U3A Online: a virtual university of the third age for isolated older people

U3A Online is a virtual university of the third age (U3A) that provides intellectually challenging courses for isolated older people as well as for conventional U3A members. Volunteers run the programme and all courses are written and led by retired people, principally for third-agers who are isolated by distance or circumstance from taking part in conventional face-to-face U3A activities. This paper reports on two studies that were designed to reveal some of the characteristics and aspirations of participants in the U3A Online programme. During the proof-of-concept pilot study, run in 1999, telephone interviews and pre- and post-course written questionnaires were used. A sample of ‘experienced’ course members provided written data by questionnaire for the 2001 survey. The studies show that many participants who are unable to take part in mainstream adult education activities attribute a new sense of purpose and excitement in their lives to the virtual communities they begin to develop through their online courses.     

Using Story to Help Student Understanding of Gas Behavior

Students tend to have a poor understanding of the concept of gas pressure. Usually, gas pressure is taught in terms of the various formulaic gas laws. The development of the concept of gas pressure according to the early Greeks did not include the concept of a vacuum. It was not for another 2000 years that Torricelli proposed that a vacuum can exist and that he was able to produce a vacuum above a column of mercury. However, the existence of a vacuum continued to be a contentious issue for at least another 100 years. During this time the behavior of gases was studied by Boyle, Amontons, Gay-Lussac, Daniel Bernouli, Charles, and Dalton. In the 19^th century gas behavior was revisited and studied from the molecular level through the work of Graham, Maxwell, Boltzmann, and van der Waal. The stories of conflicting theories and the development of the concept of gas pressure gives students an increased appreciation for the nature of science and helps them with conceptual understanding of the concept of gas pressure.     

Effects of pretraining on acquisition of novel configural discriminations in human predictive learning

In two experiments, participants acquired one of two target configural discriminations (a biconditional or negative patterning discrimination) in a predictive learning task. In Experiment 1, participants were pretrained with either a configural or an elemental discrimination; in Experiment 2, they were pretrained with a configural discrimination, an elemental discrimination, or a control discrimination that was not expected to bias them toward elemental or configural processing. In both experiments, acquisition of the target configural discriminations was faster after configural pretraining than after elemental pretraining. In addition, the negative patterning discrimination was acquired faster than the biconditional discrimination. Finally, the results of Experiment 2 were more consistent with the notion that elemental pretraining hindered acquisition of the target discriminations than with the notion that configural pretraining enhanced their acquisition. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Selling and implementing leadership development: Chapter,verse, and lessons learned from Carlson's story

This article provides a case study template for creating and “selling” an enterprise‐wide leadership development initiative in a highly decentralized organization. Using a story‐telling approach, the authors delineate the five separate but highly interdependent stages used to achieve this. Sandwiched between a prologue and epilogue are five chapters, each describing one of the stages and the lessons learned: (1) articulate the strategic context, (2) assess the current situation, (3) establish a dialogue about the future, (4) create a winning action plan, and (5) measure and learn.     

Close enough but not too far: Assessing the effects of university-industry research relationships and the rise of academic capitalism

Analysts assessing the impact of university-industry research relations (UIRRs) and increasing proprietary behavior on the part of universities often focus on single-indicators or adopt promotional or critical stances. However, assessing impacts of shifts toward a more proprietary university is inherently complex because of potential countervailing or mediating factors within working relationships. From interviews with 84 biological scientists at nine universities we find scientists view UIRRS and university intellectual property (IP) policies in complex and often conflicting ways. For example, university scientists believe UIRRs are valuable for increasing contact with scientists, but are problematic because working with industry can restrict communication among scientists. Also scientists believe university IP policies should shield their work from opportunistic behavior and at the same time be designed to attract industry partners. In addition scientists believe universities use their IP policies primarily as revenue raising vehicles and secondarily to address public good issues such as technology transfer.     

The Economic Benefits of Adult Learning to Low-Qualified Young Adults: Do Participation and Qualification Decrease the Risk of Unemployment?

Policymakers worldwide consider participation in adult learning beneficial for employability, in particular for specific target groups. However, still little is known about the effect of adult learning pursued by low-qualified young adults on their employment prospects. On the basis of a Flemish longitudinal database, we study the determinants and effects of work-related adult learning and adult learning not related to work. We make a distinction between formal learning and informal learning and between enrolment duration and qualification attainment. We control for background characteristics, human capital, school leaving age and entry into the labor market and run two path models. The analysis results contradict the general observation that adult learning is primarily a matter of high-qualified people. Among the low-qualified, lack of human capital does not hamper but encourages participation in adult learning. In addition, gender differences exist in participation in adult learning with men participating more often in work-related adult learning and women being more likely to attain a qualification in adult learning not related to work. Finally, our results indicate that participation but not qualification attainment in adult learning has an impact on employment prospects for low-qualified young adults.     

Contextualizing privacy with wearable data in higher education

This conceptual study uses dynamic systems theory (DST) and phenomenology as lenses to examine data privacy implications surrounding wearable devices that incorporate stakeholder, contextual and technical factors. Wearable devices can impact people's behaviour and sense of self, and DST and phenomenology provide complementary approaches for emphasizing the subjective experiences of individuals that occur with the use of wearable data. Privacy is approached through phenomenology as an individual's lived bodily experience and DST emphasizes the self-regulation and feedback loops of individuals and their uses of wearable data. The data collection, analysis and communication of wearable data to support learning systems alongside privacy implications for each are examined. The IoT, cloud computing, metadata and algorithms are discussed as they relate to wearable data, pointing out privacy risks and strategies to minimize harm.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Data privacy is a complex topic and is approached through different perspectives, influencing the degree of an individual's data autonomy.
• Wearable technology is increasing in the consumer market and offers great potential to learning environments.

What this paper adds

• Extends extant literature on dynamic systems theory and phenomenology, contributing these perspectives to educational research in the context of student data privacy and wearable technologies.
• Provides a framework to understand the complex and contingent ways that privacy can be understood in the collection, analysis, and communication of wearable data to support learning.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Higher education faculty and educational policymakers should consider various interactions in systems and among systems of how wearable data collection may be analysed, communicated and stored, potentially exposing students to privacy harms.
• Multiple actors in learning systems must engage in continuous and evolving feedback loops around data security, consent, ownership and control to determine who has access to student data, how it is used and for what purposes.
• The EU's General Data Protection and Regulation offers one of the most comprehensive frameworks for higher education institutions and faculty around the world to follow for protecting student data privacy.