aspects of her personal and professional well‐being in balance, often drawn from the field of psychology. Here, rather than analysing directly the ways in which the researcher is addressed by such devices, we focus on the common experience of being in the university today. In everyday conversation, we do not describe ourselves as entrepreneurial, innovative, leading, etc., but more often as tired, stressed and not feeling at home there. Rather than taking these as impediments to productivity and aspects of ourselves requiring psychological strategies, the educational aspects of these are explored in relation to the figure of the studier, as developed from Giorgio Agamben by Tyson Lewis. The shift of discourse from lifelong learning to innovation and research in recent policy is seen to effect a further desubjectivation, a division of ourselves from ourselves.     

Cutting apart together: a diffracted spatial history of an online scholarly relationship

Drawing on the notion of cutting together-apart introduced by Karen Barad and combining it with Lefebvre’s notion of a flaneur (f. flâneuse) who moves between temporal, spatial and political relationships, this article performs a collaboration mediated by social media, namely blogging and tweeting. It draws on the notion of history, space, and social relationships to describe how two women met online. This collaboration as inquiry is about working together despite our differences – finding places to meet rather than diverge, and to dialogue rather than debate. Through a duo-ethnography of how this relationship worked and did not work, notions about how the digital world can act as a mediator for academic work are explored.