Webinar on the impact of COVID on students in Aotearoa New Zealand on 18 April 2023

The coronavirus pandemic and associated move to online learning for students in higher education has been disruptive and challenging. In this FLANZ webinar, Dr Michael Cameron reports on the New Zealand arm of an international survey of higher education students (n = 147). Using quantitative and qualitative data from the survey, they found that students coped reasonably well with the disruption to their studies and were generally satisfied with how their lecturers and institutions responded to unanticipated lockdowns.

In comparison with the global sample, New Zealand students demonstrated a higher level of satisfaction. New Zealand students reported the highest satisfaction with recorded video lectures, whereas the global sample preferred real-time teaching. Many New Zealand students felt that their studies were negatively affected, and vulnerable groups such as students with low financial resources were the most severely affected. Moreover, students reported a range of negative emotions during lockdown that suggest mental health impacts may be a concern.

The results indicate that clear communication from authorities, reducing the uncertainty for students, and ensuring that vulnerable groups are appropriately supported, may be the best avenues to reduce negative impacts on students during future significant disruptions to study, whether pandemic-related or otherwise.

This webinar is based on the JOFDL article by Michael Cameron, Barbara Fogarty-Perry, and Gemma Piercy and gives you the opportunity to ask your own questions and learn more about this study.

Presenter

Michael CameronDr Michael Cameron is Professor of Economics in the School of Accounting, Finance and Economics (SAFE) at the University of Waikato. He is also a Research Associate in Te Ngira – Institute for Population Research. Michael’s current research interests include a range of topics in population economics, financial literacy, and economics education.

 

 

 

 

Registration

Register for free for this webinar on 18 April 2023 at 13:00 NZST.

Vol. 26 No. 2 (2022): Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning

Issue 26 (2) of the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning (JOFDL) is now available to the world. It begins with an editorial looking at readership and research trends in the journal post-COVID, followed by a thought-provoking Invited Article about the nature of distance learning by Professor Jon Dron. This general issue follows with 7 articles on different aspects of research after COVID-19.
Alison Fields and Simon Paul Atkinson, JOFDL Joint Editors. 

Editorial

Post-pandemic TrendsReadership and Research After COVID-19

Alison Fields, Simon Paul Atkinson
1-6
Image of Jon Dron

Invited Article

Technology, Teaching, and the Many Distances of Distance Learning

Jon Dron
7-17

Position Piece

Definitions of the Terms Open, Distance, and Flexible in the Context of Formal and Non-Formal Learning

Simon Paul Atkinson
18-28

Articles – Primary studies
Images of Hulbert and Koh

The Role of Non-Verbal Communication in Asynchronous Talk Channels ‎

Josiah Zhan Xiong Koh, Tara Hulbert
29-50
Image of Leomar Miano

An An Initial Assessment of Soft Skills Integration in Emergency Remote Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Learners’ PerspectiveA Learners Perspective

Leomar Miano
51-61
Image of small child at a laptop

Supporting English Language Development of English Language Learners in Virtual Kindergarten: A Parents’ Perspective

Sara Shahbazi, Geri Salinitri
62-74
Image of Lockias Chitanana

Parents’ Experience with Remote Learning during COVID-19 Lockdown in Zimbabwe

Lockias Chitanana
75-90
Image of Martin Watts & Ioannis Andreadis

First-year Secondary Students’ Perceptions of the Impact of iPad Use on Their Learning in a BYOD Secondary International School

Martin Watts, Ioannis Andreadis
91-106
venn diagram for AIM

Teaching, Engaging, and Motivating Learners Online Through Weekly, Tailored, and Relevant CommunicationAcademic Content, Information for the Course, and Motivation (AIM)

Andy Kenah, Catherine Nash
107-123

Webinar ‘Women pioneers of online learning’ on 8 March 2023

This year for International Women’s Day ODLAA and FLANZ will be hosting an event which showcases women’s role in online learning, including open, distance, and flexible learning. For this event we welcome Dr Susan Bainbridge and Dr Norine Wark, authors of The Encyclopedia of Female Pioneers of Online Learning as our panelists. This landmark book is the first volume to explore the lives and scholarship of women who have prominently advanced online learning.

Registration

Register for free to join us for this live panel conversation to celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March 2023 at 10:30 AEDT / 12:30 NZDT.

Panelists

Dr Susan Bainbridge is Sessional Instructor of Distance Education in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Athabasca University, Canada, and with the Centre for Lifelong Learning at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany.

Dr Norine Wark is a freelance researcher, writer, and consultant in the field of distance education.

Prizes

There will be two prizes to win for one person each who is attending the webinar. Win

  • two copies of the eBook, compliments of FLANZ and ODLAA
  • a free FLANZ one-year individual membership
  • a free ODLAA one-year individual membership or organisation membership

APODE Week 2022

The Asia-Pacific Online Distance Education (APODE) week will be held from 7 to 9 November 2022. FLANZ and the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia (ODLAA), in association with the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) are delighted to collaborate to jointly host a series of free webinars. These will be facilitated by leading practitioners and international educators working in the area. This will be an excellent opportunity to critically reflect on events over the last 24 months with a global community of educators as we consider the role of new models of online distance education into the future.

In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the spotlight has been placed on the value of investing in new flexible models of education. APODE Week aims to both celebrate and build further capacity in online distance education across the Asia-Pacific region. APODE Week provides a focus for advocating for the advantages of increasingly flexible modes of learning delivery and support. We are supporting ICDE in their Global Advocacy Campaign.

All events will be held in Zoom and will be recorded. They will then be made available on the FLANZ YouTube channel. We encourage you to participate in the live conversations to engage with our presenters and workshop facilitators. Please register to receive the information for joining the webinars.

7 November 2022: The ICDE Global Advocacy Campaign: Advocating Open, Flexible, and Distance Learning

Facilitator: Torunn Gjelsvik, ICDE Secretary General

Time: 5-6pm AEDT, 6-7 FJT, 7-8pm NZDT, 7-8am CET, 8-9am EET

This workshop will introduce the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) and their Global Advocacy Campaign (GAC), an initiative that aims to support local and regional advocacy efforts across the globe. ICDE Secretary General, Torunn Gjelsvik will explain why advocacy for open and distance education is a vital part of ICDE’s work and how ICDE members are encouraged and empowered through regional and topical task forces.

Register for Torunn’s workshop

Portrait of Torunn Gjelsvik smilingAbout Torunn

Torunn Gjelsvik is the Secretary General of ICDE, a global membership association and not for profit NGO hosted by Norway. With more than 20 years of experience in open, flexible, distance, and online education, she has held several executive leadership positions in various educational institutions and organisations, including the national membership association Flexible Education Norway. Her international experience covers policy development, international networks and partnerships, global events, and cross-country project management related to the global field of open, flexible, distance, and online education.

 

8 November 2022: Defining open, distance, and flexible learning

Facilitator: Simon Paul Atkinson

Time: 11am-12pm AEDT, 12-1pm FJT, 1-2pm NZDT

This workshop will explore an original definitional model that attempts to establish a consensus around the terms open, distance, and flexible, when used in the context of education. The semantic qualities that exist between words with opposite meanings are referred to as antonyms (Plural antonymies; contrast with synonymy). By exploring these antonyms, we will identify the spectrums that exist between them that give rise to so much confusion within the literature.

In this interactive workshop participants use Mentimeter and Padlet in a separate browser window, which can be on a mobile device.

Register for Simon’s workshop

Portrait of Simon Paul AtkinsonAbout Simon

Dr Simon Paul Atkinson is a Higher Education Strategy Consultant. He is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and joint Editor of the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning. He also serves on the International Advisory Board for Open University’s Journal of Interactive Media in Education. Simon has over 25 years experience in the tertiary sector at senior levels in both academic development and educational technology, in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

9 November 2022: OFDL resources: national and global perspective

This session includes a series of four fast-paced lightning talks to provide national and global perspectives on Open, Flexible and Distributed Learning.

Time: 11am-12pm AEDT, 12-1pm FJT, 1-2pm NZDT

Register for the lightning talks

OER in the context of USP and the Islands

Presenter: Rajni Chand, The University of the South Pacific

Use and importance of OERs gained more relevance during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Institutions, teachers and students depended on the OERs for support that went missing due to the closure of institutions and schools. The Centre for Flexible Learning (CFL) at University of the South Pacific hosts PACFOLD (Pacific Centre for Flexible and Open Learning for Development) which is the Commonwealth of Learning’s regional centre (hosted at USP under the leadership of the Director of the Centre for Flexible Learning) that provides technical support for the region’s Commonwealth member countries’ OER collection. All Pacific Commonwealth countries host their own OER collections for their teachers. Apart from this, PACFOLD is currently working on a project funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that is examining the repository designing for the region.

This presentation will share the work of PACFOLD as well as the importance of OER during the current situation we are facing.

Portrai to Rajni ChandAbout Rajni

Dr. Rajni Kaushal Chand is the Director for CFL. She has been with USP for over 25 years as a student, teacher, researcher, and course coordinator. She has travelled extensively in the USP region and internationally and has in-depth knowledge on Open and Distance Learning (ODL) for small and  developing South Pacific regional countries. She has presented her research findings at various international ODL, Applied Linguistics and Indian Diaspora conferences.  Dr. Rajni Chand has also worked in the course development and editing sections for USP’s Distance Learning section.

Dr. Rajni Chand holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Otago. She received a position in the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) Women and Leadership in ODL training program and has recently been appointed a mentor in the COL’s Commonwealth Wise Women mentoring programme. She is also the chairperson of Board of Trustees for femLinkPacific; a major regional feminist media NGO.

FOSSDLE: Building a Pacific open platform cooperative to support the implementation of the UNESCO OER Recommendation

Presenter: Wayne Mackintosh, Open Education Resource Foundation

The Free and Open Source Software Digital Learning Ecosystem (FOSSDLE) aims to provide shared, low-cost technology infrastructure for governments and institutions in the Pacific to reuse, remix, and host their own OER-enabled online courses while building capacity in open education and system administration skills.

Experience gained from the Pacific Partnership for Open Distance and Flexible Learning led by the Commonwealth of Learning with funding support from New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade highlights the need for capacity development of teachers in open education and associated digital skills. While teachers are motivated to improve their skills in online teaching using OER, few have reliable and affordable access to the digital platforms needed to build their confidence or ability to host online courses.

This session will provide an overview of the nascent FOSSDLE initiative to establish a mentoring network for Pacific island technologists wanting to build hands-on skills supporting open technologies. FOSSDLE will deploy the OER Foundation’s award winning learning ecosystem to establish the digital equivalent of a “Community Garden” where gardeners come together to acquire new knowledge and skills while serving immediate needs and sharing maintenance tasks, all while enjoying the camaraderie of a community of practice.

FOSSDLE aims to support Pacific member states with their reporting obligations under the implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation for Open Educational Resources.

Portrait of Wayne MackintoshAbout Wayne

Dr. Wayne Mackintosh is the Managing Director of the Open Education Resource Foundation, an independent non-profit organisation based in New Zealand where he holds the UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Resources (OER).

The Foundation provides collaborative networking opportunities and practical support to governments and institutions with the implementation of the UNESCO OER Recommendation and coordinates the OER universitas (OERu) international network.

Wayne has participated in a range of international consultancies and projects including work for COL, the International Monetary Fund, UNESCO and the World Bank. Wayne is recipient of the International Council of Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Individual Prize of Excellence and was conferred the Global Leadership Award by Open Education Global.

Open education in practice – open textbook publishing at RMIT

Presenter: Jennifer Hurley, RMIT

The global open education movement is underpinned by a social justice ethos and focuses on equitable access to and representation in learning resources. Open education is a broad and flexible concept that is about collaborative teaching and learning practices in which students become significant partners in the development of open resources. To promote open education at RMIT, the Library has established the RMIT Open Press to provide educators with a pathway to involve students as co-authors and to share their work openly.

This presentation will explore what open education means in practice, and will explore:

  • a best-practice definition of open education that encompasses a range of activities
  • key elements of open education illustrated with examples of practices at RMIT
  • the impact of these practices on students and educators

About Jennifer

Portrait photo of Jennifer HurleyDr. Jennifer Hurley leads the Open Publishing Team at RMIT, coordinating the publication of open books by RMIT authors under the RMIT Open Press imprint. She advocates the benefits of open pedagogy to teachers and is a member of the project team developing an Open Scholarship policy at RMIT. Jennifer is also a member of the cross-institutional editorial team that produces the Open Educational Practice Special Interest Group Digest and the Council of Australian University Librarians Enabling a Modern Curriculum OER Advocacy Project team.

October Webinar: Is Educational Research in Aotearoa in Good Shape?

Requires prior registration at Humanitix: Online event via Zoom. Check your registration mail for the link. You will also receive a reminder a day prior to the event.

Event description

This joint FLANZ and ODLAA webinar explores the New Zealand educational research funding landscape. Cathy Wylie will present the main themes of her recent occasional paper ‘Is educational research in Aotearoa in good shape?‘ She invites discussion, particularly around her recommendations for a connected suite of ongoing work in key areas, more in-depth understanding of the role of digital devices and access in student learning, and a new Equitable Education for the Future platform as a national research priority.

The recording of this webinar will be posted to YouTube. You will be able to change your name when joining the webinar and can interact in the chat if you don’t want your voice and image recorded.

Webinar time

Tuesday, 18 October 2022, 13:00-14:00 NZST / 11:00-12:00 AEST / 8:00-9:00 AWST

About the presenter

Cathy Wylie recently retired as a Kaihatū Rangahau Chief Researcher with NZCER. She is well-known for her research on educational and social policy and its impacts for teaching and learning. She is particularly interested in how we can better support teaching and learning to tackle longstanding inequities in our system, and the newer challenges we face. She was a member of the Tomorrow’s Schools Independent Taskforce and the Pūaotanga Primary Staffing Review Panel.

Workshop review: ‘Innovating Pedagogy 2022’

Thursday 8th September I had the privilege of running an online workshop to explore the potential of a range of different pedagogical approaches that might apply to different educational sectors in New Zealand and Australia.

See Transcript

The Innovating Pedagogy 2022 is the 10th annual report from the Open University (UK) exploring new forms in interactive and innovative practice of teaching, learning and assessment. These innovations already exist in pockets of practice but are not considered mainstream. This collaboration between the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University, UK, and the Open University of Catalonia, Spain, is the result of a filtering process and is compiled, based on a review of published studies and other sources. Ten concepts or themes are identified.

Hybrid models
Maximising learning flexibility and opportunities. Beyond the strict curriculum delineations in Blended Learning models, Hybrid forms aim to empower the learner to optimise their own learner choices at to where, when, and how to learn. Providing flexible choices requires teachers and institutions to adjust their systemic approaches.		 Influencer-led education
 Learning from education influencers on social media platforms. Acknowledging the growth of edu-influencers, who optimise their use of social media tools to share their knowledge, experience, and passion for a range of subjects from the highly specialised to the generic. Evaluating the veracity of the message is a challenge for the learner.
Dual learning scenarios
Connecting learning in classrooms and industrial workplaces. A step up from work-integrated learning models, the expectation is that course designers fully meld both formal classroom and work spaces into a coherent experience.		 Pedagogies of the home
Understanding the home as a place for cultural learning. Not the same as home-schooling. Rather, it seeks to leverage the wider socio-cultural environment that the learner inhabits. Also recognises the burden on marginalised communities to fully participate.
Pedagogies of micro-credentials
Accredited short courses to develop workplace skills. Existing approaches, snippets taken from existing programmes, fail to create an effective learning ecosystem for learners who require support to develop a patchwork portfolio meshing formal, non-formal, and informal experiences together.		 Pedagogy of discomfort  
Emotions as powerful tools for learning and for promoting social justice. A process
of self-examination that requires students to critically engage with their ideological traditions and ways of thinking about issues such as racism, oppression, and social injustice.
Pedagogy of autonomy
Building capacity for freedom and independent learning. Explores the notion of incorporating informal, non-formal, and formal learning patterns into the learner’s experience, creating self-regulated learners with an emphasis on their metacognitive development and allowing them to reflect their true selves..		 Wellbeing education
Promoting wellbeing across all aspects of teaching and learning. Wellbeing education helps students to develop mental health ‘literacy’ by teaching them how to manage their own mental health, recognise possible disorders, and learn how, where, and when to seek help.
Watch parties
Watching videos together, whatever the time or place. Leveraging the increased connectivity prompted in response to covid-19, and the move of media providers to provide educational tools, this is the notion of structured engagement around a shared viewing (or listening) experience.		 Walk-and-talk
Combining movement and conversation to enhance learning. Not just used in service of those in need of emotional support, where the therapeutic benefits have been proven, but across a wide range of learning activities where reflection and thought would be best served by being away from the classroom and being outside and mobile.
10 Themes from the 2022 Innovating Pedagogy report

The workshop used Mentimeter as an online polling tool. Of the 25 participants, 20 regularly voted and made 659 submissions. The tertiary sector dominated, at 15, with fewer representatives from the Private Training Enterprise and Commercial L&D sectors and only one from compulsory education. Only 2 Australians participated.

Despite having laboured the point in all publicity materials that it would be valuable to read the report before participating, only 8 said they had read it (or the summary), with 11 admitting they had not.

Of the 17 that responded to the question about their approach to new educational technologies, 12 saw themselves as ‘progressive’, 2 as ‘radical’, and 3 as ‘pedestrian’.

To get participants involved in thinking about each pedagogic approach, we ran a 2×2 square exercise, asking what the relative effort versus impact might be. See the video for responses.

Following breakout groups we ranked the innovations in terms of the amount of attention participants would pay to them in the next 12 months in their personal practice (see screenshot above).

The general consensus was that whilst there was nothing exceptional or radical in any of these innovations, they provided a focus for reflection and were deemed stimulating. Thank you to all who participated.  

Dr Simon Paul Atkinson 

Kukulska-Hulme, A., et.al. (2022). Innovating Pedagogy 2022: Open University Innovation (No. 10). Open University.

New Issue: Vol. 26 No. 1 (2022): Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning

New Issue: Vol. 26 No. 1 (2022): Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning

JOFDL publishes articles from around the world relating to primary research investigations, literature reviews, the application of open education innovations, and experiences of blended learning as well as teaching at a distance in any sector of education or training. Theoretical and empirically-based research articles as well as case studies of practice and book reviews are invited for submission. ISSN: Print 1179-7665; Online 1179-7673.

Editorial
Connecting Past and Future Educational Practice: A Post-COVID-19 Present
Simon Paul Atkinson, Alison Fields (pp 1-4)

Articles – Primary studies
Through their eyes: Student perspectives
Alexandra Hartline, Sheri Conklin, Amy Garrett Dikkers (pp 5-26)

Student expectations of peers in academic asynchronous online discussion
Dianne Forbes (pp 27-41)

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education students in New Zealand
Michael P. Cameron, Barbara Fogarty-Perry, Gemma Piercy (pp 42-62)

Sociodemographics and Psychosocial Experiences of Distance Learners in Nigeria: A Comparison of Single-mode and Dual-mode Universities
Tajudeen Adebisi, Taiwo Olatunji (pp 63-83)

Please feel free to share notification of this open access journal with your professional networks

Online Workshop – Innovating Pedagogy 2022: Perspectives and Practice

Date and time
Thursday 8th Sep 2022, 13:00-14:00 (NZST) / 11:00-12:00 (AEST) / 9:00-10:00 (AWST)

Online Workshop
Free event, online via Zoom. Please make sure you have an up-to-date version of Zoom to ensure you can fully participate. Requires registration at Humanitix that can be made HERE

register now button

 

 

Event description
Are our national priorities for educational innovation the same as our European cousins? This FLANZ / ODLAA interactive workshop will examine the Open University’s 2022 Innovating Pedagogy report and negotiate its relevance to our socio-cultural contexts in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia.

Your input will be focussed around the applicability of the innovations suggested by the report to your educational context. We will evaluate their potential impact and the effort required to implement them. We may want to dismiss some of these as hardly innovative at all, or to suggest that they are too aspirational. The results of our collective deliberations will provide the basis for future reflections.

Please have your mobile phone to hand (or a second browser window). Ensure that you have read the full report or the brief overview, written by the workshop convener, Dr Simon Paul Atkinson, prior to the workshop.

The recording of this webinar will be posted to YouTube. You will be able to change your name when joining the webinar and can interact in the chat if you don’t want your voice and image recorded.

FLANZ & ODLAA Logos

About the workshop facilitator
Dr Simon Paul Atkinson is a Higher Education Strategy Consultant. He is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, President of FLANZ, and joint Editor of the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning. He also serves on the International Advisory Board for Open University’s Journal of Interactive Media in Education. Simon has over 25 years experience in the tertiary sector at senior levels in both academic development and educational technology, in Aotearoa New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Lightbulb image by Ameen Fahmy on Unsplash

ODLAA Webinar: Home broadband and student engagement during COVID-19 emergency remote teaching

 

 

ODLAA are hosting their July Webinar ‘Home broadband and student engagement during COVID-19 emergency remote teaching‘
(Distance Education, 42(4), 465-493)

During 2019–2020, school buildings worldwide closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This webinar reports on the findings of a study that assessed the influence of high-speed broadband availability on student engagement with distance learning within 206 secondary schools in Ireland.

What are the implications for schools and government?

PRESENTER
Ciarán Mac Domhnaill, Gretta Mohan and Selina McCoy
Economic and Social Research Institute, Ireland

Join us to find out.
Webinar Details are as follows
Thursday July 28th – 15.30-16.30pm (AEST) 17.30-18.30 (NZST).
Register here

 

Webinar: Embedding interactivity successfully into courses

Four highly experienced learning designers discussed ‘Embedding interactivity successfully into courses’ in a lively panel conversation at the FLANZ webinar on 22 June 2022. The presenters were Hinerangi Eruera Mānuera Murphy (Ngāti Awa; Te Whare Wānanga ō Awanuiārangi in Aotearoa New Zealand), Stephen Bright (Ngāti Kahungunu; University of Waikato), Sue Tickner and Jacqui Thornly (both from Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland).

The presenters shared their experiences and design principles through a presentation each, followed by a joint discussion. Their individual stories combined different threads about designing for interactivity in higher education. Sue, Stephen, Hinerangi, and Jacqui presented their thoughts about the relevance of appropriate interactivity, enabling and hindering factors, and the role of theory. Sue emphasised the community of inquiry framework and the three presences as a useful tool to design for interactivity and engagement. Stephen suggested the use of personas as a tool to design for diversity, which led to an engaged discussion between audience members. The need to put whanaungatanga at the centre of everything was emphasised by Hinerangi with examples from Te Whare Wānanga ō Awanuiārangi. Jacqui outlined a five phase framework to design and facilitate online and face-to-face, and recommended course design resources. Jacqui’s suggestions include:

Conrad RM. & Donaldson JA. (2012) Continuing to Engage the Online Learner. Jossey Bass; California

Ratima MT. Smith JP., McFarlane AH., Rik NM., Jones KL& Davies LK (2022) NgāHau e Whā o Tāwhirimātea – Culturally responsive teaching and learning for the tertiary sector

Nicols, M. (2020) Transforming Universities with Digital Distance Education. Routledge; New York

Sankey M.D (2021) The state of Australasian online higher education post pandemic and beyond. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, Vol19, Issue 2 Quarterly

This is only a snapshot of a highly engaging conversation between our panelists who left their audience with plenty of ideas to consider. If you are interested to follow the whole conversation, you can watch the recording and view the transcript. The panel was chaired by Bettina Schwenger (Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland) and Kristina Hoeppner (Catalyst IT).

Join FLANZ to support the efforts in Aotearoa New Zealand around flexible learning, and follow up on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay informed about upcoming events. If you have a topic that you think we should discuss in one of our webinars, please get in touch.