The Instructional Designer’s Role in Forming University-Community Partnerships in Digital Literacy

With an eye toward contemporary skill building to meet community centered economic needs, organizations such as Literacy Volunteers of America are increasingly pressured to examine new avenues in promoting employment readiness skills for the newly literate. These organizations and countless others have come to the realization that being prepared for the current workforce demands a skill set that surpasses traditional literacy skills in realizing job opportunity. The newly literate must now achieve a level of digital literacy to accompany traditional literacy efforts. The demand for such contemporary literacy skills to parallel traditional literacy presents an opportunity for university based instructional designers to share expertise and to collaborate with their local communities to this end. This paper focuses on the process of the formation of a university-community partnership in digital literacy designed for participants to collaboratively address such technology focused educational needs.     

Child fatality review: an international movement

OBJECTIVE: This article discusses the multidisciplinary Child Fatality Review process in the US, Canada, and Australia, including common patterns, unique programs, changes over time, impact on multiagency systems, and future directions. METHOD: An open-ended survey was shared with teams listed in the directories of the Los Angeles County Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect National Center on Child Fatality Review (ICAN-NCFR). Responses were received from 58 state and local Child Fatality Review teams. RESULTS: Teams exist in all 50 states, Washington, DC, most Canadian provinces, and New South Wales, Australia. Team structure varies but generally includes a similar core membership, and most teams select cases from coroner/medical examiner or vital statistics records through established protocols. While most case review is conducted by local teams, state teams may review cases because of small size or sparse population or choose to review specific types of cases (e.g., Child Protective Services). State teams often support local review through training, resources, policy development, and political assistance. An increasing number of teams collect data and issue reports, often published on the internet, allowing teams to share resources. CONCLUSIONS: Teams have matured with time, often broadening their intake spectrum, membership and data collection, and developing and following through with case management or systems change recommendations. Teams continue to improve multiagency interaction and are committed to the prevention of child injury and death. The number of teams, as well as their scope and expertise, continues to increase, developing into a national/international system.     

Associations between types of maltreatment and substance use during adolescence

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate associations between four categories of maltreatment and substance use among adolescents. METHOD: All 10th through 12th graders n = 2,187) at six public high schools in a rural Oregon county filled out an anonymous survey that included questions about their experience of emotional, sexual, and physical abuse and their use of a variety of substances. Substance use was subsequently categorized as: (1) tobacco use, (2) alcohol use, and (3) illicit drug use. Experience of maltreatment was subsequently categorized as: (1) no type of maltreatment, (2) emotional abuse, (3) physical abuse, (4) sexual abuse, and (5) sexual and physical abuse. RESULTS: Results showed that all four categories of maltreatment were associated with increased levels of all three categories of substance use. Statistical comparisons of the magnitude effects of different types of maltreatment on substance use indicated a linear trend with the effects of emotional abuse being significantly lower than those of physical or sexual abuse, and the effects of the combination of physical and sexual abuse being significantly higher than the other types. CONCLUSION: Results suggested that all types of maltreatment, including emotional abuse, are related to significantly higher levels of substance use and should be considered serious risk factors for substance use during adolescence. Results also indicated that the strength of association between maltreatment and substance use varies by type of maltreatment. Youth who have experienced both physical and sexual abuse are at especially high risk of substance use.     

Blaise CORTEX: A microprocessor system for libraries

In keeping with its role to provide information and cataloguing support services to the library and information world, the British Library is aware of the need to respond to its users' requirements by using the latest technology available. Since the development of intelligent terminals their application has been widespread in the community. The British Library has developed and adapted a commercially available intelligent terminal for specialist use within the library and information world, whilst at the same time retaining the terminal's own multi-faceted capabilities.     

Feeding the information eaters: Suggestions for integrating pure and applied research on language comprehension

This paper examines the current relation between pure and applied research on the comprehension of written information. It finds few points of contact. The suggestion is put forward that greater interaction could be mutually profitable. An information flow among researchers is proposed that starts with applied solutions to practical problems, continues through pure explanations of why these solutions are successful, and so enables the refinement of the original applied solutions. Because such an information flow begins with applied solutions, some of the problems of systematizing the findings of applied research are discussed. There can never be an applied theory of communication that specifies precisely how to design written information. Therefore a proposal is put forward for applying quality-control procedures to the preparation of documents. Such procedures indicate that several different kinds of research are necessary for determining the content, optimising the format and evaluating the effectiveness of written communications. The desirability of interactions among those who carry out these different kinds of research is discussed. Finally, the criteria for evaluating research in general are considered. The categorisation of particular studies as either useful or useless is found to be inappropriate.Thanks are due to Drs John Morton and John Marshall both for providing the incentive to put these thoughts in writing and for their advice and encouragement during the preparation of the paper. Many helpful comments on an earlier draft were received from Dr Arnold Wilkins, Dr James Hartley and Michael Macdonald-Ross. These were all much appreciated, even though some may appear not to have been implemented directly.