Search

This article explores equity with respect to South-North partnerships in the context of education research involving scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on large-scale bibliometric analysis of over 1,000 publications published in English between 2010 and 2018, it finds that participation in such partnerships favours a relatively small number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These collaborations appear to be reproducing gender imbalances in authorship. Complemented by interviews with 31 researchers based in the region, it further identifies examples of asymmetrical relationships alongside more positive partnerships and practices. Scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa were more likely to view partnerships initiated by researchers based in the region as equitable.

This article combines large-scale bibliometric analysis of publications on education by researchers based in sub-Saharan Africa with researchers' accounts of their priorities and practice. Patterns in the thematic foci of the research from 48 countries in the region are considered from the perspective of international policy statements (the Education Sustainable Development Goal and the African Union's Agenda 2063), alongside analysis of funding, coauthorship, and citations. We find a large number of publications by these scholars in reputable journals that merit greater scholarly engagement. Furthermore, evidence presented in this article challenges claims about the dominance of Northern research agendas in sub-Saharan Africa.

Students' feedback on teaching activities significantly contributes to the enhancement of the quality of teaching and learning. Conventionally students evaluate teaching activities through paper based systems, where they fill out and return paper copies of teaching or course evaluation. In the last decades, institutions are moving student evaluation system online. Despite increasing growth in the use of online student evaluation systems, critiques argue that digitalizing the process of teaching evaluation contributes to reduced response rates. We carried out a systematic review of the literature and identified four key factors that are likely to influence response rates in online student evaluation of teaching. These include survey development, survey delivery, survey return and survey completion. We argue that understanding and addressing these factors is critical for improving online response rates. Further, based on this review we are working on developing a strategy for supporting our institution in the deployment of online student evaluation system and developing a plan for studying its efficacy.

Proteins with expanded polyglutamine (polyQ) segments cause a number of fatal neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington's disease (HD). Previous high-throughput screens in cellular and biochemical models of HD have revealed compounds that mitigate polyQ aggregation and proteotoxicity, providing insight into the mechanisms of disease and leads for potential therapeutics. However, the structural diversity of natural products has not yet been fully mobilized toward these goals. Here, we have screened a collection of ~11 000 natural product extracts for the ability to recover the slow growth of ΔProQ103-expressing yeast cells in 384-well plates (Z' ~ 0.7, CV ~ 8%). This screen identified actinomycin D as a strong inhibitor of polyQ aggregation and proteotoxicity at nanomolar concentrations (~50-500 ng/mL). We found that a low dose of actinomycin D increased the levels of the heat-shock proteins Hsp104, Hsp70 and Hsp26 and enhanced binding of Hsp70 to the polyQ in yeast. Actinomycin also suppressed aggregation of polyQ in mammalian cells, suggesting a conserved mechanism. These results establish natural products as a rich source of compounds with interesting mechanisms of action against polyQ disorders.

Much of the existing literature on student engagement focuses on what happens within the higher education environment or what the institution has direct control over, restricting understanding of how issues outside of the institution affect engagement. This paper argues that efforts to improve student engagement should be broadened to incorporate issues relating to the family. It employed a case study design in order to develop a broad and more in-depth understanding of how family influences the amount of time and effort students invest in their learning in a large public university in Ghana. It was established that engagement is influenced by family expectation, financial and social support, as well as monitoring of students' academic performance. The unique contribution of the study is that it broadens current understandings of engagement because it adds an aspect that has not been highlighted in current work on engagement, making a case for institutions to work more with families to get a broader understanding of challenges students face in order to provide comprehensive support.

This article explores equity with respect to South-North partnerships in the context of education research involving scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on large-scale bibliometric analysis of over 1,000 publications published in English between 2010 and 2018, it finds that participation in such partnerships favours a relatively small number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These collaborations appear to be reproducing gender imbalances in authorship. Complemented by interviews with 31 researchers based in the region, it further identifies examples of asymmetrical relationships alongside more positive partnerships and practices. Scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa were more likely to view partnerships initiated by researchers based in the region as equitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]