Internationalisation has become an “institutional imperative” for many institutions of higher education. Two propositions are that internationalisation would help students develop competencies needed in todays globalised world, and increase the employability of students. This piece summarises findings from the HBO-Monitor (a survey amongst alumni of Dutch universities of applied sciences) to substantiate the aforementioned propositions. The analysis suggests that internationalisation measures such as a foreign experience are conducive to the acquisition of international competencies. By contrast, little support derives from the HBO dataset concerning the link between internationalisation (or the thereby acquired competencies) and an increase in employability. However, a good number of alumni confirm that international competencies are needed in their current jobs. Based on this project, the Research Group International Cooperation will set up a longitudinal study on internationalisation at THUAS and its impacts.
The WHEELS app was developed using the intervention mapping framework. Intervention goals were determined based on a needs assessment, after which behavior change strategies were selected to achieve these goals. These were applied in an app that was pretested on ease of use and satisfaction, followed by minor adjustments. Subsequently, a 12-week pre-post pilot study was performed to explore usability, feasibility, and effectiveness of the app. Participants received either a remote-guided or stand-alone intervention. Responses to semistructured interviews were analyzed using content analysis, and questionnaires (System Usability Score [SUS], and Usefulness, Satisfaction, and Ease) were administered to investigate usability and feasibility. Effectiveness was determined by measuring outcomes on physical activity, nutrition, sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), body composition, and other secondary outcomes pre and post intervention, and by calculating effect sizes (Hedges g).
LINK
Sporen uit het verleden zijn het waard bewaard te wordenvoor volgende generaties!In het onderzoeksproject Energieke Restauratie (2011-2013)van het kenniscentrum NoorderRuimte istwee jaar onderzoek gedaan naar restauratie, energieconceptenen herontwikkeling van historische gebouwen. Dit project,gefinancierd door SIA-RAAK, werd uitgevoerd in samenwerkingmet vele bedrijven en instellingen in Noord-Nederland.Energieke Restauratie verwijst naar een integrale aanpak vanbehoud en vernieuwing in historische gebouwen, met eenhoge ambitie voor energiebesparing.Een ‘Energieke Restauratie’ begint met het herkennen vanwensen en randvoorwaarden in het vooronderzoek. Zo wordtbij het ontwerp rekening gehouden met historische waarden,energie, en gebruikerswensen. Uiteraard wordt er bij derestauratie van een historisch gebouw veel aandacht besteedaan effecten op de lange termijn, bijvoorbeeld voor hetvoorkomen van schade aan historische materialen, flexibiliteitvoor (toekomstig) gebruik, energielasten en gebruikscomfort.Op 19 september 2013 vond de afsluitende internationaleconferentie ERIC2013 plaats in Groningen. Met trots bieden wiju nu het magazine Energieke Restauratie aan, waarin u korteweergaves vindt van de presentaties op ERIC2013, voornamelijkin het Engels. Bovendien zijn de volledige artikelen van veledeelnemers aan de conferentie opgenomen.Verder vindt u een beknopt overzicht van alle uitgevoerde casestudies van Energieke Restauratie.Tot slot bedanken wij iedereen die heeft bijgedragen aan detotstandkoming van dit magazine: de schrijvers van de artikelen,de vormgever en uiteraard de sponsors die het drukken van ditmagazine mogelijk hebben gemaakt.
This project addresses the fundamental societal problem that encryption as a technique is available since decades, but has never been widely adopted, mostly because it is too difficult or cumbersome to use for the public at large. PGP illustrates this point well: it is difficult to set-up and use, mainly because of challenges in cryptographic key management. At the same time, the need for encryption has only been growing over the years, and has become an urgent problem with stringent requirements – for instance for electronic communication between doctors and patients – in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and with systematic mass surveillance activities of internationally operating intelligence agencies. The interdisciplinary project "Encryption for all" addresses this fundamental problem via a combination of cryptographic design and user experience design. On the cryptographic side it develops identity-based and attribute-based encryption on top of the attribute-based infrastructure provided by the existing IRMA-identity platform. Identity-based encryption (IBE) is a scientifically well-established technique, which addresses the key management problem in an elegant manner, but IBE has found limited application so far. In this project it will be developed to a practically usable level, exploiting the existing IRMA platform for identification and retrieval of private keys. Attribute-based encryption (ABE) has not reached the same level of maturity yet as IBE, and will be a topic of further research in this project, since it opens up attractive new applications: like a teacher encrypting for her students only, or a company encrypting for all employees with a certain role in the company. On the user experience design side, efforts will be focused on making these encryption techniques really usable (i.e., easy to use, effective, efficient, error resistant) for everyone (e.g., also for people with disabilities or limited digital skills). To do so, an iterative, human-centred and inclusive design approach will be adopted. On a fundamental level, scientific questions will be addressed, such as how to promote the use of security and privacy-enhancing technologies through design, and whether and how usability and accessibility affect the acceptance and use of encryption tools. Here, theories of nudging and boosting and the unified theory of technology acceptance and use (known as UTAUT) will serve as a theoretical basis. On a more applied level, standards like ISO 9241-11 on usability and ISO 9241-220 on the human-centred design process will serve as a guideline. Amongst others, interface designs will be developed and focus groups, participatory design sessions, expert reviews and usability evaluations with potential users of various ages and backgrounds will be conducted, in a user experience and observation laboratory available at HAN University of Applied Sciences. In addition to meeting usability goals, ensuring that the developed encryption techniques also meet national and international accessibility standards will be a particular point of focus. With respect to usability and accessibility, the project will build on the (limited) usability design experiences with the mobile IRMA application.
