As more students enter Canadian universities from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, supporting the development and transition of their academic writing skills through assignment and feedback design has become very important. Many of these students and their instructors identify academic writing as one of the students’ biggest problems in a Western university or college (Robertson, Line, Jones & Thomas, 2000; Yang, 1994; Zhu & Flaitz, 2005). Yet there is little support available for the instructors who work with these students (Dedrick & Watson, 2002). This study focuses on my interactions with three instructors in graduate programs that have a high proportion of international students who use English as an additional language (EAL). By weaving together action research and case study research, three themes became apparent: the instructors saw no clear distinction between the needs of EAL students and those who have English as a first language; the instructors were unclear about how to teach writing in their discipline; and, the instructors felt frustrated and overburdened by their workload. I also learned how I, as a researcher and an educational developer, can better interact with instructors to ensure support at the level of assignment and feedback design. The first lesson is when interacting with others it is necessary to identify the lens that represents one’s institutional and cultural lens. Because I did not adequately identify and interrogate my lens, I gave in to my colonial impulse to direct the study and the participants. The second lesson is the space in which we two instructors – the person from a given discipline and the person who is an educational developer – come together as a kind of “contact zone” (Pratt, 1998). I had hoped that the instructors and I would come together as a kind of Venn diagram, with our knowledge overlapping in a neutral and fruitful way, but I learned that the space where we come together is fraught and vulnerable for both the participants and the researcher. The third lesson is that relationships, which traditionally are not highly valued in our workplace in higher education, are extremely important in order to foster dialogue, continue conversations, and allow for the necessary revisiting and development of our work together. The main recommendation stemming from this study is workplace training for administrative staff who are in educational development positions. This study is important because there is little previous research in this area. As more Learning and Teaching Centres emerge at Canadian institutions, we must learn how to work effectively with instructors to affect curricular and assignment change. We must also question whether the kind of support a member of a Learning and Teaching Centre can provide is enough to affect this change, or whether other models, such as the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and faculty mentoring, are essential in the development of the understanding of how to better support the development of the academic writing skills of international EAL students.

Electromechanical shift-by-wire car transmission systems make way for new innovative shifter designs such as monostable shifters that spring back to a starting position after a gear has been chosen. Unfortunately the radical change in the communication between the user and shifter has resulted in accidents due to incorrect gear selection. The inadequate usability of the monostable shifters can be attributed to the feedback it provided to users.   The aim of the thesis project was to develop a feedback concept that would improve the usability of a monostable shifter and to study if auditory feedback could be introduced to vehicle systems. By implementing design theory, benchmarking and various creativity methods five concepts with feedbacks in different modalities were developed. The concepts were evaluated in a usability study that involved 25 test participants. A review of the observations from the usability study along with an analysis of the interviews and collected data resulted in the final VRA concept. VRA was a multimodal concept with permanent visual feedback and optional auditory feedback. The shifting pattern was shown on the instrument cluster where the active gear was highlighted through light intensity, color and shape contrasts. The solid blue block, within which the abbreviation for the active gear was displayed, could be seen in the peripheral view. It was perceived as calm and helped the users navigate the shifter. A female machine voice that had a Swedish pronunciation was chosen as the auditory feedback to accompany the “P”, “R” and “D” gear selections. None of the users were indifferent towards the auditory feedback, some perceived it as caring while others found it annoying. Since the analysis did not indicate that auditory feedback was crucial, the VRA concept included an option to turn on or off the sound.   Monostable shifters behave differently compared to traditional polystable shifters, therefore with the changes in the physical movement the communication must also be reviewed. It is recommended to include the shifting pattern on the instrument cluster together with monostable shifters, as it makes up for the loss of the visual and haptic information from the physical shifter. Although the usability study showed that auditory feedback was not necessary, improvements were observed among people who favored it. The auditory information would most likely be better received if earcons were implemented instead of speech. / Elektromekaniska shift-by-wire växlingssystem tillåter nya innovativa designlösningar så som monostabila växelväljare som fjädrar tillbaka till en ursprungsposition efter varje växelval. Dessvärre har den drastiska förändringen i kommunikationen mellan användarna och systemet resulterat i missförstånd och olyckor till följd av fel växelval. Den bristfälliga användbarheten av monostabila växelväljare kan härledas till feedbacken mellan förarens handling och resultat.   Syftet med examensarbetet var att utveckla feedbackkoncept som förbättrade användbarheten av en monostabil växelväljare samt att studera om auditiv feedback kunde introduceras i förarsystem. Genom att implementera kunskaperna inom designteori, observationer från benchmarking samt diverse kreativa metoder kunde fem olika koncept presenteras. Koncepten utvärderades i en användbarhetsstudie med 25 testdeltagare.  En genomgång av observationerna från användbarhetsstudien, intervjusvaren samt dataanalysen resulterade i det slutgiltiga konceptet VRA. VRA var ett multimodalt koncept som innehöll permanent visuell feedback samt valbar auditiv feedback. Växlingsschemat visades på instrumentpanelen där den aktiva växeln markerades med hjälp av kontraster i ljusintensitet, färg och form. Förkortningarna på aktiva växel visades inuti en solid blå rektangel som var synlig i periferin. Färgen uppfattades som lugn och den starka kontrasten hjälpte personerna att navigera växelväljaren. Den auditiva feedbacken var i form av en kvinnlig maskinröst med svenskt uttal som kompletterade ”P”, ”R” och ”D” växellägena. Inga testpersoner var likgiltiga till auditiv information, vissa beskrev den som omtänksam medan andra ansåg att den var irriterande. Eftersom analysen indikerade att auditiv feedback inte var kritisk var den auditiva feedbacken valbar i VRA.   Monostabila växelväljare skiljer sig drastiskt från polystabila, därför bör kommunikationen mellan systemet och människan ses över i och med de fysiska förändringarna. Växlingsschemat bör inkluderas i instrumentpanelen i samband med att monostabila växelväljare används. Det kan nämligen kompensera bristen på den visuella och haptiska feedbacken från den fysiska väljaren.  Trots att analysen visade på att auditiv feedbak inte var nödvändig kunde förbättringar observeras bland personer som tyckte om det. Den auditiva informationen skulle mest troligt få ett bättre bemötande om earcons användes istället för tal.