1,720,999 research outputs found
Astronomy camps as a long-term, successful engagement practice
No full textScience camps are one of the oldest forms of modern public engagement, and yet they are often overlooked. In this talk we will make the case for astronomy camps in particular, as strong evidence for long-term and successful impact. The longest running astronomy camp - the International Astronomical Youth Camp (IAYC) - has been around for more than 50 years, and has since effectively engaged and positively influenced the lives of 1000s of participants from around the world. The IAYC is a 3-week camp which uses astronomy as a medium for scientific inquiry. Participants are 16-24 years old and come from a great range of backgrounds - academically and culturally - and ~80% have never studied astronomy before attending. During the camp the participants work on a project of their choosing, and they are guided by their working group leaders through the research process. At the end of the camp, they write up their findings (using LaTeX), which get published in a report book. To clearly understand the camp's impact, we conducted a survey which was completed by ~315 people from over 50 different nationalities, representing every year of the IAYC. We find that many participants go on to pursuing careers in STEM: 25% are currently studying or working in astronomy-related roles, and ~45% have pursued other fields in STEM.The survey results clearly reinforce the benefits of a camp like the IAYC. Via informal learning, young adults improve their understanding and appreciation of science and the scientific method, and often go on to implement the skills they have learned in the wider world. Thus, these findings can be used to support our case for astronomy and its relevance to society
Astrotourism for development in Namibia: dark sky education and heritage
No full textNamibia is world-renowned for its incredibly dark skies by the astronomy community, and yet, the country is not well known by tourists and travellers as a dark sky destination. Forged by a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford and Namibia, together we are using astronomy as a means for capacity-building via educating tour guides and promoting astrotourism to relevant stakeholders. Astrotourism offers many benefits: heritage is preserved and celebrated; tour guides learn about astronomy and complement their earnings; meanwhile tourists engage in awe-inspiring activities while learning about topics like indigenous astronomy and light pollution. In order to implement astrotourism sustainably, we have been working from both a bottom-up and top-down approach. The main barriers include access to training and astrotourism knowledge: (1) there exists a tour guide qualification in astronomy but this is currently unobtainable without the means and materials to study the topic. To bridge this barrier we are developing a course for tour guides, for which we are exploring both online and offline formats. Crucially, the content will not focus on western astronomy, but will include topics on indigenous astronomy in Southern Africa and light pollution, and will be made adaptable for other countries. (2) Namibia is already highly regarded as a country for its ecotourism activities. Thus, we are working with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism, and relevant tourism associations, to help establish Namibia as a country at the forefront of astrotourism. This talk will explore the successes and challenges that we have encountered, whilst providing context internationally, so that dark sky education and heritage can be beneficial on global scales...
How can astrotourism serve the sustainable development goals?: the Namibian example
No full textAstrotourism brings new opportunities to generate sustainable socio-economic development, preserve cultural heritage, and inspire and educate the citizens of the globe. This form of tourism can involve many different activites, such as visiting observatories or travelling to remote areas to experience an evening under a pristine, dark night sky. Together, our UK-Namibian collaboration is working to develop and showcase astrotourism in Namibia, and to enhance the possibility for astrotourism worldwide...
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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