END-OF-LIFE DECISION MAKING: PRACTICES,BELIEFS AND KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL WORKERS IN HEALTH CARE SETTINGS

The aim of the present study was to examine the involvement, beliefs, and knowledge of social workers in health care settings in the process of making decisions regarding life-sustaining treatments. A convenience sample of 68 social workers participated in the study (65 F and 3 M; mean age = 42.4 ; SD = 10.0 . Fifty-two participants worked at hospitals and 16 at nursing homes. The area in which social workers reported being more involved were activities related to family members. The extent of social workers' involvement was related to their beliefs regarding their role and their knowledge about life-sustaining treatments. Findings of this study emphasize the need for developing educational programs aimed at expanding social workers' knowledge in order to increase their autonomy and professional involvement in end-of-life decision making.     

Delivering a MOOC for literature searching in health libraries: evaluation of a pilot project

In an era when library budgets are being reduced, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC's) can offer practical and viable alternatives to the delivery of costly face‐to‐face training courses. In this study, guest writers Gil Young from Health Care Libraries Unit ‐ North, Lisa McLaren from Brighton and Sussex Medical School and Liverpool University PhD student Michelle Maden describe the outcomes of a funded project they led to develop a MOOC to deliver literature search training for health librarians. Funded by Health Education England, the MOOC was developed by the Library and Information Health Network North West as a pilot project that ran for six weeks. In particular, the MOOC target audience is discussed, how content was developed for the MOOC, promotion and participation, cost‐effectiveness, evaluation, the impact of the MOOC and recommendations for future development. H. S.     

VCR attitudes and behaviors by length of ownership

A random sample telephone survey of 579 VCR owners revealed that length of VCR ownership was related to attitudes, behaviors, and communication technology ownership. The longer the VCR presence, the more likely respondents were (a) to express positive altitudes about watching and recording network television; (b) to record television shows; (c) to perform higher level recording behaviors (e.g., recording a program while watching another); (d) to record sports programs, news magazines, and public television shows; and (e) to seek particular tapes at the video store. The results support the contention that VCR adopters are not a monolithic group and that familiarity may cause the newest adopters to reinvent the way they use the VCR.     

What Makes for Great Data Journalism?

This study examines the quality of winners and finalists in major national and international data journalism awards. We completed a content analysis of data projects submitted by Canadian media to three journalism associations—the Online News Association, the Global Editors Network and the Canadian Association of Journalists—as far back as the first award in this category in 2012. Our research addresses how journalists executed what could be considered excellent data journalism. Our findings point to a lack of accepted standards regarding what is considered as excellence. The quality of the projects was limited by two key factors: the use of free online options such as Google Maps that were not easily customizable; and the number of practitioners who worked on the data projects largely within traditional journalism frameworks. The most used visual elements were dynamic maps, graphs and video. With respect to interactivity, all but one of the projects contained an interactive element. The most popular interaction techniques were inspection and filtering, considered entry-level techniques in the field of information visualization. These techniques suggest a need for collaborative interdisciplinary approaches to data journalism, and further study on the implications of tools such as Google Maps on practice.     

Understanding Higher Education Institutions’ Publicness: Do Public Universities Produce More Public Outcomes than Private Universities?

Higher education institutions produce a broad array of public outcomes. However, little is known about the varying levels of their contribution to the public good and what explains the variation among institutions. This study uses the theory of organisational publicness and examines how these institutions’ ownership status and resource publicness explain their outcome publicness, focusing on the expenditure for teaching, research and public service activities. The analysis of four‐year public and private universities in the 2012 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System shows that universities’ reliance on federal funding is positively associated with the percentages of the expenditure on all three activities and their reliance on state funding is positively associated with the percentages of teaching and public service expenses. The findings reveal that the proportion of tuition and fees revenue is negatively associated with the percentage of public service expenditure. The results suggest that declining state funding and increasing reliance on tuition and fees weaken these institutions’ public service function, especially in the area of community engagement.     

Happiness in Higher Education

This paper investigates the higher education literature surrounding happiness and related notions: satisfaction, despair, flourishing and well‐being. It finds that there is a real dearth of literature relating to profound happiness in higher education: much of the literature using the terms happiness and satisfaction interchangeably as if one were tantamount to the other, such conflation being due to the move towards consumerism within higher education and the marketisation of the sector. What literature there exists that actually deals with the profound happiness of students in higher education, generally argues that in the United Kingdom institutions do not currently do enough to promote happiness in higher education. These findings imply that flourishing, contentment and well‐being should be regarded as legitimate goals of higher education, alongside satisfaction and related economic outcomes that are currently promoted across academic and policy literature, university rankings and the National Student Survey.     

sMOOC,Un Nuevo Modelo De Formación En El Aprendizaje Del Segundo Idioma. Estudio De Caso

RESUMEN

Este artículo presenta un trabajo de investigación desarrollado en el Proyecto Europeo ECO (Elearning, Communication, Open-data). El estudio despliega un análisis de enfoque cuantitativo del sMOOC (socialMOOC) llamado “How to succeed in the English B1 Level Exam“, curso destinado a ayudar a los estudiantes a prepararse para cualquier examen de inglés, de nivel B1. El objetivo de la investigación es el análisis de las experiencias comunicativas y pedagógicas percibidas en este contexto específico, aplicadas al aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras, en general, y al inglés como lengua extranjera, en particular. Esta línea educativa y comunicativa ha sentado las bases para el Proyecto ECO que, más allá de la formación de docentes, apuesta decididamente por una educación abierta para toda la vida. Este estudio ha sido concebido con el propósito de descubrir la valoración de los estudiantes que aprenden a través de este modelo formativo e innovador, que promueve un nuevo esquema horizontal y bidireccional de comunicación. Para reconocer esta realidad, se han analizado los datos compilados a través de la herramienta de cuestionarios incluida en el curso. Se ha llevado a cabo una investigación para la acción, ampliando el rango de innovación con nuevas prácticas pedagógicas y comunicativas en las redes sociales, consiguiendo activar una participación comprometida de los individuos como agentes culturales activos en la creación de la cibercultura del siglo XXI.     

Gahvora cradling in Tajikistan: Cultural practices and associations with motor development

In Tajikistan, infants are bound supine in a “gahvora” cradle that severely restricts movement. Does cradling affect motor development and body growth? In three studies (2013–2018), we investigated associations between time in the gahvora (within days and across age) and motor skills and flattened head dimensions in 8–24-month-old Tajik infants (N = 269, 133 girls, 136 boys)) and 4.3–5.1-year-old children (N = 91, 53 girls, 38 boys). Infants had later motor onset ages relative to World Health Organization standards and pronounced brachycephaly; cradling predicted walk onset age and the proficiency of sitting, crawling, and walking. By 4–5 years, children's motor skills were comparable with US norms. Cultural differences in early experiences offer a unique lens onto developmental processes and equifinality in development.     

Are local students disadvantaged? Understanding institutional,local and national sense of belonging in higher education

Research on inequality in higher education (HE) is often dominated by class-based assumptions about traditional and non-traditional students. This binary distinction emphasising students’ socio-economic status tends to oversimply the complexity of educational inequality, neglecting crucial factors which affect the perception of social position. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the understanding of inequalities in HE with new data on the meaning of locality, using evidence from comparative studies of institutions. Locality is interpreted as an inclusive concept capturing place identity as well as local attachments based on language, culture and the natural environment. The qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 192 participants in three distinctly different HE institutions, which were deliberately selected according to their socio-economic, cultural, and institutional status. This mixed methods research confirms the importance of different types of belonging at institutional, local and national levels, and their different effects on student groups. The study captures to what extent geographical mobility is associated with social class, by examining students’ sense of belonging and their interpretation of locality in universities across Wales. It challenges the notion of disadvantaged background, and poses a critical question about cultural and geographical familiarity. This study therefore enriches the current debates about the impact of social inequality alongside social class on students’ belonging, success and retention in HE.