Transforming Researchers into Educators: Some Reflections on the University College Dublin School of Law Syllabus Design Workshop 2010

The priority given to the development of research skills during doctrinal legal education often neglects the importance of equipping PhD students with the pedagogical skills necessary to fulfill their important educational role as academics. Thus, in many instances there is a significant gap in the requisite skill base that PhD students acquire when they complete their doctrinal education. This paper outlines a first step that has been taken to address this deficiency in postgraduate legal education in Ireland. The PhD community of the University College Dublin (UCD) School of Law convened an internal Syllabus Design Workshop in April 2010 in order to provide doctrinal students with an opportunity to design a university module and to explore the issues which arise in undertaking such an exercise. The first part of this paper outlines how the workshop was conceived and convened, and provides an account of the considerations that each student had to take into account in the design of a syllabus. From here, we address the content of the workshop and reflect upon some of the important issues which were <br/>raised. Finally, we offer a number of recommendations in relation to the development of doctrinal students as future educators. By highlighting the importance of uniting research and teaching, it is hoped that this paper will contribute to postgraduate legal education in Ireland,and also internationally.

Rewarding Merit in Judicial Appointments?: A research project undertaken by the School of Law, Queen���s University Belfast for the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission

This research involved carrying out an online survey using a number of vignettes/scenarios to explore understandings and attitudes to judicial appointments. This sort of survey is relatively novel in this context and provided a useful way of understanding how a range of factors such as merit and seniority, career paths and connections, as well as gender and visibility, are perceived as operating within the appointments system. The research also involved a series of focus group interviews with a number of individuals with various professional backgrounds and at different levels of seniority. These, and a limited number of individual interviews, afforded an opportunity to explore more closely some of the themes arising from the scenarios as well as a chance to look in some depth at some of the views and concerns of a range of members of the legal professions. <br/><br/>Building upon the previous research project, this work was less concerned with revisiting earlier themes and more interested in exploring how the idea of ���merit��� as a governing factor in judicial appointment is seen as working in practice, and whether it is perceived as being most likely to be found within particular career profiles. We also investigated issues such as the possible development of formal and informal pathways to a judicial career and practical problems such as how an applicant might become known to the senior judiciary, and the importance of this. Overall our interest was primarily in developing an understanding of how gender is perceived to operate in the appointments process and how any barriers to recruiting women, particularly to the senior judiciary, could be further broken down. <br/>

���I miss being spoon-fed���. A comparison of transition from school to university education from the perspective of undergraduate pharmacy students

Background: The transition from school to university can be challenging and there is increasing concern among academics that students are inadequately prepared for entry to university courses.Aims: To investigate students��� views on transition from school to university education.Method: A focus group was conducted with first-year students and analysed using thematic analysis. Students were invited to participate in an electronic questionnaire; responses were analysed via SPSS for Windows. The Mann��� Whitney U test was utilised with p&lt;0.05 set as significant.Results: A response rate of 60% (88/147) was obtained for the questionnaire. Differences included staff-student interactions, learning methods, examination preparation and feedback provision. Many (85%) agreed that the main emphasis in school was on examination preparation; 29.6% considered this to be the case at university (z=-8.315; p&lt;0.05). Most students (95.4%) considered the feedback they received at school helped improve performance; this decreased to 50% when asked about feedback at university (z=-8.326; p&lt;0.05).Conclusion: Students appear to be insufficiently prepared for the demands of higher education. They desire various aspects of their university educational experience to be more akin to that of school, including: a greater level of individual attention, increased access to teaching staff, and further clarification and transparency about the standard required to pass exams. Further work can now be done by academic staff to aid the transition and improve the learning experience.

Nutritional Status of older patients attending Cork University Dental School and Hospital

Objectives: This study aimed to gather data on the nutritional status of older patients attending Cork University Dental School and Hospital for treatment in the Restorative Department. Information was also collected about the medical status of the patients including the prevalence of self-reported xerostomia. <br/>Methods: Data was collected by a self-completion questionnaire followed by a brief clinical examination. Nutritional Status was measured using the short version of the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) which recorded patients��� Body Mass Index (BMI). The MNA consists of 6 parameters (including questions relating to patients��� history and anthropometric data) with a maximum total of 14 points. Scores of 12-14 indicate ���normal nutritional status��� whilst those between 8 and 11 indicate a patient ���at risk of malnutrition���. Scores lower than 8 are an indication a patient who is ���malnourished���. All patients attending Cork University Dental School and Hospital aged 65 years and older were invited to participate in the study. <br/><br/>Results: A total of 22 subjects participated in this study. Twelve patients were partially dentate with 10 edentulous. The results from the MNA indicate that 11 patients were of ���normal nutritional status��� with 11 patients identified as being ���at risk of malnutrition���. None of the subjects were ���malnourished���. Edentate patients generally recorded lower MNA scores than partially dentate patients. In total, 9 patients reported experiencing xerostomia with 8 indicating that they needed to sip liquids to aid swallowing but only 3 had difficulty swallowing food. <br/><br/>Conclusion: This small study indicates that a number of the older patients attending Cork University Dental School and Hospital for dental care may be ���at risk of malnutrition���. These findings suggest that nutritional advice and dental care should both be included in an overall package of care for older patients.

Report from the 2nd Summer School in Computational Biology organized by the Queen's University of Belfast

In this paper, we present a meeting report for the 2nd Summer School in Computational Biology organized by the Queen's University of Belfast. We describe the organization of the summer school, its underlying concept and student feedback we received after the completion of the summer school.