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The black-lip pearl oyster, Pinctada margaritifera, used for round pearl production in Polynesia, is generally cultured using “ear-hanging” where they are attached to a rope to form “chaplets.” In other countries, pearl oysters are cultured using panel (pocket) nets that are more expensive than chaplets but afford more protection to cultured oysters. Prior research has shown panel nets produce pearls of higher quality and value, potentially generating higher profits. This study used cost–benefit analysis to compare pearl production using chaplet-based and panel net-based culture methods. Whole farm data, including gross revenues and annual production costs, fixed and variable, were analyzed. Average production cost per pearl using panel net-based culture was USD 22.47 and for chaplet-based culture was USD 21.55. However, use of panel nets saved around 3,430 hr (USD 6,860) of labor a year, offsetting the greater capital investment. A chaplet-based pearl farm generated USD 65,738 in annual profits compared to USD 88,774 for a panel net-based farm. Positive cash flow was achieved 1 year earlier (Year 7) for the panel net-based farm. This is the first economic analysis of different pearl culture methods for P. margaritifera and evidence of profitability will support further development of the black-lip pearl industry in the Indo-Pacific region.

Cultured pearl production, and associated activities, are of crucial social and economic importance to remote coastal communities in Polynesia and the western Pacific. This study determined the potential profitability of (1) community-based pearl oyster spat collection operations targeting Pinctada margaritifera, and the subsequent sale of pearl oysters to round pearl farms; and (2) the use of Pteria penguin, collected incidentally from P. margaritifera spat collection operations, for mabe pearl production. The spat collection farm modelled in this study comprised four 100-m longlines supporting 1240 commercial spat collectors, with an estimated capital cost of $1245 (all figures in USD). The spat collection operation produced 2332 saleable P. margaritifera pearl oysters (sold to round pearl culture operations) with estimated NPV of $10,439. The MIRR generated was 12.24%, with a benefit-cost ratio was 1.52, and a payback period of 4 years. The downstream mabe pearl farm modelled in this study comprised two 100-m longlines supporting 2000 implanted Pt. penguin oysters with an estimated capital cost of $7319. Annual production of 5400 mabe pearls generated an NPV of $491,864. The MIRR and benefit-cost ratio of the modelled mabe pearl farm were 22.64% and 7.24, respectively, with a payback period of 3 years. Incorporating production and price risk into the model reduced the expected NPV of the mabe pearl farm to $297,507. The models developed in this study provide valuable new information for prospective pearl oyster spat and mabe pearl farming community groups, donors, funding bodies and other stakeholders, and provide a valuable extension tool supporting further development of the pearl sector in Fiji and the broader Indo-Pacific region.

This paper proposes a model for developing an Age-Friendly Media and Information Literate (#AFMIL) city. It starts by addressing general issues concerning ageing and ageism. Key features of UNESCO’s framework for a media and information literate city are described. The authors proceed to identify relevant international handbooks, guidelines and initiatives concerning age-friendly environments, cities for human rights, smart cities, creative cities and informational cities. Drawing on these documents, the authors outline a model for developing an #AFMIL city, centred on older people enacting three roles: their role as consumers of media and information; older people as represented in the media; and older people in their role as creators, critics and innovators. They highlight the role of librarians in this development.

In this chapter the subject field of Information Literacy is reviewed and related to holistic themes of digital capability, agency, and personhood as preferred characteristics of the digital university. Information in society (Buckland, Information and society. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA/London, 2017) and Information Literacy in the curriculum (Anderson and Johnston, From information literacy to social epistemology: insights from psychology. Chandos Publishing, Kidlington, 2016; Webber and Johnston, J Inf Lit 11(1), 2017) are discussed as being at the intersection of economy, education, and democracy and not simply as a set of information and digital skills. Information Literacy is a key quadrant of the Matrix detailed in Chap. 3; however it is seen as marginal in university academic development and in need of significant attention at all levels of digital university organisation. Related literacies—digital and media—are discussed and related to Information Literacy (Koltay 2011). The UNESCO programme of Media and Information Literacy is proposed as an emerging focus for curriculum development work on critiques of the globalisation of the information industry and the implications of monopolistic ownership for democracy.

This chapter outlines the evolutionary process of discussion, research, and practice upon which the insights, arguments, and constructs used in the book are based. The process is founded in notions of discursive construction (Jones and Goodfellow, Int J Learn Media 4(3–4):59–63, 2012) and praxis (Freire 2005). A number of key development stages are described, including engagement with the educational community via blog posts and presentations, preparation of conference and journal papers, and a project to explore a university’s Digital Future. The main analytical constructs detailed in the chapter are (i) a model of a new way of conceiving the dynamics of academic and organisational development in universities, (ii) a matrix illuminating the key aspects of each element in the model, and (iii) a graphic representation of an initial clustering of elements from the first two constructs combined with additional elements derived from the university project. These constructs are presented as analytical and practical tools for academic and organisational development of the digital university.

This chapter examines a number of key commentators on the concept of the digital university and identifies the contradictory nature of the debate. The commentaries are sourced from government policies, scholarly analyses, management consultants and think tanks, and university mission statements. A pattern of partial and competing viewpoints emerges including positive and negative positions, practical proposals for implementing digital technologies, and critical analysis of the prospects for digital technologies in universities. An overall estimate of the state of debate suggests that current thinking is (i) disproportionally skewed in favour of neoliberal, managerialist, and technist perspectives and (ii) underdeveloped in the realms of pedagogical theory and organisational development practice. This estimate leads to the conclusion that the current account presents an impoverished concept of the digital university. Specific points from the commentary are deployed in later chapters.

In this chapter, the Matrix introduced in Chap. 3 is revisited and extended to provide a more fully developed analytical tool for the academic and organisational development of the digital university. In extended form, the Matrix refocuses the original four quadrants of digital participation, information literacy, learning environment, and curriculum and course design and incorporates the themes of critical pedagogy, open education, praxis, and education as public good, which have been developed in the preceding chapters. The Matrix is offered as an analytical and practical tool, which can be best used in situations where value pluralism is adopted as the basis of development practice. Current developmental thinking is critiqued, and approaches drawn from Freire’s work on critical symbols, culture circles, and praxis are advocated as complementary extensions of development practice. The need to engage with the human dimension of development and avoid the reductionism of neoliberal accounts of the digital university is emphasised and detailed discussion of how the Matrix can be used in practice is provided.

In this concluding chapter of the book, the proposition of the digital university as a contested space is revisited in the context of current political and sector developments and their resulting implications for key aspects of universities and the student and academic experience within our higher education institutions. Major themes and recurring motifs within the book are summarised and synthesised, in addressing the digital university as a liberating social force, prospects for future practice, and agendas for change. In exploring the latter area, a number of potential themes and foci for future research are proposed. The chapter closes by underlining the need to re-position the university as a public good committed to critical thinking, and to situate digital space, place, and practice in relation to extending higher education, and the opportunities to engage with or benefit from the knowledge created within and through higher education, to our wider communities and society.

In this chapter the idea and aspiration of digital or digitally enabled transformation at the levels of the sector, institutions, and educational practice is explored and challenged. Claims and descriptions of digital technology as radically transformative are revealed as, at worst, a myth and at best as a conflation of transformation with what is actually closer to enhancement. The evidence for a notional digital transformation of universities is considered and found to be variable across macro, meso, and micro levels of analysis. A varied pattern of good practice in the adoption of digital practice for learning and teaching is described and related to sector-wide initiatives and programmes for change in the period 2000–2010 (e.g. Jisc/HEA, E-learning benchmarking and pathfinder programme 2005–2008: an overview. Higher Education Academy, York, 2008), many of which continue to have a legacy contribution to the development and enhancement of effective practice. The research base relating to the educational benefits of digital technologies for learning and teaching is explored, tempered with a critical consideration of the concept of ‘affordances’ in relation to educational technology. In conclusion, the chapter then explores emerging possibilities for genuinely transformative change relating to the digital in higher education.

In this chapter the issue of widening participation and the role of digital technologies in changing the nature of participation are explored. The current approach to widening participation is considered and critiqued from perspectives in concepts of porosity, open education practice, and the concept of the commons. Perspectives on open education drawn from critical pedagogy (Zobel 2015; Farrow, Learn, Media and Technol 42:130–146, 2017) are contrasted with practices influenced by neoliberalism, and the challenges this contrast poses for university leadership are discussed. Issues of open access, public scholarship, and publishing practices are discussed in relation to the changing nature of academic work following the Finch Report (2012). This discussion of openness as a desired characteristic of the digital university is developed in subsequent chapters.

In this chapter the issue of how learning spaces and environments might be designed in the digital university is reviewed and related to the relevant elements of the matrix presented in Chap. 3. Space is presented as being physical, digital, pedagogical, and social and located both within and without the walls of the university. Space so conceived enables the design of suitable learning environments, not only for students enrolled on degree programmes, but also for a variety of different potential participants. Values of democratic engagement and critical pedagogy are proposed as key features of curriculum development, with teaching in such an environment described as primarily a matter of activity design. Digitally enriched learning spaces, supporting democratic engagement in learning and involving co-production of the curriculum, imply porous boundaries between knowledge, spaces, and formal organisation. This chapter should be seen as a companion to Chap. 8.

In this chapter, the main concerns lie with the means through which we can translate dialogue and a shared commitment to a more creative, effective, and democratic harnessing of the digital into enabling institutional strategies, policies, and practices. The expanded conceptual matrix and digitally distributed curriculum constructs are positioned as tools to guide collective critical reflection, dialogue, decision-making, and action. Key challenges and enabling dimensions in relation to institutional practice and praxis are explored, including distributed academic leadership, reconciling value pluralism, permissive institutional policies and strategies, and commitment to social justice. The chapter concludes by outlining a number of aspirations and possibilities pertaining to future developments at the institutional level.

This chapter draws on ideas from Chap. 7, highlights the notion of digitally distributed curriculum described in Chap. 3, expands the conceptual scope to encompass a set of values for developing the digital university, and describes a number of enabling factors for such development. The idea of ‘third space thinking’ (Oldenburg 1989) is deployed to conceptualise the nature and potential development of curriculum. Current thinking on curriculum is reviewed, including critiques of boundedness, product orientation, modularisation, institutional silos, and assessment. The proposition that curriculum should support open education and address wider societal needs is emphasised. A key aspect is the detailed presentation and discussion of the concept of digitally distributed curriculum, which offers a method to visualise the digital university in terms of a curriculum shaped and enabled by porosity, open scholarship, co-location, co-production, praxis, public pedagogy, and participation. In its fullest development, this concept offers a means to portray the digital university as part of a project to reform higher education as public good.

This chapter identifies neoliberalism as the main force bringing about change in universities. Operating through state policy, neoliberal thinking defines higher education as a market of university providers and student consumers of knowledge, skills, and qualifications. Within this framework digital technology is harnessed to market strategies and practices. The negative consequences for universities are outlined and contrasted with an alternative depiction of higher education as a public good based in the values of critical pedagogy, openness, and public pedagogy. The concept of value pluralism (Johnson M, Smyth K, Campus-Wide Inf Syst 28(4):211–220, 2011) is recognised as a challenge and opportunity for bringing about positive change by engaging all stakeholders in creation of the digital university. The main intellectual strategy adopted to explore the concept of the digital university is described as discursive construction (Jones and Goodfellow, Int J Learn Media, 4(3–4):59–63, 2012). The work of Paulo Freire (Education for critical consciousness. Bloomsbury Academic, London, 1974) is described as a major influence on the arguments for higher education as a public good developed in the book as a whole.

In this chapter, the role of systematic institutional academic development is related to the task of implementing and embedding effective digital practice at the institutional level of the digital university. The current relatively marginal place for academic development units and staff in relation to organisational change management is critiqued and a more central role proposed. The ideas and values of critical pedagogy, open education, and praxis are positioned as key features of a renovated academic development capability. The account is based on work describing the nature of academic development and developer roles (Land, Educational development: discourse, identity and practice. Society for Research into Higher Education/Open University Press, Maidenhead, 2004; Neame, J Acad Dev 18:331–343, 2013), and a new role of critical, open provocateur is derived and described. This new orientation for academic development is aligned to an agenda of greater openness within and outside universities aimed at reforming higher education as a public good. The practice of academic development is problematised and reappraised using ideas drawn from Roxa and Martensoon (Int J Acad Dev 22:95–105, 2017).

Since the 2001 "black box" warning on droperidol, its use in the prehospital setting has decreased substantially in favor of haloperidol. There are no studies comparing the prehospital use of either drug. The goal of this study was to compare QTc prolongation, adverse events, and effectiveness of droperidol and haloperidol among a cohort of agitated patients in the prehospital setting.In this institutional review board-approved before and after study, we collected data on 532 patients receiving haloperidol (n = 314) or droperidol (n = 218) between 2007 and 2010. We reviewed emergency department (ED) electrocardiograms when available (haloperidol, n = 78, 25%; droperidol, n = 178, 76%) for QTc length (in milliseconds), medical records for clinically relevant adverse events (defined a priori as systolic blood pressure (SBP)90 mmHg, seizure, administration of anti-dysrhythmic medications, cardioversion or defibrillation, bag-valve-mask ventilation, intubation, cardiopulmonary arrest, and prehospital or in-hospital death). We also compared effectiveness of the medications, using administration of additional sedating medications within 30 minutes of ED arrival as a proxy for effectiveness.The mean haloperidol dose was 7.9 mg (median 10 mg, range 4-20 mg). The mean droperidol dose was 2.9 mg (median 2.5 mg, range 1.25-10 mg.) Haloperidol was given i.m. in 289 cases (92%), and droperidol was given i.m. in 132 cases (61%); in all other cases, the medication was given i.v.. There was no statistically significant difference in median QTc after medication administration (haloperidol 447 ms, 95% CI: 440-454 ms; droperidol 454 ms, 95% CI: 450-457). There were no statistically significant differences in adverse events in the droperidol group as compared to the haloperidol group. One patient in the droperidol group with a history of congenital heart disease suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest and was resuscitated with neurologically intact survival. There was no significant difference in the use of additional sedating medications within 30 minutes of ED arrival after receiving droperidol (2.9%, 95% CI: -2.5-8.4%).In this cohort of agitated patients treated with haloperidol or droperidol in the prehospital setting, there was no significant difference found in QTc prolongation, adverse events, or need for repeat sedation between haloperidol and droperidol.

Though there is an extensive literature on materials in language teaching, little if any of it examines the relationship between materials such as textbooks and the totality of the classroom experience. The present study makes use of the concept of classroom ecology (Tudor, 2001; van Lier, 1996) to explore the interrelationships among materials and other crucial elements in an advanced ESL grammar class offered in the Intensive English Program of an American university. We focus in particular on the ways in which the textbook-Azar's (2002) Understanding and using English grammar-constituted the de facto curriculum of the course, and how it provided structure for the majority of the classroom interaction. Finally, we speculate on the relationship between the materials and language learning in this classroom. We argue that the framework of ecology, with its emphasis on affordances and emergence, provides a compelling lens through which to study the ways in which materials are actually deployed in classrooms, and how teachers and students conceive of the work being done there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MA in translation offered by the Institute for Applied Linguistics at Kent State University prepares students to embark on professional careers as translators, terminologists, and language project managers, although some graduates do pursue advanced degrees in a foreign language or literature or in linguistics. The program focuses on English translation from six languages: Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. The language-specific workshops emphasize the need for self-reflection, discussion, and feedback with translation practice. Students are also required to take two further courses in translation technology that are more specialized in their approach and content. The first provides a systematic introduction to computer-assisted translation, including the design of terminology databases, the documentation of terms and concepts in multilingual contexts, term extraction, and translation memories that store segments of source texts and their translations for retrieval. The second required course in technology addresses software localization and internationalization.

We describe a case study in which we interviewed 20 adult returner students who were engaged in a university access course designed to assist mature students to return to full-time academic study after a period of employment away from full-time education. Among the questions asked was one concerning how the students went about obtaining information to support their general studying. Their responses were qualitatively analysed and various interesting themes emerged, such as trust (textbooks were regarded as inherently more trustworthy than websites), study skills and techniques, and transformation. We argue that our mature sample of beginning students is more typical of the general population than are samples of school-leaver undergraduates, and shed some light on information literacy concerns that members of the public at large are likely to share.

This chapter reviews literature on student learning, and in particular the currently dominant ‘constructivist’ theory of learning, and also study skills advice given to students, and relates these to the learning of information literacy skills. The fundamental assumption of constructivist theory is that students construct knowledge for themselves, rather than having it, as it were, transmitted to them by a teacher. The pedagogical problem that ensues is finding ways to help learners to construct their knowledge in a way that challenges any unhelpful pre-existing ‘prior conceptions’ and firmly establishes the required new knowledge. Constructivist theorists advocate active learning activities, and accordingly we review research literature that demonstrates that structured peer-based group interactions can be particularly helpful to learning, and discuss the implications of this work for the learning of information literacy concepts and skills.

This chapter reviews the psychological literature on epistemological thinking and metacognition, and relates both of these to critical thinking and information literacy. The implications for critical thinking and information literacy of different types of epistemological positions (absolutist, multiplist and relativist/evaluativist) are explored. We also draw upon the work of Tanner (2012) , which is aimed at promoting the development of metacognition in biology students, to make some suggestions regarding how to improve information literacy using the kinds of prompting which Tanner advocates.

This chapter considers the very well-known ACRL Standards for Information Literacy ( ACRL, 2000 ) and the recent revision of these Standards to incorporate the notion of threshold concepts to create a new Framework ( ACRL, 2015 ) for information literacy. These developments are seen as reflecting changes within higher education pedagogy that have taken place in the last 20 or so years, changes that we argue are consistent with our own emphasis on collaborative and interactive learning within peer groups. We conclude that the ACRL Framework is a significant development and a significant shift in emphasis to a more situated view of information literacy.

In this chapter, we summarise the contributions UNESCO has made to building a global platform for discussion of information literacy. We give qualified support and offer some suggested difficulties in operationalising the UNESCO agenda for MIL.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of critical thinking, considers its relevance to information literacy, and discusses possible pedagogical strategies by means of which the teaching of these two might best be integrated. The various distinctions regarding critical thinking within the psychological literature (Is it a general capability, or instead tied to particular domains of knowledge? How is it best taught? and so on). We conclude that critical thinking is an essential element of information literacy and argue that both should be taught in tandem in course structures that extend over a period of weeks rather than in ‘one-shot slots’.

In this chapter, we relate the psychological ideas discussed thus far to the academic practice of course design and re-design. We discuss Secker and Coonan's (2013) New Curriculum for Information Literacy in that light. We find that there is much to commend in Secker and Coonan's work, and argue that detailed consideration of the psychological phenomena that we discussed above would enhance the practical application of the New Curriculum.

This chapter develops ideas of individual epistemology as a personal psychology of identifying the limits of ‘truth’ in a given piece of knowledge to encompass knowledge formulation as a collective activity in society. Foundational work by Egan and Shera (1952) is described and developed, with reference to the education and professional practice of librarians. The critical role of information in economic development is summarised and related to the innovations of the ‘internet age’.

This article presents empirical research exploring adult returner students’ patterns of learning via qualitative analysis of a series of semi-structured interviews. Interviewees’ comments shed light on the relation between patterns of learning on the one hand, and study skills, epistemological issues and attitudes to peer interaction on the other. The data suggest that this group of students adopt a reproductive approach to learning, which is coupled with rudimentary study skills and a dualist, right/wrong epistemology. This constellation leads to a certain scepticism regarding the usefulness of peer interaction, even though such student-centred types of teaching are held to promote ‘deep’ learning.

Using the 2 theoretical lenses of representation (Barthes, 1977) and ownership of language (Higgins, 2003), this article offers a critical analysis of representations of Russian speakers in 9 widely used Russian language textbooks aimed at university-level learners. Particular attention is paid to representations of Russian speakers other than white Orthodox Christian ethnic Russians. Findings indicate that there are virtually no representations of such 'other' speakers in the materials under investigation. This absence is framed as an erasure (hooks, 1992), a violent removal that significantly misrepresents the actual diversity of speakers of Russian and restricts putative ownership of the Russian language. The authors argue that not only is this inaccurate portrayal pedagogically problematic; it is also politically so, as it coincides with a rising tide of ethnic Russian nationalism in the Russian Federation. The article ends with a call for more accurate portrayals of the actual diversity of users of Russian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]