Through the Looking Glass: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Changed International Branch Campuses’ Academic Experience and Home Campus Relationship

This study examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the academic experience at international branch campuses (IBCs) and has changed the relationship between the IBC and the home campus. Semi-structured interviews with 26 leaders, academic staff, and students at seven IBCs in Malaysia revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the experience at IBCs in unique ways, including collaboration and communication with the home campus; increasing campus-specific resources for student wellbeing; and playing a larger role in student enrollment, recruitment, and mobility initiatives. Findings provide useful insights for higher education institutions (HEIs) engaged in transnational education (TNE).

Factors Influencing Social-Learning Experience in Nearby Pocket Parks On Campus Ground

Nearby pockets on campus grounds have become necessary learning sustainable settings to improve the academic experience by promoting outdoor social and learning activities. However, many universities still focus mainly on formal indoor learning and lack outdoor education that meets modern academic outcomes. Therefore, the current study aimed to identify the factors affecting students' social-learning experience in nearby pocket parks on campus ground, focusing on the tropical regions. The current study employed a questionnaire survey conducted in three Malaysian universities to collect data from 408 participants. The results showed various types of influencing factors that affect the social-learning experience in nearby pockets on campus ground, including landscape elements and activities, environmental factors, and access to these spaces. The results also indicated that students' demographics, including gender, education status, and university, influenced the outdoor social-learning experience. The current study contributed information to the development of on-campus sustainable settings for integrating nearby pockets in social interaction and learning activities in order to improve the academic social-learning experience.

Student Governance and the Academic Minefield During COVID-19 Lockdown in South Africa

Since 1997, the ordinary students at South African universities have depended on the SRC to be at the forefront of student advocacy in relation to resources to support their academic experiences. The onset of the lockdown on the eve of 26th March 2020 had an unprecedented effect on student life, with a change of student governance from cohesion to isolation. Adopting a snowball sampling methodology, 15 students registered at various South African universities were interviewed via WhatsApp about the support they received from their SRC during the COVID-19 lockdown. The impact of the lockdown on student governance is examined through the lens of ordinary students. Findings suggest that the surge to technology-based modes of interaction and self-regulated learning had a resultant effect of a highly compromised academic experience, even though some were able to adapt to online learning. Adjusted approaches to student governance are inevitable as the coronavirus continues to manifest.

Undergraduate Research and the Enrollment Crisis in English Literature

Declines in undergraduate enrollments in English literature are well documented, and departments need to develop a coherent set of productive, practical responses to enrollment pressures. Drawing on studies of undergraduate research in STEM disciplines, this article explores how undergraduate research experiences in English literature can be envisioned not as unique, one-on-one experiences for motivated and interested students but as a curricular intervention that spans the undergraduate academic experience, fosters scholarly identity, and promotes inclusivity in scholarly training. Rather than functioning “by arrangement,” undergraduate research in English should be a coordinated enterprise that is established as an expectation for incoming students and a feature of every level of the major.

“Everyone Thought My Library Assistant was My Mum”. Visually Impaired and Blind Students’ Experiences of Interactions with Support and Other Staff in Higher Education.

This article explores visually impaired (vi) and blind students’ experiences of support as an undergraduate student in UK higher education (he) by focusing specifically on relationships and interactions between vi and blind students and support staff within Higher Education. Participants within this research show how their experiences highlight an uneven and often exclusionary Higher Education landscape. Constructions of disability and impairment show a complex relationship between support provision as it is offered and experienced. The findings overall suggest the experience of support is more than the placing together of student and support worker and concerns the management of this relationship, particularly around underlying assumptions about being vi. Support is not unnecessary or unwelcome, instead, the complexity of the relationship, the additional work associated with support experienced by these students, combine to shape academic experience.

Importance of Scaffolding

For this assignment, students were asked to reflect on their experiences as a student in WRS 101 by exploring a writing topic that shines a light on those events. This was a critical analysis of the students' experience through an argumentative essay. In this case, the importance of scaffolding was explored to see how different aspects of the class such as the professor, resources and peer contributed to interdependent learning. Ultimately, the impact of scaffolding an assignment or ideas was analyzed to see how it impacted a student's learning as the scaffolds were gradually withdrawn. This paper reveals the importance of scaffolding throughout a student's academic experience.

Social capital and university–business collaboration in doctoral education

University–business collaboration in doctoral education has been promoted by governments and universities. In contexts where there is limited contact between the academic and business sectors, individuals and their social capital might play an important role in the formation and success of such partnerships, including the frequency of interaction and continuity of partnerships. Here, data from a survey of directors of doctoral programmes in Portugal were used to explore these aspects. The social capital of the directors seems to increase both the intensity and continuity of collaboration, especially in scientific fields considered to be more distant from companies and in which university–business collaboration is less common. Previous collaboration will create relational capital, resulting in mutual knowledge and trust which, in turn, lead to more intense and sustainable collaboration. Academic experience with companies—reflecting cognitive aspects of social capital—increases the diversity of university–business collaboration in doctoral programmes, while also reinforcing the possibility of long-term collaborations. The findings indicate that academics’ social capital is an important factor in determining the success of collaborative doctoral education, and should be taken into account when designing and supporting collaborative doctoral programmes.

Artificial intelligence in constructing personalized and accurate feedback systems for students

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems have evolved with digital learning developments to provide thriving soft groups with digital opportunities in response to feedback. When it comes to learning environments, educators’ training feedback is often used as a response recourse. Through the use of final evaluations, students receive feedback that improves their education abilities. To improve academic achievement and explore knowledge in the learning process, this section provides an AI-assisted personalized feedback system (AI-PFS). An individualized feedback system is implemented to learn more about the student’s lack of academic experience interactivity and different collaboration behaviors. According to their benchmark, PFS aims to establish a personalized and reliable feedback process for each class based on their collaborative process and learn analytics modules. It has been proposed to use multi-objective implementations to evaluate students regarding the learning results and teaching methods. With different series of questions sessions for students, AI-PFS has been designed, and the findings showed that it greatly enhances the performance rate of 95.32% with personalized and reasonable predictive.