Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2004. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 76 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-56).

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2004. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 83 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-42).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-135). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-135). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 58 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-38).

Typically, adult educators in Jamaica are part-time employees who are either trained in pedagogy or are employed because of their advanced training or skills in a particular discipline. As adult education in Jamaica and the Caribbean undergoes change, policy focus has concentrated on identifying the discipline with lifelong learning rather than adult literacy. Although the importance of the role of adult educators to the change process is acknowledged, the changes in adult education are not yet focussed on the role of the adult educator and equipping the adult educator to function in this dynamic environment. This study of an adult education institution in Jamaica aims to explore the perceptions of stakeholders, teachers, students and administrators, on how adult education is viewed, the role of part-time faculty in adult education, the quality of teaching they offer and measures to enhance teaching quality in this institution and others like it. I argue that the equipping of adult educators is important for successful adult education, part-time faculty who make up the significant majority of the cohort of adult educators deserve special attention and that Continuing Professional Development is a useful tool that serves the interest of equipping both individual teachers and institutions. Data was collected and analysed by means of a qualitative methodology utilising interviews, focus groups and qualitative questionnaires in two centres of the case institution. The study finds that teachers are crucial to successful adult education. Because of the ambivalence of adult learners and their needs for emotional as well as cognitive support, the onus is on teachers to provide learning environments in which adult learners can make best use of a learning opportunity. Many teachers, however, do not have specialist training for this task. Part-time faculty in the study want professional development although they do not think traditional methods of professional development suit their circumstances. They do have clear ideas of the kind of CPD support that they think will meet their needs. The study suggests guidelines for developing a model of CPD that is suitable for part-time faculty in adult education.

This was a collaborative action research project with three, mixed method evaluation cycles. Its aim was to increase the impact of new learning technologies (NLT) in two Police Forces. The first reconnaissance cycle found a significant absence of uptake for one computer based training system (<1% impact after five years) with only assumptions of ‘technological determinism’ driving the process. A range of individual, work related and cultural factors were illuminated, towards understanding how the Force might become a ‘network’ organisation, where technology fundamentally transforms how work is done (Symon, 2000). Following the qualitative interview study, a quantitative survey was carried out with 164 respondents on the areas of concern for NLT in the Police. Factor analysis of this data reinforced a parsimonious five factor solution, accounting for 55% of the variance and on which to proceed with cycles two and three. In the second cycle, 130 Police Probationers completed a battery of psychometrics to assess individual difference factors associated with successful outcomes in training with NLT. Results showed 27% of the variance on a bespoke NLT learning measure was predicted by computer attitudes. Age, gender, education, motivational and almost all personality measures offered no significant contribution to explaining the data. The bespoke learning criterion was used as a pre-test, post-test and retention measure and showed significant increases in knowledge were gained from NLT: effective and efficient learning was evidenced. Also in the second cycle, a sub-sample of (n=20-34) Probationers participated in two stages of repertory grid interviews rating different elements of Police training methods. From these data an ‘Ideal Probationer Learning Event’ (IPLE) model was proposed. This was stable over time and positioned NLT within a conceptual structure that identified preferred and non-preferred construct poles equating to four dimensions along which Police officers reliably rated any training event. In essence, it highlighted sites of perceived credibility and offered these as levers for creative change. Follow-up work with 120 Probationers using another example of NLT explored how integration of learning from NLT could occur from a learner-centered point of view, using an interpretive concept mapping technique. This illuminated sites of power exchange and the location of ‘ownership’ of learning in Police culture. The IPLE model was used to direct the third cycle which included constructivist and contingency perspectives. It was propsed that by creatively designing an NLT event to increase elements of the preferred constructs discovered in cycle two, integration of an NLT event would enable the transformative properties of NLT as a to manifest themselves. A sample of up to 60 Police Staff used an NLT package alongside a bespoke, collaborative e-learning group. Criterions were developed according to skill breadth, frequency and difficulty and significant increases in learning were not only found, but maintained following completion of NLT when retention was measured. The e-learning group brought some of the credible elements of training to the NLT event, thereby constituting a ‘unique solution’ (Seltzer, 1971). It created peer learning groups, despite geographical separation. Data for each level of Kirkpatrick’s (1959; 1960) ‘best practice’ training evaluation model was collected enabling the conclusion that creative integration is key to a network uptake of NLT.

ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Space Link Extension (SLE) is a set of recommended standards for mission cross support developed by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). The SLE recommendations define protocols for extending the space link from ground terminals to other facilities deeper within a ground network, allowing distributed access to space link telecommand and telemetry services. The SLE protocols are widely used to provide cross support between sites, programs, and agencies. In traditional SLE deployments, individual service instances have been manually provisioned well in advance of the commencement of cross support for a particular mission, and hardware and software resources have been allocated to those service instances at the time of provisioning. While valid, this approach requires that dedicated resources be provided for each mission and service instance, and limits an SLE provider's ability to reallocate resources in real time based on system availability or other factors. This paper discusses an alternative approach to SLE service provisioning, in which individual service instances are assigned resources from a common resource pool at the time that each service instance is initialized. The paper addresses the key design elements and technical tradeoffs involved in this approach, and discusses the potential benefits with regard to load balancing, equipment reuse, and resiliency against system failure.

ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Space Link Extension (SLE) is a set of recommended standards for mission cross support developed by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). The SLE recommendations define protocols for extending the space link from ground terminals to other facilities deeper within a ground network, allowing distributed access to space link telecommand and telemetry services. The SLE protocols are widely used to provide cross support between sites, programs, and agencies. Traditional SLE protocol implementations have been limited in their ability to support high data rates and large numbers of concurrent service instances. Such limited solutions were sufficient to support the needs of spacecraft health and status or older, low-rate science data. More recent missions, however, have required significantly increased data rates on both uplink and downlink paths, necessitating a new approach to SLE implementation. This paper discusses the design principles involved in implementing the SLE protocols in support of high channel and aggregate mission data rates, with particular focus on the tradeoffs necessary to provide SLE link capability at sustained single-channel rates above 1 Gigabit per second. The paper addresses significant performance bottlenecks in the conventional SLE protocol stack and proposes potential mitigation strategies for them.

This thesis explores the relatively under-theorised relationship between wisdom and adult teaching and learning. Whilst studies of wisdom are usually couched within a psychological framework, and/or one related to gerontology, this work poses key questions about what wisdom means, whether it can be taught, and the extent to which its elusive and allusive character has rendered it marginal to the design and delivery of adult and lifelong learning. Using autoethnography as both method and methodology, and by drawing on a diverse range of sources, including six interviews, this pursuit of wisdom is anchored in the reflexive relationship between the author and her subject of study. Key ontological and epistemological questions are posed as I seek meaning in relation to my lifeworld and lifespan. I also examine autoethnography’s efficacy whilst acknowledging criticisms within the academy, including accusations of narcissistic irrelevance. This study also incorporates the use of ‘writing as inquiry’ by way of offering a further challenge to the more traditional bounds of the social sciences. The interview material is couched within a fictionalised framework, and the whole thesis unfolds, conterminously, as both analysis and quest. In keeping with the methodological approach, the thesis concludes by offering a synthesis of certain of its propositions, rather than resolution. By adopting Sophia, the ancient goddess of wisdom, as metaphorical guide, the basic proposition that is shared across the text is the epistemologically fragmented nature of our understanding of wisdom and her relegation in a frenetic world which can be obsessed with the measurable as against the deepening of understanding. Yet the paradoxical nature of wisdom’s manifestations might also offer a degree of hope, should we heed her call…I argue that she is intimately intertwined with learning itself and with the potential for heartfelt and imaginative openness to the wisdom of ‘unknowing’ and the possibility of transcendence. However, Sophia demands our imaginative, authentic, loving and courageous attention in the process: in writing; in the classroom; in understanding the play of history, culture and the self. This autoethnographic inquiry is my response to that demand.