Flexible Learning Spaces Evaluation Report

City University, London is tackling the challenge of ensuring the learning spaces provided are able to meet the anticipated increase in technology usage and prevalent pedagogies. There is no longer a standard classroom design that will achieve this goal and therefore it is imperative to pilot and explore a variety of flexible learning spaces. This report feeds back on an evaluation of two flexible learning space approaches piloted in the autumn term of 2012 as alternatives to traditional computer rooms laid out in rows with the lecturer positioned at the front. These approaches are: pop-up computers on circular tables in AG24A; and laptop lockers enabling staff to borrow laptops to use with students on node chairs in AG24B. Each of these approaches also supported the use of students’ own devices in learning spaces. These methods were evaluated using surveys, interviews and an open house forum. The report shares the findings and recommendations from this evaluation and future plans for learning spaces

Creating the strategic learning environment at City University London

Purpose: This paper describes the creation of a new approach to the implementation of educational technologies at a UK Higher Education Institution. Driven by changes in technology, an evaluation of the virtual learning environment (VLE) provided the opportunity to reassess the application of technology to the curriculum. However, such an evaluation and subsequent implementation is not about technology but a social process of negotiation and stakeholder engagement. The narrative of the evaluation is explored to offer lessons to other institutions. Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes a story telling approach as this enables greater emotional engagement with the reader as well as the description of the social and organisational aspects of such a VLE evaluation. This approach enables the difficulty of change in complex organisations, such as a University, to be addressed more fully. Findings: Key lessons from the evaluation of the VLE and resulting creation of the strategic learning environment (SLE) are drawn which can be of use to other institutions. The main finding is the fact that such evaluations and implementation of educational technologies are not about technical factors but about opportunities and threats presented by such technologies to the educational experience. These findings also inform future development of the SLE at the institution. Originality/value: This paper will be of interest to institutions that are undertaking evaluation exercises of their educational technology provision as well as those that are implementing new technologies or considering large scale organisational change

Pressure from All Sides: A Comparative History of the Issues and Policies Related to the Gay and Lesbian Student Populations of The Ohio State University and The University of Michigan, 1971 to 1994

The Ohio State University and The University of Michigan are two of the most prominent and world-renowned public universities in the United States, attracting scholars from all over the globe to their campuses. These universities are places where new ideas and groundbreaking research are created every day. However, as state-funded institutions they not only function to create knowledge, but also to serve a variety of stakeholders, including taxpayers, local community members, government officials, faculty, staff, alumni, and students. As a result, the universities endeavor to safeguard the principle of equality within their respective communities. Historically, gay and lesbian students have presented Ohio State and Michigan with a unique set of demands and challenges. There has been a significant shift in the way that these universities have dealt with this particular group over the last three and a half decades. In my thesis, I examine how and why Ohio State and Michigan have responded to gay and lesbian student demands and concerns, looking specifically at the schools’ nondiscrimination policies and gay and lesbian student services offices. The universities have similar policies and offices in place today, but the processes through which these developments came into being were very different. In 1971, Michigan opened the doors of its gay and lesbian student services office, the first center of its kind at any college or university in the United States. Despite this groundbreaking step, Michigan did not add “sexual orientation” to its nondiscrimination policy in a formal way until the mid 1990s. By contrast, Ohio State added “sexual orientation” to its nondiscrimination policy in 1979, but its gay and lesbian students would be without a designated services office until 1990. Why did these events happen at such different times at these two schools? How did the pressures that influenced the universities’ decisions differ? How do the resulting offices and policies compare to one another? Furthermore, as these developments were debated and ultimately implemented, did the stakeholders at the two universities’ react differently? Was there any political or financial backlash? During my investigation of these questions, I have performed research on primary sources at the archives of both universities. These have included official university documents, memoranda, press releases, personal letters, and newspapers. Furthermore, I have conducted interviews and consulted secondary literature on the broader topic of gay and lesbian rights. My narrative will examine how different social pressures affected a specific set of policy decisions that have been made at these two universities over the last thirty or so years. The present situation at these universities is the result of long and unique processes that have culminated in similar yet distinct ends, and this thesis attempts to document those developments and examine them comparatively and critically

Defects and Quantum Seiberg-Witten Geometry

We study the Nekrasov partition function of the five dimensional U(N) gauge theory with maximal supersymmetry on R^4 x S^1 in the presence of codimension two defects. The codimension two defects can be described either as monodromy defects, or by coupling to a certain class of three dimensional quiver gauge theories on R^2 x S^1. We explain how these computations are connected with both classical and quantum integrable systems. We check, as an expansion in the instanton number, that the aforementioned partition functions are eigenfunctions of an elliptic integrable many-body system, which quantizes the Seiberg-Witten geometry of the five-dimensional gauge theory.1133sciescopu

The Superconformal Index of the (2,0) Theory with Defects

We compute the supersymmetric partition function of the six-dimensional (2,0) theory of type AN−1 on S1×S5 in the presence of both codimension two and codimension four defects. We concentrate on a limit of the partition function depending on a single parameter. From the allowed supersymmetric configurations of defects we find a precise match with the characters of irreducible modules of WN algebras and affine Lie algebras of type AN−1.1121sciescopu

Supersymmetric Casimir Energy and the Anomaly Polynomial

We conjecture that for superconformal field theories in even dimensions, the supersymmetric Casimir energy on a space with topology S1×SD−1 is equal to an equivariant integral of the anomaly polynomial. The equivariant integration is defined with respect to the Cartan subalgebra of the global symmetry algebra that commutes with a given supercharge. We test our proposal extensively by computing the supersymmetric Casimir energy for large classes of superconformal field theories, with and without known Lagrangian descriptions, in two, four and six dimensions.1123sciescopu

Twistor and Polytope Interpretations for Subleading Color One-Loop Amplitudes

We use the relation of the one-loop subleading-color amplitudes to the one-loop $n$-point leading color amplitudes in ${\cal N}=4$ SYM, to derive a polytope interpretation for the former in the $MHV$ case, and a representation in momentum twistor space for the general $N^kMHV$ case. These techniques are explored in detail for the 5-point and 6-point amplitudes. We briefly discuss the implications for IR divergences.Comment: 30 pages, 2 figures; typos corrected, citations added; fig2 modified, fig. 1 and explanations added, mostly around eq. 2.11; version accepted in Nucl.Phys.