Digital Commons Network^™

A Two-Layer Planning Approach For Crosslink-Enabled Earth Sensing Satellite Constellations, Skylar A. Cox, John H. Humble, Greg N. Droge

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

Current interest in spacecraft constellations for government and commercial uses continues to drive advancement in sophistication, capability, and mission complexity. As these systems proliferate, they require increased levels of automation to properly orchestrate in achieving the mission objectives. This paper develops a constellation planning capability for cross-link enabled Geospatial Intelligence missions. The planning for constellation coordination is performed using a two-level network flow approach, where the first level creates a communication plan, and the second layer determines the Earth sensing activities. A network flow method is used to simultaneously obtain a schedule for each unique satellite within the constellation and …

Controlling Soil Erosion After Wildfire And Guiding Recovery In Southern Utah, Kristina Young, Kara Dohrenwend, Matt Mcettrick, Henry Grover

All Current Publications

Wildfire is a natural part of many ecosystems in the Four Corners region (Southern Utah, Northern Arizona, Southwest Colorado, and Northwest New Mexico). However, after decades of fire suppression, the intensity and size of wildfires is increasing. This fact sheet is intended to help those in dry, monsoonal regions understand what happens to land after a wildfire and explains the processes of soil erosion. It outlines factors that influence how wildfire can affect soils and plants and provides suggestions for reducing soil erosion when necessary. The information presented is relevant to both private landowners and public lands managers whose landscapes …

Assessing The Needs Of Utah Dairy Farmers To Inform Extension Programming, Bruce F. Richards, Lendel Narine, Justin Clawson, Kalen Taylor, Jacob Hadfield, Jody Gale

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

A needs assessment was conducted by the Utah State University Dairy Extension Team to identify the most urgent issues faced by Utah dairy farmers. The assessment found that the top five priority needs were implementing new technology, improving public perception of water use, managing risk, succession planning, and reducing feed costs. The results will guide dairy Extension programming in Utah. Several workshops and events have already been planned to address these needs. Overall, the assessment will help USU Extension provide research-based educational programs to meet the needs of the dairy industry in Utah.

Engaging Utah Educators To Teach 21st-Century Skills Using Drones, Denise Stewardson, Cory Ortiz, Lendel K. Narine, Joseph Furse

Outcomes and Impact Quarterly

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide a unique opportunity to teach complex STEM skills and promote agricultural literacy in the classroom. However, many teachers lack knowledge of UAVs and agricultural contexts for teaching with UAVs. This program delivered professional training to 56 teachers to develop their skills in using UAVs in the classroom to promote agricultural literacy.

Comparing Visitor Perceptions, Characteristics, And Support For Management Actions Before And During A Pilot Timed Entry System At Arches National Park, Zachary D. Miller, Amy Tendick, Caleb Meyer, David Pettebone, Bret Meldrum, Steve Lawson

Environment and Society Student Research

Over the past decade, many national park units in the United States broke visitation records. Arches National Park (UT, USA) is no exception. Between 2011 and 2021, visitation increased 74%. As part of considering management options to address the issues from sustained and concentrated visitation, Arches implemented a pilot timed entry system from 3 April to 3 October 2022. This article compares visitor perceptions, characteristics, and support for management actions before and during the pilot timed entry system using data from visitor intercept surveys. Findings suggest visitors experience quality improved across the park and on hiking trails during the pilot …

Community Perceptions Of Procedural And Distributive Justice In Engineered Systems: A Case Study Of Community-Engaged Vehicular Electrification, Polly Parkinson, Fawn Groves, Emma Mecham, Amy Wilson-Lopez, Ivonne Santiago, Jennifer Ramos-Chavez

Teacher Education and Leadership Student Research

This study was conducted in the context of a near-port community in which vehicular electrification efforts were occurring. Electric vehicles (EVs) and their associated infrastructures—including charging stations and wirelessly charging roads—may redress environmental injustices near inland ports because they significantly reduce vehicular emissions that harm human health. However, if the sociotechnical infrastructures associated with EVs are not intentionally planned to bring benefits to historically minoritized communities, they run the risk of reproducing interrelated transportation, economic, and environmental injustices. Thus, this study sought to answer the following overarching research question: What factors contribute to, or hinder, procedural and distributive justice relative …

Assessing Downstream Aquatic Habitat Availability Relative To Headwater Reservoir Management In The Henrys Fork Snake River, Christina N. Morrisett, Robert W. Van Kirk, Sarah E. Null

Watershed Sciences Student Research

Reservoirs are sometimes managed to meet agricultural and other water demands, while also maintaining streamflow for aquatic species and ecosystems. In the Henrys Fork Snake River, Idaho (USA), irrigation-season management of a headwater reservoir is informed by a flow target in a management reach ~95 km downstream. The target is in place to meet irrigation demand and maintain aquatic habitat within the 11.4 km management reach and has undergone four flow target assignments from 1978 to 2021. Recent changes to irrigation-season management to maximize reservoir carryover warranted investigation into the flow target assignment. Thus, we created a streamflow-habitat model using …

Understanding Computational Thinking In The Gameplay Of The African Songo Board Game, Rebecca Y. Bayeck

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Computational thinking is a necessary skill for the 21st century. While previously examined in computer-rich settings, researchers are increasingly studying computational thinking in unplugged environments such as board games. Focusing on the African board game Songo, this study shows that computational thinking practices are embedded in Songo board gameplay and interact with the cultural context. The study also reveals a computing practice peculiar to Songo gameplay, songoputation. This paper suggests that researchers can benefit from exploring computational thinking and computing practices beyond board games in western contexts.

What San Juan County Leaders And Residents Can Do To Strengthen The Impact Of Girls And Women In Their Area, Angie Kleven, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

This idea sheet is based on a 2023 gathering of 24 leaders in San Juan County. Girls and women face challenges unique to the area in which they live, and the goal of this gathering was to identify those barriers and determine strategies and initiatives that local leaders and residents can implement to address them. This document includes recommendations in the following areas: education, home and family, health and wellbeing, business and economics, and culture and community engagement.

What Weber County Leaders And Residents Can Do To Strengthen The Impact Of Girls And Women In Their Area, Angie Kleven, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

This idea sheet is based on a 2023 gathering of 36 leaders in Weber County. Girls and women face challenges unique to the area in which they live, and the goal of this gathering was to identify those barriers and determine strategies and initiatives that local leaders and residents can implement to address them. This document includes recommendations in the following areas: education, home and family, health and wellbeing, business and economics, and culture and community engagement.

Utah Florist Preferences For Local Cut Flowers, Kynda R. Curtis, Melanie Stock

All Current Publications

This fact sheet provides crucial information on wholesale florist needs and preferences for local cut flowers. The information here will enhance the ability of current and potential cut flower growers to properly assess the profit potential of their decisions and assist with the long-term sustainability of their farming operations.

Utah Growing Water Smart: The Water-Land Use Integration Guidebook, Kelly Kopp, Joanna Endter-Wada

Utah Growing Water Smart

The Utah Growing Water Smart workshops bring together teams of key community staff and water and land use planning decision makers to help build a more resilient and sustainable water future. The workshops use a range of public engagement, planning, communication, and policy implementation tools to help community teams realize their water efficiency, smart growth, watershed health, and water resiliency goals.

This 2nd edition of the Utah Growing Water Smart curriculum guidebook was prepared for the workshop focused on Northern Utah and held at Utah State University on June 6-8, 2023. This guidebook has four main sections: Planning and Goal …

Planning For A Gnarly Future: Reimagining Planning To Empower Your Community, Elizabeth Sodja

All Current Publications

The purpose of this document is to summarize key takeaways and resources from our 5-part online learning series featuring planning solutions to challenges facing Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) communities in the west.

Early Experiences Of Parents Of Children Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing: Navigating Through Identification, Intervention, And Beyond, Gabriella Reynolds, Krystal L. Werfel, Morgan Vachio, Emily A. Lund

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Guidelines created by the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing ([JCIH], 2019) were designed to aid in the early identification of infant hearing loss. Despite these guidelines, a quarter of children who fail their initial screening are lost to the follow-up process and many more do not receive care in line with the 1-3-6 guidelines (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2018; JCIH, 2019). To acquire more information about the experiences of families and identify specific barriers to timely diagnosis and intervention, interviews were conducted with 13 parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing whose children were …

The Signed Linguistic Input Of Hearing Mothers To Children Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing, Aleah S. Brock

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

This study investigated the distribution of ten facilitative language techniques (FLTs) in the linguistic input of hearing, signing mothers to their children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). Four hearing mothers and their DHH children under the age of three participated in six, ten-minute caregiver-child interaction sessions via Zoom. The recorded sessions were coded for mother FLTs and child utterances. Results indicated that the mothers tended to use more initiative than responsive types of FLTs, consistent with findings of previous studies that examined the input of mothers who were using spoken-only language with their children who are DHH. …

Improving South Dakota Parents’ Knowledge Of Congenital Cytomegalovirus, Hannah M. Williams, Jessica Messersmith, Jacynda Gellhaus

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Introduction: Congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) is the most common infectious condition present at birth and the leading non-genetic cause of sensorineural hearing loss in children. Despite CMV being common and preventable, knowledge of CMV remains low among individuals in the United States (Doutre et al., 2016). Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is also common among infants in the United States, but unlike cCMV, several studies have researched which educational methods have been most effective for improving parents’ knowledge of safe sleep practices. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether educational methods shown to be most effective for improving parents’ …

Parent And Provider Perspectives On Early Intervention In Ohio: A Community Collaborative Approach, Jessa Reed, Ursula M. Findlen, Carrie Davenport, Cheryl Deconde Johnson, Maria Sentelik, Carrie Spangler, Wendy Steuerwald, Derek Houston

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

The network of early intervention (EI) for families with children who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) consists of multiple professionals that partner with parents. As part of a community collaborative initiative, diverse perspectives were gathered via online surveys as part of a state-wide needs assessment to evaluate the landscape of EI in Ohio. The qualitative and quantitative feedback were analyzed in light of the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing’s (2007) goals and the 2013 early intervention supplement to those goals. Care coordination and equitable access emerged as top priorities across all three stakeholder groups queried (audiologists, EI providers, …

Adverse Childhood Experiences In Mothers And Their Children With Hearing Loss, Elizabeth A. Rosenzweig

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

This study examined the relationship between maternal and child ACEs in children with hearing loss ages 3-12. One hundred twenty-four mother-child dyads completed assessments of mother and child ACEs. Adverse cChildhood eExperiences (ACEs) were measured using the Center for Youth Wellness Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire (CYW ACE-Q; Burke Harris & Renschler, 2015).

Both maternal and child participants in this study reported higher levels of ACE exposure than previously reported in studies of the general population. Maternal and child ACEs were significantly correlated. White/Caucasian mothers experienced significantly fewer ACEs than mothers of other races/ethnicities. Children living in adoptive, foster, or guardianship …

Implementing A Hearing Screening Readiness Assessment Tool For Preterm And Term Neonates In The Newborn Intensive Care Unit: A Pilot Project, Mckenzie Blatt, Adrienne Johnson, Jennifer L. Hamilton, Carly Alston, Belinda Chan

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Newborn intensive care unit (NICU) patients are at risk for hearing loss. Early detection mitigates consequences of speech and language delay. The Joint Committee on Infant Hearing (JCIH) recommends hearing screening (HS) on all infants by 1 month of age. Often hearing screening is performed around the time of NICU discharge, often beyond JCIH recommendations. Automated auditory brainstem response (AABR) screening can be performed once an infant reaches 32 to 34 weeks corrected gestational age (GA). Our project aimed to reduce HS delay among NICU infants. We created and implemented a HS assessment tool defining gestational age and medical stability …

Journal Of Early Hearing Detection And Intervention: Volume 8 Issue 1, Pages 1-68

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

No abstract provided.

Assessing Finding Aid Discoverability After Description Improvements Using Web Analytics, Ashlyn Velte

Journal of Western Archives

Archivists use best practices, like More Product Less Process, and professional standards, like Describing Archives: A Content Standard, to create descriptions of archival collections that promote collection use and discoverability. However, most existing usability literature assessing online finding aids looks at navigability and ease of use, but does not examine increase in traffic and discoverability of those finding aids. University of Colorado Boulder Archives improved online finding aid descriptions on ArchivesSpace during 2020. Google Analytics data from 2020 and 2021 show an increase in users and sessions on ArchivesSpace. It also indicates that most users arrive to the site from …

Cultural-Emotional Learning And Mental Health Challenges Among American Indian/Alaska Native Students, Mark Se Baez Phd, Carla Allison Baez Phd

Journal of Indigenous Research

Abstract

When working with American Indian/Alaska Native students, contextual and cultural matters. Social and emotional approaches must be modified to address cultural differences for a successful outcome. A practical approach that is culturally responsive among American Indian/Alaska Native students towards their academics, behaviors, and emotional learning, is imperative for those facilitating the learning among these students to understand the cultural dynamics and experiences (Cultural-Emotional Learning) as they enter their school buildings. Cultural-Emotional Learning for American Indian/Alaska Native students is a methodology for faculty/educators working with American Indian/Alaskan Native students to assist them in the initial cultural dialog in developing cultural …

Supporting And Sustaining Equitable Steam Activities In High School Classrooms: Understanding Computer Science Teachers’ Needs And Practices When Implementing An E-Textiles Curriculum To Forge Connections Across Communities, Deborah A. Fields, Yasmin B. Kafai

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

While the last two decades have seen an increased interest in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) in K-12 schools, few efforts have focused on the teachers and teaching practices necessary to support these interventions. Even fewer have considered the important work that teachers carry out not just inside classrooms but beyond the classroom walls to sustain such STEAM implementation efforts, from interacting with administrators to recruiting students and persuading parents about the importance of arts and computer science. In order to understand teachers’ needs and practices regarding STEAM implementation, in this paper, we focus on eight experienced computer …

Drivers And Barriers Of Social Sustainable Development And Growth Of Online Higher Education: The Roles Of Perceived Ease Of Use And Perceived Usefulness, Hemamali Tennakoon, Jared M. Hansen, George Saridakis, Mahesha Samaratunga, Joseph W. Hansen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

Online and distance learning classes have been touted for the last several years as an innovation in higher education that should help improve the entrepreneurial growth mindset of students. However, the reported negative online learning experience of many college students worldwide during the COVID-19 epidemic has shown that many opportunities remain to improve the sustainable development and growth of online visual instruction practices. In this study, we outline and investigate a set of hypotheses related to the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (from TAM) of online video instruction in higher education courses during the pandemic. We employ grounded …

Chapter 17- Mentoring Redesigned To Attract Entry-Level Students, Timothy Schroeder, Tara S. Hackel, Yadéeh E. Sawyer

Making Connections

Competitive and highly structured mentoring relationships between undergraduate students and professional researchers are often life-changing. However, such mentoring programs often have rigid qualifications and attract students who are already advanced in their educational and professional planning. The University of New Mexico (UNM) developed a program to shift the paradigm to attract entry-level students for whom “professional research” was still a new and daunting concept. By pairing these students with engineers and scientists at the Air Force Research Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory, UNM was able to engage students in structured, low-stakes mentoring that helped shape their current understanding of research, …

Chapter 7- The Crucial Role And Responsibilities Of The Mentoring Program Coordinator, Michael A. Christiansen, Don Busenbark

Making Connections

Mentoring is a crucial part of personal and professional development in practically any environment, including higher education, industry, and private institutions, though the nature and methods of such mentoring may vary as much as the organizations themselves. Because institutions differ so much in their structures and needs, it is important that a dedicated program coordinator be assigned to define mentoring and spearhead the construction, implementation, assessment, and evaluation of any institutional mentoring program. This program coordinator should have enthusiasm for mentoring, effectively communicate program goals, and provide the training and resources necessary to implement an efficient mentoring model. Coordinators should …

Chapter 28- Networked Mentoring Programs: Targeted Developmental Relationships And Building A Broader Community, Valerie Paquette, Wendy Murphy, Susan Duffy

Making Connections

We introduce a targeted approach to mentoring programs that considers students’ developmental stage and fosters an inclusive mentoring community. Using the case study of Babson College’s Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Mentoring Programs, this chapter will detail evidence-based effective practice in delivering high-quality mentoring across distinctive student populations as well as connecting students and mentor volunteers to one another to cultivate a mentoring community. We highlight three mentoring programs: the Undergraduate Near Peer, Undergraduate Professional, and Graduate mentor programs. Each program is designed to match student mentees with developmentally appropriate mentors who provide support tailored to their needs. The Undergraduate …

Chapter 26- Staff Mentoring And Development At Arizona State University, Karen Engler-Weber

Making Connections

Most university structures provide extensive mentoring and support for students and faculty, but the mentoring of university staff is often a neglected area within university systems, despite the clear need to support staff professional development, career advancement, and retention. At Arizona State University (ASU), the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) has developed an extensive university-wide staff mentoring and development program model that pairs staff mentees with mentors, providing the space and opportunity for mentees to identify their strengths and consider their long-term career trajectory at ASU. Through mentoring, participants learn more about specific skills, university areas, and career …

Chapter 4- Formal Mentoring Programs: Characteristics, Benefits, And Outcomes, Rachel Arocho, Benjamin A. Johnson

Making Connections

In this chapter, we review the characteristics of mentoring that distinguish so-called formal from informal mentoring opportunities. Through this discussion, we provide a broad view of what could be formalized and how to distinguish these opportunities. We then turn to a discussion of the observed and anticipated benefits of formalized mentoring (and some benefits of mentoring broadly) and provide an argument for why mentoring, with all its recognized importance and impact at multiple levels, should not be left to chance. By formalizing mentoring opportunities and practices, to varying and customizable degrees, programs and institutions stand to distribute the benefits of …

Chapter 5- Needs Assessment And Data Analytics: Understanding Your Constituencies, Neal Legler

Making Connections

Needs assessment is an important early step in the development of a mentoring program because it helps ensure that program resources go toward improving prioritized institutional results. Needs assessment should involve key stakeholders, organized into a needs assessment committee, and then follow a systematic process to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data and identify existing organizational needs. Needs are defined as the gap between desired organizational results and current results. They should be considered holistically and at all levels of the organization. As needs are identified, the needs assessment committee works with stakeholders through a combination of group management …