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2013 Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Conference Program
No full text4th annual Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Banff, Alberta, Canada
November 7 - 9, 2013
This gathering of teacher/scholars is a practitioners conference dedicated to developing individual and collaborative teaching and learning scholarship, sharing nascent data and findings, going public with compelling results of completed research projects, and building an extended scholarly community. The goals of this event, and the Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University, include understanding and improving student learning through systematic scholarly inquiry and building collective knowledge for the future. The Symposium program includes abstracts from a keynote address, two plenary keynote presentations, and concurrent sessions
Influence of judoka height when using the seoi nage technique
No full textJudo techniques use the assumption of maximum efficiency with minimum energy expenditure, which means to try to use the strength of the opponent against himself, causing an imbalance that, associated with a technique, helps execute a throw. This study is aimed to evaluate the mechanical efficiency of the seoi nage technique applied to judokas (uke) of different heights in relation to the thrower (tori). The knee and trunk angular variation of tori was compared with the total throw time, the time to perform each phase of the technique, and the behavior and vertical variation of the trajectory of tori’s center of mass (ΔCM). Ten throws using the seoi nage technique on three uke of shorter, equivalent, and taller statures compared to tori were cinematically analyzed. The images were recorded at 180 Hz using the Peak Motus System. The data was analyzed by descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and Tukey’s post-hoc (p < 0.05). The tori’s mechanical efficiency was greater when throwing a uke of a stature taller or of his same height, while the total throw time was shorter for a taller uke. The ΔCM of the tori was greater to throw
a uke of a shorter stature. The conclusion is that the seoi nage technique is most effective when applied against opponents of heights equal to or taller than the tori
Evidence Summary: The Launch of a Joint Library/Writing Centre Online Course on Academic Integrity
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Greer, K., Swanberg, S., Hristova, M., Switzer, A. T., Daniel, D., & Perdue, S. W. (2012). Beyond the web tutorial: Development and implementation of an online, self-directed academic integrity course at Oakland University. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 38(5), 251-258. doi: 10.1016/j.acalib.2012.06.01
“‘God(s)’ as a Comparative Category”
No full textIn this paper we argue that, despite the fact that the term ‘god’ may be used effectively as a comparative concept in the study of religion within narrowly circumscribed contexts, the risks of doing so as a broad cross-cultural category outweigh any possible benefits. We advance an account of the kind of meaning that complex concepts, like ‘god’, have. This account guarantees a risk that certain further concepts that are associated with ‘god’ in some cultural contexts will be illicitly transferred to its use in others. The centrality of ‘god’ in western and Christian contexts makes this risk particularly acute, to the point of not being worth the trouble
Casting a Wider Net - searching for SoTL in all the right places, and organizing what you find.
No full textCentennial Symposium on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Banff, ABPresentation for Centennial Symposium on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learnin
Evidence Summary: Enhanced Catalogue Records Positively Impact Circulation but Are Not Used to Their Potential in Patron Searching
Get PDFObjective – To determine how content-enriched catalogue records impact the circulation rates of print resources in four subject areas, and to investigate how this additional metadata influences OPAC searching and item retrieval.
Design – Analysis of circulation data, bibliographic records, and OPAC search logs.
Setting – A library at a four-year undergraduate residential college in the North-eastern United States.
Subjects – Bibliographic records for 88,538 titles; data from 7,782 circulation transactions; and 130 OPAC search strings and related circulation data.
Methods – In the first part of the study, bibliographic records for print items published since 1990 were extracted from the library’s integrated library system (ILS) in the following Library of Congress (LC) classes: D, E, F, H, J, L, P, Q, R, S, and T. It is assumed that electronic books were excluded from this study because their usage is not tracked in the ILS. These LC classes were chosen to correspond to the subject areas targeted by the researchers for comparison – “history, social sciences, language and literature, and science and technology” (p. 416). The data file included the publication date of the title, as well as values for the MARC fields identified by the researchers as containing content-enriched data. These fields were MARC 505 (an item’s table of contents or list of works included), MARC 520 (summaries or annotations), and MARC 856 (URL to electronic location of related material or electronic copy) (p. 416; Library of Congress Network Development and MARC Standards Office, 2003, 2008a, 2008b). The authors analyzed records for 88,538 titles and determined the total number of records containing each of the MARC fields either singly or in combination.
Data relating to circulation transactions for items located in these LC classes from January to May 2009 was also identified. Like the bibliographic records, circulation data was pulled for print items only. The researchers identified 7,782 circulation transactions that met the study criteria for the period in question.
In the second part of the study, circulation data for September 22, 2009 was obtained and sorted into the four subject categories identified in Part I of the study. The authors indicate that this date was chosen at random, but do not specify how. Researchers compared the records of the 133 titles borrowed that day from the LC classes studied to the OPAC search logs from September 16-22, 2009 to determine which searches led to the circulation of these items. The authors felt that searches resulting in checkouts on the day in question may have begun earlier in the week. The searches that led to borrowing were recorded and categorized as keyword, title, author, or other searches. If a user entered a title or author name into the keyword field, these were classed as known item searches in the appropriate categories. The authors identified and analyzed 130 searches relating to circulated items.
Main Results – In the first part of the study, the number of catalogue records that contained MARC 505, 520, and/or 856 fields significantly increased for titles published between 1990 and 2007, with a slight decrease in 2008. MARC 505 was the most common content-
enriched field until 2000, after which the presence of MARC 856 grew significantly. The MARC 520 field was used least often, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions about its impact on circulation.
The incidence of enhanced records was very low among older books in the study. Only 14.3% of items published between 1990 and 1994, and 19.3% of items published between 1995 and 1999, had records that contained MARC 505, 520, or 856 fields. In contrast, the percentage of enhanced records was very high (80.9%) for items published between 2005 and 2008. The authors acknowledged that these stark imbalances created skewed comparison data for items published in these date ranges. As such, they suggested that the data for titles published between 2000 and 2004 offered the most balanced comparison because the numbers of enhanced and non-enhanced records were almost equal. The overall circulation of items with enhanced records published between 2000 and 2004 was 2.9% higher than for items with non-enhanced records, constituting a relative percentage difference of 30.7%. The relative percentage difference in this period was higher for books in science and technology (36.9%), followed by history (34%), language and literature (30.6%), and social sciences (25.7%). Enhanced records also had a positive impact on circulation for items published between 1990 and 2000 over their non-enhanced counterparts; however, this positive growth levelled off for items published between 2005 and 2008, with almost equal circulation rates between items with enhanced and non-enhanced records during this period. The impact of the three MARC fields was examined, and the presence of the MARC 505 field was most associated with increased circulation rates, in part because it was the most commonly used field of the three for the period in question. The number of records with MARC 520 and 856 fields was not sufficient to draw firm conclusions about their impact on circulation. While not the focus of the study, the circulation data also suggested a preference for current titles among all four subject areas, most significantly among the social sciences and science and technology.
The second part of the study found that keyword searching was the most common strategy employed by patrons, with 49.6% of the 130 searches examined falling into this category. Keyword searches most commonly led to the borrowing of items from the history LC classes, while title searches were most common in science and technology. Known item searches (title or author) accounted for 45.9% of the overall searches analyzed. However, in most cases, the search terms used that led to a title circulating were found in the title and subject fields, rather than in a content-enriched MARC field. The researchers suggested that this may be due to the appearance of search results in the OPAC (brief rather than full record) and the way relevancy sorting was calculated, as contents notes were not given a high weighting in the OPAC’s formula.
Conclusion – The study found that enhanced catalogue records led to higher circulation rates in the four subject areas studied. The increased proportion of content-enriched records in the overall catalogue in recent years suggested that their value had been recognized by the library. The limited role these enhanced fields played in the September 22, 2009 searches suggested that further work on improving how this information is displayed to users in the OPAC and sorted is needed. The researchers identified areas for future research including the role of the publication date and the impact of improvements to the display of content fields in the OPAC on the circulation of items with content-enriched records
The Digital Native Debate in Higher Education: A Comparative Analysis of Recent Literature
Get PDFMore than a decade after Prensky’s influential articulation of digital natives and immigrants,
disagreement exists around these characterizations of students and the impact of such notions
within higher education. Perceptions of today’s undergraduate learners as tech-savvy “digital
natives” (Prensky, 2001a), who both want and need the latest emerging technologies in all
learning situations, continue to dominate the discourse in educational technology research and
practice. Popular yet controversial conceptions of digital natives continue to be embedded within
the assumptions of several contemporary research studies on student perceptions of emerging
technologies, seemingly without regard for a growing body of evidence questioning such
notions. In order to promote critical discussion in the higher education community considering
potential directions for further research of these issues, especially within the Canadian context,
the purpose of this review of recent literature is to analyze key themes and issues emerging from
contemporary research on the Net generation as digital natives
Umbanda and Africa
Get PDFPublished as Engler, Steven, “Umbanda and Africa,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2012): 13-35. © 2012 by the Regents of the University of California. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the Regents of the University of California for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com."This article argues that scholarship on Umbanda (a distinctively Brazilian hybrid of Candomblé, Kardecist Spiritism, and popular Catholicism, with romanticized indigenous elements) manifests
certain limitations that lead to insufficient emphasis on the religious tradition’s internal doctrinal, ritual, and organizational variation. It compares the complex and ambivalent place of African traditions in Umbanda and Candomblé, highlighting the extent to which Umbanda has been seen as derivative, more distant from Africa. The article also notes other distorting factors such as centros in the southeast of Brazil being considered normative, and scholars focusing inordinately on the question of the tradition’s “birth.” The case of Umbanda underlines the Brazilian context of Afro-Brazilian traditions, in contrast to an emphasis on transnationalism
Evidence summary : public library training program for older adults addresses their computer and health literacy needs
Get PDFObjective – To evaluate the efficacy of an e-health literacy educational intervention aimed at older adults.
Design – Pre and post intervention questionnaires administered in an experimental study.
Setting – Two public library branches in Maryland.
Subjects – 218 adults between 60 and 89 years of age.
Methods – A convenience sample of older adults was recruited to participate in a four week training program structured around the National Institutes of Health toolkit Helping Older Adults Search for Health Information Online. During the program, classes met at the participating libraries twice a week. Sessions were two hours in length, and employed hands on exercises led by Master of Library Science students. The training included an introduction to the Internet, as well as in depth training in the use of the NIHSeniorHealth and MedlinePlus websites. In the first class, participants were asked to complete a pre-training questionnaire that included questions relating to demographics and previous computer and Internet experience, as well as measures from the Computer Anxiety Scale and two subscales of the Attitudes toward Computers Questionnaire. Participants between September 2008 and June 2009 also completed pre-training computer and web knowledge tests that asked individuals to label the parts of a computer and of a website using a provided list of terms. At the end of the program, participants were asked to complete post-training questionnaires that included the previously employed questions from the Computer Anxiety Scale and Attitudes towards Computer Questionnaire. New questions were added relating to the participants’ satisfaction with the training, its impact on their health decision making, their perceptions of public libraries, and the perceived usability and utility of the two websites highlighted during the training program. Those who completed pre-training knowledge tests were also asked to complete the same exercises at the end of the program.
Main Results – Participants showed significant decreases in their levels of computer anxiety, and significant increases in their interest in computers at the end of the program (p>0.01). Computer and web knowledge also increased among those completing the knowledge tests. Most participants (78%) indicated that something they had learned in the program impacted their health decision making, and just over half of respondents (55%) changed how they took medication as a result of the program. Participants were also very satisfied with the program’s delivery and format, with 97% indicating that they had learned a lot from the course. Most (68%) participants said that they wished the class had been longer, and there was full support for similar programming to be offered at public libraries. Participants also reported that they found the NIHSeniorHealth website more useful, but not significantly more usable, than MedlinePlus.
Conclusion – The intervention as designed successfully addressed issues of computer and health literacy with older adult participants. By using existing resources, such as public library computer facilities and curricula developed by the National Institutes of Health, the intervention also provides a model that could be easily replicated in other locations without the need for significant financial resources