Making On-line Science Course Materials Easily Translatable and Accessible Worldwide: Challenges and Solutions

The PhET Interactive Simulations Project partnered with the Excellence Research Center of Science and Mathematics Education at King Saud University with the joint goal of making simulations useable worldwide. One of the main challenges of this partnership is to make PhET simulations and the website easily translatable into any language. The PhET project team overcame this challenge by creating the Translation Utility. This tool allows a person fluent in both English and another language to easily translate any of the PhET simulations and requires minimal computer expertise. In this paper we discuss the technical issues involved in this software solution, as well as the issues involved in obtaining accurate translations. We share our solutions to many of the unexpected problems we encountered that would apply generally to making on-line scientific course materials available in many different languages, including working with: languages written right-to-left, different character sets, and different conventions for expressing equations, variables, units and scientific notation.     

Distance education in Malawi

Conclusion Any discussion of technology as a “tool-only” definition is incomplete. Instructional technology also refers to a systematic means of solving problems (Reiser, 1987). In the case of Malawi and so many other low-income societies where tools are difficult to purchase and maintain, one resource that is not in short supply is the number of able and willing people who could themselves provide solutions to the country's many challenges. The important role of the instructional designer should not be ignored. Mzuzu University has the benefit of having five trained instructional technologists among its faculty. Increasing the number of designers with experience in distance teaching and learning would benefit Malawi. The insight provided by people who have taken instructional design, educational psychology, and related courses, would undoubtedly open minds to new possibilities. Not only could they guide instructional development for Web-based learning, they could design and offer training on new technologies as they become available. Although consultants from outside Malawi can offer excellent advice based on their education and experience, such input is necessarily limited by the lack of a true understanding of contextual issues. The advantage indigenous designers have, of course, is first-hand knowledge of their own context, which plays a very important role in shaping instructional decisions (Arias & Clark, 2004; Perkins, 2003; Tessmer & Richey, 1997). Indigenous instructional designers should be called on first to offer guidance as leaders in ministries and at international funding agencies seeking reasonable solutions to the challenges to access and growth that lie before them.     

Exercise during the childbearing year

Many women wish to continue to pursue an active lifestyle during pregnancy, while the pregnancy itself may provide the motivation for other more sedentary women to begin an exercise program for the sake of improved health/fitness. Also, female competitive athletes, upon becoming pregnant, may wish to continue sports performance and require careful monitoring to assure maternal-fetal safety. This review is designed to assist the perinatal educator who is in the position to advise the pregnant patient on the risks and benefits of physical activity during the childbearing year and provide suggestions for developing individualized exercise programs.     

Risk behaviors and resiliency within physically abused adolescents

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the relationship between physical abuse and several risk behaviors, and thriving behaviors, and the relationship between potential protective factors and engagement in risk and thriving behaviors among victims of physical abuse. Three categories of potential protective factors were examined: (1) individual characteristics, (2) family processes, and (3) extra-familial factors. We expected that high levels of protective factors would reduce engagement in risk behaviors (i.e., alcohol use, tobacco use, drug use, sexual activity, antisocial behavior, attempted suicide, and purging) among abused adolescents. RESULTS: Across all the risk behaviors, abused adolescents reported a higher frequency of engagement than non-abused adolescents. Several protective factors were identified for the seven risk behaviors. Peer group characteristics was a significant predictor in all seven of the logistic regressions, followed by positive school climate (six models), religiosity (five models), other adult support (five models), family support (four models), view of the future (two models), and involvement in extra-curricular activities (two models). The variance accounted for by the models ranged from 2% (risk behavior of purging) to 26% (risk behavior of alcohol use and antisocial behavior). CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that, with the exception of sexual activity, the majority of abused adolescents were not engaging in risk behaviors; however, significantly more abused adolescents were engaging in risk behaviors than their non-abused counterparts. In addition, that protective factors were found to exist at various levels of the adolescents' ecology has strong implications for practice.     

The Boundaries of BookTube

Thanks to the sociotechnical capabilities of the Internet, readers, young and old, have been able to establish a vibrant community centered on a shared love of Young Adult novels. On YouTube this community is known as BookTube; here readers review, critique, and endlessly discuss Young Adult books. Within this community there are several popular BookTube “celebrities” who function as boundary spanners—connecting everyday readers to authors and publishers. This innovative use of social media by Young Adult readers has helped to create a community that transcends the isolated and solitary boundaries usually associated with reading.     

Degree pictures: Visualizing the university student journey

Abstract

The field of learning analytics is progressing at a rapid rate. New tools, with ever-increasing number of features and a plethora of datasets that are increasingly utilized demonstrate the evolution and multifaceted nature of the field. In particular, the depth and scope of insight that can be gleaned from analysing related datasets can have a significant, and positive, effect in educational practices. We introduce the concept of degree pictures, a symbolic overview of students’ achievement. Degree pictures are small visualizations that depict graphically 16 categories of overall student achievement, over the duration of a higher education course. They offer a quick summary of students’ achievement and are intended to initiate appropriate responses, such as teaching and pastoral interventions. This can address the subjective nature of assessment, by providing a method for educators to calibrate their own marking practices by showing an overview of any cohort. We present a prototype implementation of degree pictures, which was evaluated within our School of Computer Science, with favourable results.     

Predatory Journals in the Criminal Justices Sciences: Getting our Cite on the Target

The advent of Open-Access publishing has opened the door to predatory journals. While many Open-Access publishers are trustworthy, not all of them are guided by legitimate or altruistic motives. When publishers become beholden to authors, rather than readers, the incentive and motivation to uphold and preserve integrity in research and scholarship is eroded. All disciplines would benefit from institutional and peer reviews of open-access journals listed as potentially, possibly, or probably predatory, and from a list of institutionally sanctioned acceptable-journals, prior to submitting their work for publication. At present, these protections do not seem to exist. Criminology/Criminal Justice researchers are being solicited by, and are published in predatory journals, which hold little scholarly value or credibility, resulting in serious negative ramifications for tenure and promotion. This exploratory study utilizes two surveys to assess knowledge and perceptions of predatory journals among criminal justice and criminology authors who have published in a predatory journal, and ACJS and ASC members.