Scholarly conferences are one mechanism by which doctoral students can enter into their profession as practitioners and scholars. Unfortunately, research about the effectiveness of this career development strategy is limited. This paper explores learning experiences of doctoral students at a scholarly conference. Theories about learning communities, communities of practice, and knowledge creation frame student experiences. Special attention is given to how legitimate peripheral participation describes interactions of students with the scholarly community of practice during the conference. Recommendations for students, faculty, other scholars, and program planners are given in order to promote improved access to and participation in the scholarly community. Such changes can provide doctoral students with a smoother transition from academic learning to learning in the scholarly community of a professional conference.

Virtual human resource development (VHRD) creates a virtual environment (Bennett, 2009). As virtual environments become pervasive as instructional and learning spaces, evidence of their effectiveness is still in the early stages of development. As these learning spaces gain acceptance and adoption in HRD practice, more comprehensive and strategic approaches to evaluation are needed. Through a study of literature and qualitative case study, the authors investigate evaluation practices used in virtual worlds, and discuss how they are relevant to VHRD. Although many traditional forms of assessment are still being utilized, findings indicate that virtual worlds offer the opportunity to incorporate richer and more authentic forms of assessment, particularly, when evaluating learning artifacts.

No abstract

PurposeThe study presents preliminary findings from research begun at the 2005 Academy of Human Resource Development International Research Conference held in Estes Park, CO, USA. The qualitative case study captures what new learning occurred as a result of the conference and how the new learning at the conference occurred.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative case study used conceptual foundations grounded within critical theory and focused on learning organizations, communities of practice (CoP), and knowledge generation.FindingsParticipant reactions documented on approximately 1,000 data forms were categorized for this preliminary study as critical perspectives on HRD where typically underrepresented voices critiqued the conference, CoP as relationships between theory and practice where participants reported that theory to practice was a rich research topic, and learning organizations where results indicated that the academy benefits through conferences in terms of creating a learning organization.Research limitations/implicationsPreliminary results were based on preliminary analysis of data forms only. Future reports will include in‐depth analyses of data forms, and results of interviews and other collected data such as journals and observations.Practical implicationsFindings are important to conference planning and evaluation that seeks to create and sustain new learning.Originality/valueThe study is the first of its kind addressing the way conferences can influence the creation of new learning and how learning occurs.

The problem and the solution. Although human resource development (HRD) programs frequently place value on embracing diversity and contributing to social change, seldom do curricula contain course work focused on issues of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) communities. Thus, HRD practitioners may not have skills or insights needed to support LGBT inclusion in the workplace. The authors look to HRD literature and their experiences to explore the implications of self-disclosure for instructors and students in HRD courses and the benefits of incorporating LGBT issues in the curriculum as an HRD intervention. Implications concerning identity management, marginalization, community building, and visibility are discussed.The article concludes with practical insights for HRD faculty on how queering the curriculum can be accomplished.

Student learning outcomes within courses form the basis for course completion and time-to-graduation statistics, which are of great importance in education, particularly higher education. Budget pressures have led to large classes in which student-to-instructor interaction is very limited. Most of the current efforts to improve student progress in large classes, such as “learning analytics,” (LA) focus on the aspects of student behavior that are found in the logs of Learning Management Systems (LMS), for example, frequency of signing in, time spent on each page, and grades. These are important, but are distant from providing help to the student making insufficient progress in a course. We describe a computer analytical methodology which includes a dissection of the concepts in the course, expressed as a directed graph, that are applied to test questions, and uses performance on these questions to provide formative feedback to each student in any course format: face-to-face, blended, flipped, or online. Each student receives individualized assistance in a scalable and affordable manner. It works with any class delivery technology, textbook, and learning management system.

No abstract

No abstract