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Designing an AI policy: An experiment in co-creation
Full text linkWe present a case study of co-creating a policy for the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in a writing course at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Students and faculty in two sections of a required 1st-year writing course worked to draft and respond to a policy about AI and then reflected on the experience. Student reflections suggested that the experience not only engaged students in a meaningful inquiry into AI, but also introduced them to key threshold concepts in both student partnership work and writing studies
Facilitating learning of the peer-review process through a student-led undergraduate journal
Full text linkConventionally, undergraduate science students engage in learning through didactic methods. This can present science as an indisputable collection of knowledge, rather than an ongoing process of discovery. By increasing students’ exposure to scientific processes, undergraduate science programs can enable students to understand the complexities of navigating scientific knowledge with a critical mindset. To facilitate this process, we implemented a student-led undergraduate peer-reviewed journal, The Child Health Interdisciplinary Literature & Discovery Journal, in the Child Health Specialization of McMaster University’s Honours Health Sciences (BHSc) Program. This case study discusses the development and implementation of this student-led journal within an inquiry-based learning curriculum. We aim to promote an understanding of curricular co-creation as a mechanism for enhancing student learning of scientific processes and the development of critical thinking, information literacy, and collaboration skills. We seek to inspire innovative teaching and learning strategies in higher education wherein students are active partners in the learning process
Student Partnership Impact Awards (SPIA): Recognising and rewarding students as leaders
Full text linkIn 2022, the Staff Educational Development Association (SEDA) developed the Student Partnership Impact Award (SPIA), providing students and recent alumni with an opportunity to be professionally accredited for their leadership abilities through partnership. SEDA is a professional association for educational developers based in the UK. The SPIA award aims to expand SEDA’s community of educational developers by reaching out to other national and international students and staff working in partnership.
SEDA’s development team, of which I am part of, carried out a review of the award procedures for quality assurance purposes. The review process found a lack of leadership narrative in unsuccessful applications. This stemmed from applicants not being ultimately responsible for a project and, as a result, these applicants subsequently seemed unable to claim any leadership, which set the tone of applicants being subordinates to the staff project lead. These findings raised for me and the development team further questions about students’ exposure to leadership skills development and students’ ability to recognise their own leadership skills as part of their employability skills development.
This case study explores thematic factors affecting students’ ability to confidently articulate themselves as leaders in a student partnership setting and what we can do as staff to support students in developing those graduate attributes. It also provides reflections and ideas for colleagues considering putting students forward for professional accreditation or potentially developing their own awards scheme
Accepter la neurodivergence :: un parcours personnel
Full text linkGrowing up, the awareness of my neurodivergent identity was a gradual revelation, marked by moments of confusion and confrontation with societal expectations. Initially blissful in my ignorance, I became aware of my differences when I overheard my parents discussing my behavior as peculiar. En grandissant, la prise de conscience de mon identité neurodivergente a été une révélation progressive, marquée par des moments de confusion et de confrontation avec les attentes de la société. D’abord béate dans mon ignorance, j’ai pris conscience de mes différences lorsque j’ai entendu mes parents parler de mon comportement comme d’une bizarrerie
Defying the “Illiberal” Gig Economy: Coping Strategies of Freelance Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates
Full text linkHow do low-skilled migrant workers navigate restrictive gig economies in illiberal host states of the Global South? Despite the growing gig economy, scholars have yet to examine the linkage between the politics of the gig economy and migrant resilience in illiberal host states in the Global South. Using a single case study of freelance Filipina domestic workers in the UAE (N = 20), I argue that, despite facing legal and economic risks (penalties), freelance migrant workers have produced an informal freelancing visa system to contest the formal and hierarchical segmentation of the gig economy via three diverse strategies: co-optation, tapping and brokering. These evasive social coping strategies mirror their collective resistance against structural labour exploitation and reinforce their autonomous role in the social (re)production of community solidarity within informal gig economies. Overall, this study contributes to empirical and theoretical discourse on the politics of illiberal migration management and the gig economy by featuring female migrant freelancers’ complex social agency within illiberal gig economies in the Global South
The Gig Economy and Its Impact on Women in Iraq
Full text linkThe gig economy has significantly transformed Iraq’s labour market, creating new opportunities for women while also exposing persistent inequalities. This paper traces the experiences of Iraqi women in the gig economy, drawing on both individual and collective insights grounded in the authors’ work in this context. These experiences reveal the dual nature of the gig economy: providing flexible work options while perpetuating vulnerabilities such as discrimination and economic insecurity. By situating our analysis within Iraq’s unique socio-economic conditions, including women’s low workforce engagement and infrastructural challenges, we contribute to a deeper understanding of the dynamics shaping women’s participation in this emerging labour market. The paper explores the types of gig work available to Iraqi women, alongside the structural barriers they face, such as limited digital infrastructure and inadequate legal protections. We conclude by highlighting actionable pathways for improving economic outcomes for women and fostering inclusive growth in the gig economy
The Simple Truth: Mystical Exercises in Tractarian Syntax
No full textF. H. Bradley argues that any plurality of objects possessing qualities or standing in relations to one another is impossible because it leads to a vicious regress. Bradley’s regress objection continues to draw the attention of some contemporary metaphysicians. I indicate how the problem can be resolved by developing relevant semantic and logical ideas from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Wittgenstein’s deflationary account of truth, together with his view that propositional signs picture or model possible atomic facts, shows how a proposition that seems to ascribe a quality to an object in fact does not. Guided by the semantic principle that the sense and reference of a proposition are determined by the senses and references of its parts, Wittgenstein adopts a convention for eliminating the identity sign in his logical syntax that allows for a regress-free internal realism about relations consisting of true sentences containing relation symbols along with different names or variables for distinct objects. Finally, in a manner reminiscent of Kant’s antinomies, Wittgenstein’s elucidation of necessity and impossibility in terms of sinnlos logical tautology and contradiction, together with his conception of the world as a limited whole, enables him to resist a prima facie powerful Tractarian reductio that Bradley might present in response to Wittgenstein’s apparent claims of metaphysical necessity
Partnership work as practice of and preparation for navigating complexity, uncertainty, and precarity
Full text linkMedical Assistance in Dying and Its Extensions in Canada
Full text linkMedical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was allowed in 2016 through an amendment of the Criminal Code, prompted by a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. Initially, MAiD was open for patients with a grievous and irremediable condition and whose death was reasonably foreseeable (now referred to as Track 1). In 2021 another amendment created a second track for MAiD (Track 2), for which the “reasonably foreseeable” requirement was lifted. The 2021 amendment also opened the possibility of MAiD when a mental disorder is the sole underlying medical condition, a decision of which has been postponed to at least 2027. Since the amendment in 2021, Canada has become one of the countries with the least constrained access to MAiD and with the second highest MAiD prevalence as a share of total deaths. The concept of MAiD has been largely supported in the population and the need for safeguards to protect vulnerable individuals was balanced against access to that fundamental right. However, since the implementation of Track 2, criticism of MAiD has come not only from conservative perspectives but also from advocacy groups for persons living with disability.
L’aide médicale à mourir (AMM) a été autorisée en 2016 grâce à une modification du Code criminel, à la suite d\u27une décision de la Cour suprême du Canada. Au départ, l’AMM était accessible aux patients atteints d’une condition grave et irrémédiable et dont le décès était « raisonnablement prévisible » (ce que l’on appelle aujourd’hui le premier volet). En 2021, un autre amendement a créé un deuxième volet pour l’AEM (voie 2), pour laquelle l’exigence de « décès raisonnablement prévisible » a été supprimée. La modification de 2021 a également ouvert la possibilité de recourir à l\u27aide médicale à mourir lorsqu’un trouble mental est la seule affection médicale invoquée, décision qui a été reportée au moins jusqu’en 2027. Depuis la modification de 2021, le Canada est devenu l’un des pays où l\u27accès à l\u27AMM est le moins restreint et où la prévalence de l’AMM est la deuxième plus élevée en pourcentage du nombre total de décès. Le concept de l’AMM a été largement soutenu par la population et, si la mise en place de garanties pour protéger les personnes vulnérables a été vue comme nécessaire, elle est aussi conçue comme ne devant pas entraver l’accès à ce droit fondamental. Cependant, depuis la mise en œuvre du deuxième volet, les critiques à l’égard de l’aide médicale à mourir proviennent non seulement des conservateurs, mais aussi des groupes de défense des personnes handicapées
Sufficient To Have Stood: The Lady Unparalyzed in Milton’s A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle
No full textOne of the central figures of John Milton’s A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle is that of the protagonist, the Lady, paralyzed in a chair arguing with the villain Comus. This article argues that while the Lady does argue with Comus from the chair, she is not necessarily paralyzed, and that her potential ability to move creates space for productions to emphasize her virtue, her agency, and the difference between her experience of the masque and that of her brothers. These possibilities connect the masque to early modern masquing and broader theatrical traditions that emphasized female agency and voice