title: AS-Path Prepending: There is no rose without a thorn

authors: Marcos, Pedro

subjects: computer science

abstract: Inbound traffic engineering (ITE) - -the process of announcing routes to, e.g., maximize revenue or minimize congestion - -is an essential task for Autonomous Systems (ASes). AS Path Prepending (ASPP) is an easy to use and well-known ITE technique that routing manuals show as one of the first alternatives to influence other ASes' routing decisions. We observe that origin ASes currently prepend more than 25% of all IPv4 prefixes. ASPP consists of inflating the BGP AS path. Since the length of the AS path is the second tie-breaker in the BGP best path selection, ASPP can steer traffic to other routes. Despite being simple and easy to use, the appreciation of ASPP among operators and researchers is diverse. Some have questioned its need, effectiveness, and predictability, as well as voiced security concerns. Motivated by these mixed views, we revisit ASPP. Our longitudinal study shows that ASes widely deploy ASPP, and its utilization has slightly increased despite public statements against it. We surprisingly spot roughly 6k ASes originating at least one prefix with prepends that achieve no ITE goal. With active measurements, we show that ASPP effectiveness as an ITE tool depends on the AS location and the number of available upstreams; that ASPP security implications are practical; identify that more than 18% of the prepended prefixes contain unnecessary prepends that achieve no apparent goal other than amplifying existing routing security risks. We validate our findings in interviews with 20 network operators.

text: AS-Path Prepending: There is no rose without a thorn Inbound traffic engineering (ITE) - -the process of announcing routes to, e.g., maximize revenue or minimize congestion - -is an essential task for Autonomous Systems (ASes). AS Path Prepending (ASPP) is an easy to use and well-known ITE technique that routing manuals show as one of the first alternatives to influence other ASes' routing decisions. We observe that origin ASes currently prepend more than 25% of all IPv4 prefixes. ASPP consists of inflating the BGP AS path. Since the length of the AS path is the second tie-breaker in the BGP best path selection, ASPP can steer traffic to other routes. Despite being simple and easy to use, the appreciation of ASPP among operators and researchers is diverse. Some have questioned its need, effectiveness, and predictability, as well as voiced security concerns. Motivated by these mixed views, we revisit ASPP. Our longitudinal study shows that ASes widely deploy ASPP, and its utilization has slightly increased despite public statements against it. We surprisingly spot roughly 6k ASes originating at least one prefix with prepends that achieve no ITE goal. With active measurements, we show that ASPP effectiveness as an ITE tool depends on the AS location and the number of available upstreams; that ASPP security implications are practical; identify that more than 18% of the prepended prefixes contain unnecessary prepends that achieve no apparent goal other than amplifying existing routing security risks. We validate our findings in interviews with 20 network operators.

year: 2020

title: Empowering Solomon Islands’ beginning science teachers through the use of Appreciative Inquiry

authors: Porakari, James

abstract: This paper reports on a study that investigated the potential of using Appreciative Inquiry for exploring the development of three beginning science teachers in the Solomon Islands. Using the four phases of an Appreciative Inquiry framework, the teachers followed a process that allowed their strengths to be identified through the analysis of their stories of best-taught lessons. The findings indicate that the teachers felt they had strengths in knowledge bases relating to planning and teaching generally, and to teaching and learning science specifically. The teachers were able to identify and suggest actions for sustaining and developing their identified strengths. Involvement in the Appreciative Inquiry process allowed the teachers to speak positively, affirming their practice, and gave them agency in planning for future professional learning. This study adds to the sparse literature on beginning science teachers’ strengths, in a Pacific context. This research suggests that through using an Appreciative Inquiry framework, beginning science teachers can be given the opportunity to identify strengths and positive elements of their teaching of science, and plan action to build on these strengths.

text: Empowering Solomon Islands’ beginning science teachers through the use of Appreciative Inquiry This paper reports on a study that investigated the potential of using Appreciative Inquiry for exploring the development of three beginning science teachers in the Solomon Islands. Using the four phases of an Appreciative Inquiry framework, the teachers followed a process that allowed their strengths to be identified through the analysis of their stories of best-taught lessons. The findings indicate that the teachers felt they had strengths in knowledge bases relating to planning and teaching generally, and to teaching and learning science specifically. The teachers were able to identify and suggest actions for sustaining and developing their identified strengths. Involvement in the Appreciative Inquiry process allowed the teachers to speak positively, affirming their practice, and gave them agency in planning for future professional learning. This study adds to the sparse literature on beginning science teachers’ strengths, in a Pacific context. This research suggests that through using an Appreciative Inquiry framework, beginning science teachers can be given the opportunity to identify strengths and positive elements of their teaching of science, and plan action to build on these strengths.

year: 2017

title: Incidental teacher<->student moments in an Aotearoa New Zealand secondary school: Entangled encounters with key competencies

authors: Graham, Judith Ann

subjects: key competencies

abstract: This study focuses on the performance of Key Competencies of the New Zealand curriculum in incidental teacher<->student moments. It makes visible a significant and often taken-for-granted portion of teachers’ daily work. Situated in one Aotearoa New Zealand secondary school, the research material of this study was generated in two cycles of conversations with teachers. In these conversations the teachers spoke about ordinary, unplanned moments with students. As the school is composed of more than 50% Māori students, I spoke first with individual Māori teachers at the school, inquiring into their knowledge of key competencies, and how that pedagogical knowledge related to knowledge and practice from whakaaro Māori. In the second cycle of generating research material, a collaborative group of Māori and Pākehā teachers engaged in a recursive process of inquiring together into stories participants told of everyday encounters with students. In this inquiry the names of key competency categories were put in the background as the group focused their inquiry on the teacher’s values, knowledges and beliefs that were contributing to action in the moment.
My analysis of the research material is situated in the field of posthuman philosophy and relational<->materialist theorising. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, Massumi, Barad and Bennett, I applied Barad’s methodology of diffractive analysis and paid attention to multiple material and discursive forces and intensities at play in each story. In this analysis, diverse forces such as colonised histories, educational discourse, human and more-than-human materialities, whakaaro Māori, hope and belief, were evidenced intra-acting together. I noticed how these forces invited the mobilisation and performance of key competency actions in the service of becoming and relating with the world.
This study shifts thinking with key competencies from the reductionist territory of the individual human and re-territorialises them as dynamic performances of becoming. It contributes to a re-thinking of subjectivity and potentiality in the place of schooling in Aotearoa New Zealand. As the multi-dimensional entangled complexity of day-to-day pedagogical encounters is disclosed, teacher<->student intra-actions become known as ripe opportunities for performances of actions that come under the umbrella of key competencies. The study opens new ways of thinking about how key competency learning is produced in secondary schools, and how the placetimemattering of the school shapes that learning.
I explore diffractive patterns as key competencies entangle with posthumanism and with whakaaro Māori in everyday teacher<->student encounters. I present a way of thinking with key competencies that aligns closely with whakaaro Māori and posthumanism, and offers a creative and ethical orientation to life and learning. I think with the teacher<->student relational moment as a significant site of learning, and how knowledge of affect and relational-practices of knowing and recognition might contribute to teachers’ professional adaptive expertise.

text: Incidental teacher<->student moments in an Aotearoa New Zealand secondary school: Entangled encounters with key competencies This study focuses on the performance of Key Competencies of the New Zealand curriculum in incidental teacher<->student moments. It makes visible a significant and often taken-for-granted portion of teachers’ daily work. Situated in one Aotearoa New Zealand secondary school, the research material of this study was generated in two cycles of conversations with teachers. In these conversations the teachers spoke about ordinary, unplanned moments with students. As the school is composed of more than 50% Māori students, I spoke first with individual Māori teachers at the school, inquiring into their knowledge of key competencies, and how that pedagogical knowledge related to knowledge and practice from whakaaro Māori. In the second cycle of generating research material, a collaborative group of Māori and Pākehā teachers engaged in a recursive process of inquiring together into stories participants told of everyday encounters with students. In this inquiry the names of key competency categories were put in the background as the group focused their inquiry on the teacher’s values, knowledges and beliefs that were contributing to action in the moment.
My analysis of the research material is situated in the field of posthuman philosophy and relational<->materialist theorising. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, Massumi, Barad and Bennett, I applied Barad’s methodology of diffractive analysis and paid attention to multiple material and discursive forces and intensities at play in each story. In this analysis, diverse forces such as colonised histories, educational discourse, human and more-than-human materialities, whakaaro Māori, hope and belief, were evidenced intra-acting together. I noticed how these forces invited the mobilisation and performance of key competency actions in the service of becoming and relating with the world.
This study shifts thinking with key competencies from the reductionist territory of the individual human and re-territorialises them as dynamic performances of becoming. It contributes to a re-thinking of subjectivity and potentiality in the place of schooling in Aotearoa New Zealand. As the multi-dimensional entangled complexity of day-to-day pedagogical encounters is disclosed, teacher<->student intra-actions become known as ripe opportunities for performances of actions that come under the umbrella of key competencies. The study opens new ways of thinking about how key competency learning is produced in secondary schools, and how the placetimemattering of the school shapes that learning.
I explore diffractive patterns as key competencies entangle with posthumanism and with whakaaro Māori in everyday teacher<->student encounters. I present a way of thinking with key competencies that aligns closely with whakaaro Māori and posthumanism, and offers a creative and ethical orientation to life and learning. I think with the teacher<->student relational moment as a significant site of learning, and how knowledge of affect and relational-practices of knowing and recognition might contribute to teachers’ professional adaptive expertise.

year: 2019