The rapidly changing digital landscape is having a significant influence on learning and teaching. Our study assesses the response of one higher education institution (HEI) to the changing digital landscape and its transition into enhanced blended learning, which seeks to go beyond the early implementation stage to make the most effective use of online learning technologies to enhance the student experience and student learning outcomes. Evidence from a qualitative study comprising 20 semi-structured interviews, informed by a literature review, has resulted in the development of a holistic framework to guide HEIs transitioning into enhanced blended learning. The proposed framework addresses questions relating to the why (change agents), what (institutional considerations), how (organisational preparedness) and who (stakeholders) of transitions into enhanced blended learning. The involvement of all stakeholder groups is essential to a successful institutional transition into enhanced blended learning.

The resilience of small businesses and how that relates to community resilience, especially in rural communities has remained an under‐researched aspect of community resilience. This exploratory study aims to understand the relationship between business resilience and community resilience in rural communities. Firstly, the research seeks to understand the role that small businesses play in contributing to community resilience activities. The paper then sheds light on enabling and challenging factors that shape how small businesses prepare for and respond to weather‐related emergencies through the lens of flooding. Data were collected through in‐depth semi‐structured interviews and surveys with rural small businesses in Scotland. The analysis of the data suggests that businesses play an advisory and advocacy roles, make financial and material contributions to local community resilience activities and contribute to quick community recovery through various dimensions of corporate social responsibility activities. However, small businesses face formidable barriers and challenges in preparing for and responding to weather‐related emergencies that undermine their resilience to natural hazards. The paper suggests ways in which small businesses can enhance their resilience to natural hazards, while at the same time contributing to community resilience.

Local communities within oil producing countries in Africa often face formidable environmental challenges that generate conflicts and concerns around exploitation, environmental impact, and health risks. A key feature of these concerns has been the paucity of effective risk communication mechanisms and the impact this has on the public understanding of risk. Risk communication has been identified as a significant factor in explaining why the health consequences of environmental degradation remain unabated in oil producing communities. This paper evaluates health risk communication in the oil rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The study is based on 69 interviews conducted in the Niger Delta region. The paper argues that the health of the local population is being impaired by risk incidences relating to oil and gas exploration activities, the effects of which are amplified by inadequate communication of health risks to the public. The study argues for and suggests ways in which health risk communication processes can be improved in the Niger Delta. A multi-dimensional framework for public health risk communication is developed as a means of advancing understanding, practice, and policy.

Enhancing community resilience has increasingly involved national and regional governments adopting a multi-stakeholder approach because of the potential interagency benefits. This has led to questions about how best to involve stakeholder groups in translating community resilience policies into practice. This exploratory study contributes to this discussion by addressing two key areas that are fundamental in the concerted effort to build community resilience to natural hazards: (1) stakeholder understanding of community resilience as a concept; and (2) the difficulties associated with the processes of risk assessment and preparedness that stakeholders face locally in building community resilience. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 25 practitioners and experts within Scotland's resilience community, and were analyzed through an inductive approach to thematic analysis. These data show how the interpretation of community resilience differs across stakeholder groups. Analysis of the data reveals challenges around the nature of the risk assessment and its role in shaping risk perception and communication. Significant complications occur in communicating about low probability-high consequence events, perceived territoriality, competing risk prioritizations, and the challenges of managing hazards within a context of limited resources. The implications of these issues for policy and practice are also discussed.

Within the UK, academics and practitioners' understanding of resilience have been increasingly nuanced, particularly after the introduction of the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004. However, there remain debates and variations in how resilience is conceptualised that creates confusion in how resilience building is operationalised in practice by stakeholders. To address this concern, this study explores the meaning of resilience from the perspectives of people with a lived experience of flooding, through the lens of adaptive capacity, which is a key dimension of resilience as identified in Scottish policy frameworks. Insight from a literature review combined with empirical data collected from forty-three participants, suggests that resilience to natural hazards is a function of two inter-related aspects: 'information' and 'response' mechanisms.Further analysis suggests that resilience enhancement begins following receipt of risk information from either experience or other sources that shapes the understanding of a hazard and what protective steps to take. This understanding prompts behavioural responses influenced by 'risk attitude', 'skills' and 'access to resources' to enhance the adaptive capacity of the receiver. The paper engages in the complex debate about how resilience is conceptualized from the social sciences perspective. It presents a simplified account of what resilience means and sets out policy and practical implications of this.