University of North Carolina at Charlotte

About: University of North Carolina at Charlotte is a education organization based out in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 8772 authors who have published 22239 publications receiving 562529 citations. The organization is also known as: UNC Charlotte & UNCC.

School Segregation, Educational Attainment and Crime Evidence from the end of busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg

Abstract: We study the end of race-based busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools (CMS). In 2001, school boundaries in CMS were redrawn dramatically, and half of students received a new assignment. Using addresses measured prior to the policy change, we compare students in the same neighborhood that lived on opposite sides of a newly drawn boundary. We find that both white and minority students score lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students. We also find decreases in high school graduation and four-year college attendance for whites and large increases in crime for minority males. We conclude that the end of race-based busing widened racial inequality, despite efforts by CMS to mitigate the effect of segregation through compensatory resource allocation. JEL Codes: I20, I24.

Award-winning faculty online teaching practices: Course design, assessment and evaluation, and facilitation

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to identify the course design, assessment and evaluation, and facilitation practices from the perspectives of award-winning online faculty. Aligned with this purpose, we developed a conceptual framework focused on online course design, assessment and evaluation, and facilitation; and review relevant literature in light of this framework. We interviewed eight award-winning online faculty members from across the United States. These faculty received online teaching awards from one of the following professional associations: Online Learning Consortium (OLC), Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), or United States Distance Learning Association. Based on the interviews, it was found that online instructors use a systematic design process, backwards design, considered learner needs, and designed learner interaction during the design process. Faculty recommended using a variety of assessments, using traditional and authentic assessments and used rubrics to assess students, course templates and quality assurance process and surveys, learning analytics, and peer reviews for assessment and evaluation. Timely response and feedback, availability and presence, and periodic communication were some facilitation strategies the award-winning instructors used. We discuss these findings and provide suggestions for future research and practice. These findings can add to what is known about effective online teaching best practices, standards, and competencies.

Is Islamist Terrorism More Dangerous?: An Empirical Study of Group Ideology, Organization, and Goal Structure

Abstract: Scholars have traditionally argued that Islamist terrorist groups tend to commit higher casualty attacks. Noting that casualty rates of attacks vary widely across Islamist terrorist groups, this study advances an alternative hypothesis that group organizational features and goal structures better explain differing casualty rates than does the overarching ideological type. Using both cross-national analysis and a case study of post-invasion Iraq, I demonstrate that there are two basic types of Islamist terrorist groups whose organizational and goal-structure features explain divergent casualty rates: “strategic groups” that function similarly to secular national-liberation and regime-change movements and “abstract/universal groups” that are affiliated with the global al-Qaeda network.

Zika Virus: Medical Countermeasure Development Challenges

Abstract: Introduction Reports of high rates of primary microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome associated with Zika virus infection in French Polynesia and Brazil have raised concerns that the virus circulating in these regions is a rapidly developing neuropathic, teratogenic, emerging infectious public health threat. There are no licensed medical countermeasures (vaccines, therapies or preventive drugs) available for Zika virus infection and disease. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) predicts that Zika virus will continue to spread and eventually reach all countries and territories in the Americas with endemic Aedes mosquitoes. This paper reviews the status of the Zika virus outbreak, including medical countermeasure options, with a focus on how the epidemiology, insect vectors, neuropathology, virology and immunology inform options and strategies available for medical countermeasure development and deployment. Methods Multiple information sources were employed to support the review. These included publically available literature, patents, official communications, English and Lusophone lay press. Online surveys were distributed to physicians in the US, Mexico and Argentina and responses analyzed. Computational epitope analysis as well as infectious disease outbreak modeling and forecasting were implemented. Field observations in Brazil were compiled and interviews conducted with public health officials.