This open access collection examines how higher education responds to the demands of the automation economy and the fourth industrial revolution. Considering significant trends in how people are ...learning, coupled with the ways in which different higher education institutions and education stakeholders are implementing adaptations, it looks at new programs and technological advances that are changing how and why we teach and learn. The book addresses trends in liberal arts integration of STEM innovations, the changing role of libraries in the digital age, global trends in youth mobility, and the development of lifelong learning programs. This is coupled with case study assessments of the various ways China, Singapore, South Africa and Costa Rica are preparing their populations for significant shifts in labour market demands – shifts that are already underway. Offering examples of new frameworks in which collaboration between government, industry, and higher education institutions can prevent lagging behind in this fast changing environment, this book is a key read for anyone wanting to understand how the world should respond to the radical technological shifts underway on the frontline of higher education.
This open access book offers pioneering insights and practical methods for promoting diversity and inclusion in higher education classrooms and curricula. It highlights the growing importance of ...international education programs in Asia and the value of understanding student diversity in a changing, evermore interconnected world. The book explores diversity across physical, psychological and cogitative traits, socio-economic backgrounds, value systems, traditions and emerging identities, as well as diverse expectations around teaching, grading, and assessment. Chapters detail significant trends in active learning pedagogy, writing programs, language acquisition, and implications for teaching in the liberal arts, adult learners, girls and women, and Confucian heritage communities. A quality, relevant, 21st Century education should address multifaceted and intersecting forms of diversity to equip students for deep life-long learning inside and outside the classroom. This timely volume provides a unique toolkit for educators, policy-makers, and professional development experts.
Abstract
The emergence of large language models has led to the development of powerful tools such as ChatGPT that can produce text indistinguishable from human-generated work. With the increasing ...accessibility of such technology, students across the globe may utilize it to help with their school work—a possibility that has sparked ample discussion on the integrity of student evaluation processes in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). To date, it is unclear how such tools perform compared to students on university-level courses across various disciplines. Further, students’ perspectives regarding the use of such tools in school work, and educators’ perspectives on treating their use as plagiarism, remain unknown. Here, we compare the performance of the state-of-the-art tool, ChatGPT, against that of students on 32 university-level courses. We also assess the degree to which its use can be detected by two classifiers designed specifically for this purpose. Additionally, we conduct a global survey across five countries, as well as a more in-depth survey at the authors’ institution, to discern students’ and educators’ perceptions of ChatGPT’s use in school work. We find that ChatGPT’s performance is comparable, if not superior, to that of students in a multitude of courses. Moreover, current AI-text classifiers cannot reliably detect ChatGPT’s use in school work, due to both their propensity to classify human-written answers as AI-generated, as well as the relative ease with which AI-generated text can be edited to evade detection. Finally, there seems to be an emerging consensus among students to use the tool, and among educators to treat its use as plagiarism. Our findings offer insights that could guide policy discussions addressing the integration of artificial intelligence into educational frameworks.
► Can the major emerging powers address stalled performance on the sustainable development agenda? ► This research explores the leadership potential of the BRICS and BASIC coalitions. ► Emerging ...powers are already engaging in policy coordination in the sustainable development arena. ► Emerging powers are also using influence to create incentives for other actors in the system. ► Global sustainable development leadership requires a stronger policy agenda and greater cohesion.
It is often argued that the growth of major emerging powers, such as China, India, Russia, and Brazil, will have a transformative effect on the world economy and politics, but the implications of their rise on sustainable development diplomacy have remained understudied. Do these new powers have the potential to exercise leadership and address the stalled performance on the sustainable development agenda? Drawing on theories of leadership in multiparty negotiations and the empirical study of two major emerging powers’ coalitions, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China), this article assesses their leadership potential in sustainable development diplomacy. It finds that emerging powers are already engaging in policy coordination in the sustainable development realm, have begun to use their influence to create incentives for other actors in the system and have been conducting skillful diplomacy to develop their coalitions and forge consensus in global policy-making. However, exerting actual global leadership would require building a stronger policy agenda. One area with particular potential for emerging powers to exert leadership is the clean energy arena of sustainable development diplomacy.
Academic reading is a key component of higher education, and serves as a basis for critical thinking, knowledge acquisition and effective communication. Research shows many students struggle with ...comprehension and analysis tasks with academic texts, despite the central importance of academic reading to success in higher education. Undergraduates and researchers need to internalize dense literature to scaffold their own work upon it. This reading task is time-consuming and difficult to do. Oftentimes, students struggle to actively and critically engage and as a result attain merely a cursory understanding of a paper’s contents, or worse, incorrectly interpret the text. How, then, can we provide a means to more easily digest a text while also facilitating meaningful, critical engagement and understanding? This paper locates itself within the broader field of augmented reading interfaces to implement an augmented reading interface that leverages the power of large language models (LLM) to intelligently generate and co-locate comprehension and analysis questions in an academic paper, thereby making the paper more digestible with the end goal of facilitating deeper understanding, and developing critical reading skills.
The emergence of large language models has led to the development of powerful tools such as ChatGPT that can produce text indistinguishable from human-generated work. With the increasing ...accessibility of such technology, students across the globe may utilize it to help with their school work -- a possibility that has sparked discussions on the integrity of student evaluations in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). To date, it is unclear how such tools perform compared to students on university-level courses. Further, students' perspectives regarding the use of such tools, and educators' perspectives on treating their use as plagiarism, remain unknown. Here, we compare the performance of ChatGPT against students on 32 university-level courses. We also assess the degree to which its use can be detected by two classifiers designed specifically for this purpose. Additionally, we conduct a survey across five countries, as well as a more in-depth survey at the authors' institution, to discern students' and educators' perceptions of ChatGPT's use. We find that ChatGPT's performance is comparable, if not superior, to that of students in many courses. Moreover, current AI-text classifiers cannot reliably detect ChatGPT's use in school work, due to their propensity to classify human-written answers as AI-generated, as well as the ease with which AI-generated text can be edited to evade detection. Finally, we find an emerging consensus among students to use the tool, and among educators to treat this as plagiarism. Our findings offer insights that could guide policy discussions addressing the integration of AI into educational frameworks.
Asthma severity in children generally starts mild but may progress and stay severe for unknown reasons.
Identify factors in childhood that predict persistence of severe asthma in late adolescence and ...early adulthood.
The Childhood Asthma Management Program is the largest and longest asthma trial in 1041 children aged 5-12 years with mild to moderate asthma. We evaluated 682 participants from the program with analyzable data in late adolescence (age 17-19) and early adulthood (age 21-23).
Severe asthma was defined using criteria from the American Thoracic Society and the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program to best capture severe asthma. Logistic regression with stepwise elimination was used to analyze clinical features, biomarkers, and lung function predictive of persistence of severe asthma.
In late adolescence and early adulthood 12% and 19% of the patents had severe asthma, respectively; only 6% were severe at both time periods. For every 5% decrease in post bronchodilator FEV1/FVC in childhood, the odds of persistence of severe asthma increased 2.36-fold (95% CI: 1.70-3.28; p <0.0001), for participants with maternal smoking during pregnancy odds of persistence of severe asthma increased 3.17-fold (95% CI: 1.18-8.53, p=0.02). Reduced growth lung function trajectory was significantly associated with persistence of severe asthma compared to normal growth.
Lung function and maternal smoking during pregnancy were significant predictors of severe asthma from late adolescence to early adulthood. Interventions to preserve lung function early may prevent disease progression.
