ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Addressing the Local in Localization: A Case Study of Open Textbook Adoption by Three South African Teachers
Author: Jimes, Cynthia
Date: 2013-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Case Studies,Foreign Countries,Adoption (Ideas),Electronic Publishing,Open Source Technology,Textbooks,Teacher Surveys,Teacher Attitudes,Use Studies,Usability,Structured Interviews,Participant Characteristics,Culturally Relevant Education,Instructional Material Evaluation

This article presents a case study of the adoption and use of open textbooks by three high school teachers in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The textbooks, collaboratively authored and distributed through the South African initiative, Siyavula, are available online and are openly licensed, allowing teachers to freely use, modify, print, and share them with peers. Building on prior research conducted on the Siyavula project, the study consisted of interviews with teachers in South Africa to assess their reasons for adopting open textbooks, and their experiences using Siyavula's open textbooks in the classroom. The study revealed that beyond the cost-savings and flexible printing possibilities afforded by using open textbooks, the teachers' adoption and use of the open textbooks were tied to the local nature of the textbooks, as well as the localization opportunities made possible through open licensing. Specifically, the study revealed the importance of content rooted in the cultural and geographic contexts in which teachers teach--for example, through authentic scenarios and accessible texts for students and teachers to work with. Moreover, because the Siyavula textbooks were collaboratively written by local field experts and scholars, the content was viewed by the teachers as higher in quality than proprietary textbooks, which often have few authors and are disseminated by large publishing companies. Furthermore, the study found that localization of the textbooks involved not only to the ability to modify and annotate the content to meet classroom needs, but also the ability to meet local socioeconomic constraints, including technological and budgetary limitations. The findings also indicated that the textbooks' collaborative authorship and possibilities for user modifications facilitated communication about enhancements to the textbook between the textbook authors and the teacher users.  On the whole, the findings support nascent, prior research revealing that when open educational resources (OER) are created, developed, and evaluated through processes drawing upon individuals who live and work within the context for which the OER are being created, the end result is more useable. The results of the study support the need for further research in other settings globally, centering on, for example, the role of collaborative authorship in relation to perceived quality of content.
An Open and Scalable Learning Infrastructure for Food Safety
Author: Manouselis, Nikos
Date: 2013-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Food Standards,Safety,Agricultural Education,Knowledge Management,Educational Resources,Open Source Technology,Electronic Learning,Computer System Design,Usability,Information Sources,Information Processing,Program Descriptions

In the last several years, a variety of approaches and tools have been developed for giving access to open educational resources (OER) related to food safety, security, and food standards, as well to various targeted audiences (e.g., farmers, agronomists). The aim of this paper is to present a technology infrastructure currently in demonstration mode at Michigan State University that will collect various agricultural education content (training descriptions, open educational content, competencies, and standards) and provide them through various interfaces, based on the needs of the targeted audience. The overall architecture of the infrastructure for the food safety sector and the needed components are presented, as well as the main usage scenarios that explain how the infrastructure can enhance existing platforms and services in the area of food safety and food security.
Measuring the Community in Online Classes
Author: Rubin, Beth
Date: 2013-10-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Online Courses,Computer Uses in Education,Attitude Measures,Teacher Student Relationship,Distance Education,Interaction,Educational Environment,Cooperation,Social Environment,Interpersonal Relationship,Student Participation,Inquiry,Communities of Practice,Hypothesis Testing,Student Attitudes,Instructional Effectiveness

This paper proposes both theoretical and empirical approaches to differentiating the community of inquiry (CoI) in online classes at individual and group levels. Following the example of research on organizational climate, it assesses the strength of shared perceptions of teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. The paper develops a theory of composition that relates isomorphic constructs of these presences at the individual and class levels. Hypotheses are made about the agreement among students on the survey that is used to measure individual perceptions of the three presences of the CoI. These are tested using a set of statistics designed to measure the extent to which shared perceptions of these presences exist within classes. Strong evidence of shared perceptions is found, and potential practical and theoretical applications are described.
Using OER as a Tool for Agribusiness Management Training for Hard-to-Reach Rural Farmer Populations
Author: Muniafu, Maina
Date: 2013-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Agribusiness,Administrator Education,Rural Areas,Extension Education,Rural Extension,Open Source Technology,Learning Modules,Entrepreneurship,Small Businesses,Material Development,Instructional Materials,Instructional Development,International Educational Exchange,Program Effectiveness,Change Strategies,Outreach Programs,Foreign Countries

Agriculture is the mainstay of Kenya's economy and contributes significantly to the gross domestic product. A great majority of this contribution comes from smallholder farmers who paradoxically face numerous obstacles ranging from a lack of support structures to poor policies and inadequate resources. A major challenge is assisting these farmers with making improvements in their production ventures, with the recently devolved form of government in Kenya enabling any assistance to be concentrated at a much lower and specific level within established counties. The United States International University (USIU) has been involved in the development of training materials for farmers and farmer organizations, specifically a course module based on several interdisciplinary field case studies. This farmers' agribusiness training course was developed on an open educational resource (OER) platform to help both farmers, who had limited training in commercialization of agriculture, and farmer organizations. The intention of the course was to provide access to additional skills and knowledge, allowing farmers to move from a farm to a &quot;firm.&quot; Five farmers were identified from various parts of the country and participated in partnership with USIU faculty to develop the modules for the course over a one-year period. In order to complete these modules with the farmers, project staff frequently followed up with the farmers via field trips. The farmers provided positive feedback on the OER materials despite some challenges, such as the need for participants to be computer literate in order to utilize the materials directly. However, mobile learning presents an opportunity to address this shortcoming. Kenya has witnessed tremendous growth in the use of mobile phones in the rural population whose main occupation is agriculture. Although a few farmers were found to already be using a mobile SMS service to seek recommendations from the Ministry of Agriculture on the best agriculture practices and produce marketing, there is a need to establish whether mobile technologies can enhance farmers' training and support in the rural communities.
Building Communities of Care for Military Children and Families
Author: Kudler, Harold
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Military Personnel,Children,Family Environment,Military Service,Community,Communities of Practice,Parents,Child Welfare,Community Programs,Public Health,Mental Health,Adjustment (to Environment),Childhood Needs,Access to Health Care,Social Support Groups,Cooperative Programs

Military children don&apos;t exist in a vacuum; rather, they are embedded in and deeply influenced by their families, neighborhoods, schools, the military itself, and many other interacting systems. To minimize the risks that military children face and maximize their resilience, write Harold Kudler and Colonel Rebecca Porter, we must go beyond clinical models that focus on military children as individuals and develop a public health approach that harnesses the strengths of the communities that surround them. In short, we must build communities of care. One obstacle to building communities of care is that at many times and in many places, military children and their families are essentially invisible. Most schools, for example, do not routinely assess the military status of new students&apos; parents. Thus Kudler and Porter&apos;s strongest recommendation is that public and private institutions of all sorts--from schools to clinics to religious institutions to law enforcement--should determine which children and families they serve are connected to the military as a first step toward meeting military children&apos;s unique needs. Next, they say, we need policies that help teachers, doctors, pastors, and others who work with children learn more about military culture and the hardships, such as a parent&apos;s deployment, that military children often face. Kudler and Porter review a broad spectrum of programs that may help build communities of care, developed by the military, by nonprofits, and by academia. Many of these appear promising, but the authors emphasize that almost none are backed by strong scientific evidence of their effectiveness. They also describe new initiatives at the state and federal levels that aim to break down barriers among agencies and promote collaboration in the service of military children and families.
Using Multilingual Analytics to Explore the Usage of a Learning Portal in Developing Countries
Author: Protonotarios, Vassilis
Date: 2013-07-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Developing Nations,Electronic Learning,Use Studies,Multilingual Materials,Data Analysis,Web Sites,Agricultural Education,Educational Resources,Case Studies

Learning analytics is a domain that has been constantly evolving throughout recent years due to the acknowledgement of its importance by those using intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections for predicting and advising people's learning [1]. Learning analytics may be applied in a variety of different cases, but their role in understanding the multilingual requirements of users of learning portals is of an outstanding significance. As the adaptation of existing portals in multilingual environments is a cost- and time-consuming aspect of the development of a portal, the outcomes of learning analytics may provide the requirements on which further  multilingual services of a portal will be built, ensuring their efficiency. This paper aims to identify and interpret the behavior of users from developing countries in a multilingual learning portal using the log files of the portal by applying the methodology defined in a previous work by Stoitsis et al. [2] The paper also aims to identify the aspects that should be studied by future related works by focusing on specific regions and countries that exhibit special interest for further adaptation of the portal to additional multilingual environments.
Creating Open Education Resources for Teaching and Community Development through Action Research: An Overview of the Makerere AgShare Project
Author: Kaneene, John B.
Date: 2013-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Action Research,Open Source Technology,Educational Resources,Foreign Countries,Community Development,Agribusiness,Learning Modules,Animal Husbandry,Role of Education,Community Needs,Change Strategies,Program Development,Intervention,Program Effectiveness,Partnerships in Education,Stakeholders,Agricultural Education,Improvement Programs,Productivity,Student Participation,Material Development,Graduate Students

The AgShare Phase I Program, conducted at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, was formed to create open education resources for teaching and community development through action research. The study was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of investigators from fields of veterinary medicine and agri-business. Two master of science students conducted dairy value chain action research that produced  ase materials used to create open education resources (OER) course modules (milk hygiene and marketing modules) and design interventions that would improve milk production, quality, and safety; reduce milk spoilage; increase price per liter of milk received by farmers; and support on-farm processing of yogurt and other dairy products. This research was used in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the master's degree in Livestock Development, Planning, and Management (MLD) and the master's degree in Agri-business Management (M Agbus Mgt) by these students. The conceptual design, implementation, monitoring, and impacts of action research on teaching, students learning, and the dairy industry are discussed in detail.
The Demographics of Military Children and Families
Author: Clever, Molly
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Military Service,Military Personnel,Family Environment,Family Characteristics,Family Relationship,Demography,Family Needs,Age Differences,Gender Differences,Racial Differences,Ethnicity,Educational Attainment,Marital Status,Veterans

Since the advent of the all-volunteer force in the 1970s, marriage, parenthood, and family life have become commonplace in the U.S. military among enlisted personnel and officers alike, and military spouses and children now outnumber service members by a ratio of 1.4 to 1. Reviewing data from the government and from academic and nonacademic research, Molly Clever and David R. Segal find several trends that distinguish today&apos;s military families. Compared with civilians, for example, service members marry younger and start families earlier. Because of the requirements of their jobs, they move much more frequently than civilians do, and they are often separated from their families for months at a time. And despite steady increases since the 1970s in the percentage of women who serve, the armed forces are still overwhelmingly male, meaning that the majority of military parents are fathers. Despite these distinguishing trends, Clever and Segal&apos;s chief finding is that military families cannot be neatly pigeonholed. Instead, they are a strikingly diverse population with diverse needs. Within the military, demographic groups differ in important ways, and the service branches differ from one another as well. Military families themselves come in many forms, including not only the categories familiar from civilian life--two-parent, single-parent, and so on--but also, unique to the military, dual-service families in which both parents are service members. Moreover, military families&apos; needs change over time as they move through personal and military transitions. Thus the best policies and programs to help military families and children are flexible and adaptable rather than rigidly structured.
Military Children from Birth to Five Years
Author: Osofsky, Joy D.
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Military Personnel,Military Service,Young Children,At Risk Persons,Child Abuse,Child Welfare,Resilience (Psychology),Mental Health,Parenting Skills,Child Rearing,Parent Child Relationship,Attachment Behavior,Child Development,Coping,Emotional Development,Depression (Psychology),Family Violence,Pregnancy,Stress Management,Trauma,Intervention,Family Counseling,Psychotherapy,Research Needs

Because most research on military families has focused on children who are old enough to go to school, we know the least about the youngest and perhaps most vulnerable children in these  families. Some of what we do know, however, is worrisome--for example, multiple deployments, which many families have experienced during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, may increase  the risk that young children will be maltreated. Where the research on young military children is thin, Joy Osofsky and Lieutenant Colonel Molinda  Chartrand extrapolate from theories and research in other contexts--especially attachment theory and research on families who have experienced disasters. They describe the circumstances that are most likely to put young children in military families at risk, and they point to ways that families, communities, the military, and policymakers can help these children overcome such risks and  thrive. They also review a number of promising programs to build resilience in young military children. Deployment, Osofsky and Chartrand write, is particularly stressful for the youngest children, who depend on their parents for nearly everything. Not only does deployment separate young children from one of the central figures in their lives, it can also take a psychological toll on the parent who remains at home, potentially weakening the parenting relationship. Thus one fundamental way to help young military children become resilient is to help their parents cope with the stress of deployment. Parents and caregivers themselves, Osofsky and Chartrand write, can be taught ways to support their young children&apos;s resilience during deployment, for example, by keeping routines consistent and predictable and by finding innovative ways to help the child connect with the absent parent. The authors conclude by presenting 10 themes, grounded in research and theory, that can guide policies and programs designed to help young military children.
How Wartime Military Service Affects Children and Families
Author: Lester, Patricia
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: War,Military Service,Military Personnel,Children,Family Relationship,Coping,Stress Management,Stress Variables,Social Support Groups,Community Programs,Child Rearing,Parenting Styles,Attachment Behavior,Resilience (Psychology),Academic Achievement,Mental Health,Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,Age Differences,Gender Differences,Parents,Prevention,Public Health,Public Policy,Research Needs

How are children&apos;s lives altered when a parent goes off to war? What aspects of combat deployment are most likely to put children at risk for psychological and other problems, and what resources for resilience can they tap to overcome such hardships and thrive? To answer these questions, Patricia Lester and Lieutenant Colonel Eric Flake first examine the deployment cycle, a multistage process that begins with a period of anxious preparation after a family receives notice that a parent will be sent into combat. Perhaps surprisingly, for many families, they write, the most stressful part of the deployment cycle is not the long months of separation that follow but the post-deployment period, when service members, having come home from war, must be reintegrated into families whose internal rhythms have changed and where children have taken on new roles. Lester and Flake then walk us through a range of theoretical perspectives that help us understand the interconnected environments in which military children live their lives, from the dynamics of the family system itself to the external contexts of the communities where they live and the military culture that helps form their identity. The authors conclude that policy makers can help military-connected children and their families cope with deployment by, among other things, strengthening community support services and adopting public health education measures that are designed to reduce the stigma of seeking treatment for psychological distress. They warn, however, that much recent research on military children&apos;s response to deployment is flawed in various ways, and they call for better-designed, longer-term studies as well as more rigorous evaluation of existing and future support programs.
When a Parent Is Injured or Killed in Combat
Author: Holmes, Allison K.
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Military Service,Military Personnel,Death,War,Parents,Children,Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,Head Injuries,Brain,Neurological Impairments,Injuries,Family Environment,Hospitals,Rehabilitation,Child Rearing,Parenting Skills,Mental Health,Community Programs,Research Needs,Grief,Resilience (Psychology)

Since the U.S. military began fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002, approximately two million military children have seen a parent deploy into harm&apos;s way at least once, and many families have experienced multiple deployments. Most deployments end with a parent&apos;s safe return home, but more than 50,000 service members have been physically injured in combat, and even more are later diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the worst case, deployed parents do not return at all. This article examines the impact on dependent children of deployments that result in visible or physical injuries (for example, amputations or burns); invisible injuries, including TBI and PTSD; and a parent&apos;s death. Seven recommendations for service providers  and policy makers are detailed. The article concludes that ultimately more research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs and disseminate the findings so that resilience-based family programs can be expanded to providers in the community where families live and receive care.
Economic Conditions of Military Families
Author: Hosek, James
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Military Personnel,Family Characteristics,Economic Factors,Family Income,Military Service,Financial Support,Salaries,Compensation (Remuneration),Access to Health Care,Federal Programs,Spouses,Wages,Children,Child Welfare,Budgets,Stress Variables,Unemployment,Homeless People,Veterans

In this article, the authors found that the economic circumstances of military families are good, certainly much improved compared with even a decade ago. The military context is nonetheless challenging, with long hours, dangerous work, frequent transfers, and stressful absences during deployment. Service members receive relatively high pay and have steady work, but military life can exact a price from their spouses: frequent moves disrupt spouses&apos; employment, and military spouses&apos; wages are lower than those of comparable civilians. Yet the military offers important services to families in the form of noncash benefits. For example, on-base child-care centers are renowned for high-quality care (see the article in this issue by Major Latosha Floyd and Deborah Phillips). Similarly, military dependents receive health care at little or no cost through the TRICARE system, and the military contributes to local school districts to ensure that school-age military children have access to quality education. Despite these noncash benefits, some families, especially large families of junior service members, have trouble making ends meet, just like families in the civilian world. It is also clear that military service comes with unique financial challenges. Over the past decade and longer, policymakers have implemented strategies to minimize these challenges by increasing financial support across the military population. These efforts have met with considerable success. The pay increases of recent years have slowed, and, barring a new outbreak of hostilities, the military will reduce the size of the force in the coming years. In light of these circumstances, policymakers must keep a careful eye on the economic conditions of military families.