143,605 research outputs found
SME leaders’ learning in networked learning : an actor-network theory and communities of practice theory informed analysis
No full textThis thesis brings a Communities of Practice perspective together with Actor-network theory to provide a rich understanding of the social learning processes of SME leaders within a networked learning programme. Networked learning as an educational approach is a growing area in higher education. The networked learning programme under investigation forms part of the knowledge exchange initiatives at Lancaster university management school. The research explores the learning process through a qualitative, inductive approach underpinned by an (online and offline) ethnography and is supported by qualitative interviews, the researcher‟s own reflections and other secondary data. The study focuses on three main issues. Firstly, it provides an in-depth understanding of the way a learning community comes together. Secondly, it shows how delegates learn through co-constructing knowledge and the practices within the learning community. It is proposed that the learning community constructs, learns and challenges the situated curriculum. This takes place through the process of legitimate peripheral participation. Gaining fuller participation leads to an increased identification with that of „leader‟. Thirdly, the study theorises four conceptual learning spaces to show where the delegates learn. They are conceived of as an effect of the delegates‟ engagement with the integrated learning model underpinning the networked learning programme. The thesis concludes with a discussion presenting a set of learning and design principles. These can be used to inform the design and thinking around networked learning and knowledge exchange. Combining the theoretical frameworks of Actor-network theory and Communities of Practice theory is unique in the context of exploring the learning processes within networked learning. This combination stretches aspects of the main tenets of each theory and offers contributions to all three theoretical frameworks
Small business cyber security workshop 2013 : towards digitally secure business growth
No full textThis report identifies the key findings which were developed during a workshop involving a number of regional micro, small and medium enterprises from a range of industrial sectors and experts in the field of cyber security and business. The purpose of this dialogue was to establish the issues that businesses classed as an SME face with respect to Cyber Security. The output from this workshop, along with this report identifies the market failures that key stakeholders, such as universities and government, need to address in order to support the industry and help to grow a secure digital economy. This workshop follows on from CSC2012 and also the report SBCSS2012 which highlighted the significant problems SMEs are facing with regard to receiving support with regard to cyber security. Security Lancaster partnered with the ICT KTN and sought to work with a diverse group of SMEs in facilitated teams, taken through a series of guided exercises, to first and foremost identify their concerns around cyber security and subsequently capture any potential ways forward
Recommendations for changes in UK National Recovery Guidance (NRG) and associated guidance from the perspective of Lancaster University's Hull Flood Studies
No full textThis report was commissioned by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) following the publication of Lancaster University‟s Hull Flood Project and Hull Children‟s Flood Project. Its principal purpose is to identify how findings made as a result of the two research projects could be integrated into the Cabinet Office‟s National Recovery Guidance (NRG), as a means to improve affected communities‟ ability to recover from emergency events.
The report, in effect, details a desktop analysis of UK Civil Protection (CP) guidance, from a bottom-up perspective (i.e. using as its critical lens, the lived experiences of members of the public who were tested by the Hull flooding of 2007 and its aftermath)
Intelligent student systems : an application of viewpoints to intelligent learning environments
No full textIntelligent Student Systems are a class of Intelligent Learning Environments that place the learner in the role of a tutor rather than a student. In an analogy with the educational practice of peer tutoring users learn by teaching the computer -- inverting the predominant `computer as tutor' metaphor. Intelligent Student Systems emphasize the learner's viewpoint in educational interactions in preference to the system's conception of the domain. These systems are considered to be less complex than Intelligent Tutoring Systems and to have the potential to generate novel human-computer educational interactions. Viewpoints also have an integral part in knowledge representation in Intelligent Learning Environments and they are utilised in the design and implementation of an Intelligent Student System in economics. Testing of the system produced insights into the future application of Intelligent Student Systems
Efficient Bayesian inference for partially observed stochastic epidemics and a new class of semi-parametric time series models
No full textThis thesis is divided in two distinct parts. In the First part we are concerned with developing new statistical methodology for drawing Bayesian inference for partially observed stochastic epidemic models. In the second part, we develop a novel methodology for constructing a wide class of semi-parametric time series models. First, we introduce a general framework for the heterogeneously mixing stochastic epidemic models (HMSE) and we also review some of the existing methods of statistical inference for epidemic models. The performance of a variety of centered Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms is studied. It is found that as the number of infected individuals increases, then the performance of these algorithms deteriorates. We then develop a variety of centered, non-centered and partially non-centered reparameterisations. We show that partially non-centered reparameterisations often offer more effcient MCMC algorithms than the centered ones. The methodology developed for drawing eciently Bayesian inference for HMSE is then applied to the 2001 UK Foot-and-Mouth disease outbreak in Cumbria. Unlike other existing modelling approaches, we model stochastically the infectious period of each farm assuming that the infection date of each farm is typically unknown. Due to the high dimensionality of the problem, standard MCMC algorithms are inefficient. Therefore, a partially non-centered algorithm is applied for the purpose of obtaining reliable estimates for the model's parameter of interest. In addition, we discuss similarities and differences of our fndings in comparison to other results in the literature. The main purpose of the second part of this thesis, is to develop a novel class of semi-parametric time series models. We are interested in constructing models for which we can specify in advance the marginal distribution of the observations and then build the dependence structure of the observations around them. First, we review current work concerning modelling time series with fixed non-Gaussian margins and various correlation structures. Then, we introduce a stochastic process which we term a latent branching tree (LBT). The LBT enables us to allow for a rich variety of correlation structures. Apart from discussing in detail the tree's properties, we also show how Bayesian inference can be carried out via MCMC methods. Various MCMC strategies are discussed including non-centered parameterisations. It is found that non-centered algorithms significantly improve the mixing of some of the algorithms based on centered reparameterisations. Finally, we present an application of this class of models to a real dataset on genome scheme data
Why do students miss lectures? : An exploratory study of a faculty at a post 1992 university
No full textA large number of factors are known to be influential on student absenteeism, but little work has been undertaken into understanding this behaviour at a more conceptualised level. In the UK, it appears that only one small scale study has been undertaken into reasons for absenteeism specifically from lectures, despite the growing concerns about this behaviour. This thesis attempts to both improve understanding of why students miss lectures in a Faculty at a post 1992 university, and to explain this behaviour in a more conceptualised way. Nine attributions categorised using three headings: 'student', `lecture' and `context' are first proposed from which three broad constructs are derived that, it is argued, give meaning to the experience of missing lectures for many students in the Faculty. The three constructs are disinterest, disquiet, and disengagement. Disinterest is about an approach to study and learning in the context of missing lectures and is understood as the 'Can't be bothered' attitude to attending lectures; disquiet is about the affective meaning of students missing lectures and is a 'Don't like it! response to the lecture experience; and disengagement is a rational assessment of lectures as having a low expected gain to the student as a 'What's the point? ' deduction in relation to attending lectures. It is possible that these three constructs allow for a reconstruction of the empirical data within a holistic framework interpreting the behaviour of missing lectures from either an etiological perspective, or from an individual psychoanalytical perspective. Low immediacy, instrumentalism, expectations, isolation, discomfort and goal ambiguity, are argued to be the important influences on disinterest, disquiet and disengagement. This thesis presents empirical evidence supporting disinterest, disquiet and disengagement as important constructs in the student's attendance behaviour, and considers how these constructs might be used to guide future research. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the issues for the Faculty raised by the research
Transitions : variation in tutors’ experience of practice and teaching relations in art and design
No full textIn art and design education creative practice, being an artist or designer, is seen as central to what and how students learn. The use of practitioners to teach is viewed as an indicator of a quality experience on one hand and a source of anxiety on the other. Doubts have been expressed about whether practitioners actually enable students to learn about practice. However, very little is known about how transitions between practice and teaching are made. This study sets out to explore the experience of this relationship from practitioner tutor’s perspectives. A phenomenographic enquiry approach is used to construe variation in experiencing practice/ teaching relations. This is extended by case studies representing the phenomenographic categories, where activity theory is used as a heuristic device to examine the different relations experienced by practitioner tutors. These relations can be experienced as symmetrical, asymmetrical or holistic, and practice knowledge is experienced in different ways in teaching: transferring, using, exchanging or eliding knowledge between practice and teaching. Thus there are different ways that practitioner tutors report making knowledge available to students, leading to different kinds of learning experience. The contextual factors, including individual histories of development and the experience of the two worlds of practice and teaching may also hinder development of tutors by institutions. Although art and design as a broad discipline is the focus of this study there may be differences within it, but also resonance for other practice based discipline subjects
Grand rally! The American Republicans of the city of Lancaster will meet in the Court house on Wednesday evening, 21st inst. to ratify the nominations of the County convention, and by rallying to the standard. and 'neath the ample folds of our n
No full textLancaster, Oa. American republicans.; American republicans, Lancaster, Pa.; Political campaign
The Tourist G(r)aze: Understanding place and identity through holiday food and drink
No full textEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Titan Partnership – iPads Study : Final Report
No full textThe Titan Partnership piloted uses of iPads in four schools (10 iPads in each of two primary and two secondary schools) in 2012. The Titan Partnership provided training sessions for teachers involved in the pilot, prior to their main uses of the iPads, between May and December 2012. The Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning at Lancaster University was commissioned to evaluate this pilot, and this report presents evidence gathered, findings and conclusions
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