Search results

Awareness raising campaigns have been used to promote HIV prevention messages, including the expansion of HIV testing, but initiating such campaigns de novo can be costly. Both the Bronx, New York and Washington, DC have significant local HIV epidemics and a history of efforts to scale-up HIV testing. To build on prior HIV testing campaigns and create new messages based on consultation with diverse stakeholders, a partnership with a community-based clinical trial to enhance HIV testing and treatment was established. The purpose of this paper is to describe the history of HIV testing campaigns in the two jurisdictions, the awareness raising conducted in collaboration with the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) study (HPTN 065) and provide evidence of its effect in these two communities.

The foundation of prior campaigns allowed for expansion of social mobilization efforts to specific priority populations (gay men and other men who have sex with men), the most severely affected groups in both communities, and to expand the efforts to include clinical settings. New compelling and acceptable messages were shaped through engagement with community members and based on input from focus groups with target populations in each city.

By engaging the target population in the development of new messaging, HPTN 065 study successfully built on campaigns that were already underway in both jurisdictions and was able to use those messages and platforms to further normalize HIV testing.

Modifying and adapting existing messages saved time and resources, which can be important factors to consider in settings with limited resources or high media purchasing costs.

Efforts of this kind may ultimately help to decrease HIV transmission in large urban settings.

The concept of diaspora philanthropy contains the following two components: diasporas, who are individuals who live outside of their homelands but maintain a sense of identity with their home countries, and charitable giving provided by these diasporas to causes related to their hometowns. Often diaspora philanthropy happens through intermediary organizations such as hometown associations, internet-based philanthropic platforms and faith-based groups. Little research explores immigrant-owned small businesses as intermediary organizations for diaspora philanthropy. In the literature of social entrepreneurship, the theory of opportunity recognition provides insights on how do businesses identify opportunities for fulfilling social missions. However, it is uncertain whether this major theory can be applied to a specific context such as immigrant-owned small businesses. In this research, I aim to understand immigrant-owned small businesses' participation in social entrepreneurship through diaspora philanthropy, especially in responding to natural disasters. Specifically, three research questions were proposed: What role do small businesses play? What mechanisms do they use to partake in diaspora philanthropy? Moreover, what motivates them to participate?

This research uses an in-depth case study that focuses on a specific diaspora philanthropy behavior in responding to a natural disaster in the diaspora's hometown. The subject of this work is a small business owned by an immigrant in New York City, the US. To collect data on this case, the author utilized a mixed-methods design, which involves two types of qualitative data: document analysis and interview. Giving the purpose of this study, the author used thematic coding for both newspaper article data and interview data following a deductive approach.

The result shows that small businesses have an inherent advantage in building close interpersonal relationships with their customers and serve as the connector between their customers and larger philanthropic organizations. Because of their limitations on resources, small businesses collaborate with larger nonprofit organizations to do complicated philanthropic work for improved capacity. When diaspora philanthropy happens due to natural disasters in homelands, diasporas experience some level of guilt since they are not there with the people of their homeland in solidarity facing the difficulties. This guilt, which is related to cultural influences, is one of the motivations that make diasporas give to their homelands. The findings also show that the opportunity recognition theory fits well into explaining the altruistic behaviors of small businesses owned by immigrants.

A lot remains unknown about immigrant-owned small businesses, including their altruistic behaviors and participation in social entrepreneurship. This research expands the current knowledge on diaspora philanthropy by identifying the roles of small businesses, the mechanisms used by small businesses and the motivations of giving during natural disasters. This research also validates the opportunity recognition theory of social entrepreneurship in a specific context.

This paper aims to use the experience of an in-person event that was forced to go virtual in the wake of COVID-19 as an entryway into a discussion on the broader implications around transitioning events online. It gives both practical recommendation to event organizers as well as broader reflections on the role of digital libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

The authors draw on their personal experiences with the datathon, as well as a comprehensive review of literature. The authors provide a candid assessment of what approaches worked and which ones did not.

A series of best practices are provided, including factors for assessing whether an event can be run online; the mixture of synchronous versus asynchronous content; and important technical questions around delivery. Focusing on a detailed case study of the shift of the physical team-building exercise, the authors note how cloud-based platforms were able to successfully assemble teams and jumpstart online collaboration. The existing decision to use cloud-based infrastructure facilitated the event’s transition as well. The authors use these examples to provide some broader insights on meaningful content delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moving an event online during a novel pandemic is part of a broader shift within the digital libraries’ community. This paper thus provides a useful professional resource for others exploring this shift, as well as those exploring new program delivery in the post-pandemic period (both due to an emphasis on climate reduction as well as reduced travel budgets in a potential period of financial austerity).

Emotional and interpretive responses to three short stories were noted in two study populations of similar age: Qatari students in a post-highschool foundation program preparing to attend branch campuses of western universities located in Qatar, and American students, many of Mexican-American heritage, from a small college in a rural setting in South Texas. It has long been thought that reading literature from a foreign culture confers educational value on the reader; in this investigation the nature of that ‘value’ was placed under study. Written responses to quiz questions or assignments were used as data; responses critical of or affirming of character, setting, plot, and literary tropes were particularly noted. Our data show that readings from an author whose culture was similar to the reader’s created interest and urged both intellectual and affective types of understanding, such as remembering, grieving, healing, forgiving, and feeling pride. Readings from ‘classic’ literature presented in historical context strongly enabled critical discussion among students in a multicultural setting, since the author’s absence from the scene ‘allows’ free conversation about his or her work without fear of insulting the author’s culture. Readings by contemporary writers from outside the reader’s culture, or ‘multicultural literature’, may cause some readers to shy away from the challenge of understanding another culture or to voice stereotypes instead of seeking ideas. Readings from outsider cultures, however, and the affective distancing of ‘othering’, enable the well-prepared educator and student to discuss how culture patterns our lives.

Peer feedback is applauded in many writing courses for fostering students’ independence and collaboration and for creating a wider learning environment in which students can benefit from the feedback and diversity of input they get from other peers (Stubbe, 2013). It improves students’ writing skills by developing their use of effective composing processes since they can share ideas while planning, drafting, and revising writing forms (Richards and Schmidt, 2010). It also reduces the anxiety of students who can get constructive feedback on their writing from other peers instead of their teachers (Phillipson, 2007). However, application of peer feedback in writing courses is a complex process since it requires provision of rubrics and guidelines for students to follow; this is in addition to explaining the areas they need to focus on. It also requires having cultural awareness of the level of corrections Arab students can accept. This paper reflects on a practical experiment conducted with a group of undergraduate students for showing how peer feedback is approached and practised by students in English language courses. Students’ views and perceptions about peer feedback are also surveyed showing their appreciation of the level of collaboration peer feedback encourages among them. Nevertheless, the results also show a number of concerns students have about peer feedback.

The shift in the function of English as a medium of instruction together with its use in knowledge construction and dissemination among scholars continue to fuel the global demand for high-level proficiency in the language. These components of the global knowledge economy mean that the ability of nations to produce multilinguals with advanced English proficiency alongside their mastery of other languages has become a key to global competitiveness. That need is helping to drive one of the greatest language learning experiments the world has ever known. It carries significant implications for new research agendas and teacher preparation in applied linguistics.

Evidence-based decision-making, whether it pertains to language policy decisions, instructional practices, teacher professional development or curricula/program building, needs to be based on a rigorous and systematically pursued program of research and assessment.

This paper seeks to advance these objectives by identifying new research foci that underscore a student-centered approach.

It introduces a new theoretical construct – multilingual proficiency – to underscore the knowledge that the learner develops in the process of language learning that makes for the surest route to the desired high levels of language proficiency. The paper highlights the advantages of a student-centered approach that focuses on multilingual proficiency for teachers and explores the concomitant conclusions for teacher development.