Since the early 2010s the literature has shifted to view feedback as a process that students do where they make sense of information about work they have done, and use it to improve the quality of their subsequent work. In this view, effective feedback needs to demonstrate effects. However, it is unclear if educators and students share this understanding of feedback. This paper reports a qualitative investigation of what educators and students think the purpose of feedback is, and what they think makes feedback effective. We administered a survey on feedback that was completed by 406 staff and 4514 students from two Australian universities. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted on data from a sample of 323 staff with assessment responsibilities and 400 students. Staff and students largely thought the purpose of feedback was improvement. With respect to what makes feedback effective, staff mostly discussed feedback design matters like timing, modalities and connected tasks. In contrast, students mostly wrote that high-quality feedback comments make feedback effective -especially comments that are usable, detailed, considerate of affect and personalised to the student's own work. This study may assist researchers, educators and academic developers in refocusing their efforts in improving feedback.

The university sector was hit hard by COVID-19 in early 2020 with global calls for universities to lockdown. The teacher education sector in most countries, including Australia, had not anticipated the shift to off-campus teaching of such a massive scale and the sector was not well prepared for the challenge. This paper reports how the Australian education sector responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and details how one Australian university implemented a number of innovations changing the mode of teaching and move to a fully online environment for all initial teacher education programmes. The innovations included the conversion of all face to face course work units into online units, including synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities. The initial impact of the innovations on pre-service teachers was captured through systematic measures of engagement with the online content. Using these measures, we interviewed four academics who were identified as supporting high levels of interaction. We were keen to understand what contributed to fostering high levels of interaction of pre-service teachers. Key lessons learnt from the analysis are discussed with a hope that these practices might benefit others looking for ways to provide high-quality teacher education programmes during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assessment feedback is an important part of students' learning experiences; however, textbased feedback has limitations. This article proposes an alternative in the form of individualised video recordings of the lecturer discussing each assignment. This research reports on 126 undergraduate and postgraduate students' reactions to 5-minute videos recorded by their teachers. The findings confirm that the majority of students valued the video feedback over text-based forms. In particular, video-based feedback was reported by students as being individualised (specific) and personalised (valorising identity and effort); supportive, caring and motivating; clear, detailed and unambiguous; prompting reflection; and constructive, which led to future strategising. Several potential weaknesses were also identified, including an initial anxiety about watching the videos, and the difficulty in matching the comments in the video-based feedback to the text-based assignment. Like the students, the teachers also reported that they valued the video feedback process, particularly in terms of being more time-efficient, facilitating quality especially in the form of feed forward comments, and rejuvenating teacher enthusiasm. The article concludes with implications for future research.

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Cutaneous anthrax is a rare zoonotic disease in the United States. The clinical diagnosis traditionally has been established by conventional microbiological methods, such as culture and gram staining. However, these methods often yield negative results when patients have received antibiotics. During the bioterrorism event of 2001, we applied two novel immunohistochemical assays that can detect Bacillus anthracis antigens in skin biopsy samples even after prolonged antibiotic treatment. These assays provided a highly sensitive and specific method for the diagnosis of cutaneous anthrax, and were critical in the early and rapid diagnosis of 8 of 11 cases of cutaneous anthrax during the outbreak investigation. Skin biopsies were obtained from 10 of these 11 cases, and histopathological findings included various degrees of ulceration, hemorrhage, edema, coagulative necrosis, perivascular inflammation, and vasculitis. Serology was also an important investigation tool, but the results required several weeks because of the need to test paired serum specimens. Other tests, including culture, special stains, and polymerase chain reaction assay, were less valuable in the diagnosis and epidemiological investigation of these cutaneous anthrax cases. This report underscores the critical role of pathology in investigating potential bioterrorism events and in guiding epidemiological studies, Anthrax captured worldwide attention and aroused serious public health concerns following the intentional release of the etiological agent Bacillus anthracis in the United States postal system during Fall 2001, 1,2 resulting in 11 cases of inhalational anthrax and 11 cases of cutaneous anthrax. [3][4][5][6][7] In its conventional form, cutaneous anthrax accounts for 95% of all naturally occurring B. anthracis infections in the United States. 8 -11 Patients often have a history of occupational contact with animals or animal products contaminated with B. anthracis spores. 12-14 These pathogenic spores are introduced through a cutaneous cut or abrasion, with the most common areas of exposure are the head, neck, and extremities, although any area can be involved. Bacteremia and toxemia following cutaneous infection can occur with a fatality rate of 20% to 25% among untreated cases. [15][16][17] Cutaneous anthrax is characterized by the formation of a black eschar surrounded by prominent edema and vesicles, which may resemble many other skin lesions, such as the brown recluse spider bite, 18 -21 ulceroglandular tularemia, 22,23 plague, 24,25 ecthyma gangrenosum, 26,27 various spotted fever group rickettsial infections, 28 -31 and scrub typhus. 32,33 The clinical diagnosis of cutaneous anthrax is traditionally established by microbiological methods (eg, demonstrating gram-positive, capsulated bacilli on the smear of the lesion or isolating B. anthracis in culture). 34,35 However, gram stain and culture for B. anthracis can be unrevealing for patients who receive antibiotic therapy before specimens are obtained. 36,37 Historically, skin biopsies ...