University-based Initiatives Research Articles

Humour beyond human: eco-humour as a pedagogical toolkit for environmental education

AbstractThis article strives to open a window on ‘eco-humour’, an umbrella term for diverse forms of humour targeting ecological and environmental issues. It encourages readers to consider eco-humour as a valuable, pedagogical toolkit for environmental education and communication. To this aim, eco-humour is, first, put into perspective of humour scholarship. In particular, I discuss the critical and corrective potential of humour to address and possibly redress environmental issues. Pedagogical benefits of humour are, then, touched upon to pave the way for a discussion of ‘humour-integrated environmental education’. The paper also addresses UNESCO’s 2030 roadmap of education for sustainable development and the ‘sustainability’ component of Australian Curriculum to further justify and contextualise the use of eco-humour. Moreover, several university-based initiatives to integrate echo-humour into environmental education are considered. Likewise, I briefly address ‘humour-integrated language learning’ as an emerging approach in language education that may offer valuable insights into eco-humour curriculum integration. Finally, the article points out several practical considerations and future directions in humour-integrated environmental education.

Academic Entrepreneurship and Technical Considerations for the Commercialization of Biomaterial-Based Medical Devices

Academic entrepreneurship, which refers to the university-based initiatives to encourage commercialization on campus and in the surrounding community, has evolved considerably in the recent years. Increasing number of stakeholders have been interested in academic entrepreneurship, and institutions have established higher number of strategies to encourage this development. Universities are organizations that play an important role in modern society by teaching, as well as research and development activities to produce scientific knowledge. Many institutions have recently taken important steps to create a "third purpose", by fostering connections within knowledge and users through promoting technology transfer, sometimes at the request of policymakers. Commercialization of knowledge produced in the academia, which includes patenting and licensing of findings, together with academic entrepreneurship, has gained a lot of attention from both academics and policymakers among the multiple pathways available for forging these linkages. Because it represents direct, demonstrable market acceptance for academic research results, commercialization is seen as a rising model for achieving academic influence. Many institutions have built specialized organizations, such as technology transfer offices (TTOs), scientific parks (Technopolis), and incubators, to aid commercialization as well as supporting internal policies and processes. The linkage between the universities and the industry have massively strengthened through academic entrepreneurship. There has been a significant impact on the regional and economic development due to the technological patents and spinoff companies emerged as a result of the research activities in universities. In this comprehensive review, the recent patent applications in the field of biomaterials in Turkey, Europe, and the United States of America were also covered, highlighting the number of patent applications of different biomaterial subgroups.

Implementing a novel self-care clock strategy as part of a trauma awareness intervention in a university setting.

This study compared post- and preintervention trauma-informed care attitudes, explored relationships among outcomes, and identified self-care behavior changes participants are willing to make. A quasi-experimental study with content analysis was conducted with 96 adults that took part in a Trauma Awareness Intervention including a novel self-care clock. Participants' trauma-informed care attitudes improved (p ≤ 0.05) compared to baseline and were positively related to their post-intervention compassion scores (p < 0.05). Qualitative analyses revealed self-awareness, self-care, empathy, applying a trauma lens, changing the narrative, and student-centeredness as the main themes in participants' responses. This university-based initiative had a positive impact on attitudes toward trauma and should be explored in other settings, as there is an unmet need for trauma-informed care strategies at the community level.

The Columbus Linguistics in High School experience: Fits and starts as a prelude to success

We report here on our efforts to incorporate linguistics into the high school curriculum in a large midwestern metropolitan area through a university-based initiative — Linguistics in High School (LxHS) — spearheaded by the Department of Linguistics at The Ohio State University. We offer a brief history of the project, and explain our strategy of targeting non-public schools and the practical nature of the reasoning behind this decision. We chronicle the ups and downs of our efforts, ultimately reporting on our success with implementing a linguistics course and a linguistics club at a small local STEM-oriented high school. This partnership between the school and the Linguistics Department has allowed, among other things, for on-site visits by the students to phonetics and sociolinguistics labs. By presenting our challenges, strategies, failures, and successes, we hope that others may be encouraged to evaluate how they can make a difference in their locale and with the resources they have.

University-based initiatives towards better access to oral health care for rural and remote populations: A scoping review.

This scoping review maps a wide array of literature to identify academic programs that have been developed to enhance oral health care for rural and remote populations and to provide an overview of their outcomes. Arksey and O’Malley’s 5-stage scoping review framework has steered this review. We conducted a literature search with defined eligibility criteria through electronic databases, websites of academic records, professional and rural oral health care organizations as well as grey literature spanning the time interval from the late 1960s to May 2017. The charted data was classified, analyzed and reported using a thematic approach. A total of 72 citations (67 publications and seven websites) were selected for the final review. The review identified 62 universities with program initiatives towards improving access to oral health care in rural and remote communities. These initiatives were classified into three categories: training and education of dental and allied health students and professionals, education and training of rural and remote community members and oral health care services. The programs were successful in terms of dental students’ positive perception about rural practice and their enhanced competencies, students’ increased adoption of rural practices, non-dental health care providers’ improved oral health knowledge and self-efficacy, rural oral health and oral health services’ improvement, as well as cost-effectiveness compared to other strategies. The results of our review suggest that these innovative programs were effective in improving access to oral health care in rural and remote regions and may serve as models for other academic institutions that have not yet implemented such programs.

High School Student Driving Perceptions Following Participation in a Distracted Driving Curriculum.

Objectives. Distracted driving is a major public health issue in the United States. In response to requests from high school students participating in a university-based initiative, the authors describe the collaborative development and implementation of a curriculum designed to address distracted driving behaviors among students in four high-needs school districts in the northeastern United States. Method. The curriculum integrates current statistics on distracted and drowsy driving and three interactive learning stations: driving while distracted, walking while distracted, and driving while drowsy. Pre- and postsurveys were conducted to collect student driving data, assess student satisfaction with the program, and assess their likelihood of speaking up as a passenger in a high-risk situation. Results. The majority of students reported that they learned new information and would recommend the program to others. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that students were more likely to speak up as a passenger with a distracted or drowsy driver (p < .001) after the program. Conclusion. This experience demonstrates a voluntary, multidisciplinary, university-based collaboration in the development of a novel public health education initiative. Based on the success of this phase, school districts elected to participate in Train the Trainer sessions to continue the program within their local high-needs school district.

Dogs on Campus

Abstract Once used mostly in clinical settings such as hospitals and geriatric care centers, canine animal-assisted therapy programs have become increasingly commonplace on university campuses to reduce stress and support students’ social and emotional well-being. Researchers responding to the call for increased empirical rigor in studies assessing the effects of animal-assisted therapy and practitioners seeking to initiate well-being programs on campus can face challenges in accessing therapy dogs and their volunteer handlers. This article outlines how therapy canines and their handlers may be holistically assessed for participation in university-based initiatives and presents a model that includes the prescreening of volunteer handlers, training sessions for handlers, the use of multiple raters to assess canine temperament and behavior, the use of mock sessions, and the use of ongoing formative evaluation and feedback for handlers once they are accepted into the program.

Local sourcing and the military: Lessons learned through a university-based initiative to increase local procurement at a US military base

AbstractThe volume of food purchased by the American military makes it perhaps the single largest intermediated market for food in the USA. Consequently, it is not surprising that those seeking to enhance the economic viability of small and mid-scale farms may view military bases as a promising market for locally produced foods. This is a challenging prospect, however, due to the centralized structure of military command, the nature of the military procurement system and federal mandates to obtain products that maximize value at the lowest available cost. This paper describes the US military food procurement system and the work of a 3-yr initiative to increase the amount of locally produced, source-identified products used at a North Carolina military installation. Our experiences serve as a cautionary tale, with this paper designed as both a primer on ‘how it works’ for food procurement at the federal and base level, and a description of our largely unsuccessful attempts to increase the volume of local food products from small-/mid-scale producers moving through the supply chain into base dining halls and restaurants. Based on our experiences, we also make recommendations on possible entry points for local food and farm advocates to work within the existing system to localize food procurement.

A Model for Implementing an Evidence-Based Practice in Student Fieldwork Placements: Barriers and Facilitators to the Use of “SBIRT”

ABSTRACTThis article reports on focus group data analysis that was used to understand initial, largely positive outcomes from a university-based initiative to disseminate and implement an evidence-based practice (EBP)—Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment for Substance Use (SBIRT)—into student fieldwork placements, which are usual care social work settings. Focus groups were conducted with three groups of stakeholders involved in the ongoing project: social work department faculty (n = 10), bachelor- and master-level social work students (n = 8), and social work fieldwork instructors (n = 6). Dimensional analysis of the focus group data yielded results indicating that dissemination and implementation of SBIRT was influenced by agency- and school-level factors and perceived fit between the EBP and individual professional identity, intrapersonal characteristics, and timing. The resulting model, developed through the focus group analysis, is offered and shows how these factors interacted and affected training, supervision, and use of the EBP. The model provides social work educational programs and agencies a working tool for diagnosing and proactively addressing barriers and breakdowns in the EBP implementation process. Future research that tests the model as a diagnostic tool and generates knowledge about its influence in developing competent evidence-based practitioners is indicated. Future focus groups in relation to this initiative are needed to better understand these barriers and facilitators in the EBP implementation process and their critical roles in the process of translating SBIRT into standard social work practice.

The war on learning: gaining ground in the digital university

Behind lectern stands professor, deploying course management systems, online quizzes, wireless clickers, PowerPoint slides, podcasts, and plagiarism-detection software. In seats are students, armed with smartphones, laptops, tablets, music players, and social networking. Although these two forces seem poised to do battle with each other, they are really both taking part in a war on learning itself. In this book, Elizabeth Losh examines current efforts to reform higher education by applying technological solutions to problems in teaching and learning. She finds that many of these initiatives fail because they treat education as a product rather than a process. Highly touted schemes -- video games for classroom, for example, or distribution of iPads -- let students down because they promote consumption rather than intellectual development. Losh analyzes recent trends in postsecondary education and rhetoric around them, often drawing on first-person accounts. In an effort to identify educational technologies that might actually work, she looks at strategies including MOOCs (massive open online courses), gamification of subject matter, remix pedagogy, video lectures (from Randy Pausch to the Baked Professor), and educational virtual worlds. Finally, Losh outlines six basic principles of digital learning and describes several successful university-based initiatives. Her book will be essential reading for campus decision makers -- and for anyone who cares about education and technology.

An Interdisciplinary University-Based Initiative for Graduate Training in Evidence-Based Treatments for Children’s Mental Health

States and jurisdictions are under increased pressure to demonstrate the use of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) for children’s mental health, increasing the demand for a workforce trained in these practices. Universities are a critical pipeline for this workforce. This article describes the genesis and evolution of a university-based initiative for training in EBTs for children, youth, and families. Given both the need to make training in EBTs available to future providers in a range of disciplines and that mental health providers increasingly find themselves on interdisciplinary teams (despite university-based training being relatively siloed along disciplinary lines), the initiative has had an interdisciplinary focus. Two tracks are described: (a) Practitioner Track, a course series in which students learn a specific EBT, and (b) Referral Track, a monthly lecture series designed to engage a wider university and community audience. Results of the program evaluation component of this initiative revealed that students can significantly increase their skills and self-efficacy in components of EBT delivery through participation in the active, skill-focused courses. Furthermore, the results of the lecture series evaluation appear to meet an important need for community-based providers and other supportive individuals in transferring useful knowledge about best practices. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Open Data: Crediting a Culture of Cooperation

Although the question of who pays for open data is important (“Who will pay for public access to research data?”, F. Berman and V. Cerf, Policy Forum, 9 August, p. [616][1]), a greater challenge lies in implementing the institutional and cultural changes required before data from government-sponsored research can be openly shared. The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has ordered U.S. federal agencies to formulate plans to share federally funded science data ([ 1 ][2]). This reflects a fundamental shift in the social contract between scientists and society. While seeking to strengthen science, the order also seeks better use of data to promote economic innovation, improve cross-disciplinary efforts, and address “grand challenge” societal problems such as global climate change and urban violence. The OSTP memo correctly notes that public availability of atmospheric data enabled commercial weather services and severe weather prediction. Yet many data, tools, and models in the geosciences are held by a mix of individual investigators, national data centers, university-based initiatives, and commercial labs, embedded in institutional arrangements that actively reward holding onto data and maximizing individual outcomes in a competitive environment. NSF's EarthCube project, a long-term strategic initiative to build the cyber infrastructure for integrating data, tools, and models in the geosciences, illustrates the challenges and benefits of community engagement and institutional alignment ([ 2 ][3]). The push for open data goes beyond the question of who pays. It challenges science to create a more cooperative culture that aligns credit and rewards with sharing data, tools, and models. 1. [↵][4] OSTP, Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research ([www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/22/expanding-public-access-results-federally-funded-research][5]). 2. [↵][6] EarthCube ([www.earthcube.org][7]). [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1241625 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [5]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/22/expanding-public-access-results-federally-funded-research [6]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text [7]: http://www.earthcube.org

Retention Initiatives are Employed in Academic Libraries, Although not Necessarily for this Purpose

Objective – To study methods that support retention of academic librarians.&#x0D; &#x0D; Design – Exploratory research using an online survey; non-random sample.&#x0D; &#x0D; Setting – Academic libraries, nearly all located within the U.S. (97.2%). &#x0D; &#x0D; Subjects – A total of 895 professional academic librarians.&#x0D; &#x0D; Methods – The researchers sent an online survey link to professional electronic mail lists and directly to heads of Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries. The 23-item survey was available from February 19, 2007, through March 9, 2007, and contained questions about the professional experience of respondents, their libraries, and their universities. Subjects were asked to identify retention activities that were currently offered at their workplaces (both library-specific and university-wide) and to rate their satisfaction for each available initiative. The list contained fifteen initiatives based on the researchers’ literature review.&#x0D; &#x0D; Main Results – Almost half (46.3%) of respondents were 50 or older and 7.5% under 30 years old, leaving 46.2% between the ages of 30-50 years old (although this percentage is not explicitly stated in the paper except in a table). Nearly half of the subjects were in the first ten years of their careers. 80.2% had held between one and four professional positions in their careers, and even when length of professional experience was factored out, age had no effect on the number of positions held. Most job turnover within the past three years (3 or fewer open positions) was in public service, while other areas of the library (i.e., technical services, systems, and administration) reported zero open positions. Only 11.3% of respondents noted that their libraries have deliberate, formal retention programs in place. Despite this, there are several library- and university-based initiatives that can be considered to help with retention. The most reported available library-based retention initiative was the provision of funding to attend conferences (86.8%). Librarians also frequently reported flexible schedules, support and funding for professional development and access to leadership programs. University-based retention programs included continuing education funding, new employee orientations, faculty status, and the chance to teach credit-bearing courses. Only 22.2% of subjects reported formal mentoring programs as a retention strategy. Librarians were very or somewhat satisfied with schedule flexibility (79.6%). They were generally satisfied with other initiatives reported. In response to 22 five-point Likert scale descriptions of positive library work environments, subjects most agreed with statements that allowed librarians to have control of their professional duties, that allowed for personal or family obligations, and that supported professional development. Librarians agreed less often regarding statements about salaries, research support, and opportunities for advancement.&#x0D; &#x0D; Conclusion – Academic librarians are involved in and are benefitting from some library and university-based retention initiatives, even though retention may not be the primary strategic goal.

Innovation and entrepreneurship in Brazilian universities

This article is concerned with the analysis of university-based initiatives in Brazil, emphasising activities directed at enhancing innovation and entrepreneurship. The Triple Helix thesis is utilised here to probe the nature of the changes taking place in Brazilian universities, reflecting the characteristics of the changes taking place in the wider economy. The article begins by reviewing some of the modifications introduced in the Brazilian innovation system and by explaining how universities have been incorporating entrepreneurial activities. Three university case studies are presented in order to identify different models of entrepreneurship and innovation activities. The article shows that different structures have arisen in universities in order to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurial activities. Government support for these initiatives has been increasing at the federal, regional and local levels.

A Review of the Status of Western Herbal Medicine in Australia

Western herbal medicine is the most widely used form of herbal medicine in Australia although Ayurvedic and Chinese herbal medicines are becoming better known. The agricultural production and manufacture of locally grown herbs is, with some exceptions, relatively underdeveloped, as is the research and development of indigenous flora. However, the use of herbal medicine is increasingly becoming mainstream with retail sales of herbal products in Australia estimated to be 200 million dollars. Concurrent with the increase in popularity of herbal medicine with health consumers have come advances in herbal medicine education and regulation. Although small by European standards, research into herbal medicines is increasing, mainly through industry and University-based initiatives.

A Review of the Status of Western Herbal Medicine in Australia

Western herbal medicine is the most widely used form of herbal medicine in Australia although Ayurvedic and Chinese herbal medicines are becoming better known. The agricultural production and manufacture of locally grown herbs is, with some exceptions, relatively underdeveloped, as is the research and development of indigenous flora. However, the use of herbal medicine is increasingly becoming mainstream with retail sales of herbal products in Australia estimated to be A$200 million. Concurrent with the increase in popularity of herbal medicine with health consumers have come advances in herbal medicine education and regulation. Although small by European standards, research into herbal medicines is increasing, mainly through industry and University-based initiatives.