Online learning presents an opportunity to expand access to higher education to traditionally underrepresented students. However the challenges for these students may persist even when study is undertaken off campus. Fostering a sense of belonging and personal connection to learning may present a way to improve the learning experience and retention of these students, especially in the first year. In a qualitative study of university students from nontraditional backgrounds and academics, sense of belonging was found as a characteristic highly valued in online courses. How sense of belonging was understood and experienced by students, and the strategies used by academics to foster belonging in online learning are discussed.

1. Which sex should care for offspring depends on the cost and benefits of the behaviour for each sex. Understanding these differences between the sexes is a fundamental step to explain the evolution of animal societies, but it is often difficult to quantify them empirically. A possible approach is to investigate two closely related species that perform a very similar type of care but in which the caring sex differs.2. Using field and laboratory data, we estimated the benefits and costs of parental care in two species of assassin bugs with very similar ecologies: Rhinocoris tristis, which has exclusive paternal care, and Rhinocoris carmelita, which has exclusive maternal care.3. In both species, the main benefit of care was a reduction in parasitism and predation of eggs. Guarding R. tristis males consumed eggs (filial cannibalism), and thus managed not to lose weight, but R. carmelita females paid the full energetic cost of care. Guarding male R. tristis incurred survival costs relative to non-guarding male and female conspecifics.4. Very high population density and female preference for males already guarding eggs (a preference previously recorded in fish) minimised the promiscuity cost of paternal care in R. tristis, explaining the difference in care pattern between the two species.

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Bennett, S.; Kosta, Lisa; Agostinho, S.; Lockyer, L.; Jones, J.; and Harper, B., "Understanding the design context for Australian university teachers: Implications for the future of learning design" (2009 DescriptionBased on the premise that support for university teachers in designing their units will improve teaching and ultimately improve the quality of student learning outcomes, recent interest in the development of tools and strategies has gained momentum. This paper reports on a study that has examined the contexts in which Australian university teachers design in order to understand what role design support tools and strategies could play. It appears that Australian university teachers can exercise a high degree of choice in terms of design, indicating that there may be opportunities for teachers to consider using reusable learning designs. AbstractBased on the premise that support for university teachers in designing their units will improve teaching and ultimately improve the quality of student learning outcomes, recent interest in the development of tools and strategies has gained momentum. This paper reports on a study that has examined the contexts in which Australian university teachers design in order to understand what role design support tools and strategies could play. It appears that Australian university teachers can exercise a high degree of choice in terms of design, indicating that there may be opportunities for teachers to consider using reusable learning designs. IntroductionRecent interest in the development of tools and strategies to support university teachers design their units is based on the premise that such supports will improve teaching and ultimately improve the quality of student learning outcomes. This body of work includes a varied set of related approaches such as online collections that enable teachers to publish, search for and comment on learning and teaching ideas. Examples include the Technology-Supported Learning Database

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