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There is a need to provide more effective learning experiences for higher education (HE) students in transdisciplinary contexts such as disasters and emergency management. While much has been written on the value of simulation exercises (SEs) for emergency management practitioners, research has focussed less on their value for HE students. The purpose of this paper is to identify how a practitioner-oriented framework for the design and use of SEs in emergency management is relevant to the HE context and how this framework may need to be adapted to support effective learning by HE students.

An interpretive approach based on a qualitative content analysis of 16 semi-structured interviews with emergency management practitioners and educators is used to enable an in-depth understanding of the social phenomena to be obtained.

The paper highlights that a framework for the design and use of SEs for emergency management practitioners is potentially valuable in the HE context but should be applied in a nuanced way.

The paper is based on a small number of interviews and future studies could usefully analyse a wider set of perspectives (e.g. students), using a variety of alternative methods (e.g. surveys), to further test and/or enrich the framework.

Insights from the paper can inform the design and use of SEs in the HE context with a view to supporting more effective learning that better prepares students to operate during disaster events when they enter the emergency management workforce.

This is the first paper that has investigated the value of a practitioner-oriented framework for the design and use of disaster SEs in the HE context. In so doing, the paper has highlighted how the dimensions of the framework apply in the HE context and has revealed other issues that need to be addressed to support effective learning by HE students.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate an area of growing importance that is widely recognised in the literature relating to the issue of how to improve ways that assessments and feedback are provided to students within higher education. This paper reports on a study that aimed to explore the views of both educators (n=70) and students (n=540) on feedback and feed-forward at a UK university. The study also investigated their experience and attitudes to social media applications as a means of enhancing access to feedback within the context of mobile learning.

The research approach adopted in this study predominately conforms to a quantitative research design though embeds elements of qualitative research via a “mixed methods” approach. The overall methodology of the paper adheres to an exploratory case study in a higher education environment to identify various issues and approaches that could be addressed or enhanced to aid ways that assessments and feedback are disseminated to students within higher education.

Participants’ views were sought in relation to students receiving learning materials, as well as feedback from tutors directly to their smartphones and mobile devices. In addition, the study explored possible reasons for students not wanting to use social media and mobile devices for their learning and feedback. Overall, the results indicated a positive attitude on the part of educators and students to using mobile devices and social media applications for teaching and learning purposes.

The case study presented in this paper draws on findings from one higher educational institution. Further research is required to determine the generalisability of the findings to allow comparison of the findings to be undertaken within other higher education institutions.

The originality of the paper is that it provides detailed empirical evidence and findings that provide several important implications in relation to enhancing the student learning experience and providing considerable improvements to the way that feedback is provided that make it more likely that students will take more notice to feedback and act upon it. This in turn enables educators to better plan and manage their teaching and student experience online and through students’ mobile devices. The value of this study is that it explores views of both educators and students, whereas many other previous studies tend to focus on the views of either educators or students.

THERE are so many major questions before the library profession that librarians are naturally curious about the manner and matter of the Annual Conference. And critical too; we do not say justifiably; but it is the one general assembly in the year where a consensus of opinion ought to be possible. The business meeting itself is usually quite unsuitable as a gauge of opinion. That the Southport one seemed to demonstrate. We have advocated in these pages that the Library Association Council should base most of the Conference on its own determined policies and not fritter away invaluable hours on long papers which, interesting as they can be made, add very little year by year towards progress in our aims and objects.

This study intends to investigate the extent to which the Sri Lanka Army can be described as a learning organization.

The main tool of analysis used was the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) developed by Marsick and Watkins, with the exclusion of the sections on financial and knowledge performance.

Using the DLOQ, the research found that the dimensions of a learning organization proposed by Marsick and Watkins are present in the Sri Lanka Army, although with some aberrations between different ranks.

The study was conducted without a directly connected dependent variable.

This study shows how even a non‐profit‐oriented organization like the Sri Lanka Army can be informed from a concept like the learning organization, and indeed emphasizes the overarching need for a military organization to operate as a learning organization. Therefore, this research has reiterated the fact that the learning organization is a prescription that all organizations, even not‐for‐profit ones, should ardently pursue. The research also offers recommendations for improvements in the performance of the Sri Lanka Army by identifying certain weaknesses.

By initiating the use of the DLOQ in the Sri Lankan as well as a military context, the study has opened the doors for administering the DLOQ and similar tools for measuring the extent of organizational learning and the presence and strength of learning organizational characteristics in Sri Lanka.

First, the contributions of spatial characteristics to microclimate were analyzed. And the results from mobile measurements were compared to those from fixed measurements to examine accuracy of mobile method. Air temperature and physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) profiles were plotted to explore the impacts of the spatial characteristics of that urban square and local street.

This research investigates the effects of urban canyons and landscape on air temperature and outdoor thermal comfort in an open square in Seoul, Korea, a city of diverse thermal environments. Mobile field measurements were carried out to obtain local meteorological data based on higher spatial resolution.

On a day in October under clear sky, air temperature and PET differences of up to 1.77 °C and 9.6 °C were observed at 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., respectively. These were mainly from the impact of shading effects caused by surrounding obstacles. The current layout and volume of vegetation in the square seemed not effective for reducing air temperature and improving thermal comfort, which needs further study.

The authors tested a way to investigate time delay when using mobile measurements by correcting measured local data using adjacent meteorological observatory data. The findings of and limitations on mobile station-based field measurement and analysis are discussed herein.

The growing use of internet-based learning (IBL) platforms in institutions of higher education is producing profound changes in the traditional teaching learning process worldwide. This paper aims to identify and understand the ways in which higher education institutions draw benefits by the use of such means, synthesizing the literature research.

The study synthesized the literature research by using a mixed method approach in which both Web of Science (WoS) and bibliographic techniques were used to retrieve the relevant data base.

The comprehensive review of the literature suggests that communication technology (CT), massive open online courseware (MOOCs), social networking sites (SNSs), blogs, real simple syndication (RSS) and YouTube are creating new possibilities and avenues of collaborative learning by transforming the traditional class and teacher-centric system.

Multiplicity of the IBL platforms and rapid technological obsolesce are some of the limitations of this paper.

The findings of this study are highly useful in developing a strategic framework to accelerate the integration of IBL platforms to make teaching learning process more interactive and informative.