10 research outputs found
Implementing a learning technology strategy: top-down strategy meets bottom-up culture
No full textUsing interview-based 'insider case study' research, this paper outlines why the University of Salford has adopted a Learning Technologies Strategy and examines the factors which are likely to lead to its successful implementation. External reasons for the adoption focused on the need to: respond to 'increased Higher Education (HE) competition', meet student expectations of learning technology use, provide more flexibility and access to the curriculum, address the possible determining effect of technology and establish a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) presence in this 'particular area of the HE landscape'. Internal drivers centred on the need to: continue a 'bottom-up' e-learning pilot project initiative, particularly given that a VLE is a 'complex tool' which requires effective strategic implementation, and promote the idea that learning technology will play an important role in determining the type of HE institution that the University of Salford wishes to become. Likely success factors highlighted the need to: create 'time and space' for innovation, maintain effective communication and consultation at all levels of the organization, emphasize the operational aspects of the strategy, establish a variety of staff development processes and recognize the negotiatory processes involved in understanding the term 'web presence' in local teaching cultures. Fundamentally, the paper argues that policy makers should acknowledge the correct 'cultural configuration' of HE institutions when seeking to manage and achieve organizational change. Thus, it is not just a question of establishing 'success factors' per se but also whether they are contextualized appropriately within a 'correct' characterization of the organizational culture
On reification: A reinterpretation of designed and emergent practice ‐ a reply
No full textWe welcome the response of Chris Tompsett and Graham Alsop to our article (Lisewski and Joyce, 2003). Within its ‘stricter analysis’, it is thoughtful and incisive, presenting an interesting critique of our ideas. However, we cannot help but think that the authors have missed the point. Indeed, if we wish to be mischievous we woidd argue that their response is an exemplar of some of the concerns we wanted to raise in our original article
Examining the five‐stage e‐moderating model: Designed and emergent practice in the learning technology profession
No full textThis paper highlights the need for learning technologists to establish their ‘academic legitimacy’ within the complexities of online learning and teaching practice. Frameworks such as the ‘five stage e‐moderating model’ can be useful in developing the knowledge base but there are dangers in them becoming too reified within an increasingly commodified higher education (HE) environment. The paper calls for greater professional reflexivity and contestation within learning technology practice and concludes by inviting the Alt‐J readership to engage in a critical debate with regard to these issues
Living, Working, Teaching and Learning by Social Software
No full textThis chapter explores emergent behaviours in the use of social software across multiple online communities of practice where informal learning occurs beyond traditional higher education (HE) institutional boundaries. Employing a combination of research literature, personal experience and direct observation, the authors investigate the blurring of boundaries between work/home/play as a result of increased connectivity and hyper availability in the “information age”. Exploring the potentially disruptive nature of new media, social software and social networking practices, the authors ask what coping strategies are employed by the individual as their online social networks and learning communities increase in number and density? What are the implications for the identity and role of the tutor in online HE learning environments characterised by multiple platforms and fora? The authors conclude by posing a series of challenges for the HE sector and its participants in engaging with social software and social networking technologies.</jats:p
An examination of how tutor-practitioners conceptualise and enact practice-based-knowing in a small Higher Education Fashion School : a social practice theory approach
No full textThis thesis examines how practice-based-knowing (PBK) is conceptualised and enacted by eighteen part-time tutor-practitioners teaching on Fashion Design, Fashion Styling and Fashion Business undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in a small Higher Education Fashion School (HEFS). It adopts a qualitative idiographic insider-researcher close-up methodology composed of oral biographies, dialogic interviews, interviews with the double, participant observations and researcher reflexivity. Social practice theory (SPT) is applied within the research, composed of Trowler’s meso level analytical construct of a Teaching and Learning Regime (TLR) and Schatzki’s conceptual relationship between practice as a connected entity and practice as performance, to analyse the conceptualisation and enactment of PBK within the HEFS site ontology and its connected Fashion Industry human practices and material arrangements. Tutor-practitioner composite vignettes are employed to integrate the presentation, analysis and discussion of the data. They illustrate that the tutor-practitioners’ PBK was conceptualised as a combination of: learning the rules and techniques, bringing or carrying contextualised working methods into the HEFS, acknowledging tacit knowing including sensible knowledge, having contemporary and historical perspectives alongside accrued experiences and applying theory in relevant contexts to make connections with Fashion Industry practices. Its enactment was composed of dialogical, collaborative, modelling, storytelling and mentoring processes in conjunction with demonstrating and simulating Fashion Industry working practices. The tutor-practitioners filtered their teaching practice conceptualisations and enactments through Fashion Industry practices rather than departmental disciplinary cultures. The research also established that ‘mutually reinforcing’ or co-constitutive subjectivities in interaction between tutor-practitioners and their students, a social constructivist implicit theory of teaching and learning, transgressive conventions of appropriateness and discursive repertoires were the most significant TLR moments in the HEFS practice context. Overall, it claims that the heuristic power of SPT can be enhanced by the addition of tutor-practitioner practice biographies as a TLR moment alongside the analytical application of Schatzki’s conceptual relationship between practice as a connected entity and practice as performance when studying HEFS type settings involving tutors who teach their professional practice and who exhibit hybridised and fluid identities
Rethinking the narrative around teaching excellence in English Higher Education: a social identity perspective on education, learning and leadership
No full textWebinar presented at Centre for Global Higher Education Seminar: ‘Teaching excellence’ in Higher Education policy making and leadershi
Integrating multimedia resource-based learning into the curriculum Bernard Lisewski and Chris Settle
No full text
Tropism-modification strategies for targeted gene delivery using adenoviral vectors
No full textAchieving high efficiency, targeted gene delivery with adenoviral vectors is a long-standing goal in the field of clinical gene therapy. To achieve this, platform vectors must combine efficient retargeting strategies with detargeting modifications to ablate native receptor binding (i.e. CAR/integrins/heparan sulfate proteoglycans) and “bridging” interactions. “Bridging” interactions refer to coagulation factor binding, namely coagulation factor X (FX), which bridges hepatocyte transduction in vivo through engagement with surface expressed heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs). These interactions can contribute to the off-target sequestration of Ad5 in the liver and its characteristic dose-limiting hepatotoxicity, thereby significantly limiting the in vivo targeting efficiency and clinical potential of Ad5-based therapeutics. To date, various approaches to retargeting adenoviruses (Ad) have been described. These include genetic modification strategies to incorporate peptide ligands (within fiber knob domain, fiber shaft, penton base, pIX or hexon), pseudotyping of capsid proteins to include whole fiber substitutions or fiber knob chimeras, pseudotyping with non-human Ad species or with capsid proteins derived from other viral families, hexon hypervariable region (HVR) substitutions and adapter-based conjugation/crosslinking of scFv, growth factors or monoclonal antibodies directed against surface-expressed target antigens. In order to maximize retargeting, strategies which permit detargeting from undesirable interactions between the Ad capsid and components of the circulatory system (e.g. coagulation factors, erythrocytes, pre-existing neutralizing antibodies), can be employed simultaneously. Detargeting can be achieved by genetic ablation of native receptor-binding determinants, ablation of “bridging interactions” such as those which occur between the hexon of Ad5 and coagulation factor X (FX), or alternatively, through the use of polymer-coated “stealth” vectors which avoid these interactions. Simultaneous retargeting and detargeting can be achieved by combining multiple genetic and/or chemical modifications
