Digital Commons Network^™

Syllabus Tone And Student Self-Efficacy, Natalia Calderon-Hernandez, Alan Avila

Student Scholar Symposium

Educational research has indicated that Syllabus documents have the potential to communicate equitable policies and clear the path for positive educational experiences (Artze-Vega et al., 2023). Changes to syllabus language, such as warm tones, increase the likelihood that students will ask the professor for help (Gurung & Galardi, 2022). Our proposal is to compare the use of language targeted toward these learner-centered principles within a syllabus document, as compared to traditional cold “content-focused” language, to assess outcomes of perceived student self-efficacy. After viewing two syllabi documents, participants complete portions of The Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (Chen, Hsiao, Chern & Chen, 2014) …

End-Of-Rotation Objective Structured Clinical Examination: Proposal To Reduce Grading Bias In The Family Medicine Core Clerkship, Deborah R. Erlich, Amy L. Lee, Anita Mathews, Lauren Boehm, Anna Virani, Shweta Akhouri, Julia Bartolomeo, Lidya Wlasiuk, Molly Cohen-Osher, Tessa Rohrberg, Laurel Witt, Kathryn Rampon

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem Statement: In medical education, learner assessment drives learning and documents competency. A drawback of the traditional clinical performance assessment by a preceptor, however, is a potential halo effect. This effect is an unearned positive bias toward a student the supervisor likes, or conversely, a negative implicit bias about the student’s race, gender, or other aspects of identity. These biases, in either direction, can lead to unfair grading. A preceptor’s bias can be particularly problematic in a family medicine clerkship in which a student may be evaluated and graded by a single preceptor.

Background: An end-of-clerkship objective structured clinical examination …

Best Practices In The Conduct Of Community Engagement Studios At Mainehealth Institute For Research, Francesca Piccolo, Emma Daybranch, Carolyn Sullivan, Elizabeth Woods, Neil Korsen, Jan Carney, Jenna Schiffelbein, Kathleen Fairfield

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem Statement: Community engagement (CE) Studios are an established method for integrating lived-experience expertise into research at 1 or more specific points within a project. Although many researchers understand the value of incorporating community input, they often lack the tools, skills, or infrastructure to do so effectively. CE Studios address this challenge by offering a structured, consultative approach to engagement.

Background: CE Studios occur at any point across the research lifecycle and are used to inform research design, feasibility, relevance, recruitment, implementation, and translation. In a 1-time, 2-hour consultation, CE Studios bring lived-experience expertise into the research process, helping projects …

Practicing Curiosity: An Art Museum-Based Course For Medical Students, Samuel Woodworth

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem: Although curiosity is essential to medicine, it can sometimes seem expendable or counterproductive. Medical students, however, must be encouraged to develop curiosity skills in order to sustain a lifelong pursuit of knowledge. Incorporating visual art into medical education has been associated with multiple favorable outcomes, including improved observational skills. Undoubtedly, artworks stimulate curiosity. Of the many museum-based courses for medical students offered across the country, none have focused on enhancing curiosity skills. Thus, the development of a curriculum using visual art to improve curiosity skills would be an innovative pedagogical approach to museum-based education.

Approach: A hospitalist at MaineHealth …

Implementing The Card System Distraction Techniques In Pediatric Primary Care – A Practice Improvement Project, Paige E. Lewicki, Tara Palnitkar, Anya Cutler, Kari Guffey, Laura J. Faherty

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem: Increasing vaccine uptake is an urgent priority in public health. Often pain and fear are reasons for vaccine refusal, leading to lower vaccine uptake. The Comfort, Ask, Relax, Distract (CARD) system was developed to improve the vaccination experience and has been successfully implemented in school-based vaccination clinics and community pharmacies. The clinic that served as the site of this practice improvement project was routinely using 3 of the 4 CARD techniques (Comfort, Ask, and Relax), but was not offering evidence-based distraction methods to patients eligible for vaccination.

Approach: This practice examined the feasibility and acceptability of implementing CARD distraction …

Navigating Microaggressions In The Clinical Environment: Follow-Up Of A Case-Based Workshop 1 Year Later, Annie Liu, Christina C. Tsui, Nicole Hudak, Allison S. Chatalbash, Laura K. Snydman, Eliza R. Bullis

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Problem: Microaggressions negatively impact the mental health and wellness of patients and health care workers. Despite efforts in medical education to address this issue, there is limited research on the effect of these strategies in clinical settings over time. We evaluated how a workshop on navigating microaggressions impacts medical students 1 year after the workshop.

Approach: A 60-minute workshop on microaggressions was implemented for medical students (n=85) across 3 clerkship sites. The workshop focused on identifying, responding to, and debriefing microaggressions as recipients or bystanders using a toolkit. Post-intervention surveys measured students’ satisfaction and perceived ability to navigate microaggressions. One …

Tone Mapping Using Negative Values To Represent Luminance Below Reference Black, Yannis Guyon, Nathan Gauër

Defensive Publications Series

High Dynamic Range (HDR) tone mapping traditionally extends brightness above a reference white value but uses a fixed floor of zero for black, which maps to a display's minimum luminance setting. This limits creative control over shadow detail by content creators, e.g., the ability to choose blacks deeper than those for which legacy content was mastered or to choose to keep content at a reference black regardless of a display's minimum luminance setting. This disclosure describes a method for extending the HDR tone-mapping range to include negative values, allowing for greater flexibility in tone mapping shadows. In this approach, the …

Far-End Media Effect Configurations To Avoid Unconscious Hallucinations And Other Far-End Processing Issues, Jieyu Tan, Soya Li, Espen Berger, Wallice Wang

Defensive Publications Series

In video conferencing scenarios, when a user makes a media (video) call, a video/sharing/audio preview viewed on the sender's side may not be what is actually presented on the receiver's side. For example, some post-processing modules (e.g., super-resolution, flicker detection, voice correction, etc.) that operate on the receiver's side can bias the sender's media effects. Techniques are proposed herein that provide for embedding post-processing configuration metadata into a media stream package by a media sender's device. Using the proposed techniques, a media sender can pre-rehearse a meeting and/or perform an in-meeting preview and customize their media stream to avoid hallucinations …

The Minutes Of The Marshall University Staff Council Meeting, December 2025, Marshall University Staff Council

Staff Council Minutes

No abstract provided.

Function Of Drosophila Melanogaster Domesticated Transposable Element Protein Dplg3 In Oogenesis And Total Fitness, Aron Herrera

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

Transposable elements (TEs) are selfish DNA segments capable of self-replication and reinsertion within genomes, often harming hosts. Rarely, host genomes can adopt TEs and use their proteins for new cellular functions through molecular domestication. One example primarily expressed in Drosophila melanogaster ovaries is DPLG3. Previous Betrán Lab students generated DPLG3 loss-of-function flies and found that their ovaries misregulated one primordial and 14 testis-specific genes, leading to variable ovarian malformations. However, it is unclear when during oogenesis these misexpressions occur. We will extract RNA from non-rudimentary ovaries at early and late stages to generate cDNA for qRT-PCR analysis of three …

Level Up Your Teaching: A Qualitative Analysis Of Teachers’ Perceptions On Gamification As A Tool For Learning, Bryant Wesley Lazenby

Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated K-12 teachers’ views about gamification as an instructional tool to increase student motivation, self-efficacy, and learning mastery. Kelly’s Curriculum Theory and Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory were used to investigate how gamified learning environments affect teacher practice and self-efficacy. Seventeen teachers participated in a researcher-designed Qualtrics survey that included both Likert-style and open-ended items. The researcher used descriptive statistics and thematic coding of responses, based on participants’ self-identified levels of gamification experience. The research produced three main findings, which showed that (1) Gamification motivates students through collaborative work, challenging tasks, and progress tracking systems, (2) Students build self-efficacy …

What Does Graptolite Origination And Extinction Reveal About The Cause Of The Late Ordovician Mass Extinction?, Charles E. Mitchell, H. David Sheets, Michael J. Melchin, Chris Holmden

Computer and Data Science Faculty Publications

Assesses the macroevolutionary turnover of paleotropical planktic graptolites during the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction (LOME) via automated sequencing and capture-mark-recapture modeling. Graptolites exhibited a succession of turnover pulses (sensu Elizabeth Vrba) that were coincident with the main phases of the Hirnantian glaciation and during which the Diplograptina experienced declining metapopulation size, elevated extinction, zero species originations, and ultimately, complete extermination. Concurrently, the Neograptina (latest Katian temperate zone immigrants) exhibit pulses of both extinction and adaptive radiation. Thus, the LOME involved intense species selection and the wholesale alteration of the clade diversity structure of a major element of the zooplankton. The …

Marco Lee's Inspiring Journey To The Young Alumni Award, Lindenwood University

Archived Lindenwood Press Releases

No abstract provided.

A Systematic Study Of Passkey User Experience Consistency, Bernhardt Ramat

Theses and Dissertations

Passkeys have emerged as a more secure authentication method than passwords, providing a passwordless alternative resistant to phishing and credential theft attacks. Despite their growing adoption, a systematic study into the user experience of passkeys across various websites has yet to be conducted. Usability heuristics suggest that users transfer their expectations from one product to another, and therefore, inconsistencies in passkey deployments can increase cognitive load, resulting in frustration and possible rejection. To address this knowledge gap, this paper presents a comparative analysis of the external functional consistency of the passkey user experience across 111 websites. Our research reveals that …

Cybernest: A Step Forward For Training Cybersecurity Professionals, Justin Mott

Theses and Dissertations

The growing complexity of cyber threats has exposed a critical gap between academic cybersecurity education and the operational demands of the workforce. This thesis presents a pilot study for a use-case of CyberNEST, a simulation-based training platform that integrates adversary emulation and threat-informed learning to create realistic, hands-on experiences for cybersecurity students.(17) The system was designed to replicate Security Operations Center (SOC) environments and incident response workflows, allowing participants to investigate, analyze, and respond to simulated attacks under authentic conditions. This pilot-study performed training simulations using the CyberNEST platform, developed by Brigham Young University, with students, collecting data from pre- …

Impact Of Gas Supersaturation On The Development Of Gas Bubble Trauma In Paedomorphic Eurycea Salamanders, Trent Furr

Biology Theses

There are eleven species of paedomorphic lungless salamanders endemic to Texas. Of these, eight are considered threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). One of these, the Barton Springs Salamander (Eurycea sosorum), is found only in springs and aquifers in and around Austin, Texas. A large population of this species is found in Barton Springs, located in Austin, TX–where dissolved gas saturation has been measured as high as 134%. Morbidity and mortality events in Barton Springs Salamanders have been documented coinciding with periods of dissolved gas supersaturation. This study seeks to understand what environmental conditions lead to …

Encouraging Young Writers With Multiliteracies And Transformative Works, Charlene A. Amarello

Honors Program Theses and Projects

In the wake of COVID-19’s devastating effect on education, educators are faced once again with the daunting task of reaching students in the English classroom. Meanwhile, fanfiction and multiliteracies are burgeoning subjects of research. As of January 1st, 2025, over 14 million fanfictions have been published on the website AO3, a well-known fanfiction archive, and educators have begun to design assignments with fanfiction in mind. Likewise, multiliteracies continues to make headway in conversations about pedagogy. Research continues to delve into both as practices, though the creation of practical suggestions for educators grounded in data is still in its infancy. There …

Academic Standards Subcommittee Minutes December 18, 2025, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Welcome and approval of November 20, 2025 minutes
• Topic 1: Proposed Academic Grievance Policy rewrite
• Topic 2: Proposal to add Bachelor of Applied Sciences (BAS) academic degree requirements
• Topic 3: Information Item

Communicating Strategically In The Workplace: A Resource For Engineering And Science Majors, Karishma Chatterjee, Damla A. Ricks, Diane E Waryas Hughey

Mavs Open Press Open Educational Resources - Archive

We created this book to provide a targeted understanding of the process of communication to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) students. We have included specific and concise information in this book catering to technical and professional fields. Students will be able to develop their skills in writing, presenting, and interviewing, and improve their interpersonal relationships in the workplace.

Preparing Students For College And Careers: Recommendations For Scaling College And Career Pathways In Southwestern Illinois, Laura Monteagudo

Reports, Analyses, and other Publications

Education Systems Center (EdSystems) at Northern Illinois University provided strategic counsel and support to Southwestern Illinois College (SWIC) for a 12-month period to develop comprehensive college and career pathways. Our support included the development of a unified, regionwide college and career pathway system aligned with Illinois’ College and Career Pathway Endorsement framework, Perkins V, and the State of Illinois Model Programs of Study Guides.

Instead of each district building pathways independently, this regional approach brings together high schools, community college faculty, and local employers to create shared structures that reflect real workforce needs and rural access challenges.

In this report, …

Conquer And Prevail Issue 203 December 18 2025, Wofford College. Office Of Marketing And Communications

Conquer and Prevail Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Reimagining Success In Specialty Courts: Developing A Recovery-Oriented Success Model (Rosm) To Guide Funding, Evaluation, And Participant Outcomes In Massachusetts, Kerri Cianciarulo

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Turtlebot4 For Inventory Delivery Tasks: Practical Implementation In An Academic Setting, Aisha Alchaar

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Taking Back The Trades: Southwestern Illinois Work-Based Learning Inventory Report, Alexia Santiago

Reports, Analyses, and other Publications

In 2025, Education Systems Center at Northern Illinois University (EdSystems) partnered with Southwestern Illinois College (SWIC), regional school districts, and industry partners to build a strong and comprehensive system of work-based learning opportunities for K-12 students that is aligned with Illinois statutes and frameworks. In this report, EdSystems identifies the existing regional events and activities that promote high-quality work-based learning for college and career pathways in the health sciences and manufacturing sectors.

Syllabus For Com 3150 Dept. Of Communication Studies, Baruch College, Cuny, Rachel Kovacs

Open Educational Resources

This is a Fall 2025 Syllabus for COM 3150 (Business Communication), which is a 3-credit, 15-week required course for the Communication Studies major.

Clemson Commencement Program, December 2025, Clemson University

Clemson Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Secure Communication Scheme For Power Lines Based On Ofdm-Im, Fang Chen, Sihao Zhu, Weijie Yang, Guixian Cheng, Zhou Dai

Journal of Electric Power Science and Technology

To address the illegal eavesdropping problem caused by the openness of power line communication （PLC） channels, a physical-layer secure transmission scheme, namely artificial noise added orthogonal frequency division multiplexing with index modulation （AN-added OFDM-IM ）, is proposed from the perspective of physical-layer security for wiretap PLC channels.In this scheme, the index bits are still transmitted through the states of carriers, and the modulated bits are still transmitted via active carriers, while the idle inactive carriers are used to transmit artificial noise （AN） generated based on the channel state information （CSI） between legitimate links.The secure transmission rate of the proposed scheme …

Simultaneous Wireless Power And Information Transmission Technology Based On 16qam, Jian Zhang, Jie Zou, Lei Wang, Taotao Zheng, Jun Zhou

Journal of Electric Power Science and Technology

A simultaneous wireless power and information transmission （SWPIT） technology based on 16-quadrature amplitude modulation （16QAM） is proposed to achieve efficient and synchronized transmission of both power and information over a single transmission channel.The technology integrates a wireless power transfer module, a signal generation module, a transmission control module, and a signal acquisition and demodulation module to work in concert.It utilizes phase-shift control for stable transmission and soft switching operation during independent power transmission.By combining the 16QAM and the sinusoidal pulse width modulation （SPWM） technology during synchronized transmission of power and information, it also resists channel interference and ensures the accuracy …

Using Improvement Science To Examine The Effects Of The Eureka Math On Teacher Perceptions And Student Achievement In Grades 3–5, Latishia Ptomey

Education Theses and Dissertations

This Improvement Science Dissertation in Practice (ISDiP) investigates teacher perceptions of implementing Eureka Math TEKS Edition in grades three through five within a rural Central Texas district and the resulting impact on student achievement. The study employed a mixed methods design incorporating surveys, observations, and performance data collected over two academic years (2023-2025). Participants over the two years included 16 teachers, one instructional coach, and one principal at a campus of approximately 500 students in grades three through five. Teacher perceptions were analyzed to understand factors influencing curriculum fidelity, instructional practices, and classroom implementation. Concurrently, student mathematics performance was monitored …

The Ascot App – A Plant Tracking Smartphone Tool For Field-Based Community Science, Demian A. Willette, Aaron W. Floreani, Stephanie A. Flores, Milla P. Markovic, Coby T. Sanders, Evan Yu, John David N. Dionisio

Cities and the Environment (CATE)

Urban tree planting efforts have accelerated globally, but systematic monitoring of planted trees, particularly of survivorship and growth, lags behind. To help address this challenge, we developed and implemented the Ascot App, a free, mobile-based tool designed to streamline citizen science data collection in urban habitat restoration projects. Deployed at a Miyawaki-style microforest in Ascot Hills Park, Los Angeles, the app enables volunteers with minimal training to scan QR-coded tags on seedlings and submit standardized, timestamped plant health data via an intuitive interface. The app reduces user error through simplified prompts and integrates directly with a web-based administrative portal for …