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We have great pleasure in announcing the appointment — for a two‐year period — of Professor Gerry Fowler as President of ABE. As a former Minister of State at the Department of Education & Science in the last government, nobody could be better qualified for the position, and Gerry has been a good friend of the Association — and of Education & Training to which he is a regular contributor. Although he is well known to most of our readers, it is nevertheless hoped to include a Profile at an early date.

Health inequalities exist between ethnic groups, an important example of this being infant mortality with babies of mothers born in Pakistan having double and babies of mothers born in the Caribbean having 63% higher rates than the national average. West Midlands Ethnic Minority Liaison Committee (WELCOME) and partners organised a conference to arrive at consensus among experts and stakeholders and to make recommendations around reducing infant mortality. One key area discussed, which is often contentious, was cousin marriage: its potential impact on infant and perinatal mortality and what health service response to this should be. Recommendations included: the setting up of a community genetic service in areas with higher risk of recessive disorders as a consequence of cousin marriage; genetic education to the wider public and health professionals; and community engagement, including community and religious leaders. This paper outlines how these recommendations were arrived at, the potential barriers identified in addressing this issue and the process by which service change was achieved with an aim to improve the outcome of infant and perinatal health among groups with higher burdens of genetic disorders in Walsall.

This study aims to investigate the carbon emission disclosures (CED) and performance of UK higher educational institutions (HEIs) and the associated impact on their environmental reputation. The paper argues that HEIs possess distinct characteristics that make comparisons with profit-oriented companies problematic and misleading.

The green score published by the People and Planet organisation provided the population for this analysis. All universities with a 2012 score were entered into the initial sample. The association between green reputation, CED and carbon performance was examined using a robust least squared regression model. The green score published in 2019 was then compared with this to confirm whether the findings still held.

CED, carbon emissions and carbon audit were found to have highly significant determinant relationships with HEIs’ green reputation status at a 1% significance level.

The impact of CED and carbon performance indicators needs to have a clear relationship with reputation to motivate HEIs to act and disclose.

The study is distinct in investigating the impact of CED and carbon performance by UK HEIs on their environmental reputation. The study shows whether, and how, the HEI CED and carbon performances contribute towards their environmental reputation. HEIs have distinct characteristics from profit-seeking organisations and thus tailored research is required.

It was the German poet Goethe who once said: Nothing is as terrifying as ignorance in motion. It is pleasant, therefore, to note the maintenance of overall standards in the results of the December 1979 examinations — and the very great improvement in the results of the Accounting & Finance examination. When recording the June 1979 results, I did refer to the possibility that the course content of that particular subject might be spread over two examination papers instead of one. After careful study of the syllabus content it was decided that this split was not justified. The decision was proved to be correct by the increase in the pass rate in that particular subject from 24% in June 1979 to 48% in December 1979, which seems to be an indication of the realisation of all concerned of the need for more careful preparation in Accounting & Finance since the standard at which the examination paper was set remained unchanged.

You will have read in last month's issue that I have taken over from Tom Coffin as Director of Administration. As you can probably imagine, it was with some trepidation that I sat down to write my first edition of ABE News. However my primary duty is quite clear; this is to thank Tom Coffin very sincerely on behalf of all members for everything that he has done for the Association during his time as Director of Administration. I know you would like to wish him a very long and happy retirement. I am sure that he won't mind my recording the fact that this is his third and, as he himself put it, hopefully his final retirement.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach recommending friends to social networking users who are also using weight loss app in the context of social networks.

Social network has been recognized as an effective way to enhance overweight and obesity interventions in past studies. However, effective measures integrating social network with weight loss are very limited in the healthcare area. To bridge this gap, this study develops a measure for friend recommendation using the data obtained by weight loss apps; designs methods to model weight-gain-related behaviors (WGRB); constructs a novel “behavior network;” and develops two measurements in experiments to examine the proposed approach.

The approach for friend recommendation is based on Friend Recommendation for Health Weight (FRHW) algorithm. By running this algorithm on a real data set, the experiment results show that the algorithm can recommend a friend who has a healthy lifestyle to a target user. The advantages of the proposed mechanism have been well justified via comparisons with popular friend recommenders in past studies.

The conventional methods for friend recommenders in social networks are only concerned with similarities of pairs rather than interactions between people. The system cannot account for the potential influences among people. The method pioneers to model a WGRB as recommendation mechanism that allow recommended friends to simultaneously fulfill two criteria. They are: first, similarity to the target person; and second, ensuring the positive influence toward weight loss. The second criterion is obviously important in practice and thus the approach is valuable to the literature.

If initial attempts to incorporate reusable multimedia into university teaching were characterised by the efforts of enthusiasts, the growth of the “Learning Object” economy in recent years requires a more strategic and systems‐based approach. While all reusable learning materials have a value, both financial and educational, multimedia in particular is expensive to produce. Systematic production (based on ISO 14915 standards (2002a, 2002b, 2003) and evaluation of fitness for purpose, are paramount. Human‐centred design (HCD) methodologies, based on the ISO 13407 standard (1999), are now well‐established for ensuring that investments in technology result in benefits, and in particular lay heavy emphasis on the frequent use of evaluation. This paper reviews literature in educational multimedia production, interaction design, HCD, and pedagogy, and summarises ongoing attempts to standardise a definition of reusable learning objects (RLOs), with multimedia learning objects (MLOs) as a specific example. We conclude that evaluation must be central to the production and deployment of MLOs. We report on experiences applying an existing framework for effective production of multimedia learning resources, and propose revisions to this framework to add effective evaluation mechanisms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of serendipity in legal information seeking behavior of family law advocates, whom act in a challenging information environment that lacks published court rulings.

A quantitative research using a web-based structured questionnaire, among Israeli family law advocates. Single stage systematic sampling, with random starting point and no recurring pattern of each sixth family law advocate on the Israel Bar Advocates List, was applied. Data from 135 Israeli family law advocates were used for analysis.

Electronic information sources were found as most serendipitous; family law advocates were identified as super encounterers; four types of professional background concerns and seven legal professional contributions of the unexpected encounters with court rulings, were identified. Furthermore, findings support several frameworks presented on earlier information encounter literature.

Data absence on demographic and professional variables distributions of Israeli family law advocates was a limiting factor, compensated by the systematic sampling method used, thus can be regarded to reflect the views of the entire study population. Surveys’ reliance on self-reporting recalls of serendipitous events is also a limiting factor, though predicted and acceptable in this matter since chance encounters occur unexpectedly and are complex to capture.

Chance encounters may expose lawyers to meaningful information it is unlikely they were able to find because its limited publication, and assist them keep up with current law for better serves their clients.

The study augments the current empirically based knowledge on serendipity and provides insights into legal information chance encounters among a little-studied group of knowledge workers: family law advocates.

The purpose of this exploratory paper is to define the characteristics of foster youth, discuss the impacts of trauma on their lives, present results from a foster youth survey conducted at a university in the Midwest to assess the needs of former foster youth and discuss the ways universities can support this vulnerable population of students. Several themes emerged from the study. The financial need emerged at the top. The number of essential needs was striking. For example, more than half of the respondents did not have their basic needs met. These needs included food, medical/dental services, clothing and transportation needs.

Faculty researchers who were part of a university task force developed a survey to assess the needs of former foster youth who were enrolled in classes at the time that this research was conducted. The survey was developed and disseminated through Qualtrics, a software that distributed survey links via email in a confidential manner. The survey consisted of a variety of general questions related to participants’ background and demographic information, as well as the specific needs and services that they were interested in receiving. The survey was sent out one-time peer week for three weeks in the late fall semester.

Findings indicated that 9% of respondents (n = 4) ranked the greatest areas of need as being financial assistance for school supplies, medical/dental care and financial aid advice. Similarly, 7% of respondents (n = 3) expressed the greatest needs as being affordable housing, housing during semester breaks, financial support for a laptop, financial counseling, counseling services, emergency financial assistance and internship and career counseling.

Limitations of this research include the use of a small and homogenous participant sample size, with data collected from one university campus. Therefore, results do not necessarily generalize elsewhere and replication is necessary for other geographical regions that include additional participants from varying backgrounds. Because data were not collected from a control group of nonfoster students, it is also unknown whether the identified student needs from this research substantially differ from the general population.

All students do not need the same support, so a menu of services should be provided. These services could include care packages that include basic academic necessities (e.g., laptops, school supplies, book vouchers, health and beauty supplies), financial literacy training, mentorship opportunities, a one-credit course on independent living skills, providing connections to community resources (e.g., childcare, housing, employment) and targeted advising for this specific student population, many of which who are from the first generation and low-income backgrounds. Another opportunity is to provide, possibly mandate, professional development for faculty and staff on the characteristics and needs of these vulnerable students.

Institutions have an opportunity, and arguably an obligation, to identify these students as early as possible. This can be done through collaboration with state human service departments, high school counselors and using demographic data found in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form. Recruiting, retaining and supporting this population of students are critical because many have needs similar to other marginalized populations that the authors are so intensely focused on.