The National University System Repository exists to increase public access to research and other materials created by students and faculty of the affiliate institutions of National University System. Most items in the repository are open access, freely available to everyone.
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Item The Eduneering Initiative(2025)The Eduneering Initiative The Eduneering Initiative, a guidebook specifically built to support a 3-course OER-funded program at National University by Dr. Torrence Temple, empowers teachers with tools from neuroscience, storytelling, and AI to reclaim student engagement. It emphasizes immersive, emotionally resonant, and cognitively optimized instruction. Central to the program is the “Omnidoc,” a 24/7 digital hub promoting equity through ubiquitous learning. The Initiative advances teacher ideation without dependency, reshaping educators into designers of transformative, accessible, and culturally responsive learning experiences driven by creatively constructed story-based narratives. Dr. Torrence Temple (Bio) Dr. Torrence Temple is a 27-year veteran of the classroom with a noted expertise in creative application of narrative-based learning experiences, like his "Boldly Going" unit (which turned his entire science classroom into the bridge of a starship for 5 days), which won the National Science Teaching Award as the best use of technology integration in the country (2004). His list of experiences is vast and unexpected. He also served as a science consultant for the TV series CSI: NY during season 4. During this time, he took part in the story generation process. Dr. Temple challenged the notion of traditional lesson and unit planning, suggesting that our students have outgrown the traditional models that center their design structures around ease of data collection and not the concepts that students find inherently interesting. Following that notion, Dr. Temple designed the internationally acclaimed STEM chemistry program called AREA154: Apocalypse Division, which tore up the traditional chemistry curriculum and its pacing in favor of staging the content in a way that felt meaningful and immediately impactful. While still finding adherence to NGSS standards, AREA154: Apocalypse Division prioritized the narrative over ease of assessment. The result: Prior to AREA154, the average rate of failure for chemistry was up to 40%. Only two years after implementation, the failure rate dropped to just 9%. Dr. Temple completed his doctoral work attempting to illuminate the reasons why the program was so successful. The results of that research became the foundation for the Eduneering Initiative Guidebook and the 3-course intensive that the guidebook supports. Dr. Temple has expertise in a variety of media technologies; he's built websites, directed and edited science fiction movies, acted in Hollywood, has a blackbelt in Krav Maga, can fly airplanes, has worked for covert programs for the government, and has taken all of these experiences to indulge as a master virtual reality experience designer. In what might be his most daring project yet, in collaboration with IXR (Illuminatexr.com), he is attempting to storify and bring to life one of the most difficult courses, one of the most failed courses, in all of high school. Coming soon, A complete year-long course called Algebra: For All Time. Here, the student takes on the role of the legendary "Mu Zah", the one who heals time in an attempt to secure humanity's destiny. It's online, nearly autonomous, AI-assisted, and driven by interactive virtual reality game elements where the student "plays" with the math. Despite the sophistication of the Algebra program, it is still basically a manifestation of Eduneering Initiative ideas and concepts scaled to its upper limits. Dr. Temple was the recipient of National University's Innovation Award in 2025 for his work in the field of artificial intelligence. He's not just an out-of-the-box designer and thinker, but it's been said that Dr. Temple... has no box at all.Item A toxicity reduction evaluation of the Santa Margarita River Watershed with an emphasis on pyrethroid pollution(2009)A Toxicity Reduction Evaluation (TRE) is used to clarify the source of toxicity within a stream, creek, or river and suggest remediation efforts. Due to upstream development and an increase in toxicity in water samples collected, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) issued a Monitoring and Reporting Program (MRP) in 2004 for stormwater runoff within the Santa Margarita River Watershed. A MRP required Riverside County to conduct bioassessments and a Toxicity Identification Evaluation (TIE). Sampling design, data collection, and analysis for bioassessments was conducted through collaboration with MACTEC Engineering and Consulting. Toxicity testing of water samples for a TIE was done in collaboration with Nautilus Environmental. The biological community of benthic macroinvertebrates which makes up a portion of the ecological composition of Santa Margarita River Watershed was shown to be significantly impacted in both Temecula Creek and Murrieta Creek. The results of the bioassessments further showed that the greatest biological impact on the macroinvertibrate community was in Murrieta Creek. TIE data analysis showed that pyrethroid toxicity fluctuates in the wet weather season in both Temecula Creek and Murrieta Creek- from October through March- in correlation with stormwater runoff. TIE data analysis also showed that the highest average pyrethroid toxicity occurs in Temecula Creek. The land uses surrounding the tributary creeks were then used to indentify sources of pyrethroid pollution in order to suggest effective remediation efforts. The data showed that both agricultural and urban pesticide users are the main factors in pyrethroid toxicity within this watershed. Remediation efforts including: agricultural drainage ditches, porous pavement, bioswales, and community outreach and education were proposed in order to reduce pyrethroid pollution in the Santa Margarita River Watershed.Item Trace DNA analysis from fingerprints(2010)The research on forensic science applications continue to grow exponentially. The techniques, methods, time and money that are dedicated to improving forensic science standards are staggering. With the advances employed today, the value of preserving evidence couldn't be more precious. Crimes have been solved by a single fiber of evidence or a single strand of hair. One fingerprint or tiny drop of blood can link a perpetrator to a crime scene. Today, fingerprints at a crime scene are more valuable than ever before because researchers have discovered that DNA can be extracted from them. The DNA is found in skin cells left along with the print. This minute amount of DNA is often referred to as trace, or touch DNA. The benefit of both DNA profiling and fingerprint detection is that they have convicted the guilty and vindicated the innocent. It is in the best interest of the examiner to investigate and exhaust all methods of analysis on an object to obtain this crucial information. The advancement of processing trace DNA samples has opened and solved cold cases by producing the missing link.Item The trend of violent sexual offenses in the state of California 1990-1998(2001)Violent sexual offenses in California were assessed to determine whether there had been an increase or decrease in the rates of incidence following the implementation of specific pieces of legislation. The Determinate Sentence Law of 1977, the California Three-Strikes Law of 1994, the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act of 1994 and Megan's Law of 1996 were all examined. Violent sexual offenses including forcible rape, attempted rape and sexual assault were considered. To ensure the statistical analysis was all-inclusive, both violent crime and forcible rape rates were presented. A combined total was considered to determine whether there had been either a rise or fall in violent sexual offenses between 1990 and 1998. With the exception of the Determinate Sentence Law, the research supported the hypothesis that following implementation of particular legislation there had been a steady decrease in California's rate of violent sexual offenses.Item Faculty Attitudes Toward Online Graduate Students with Disabilities and the Accommodations Needed by Those Students(2025-07)Guided by the critical disability theory framework, this dissertation explores the attitudes of faculty members towards online graduate students with disabilities, the appropriateness of accommodations for those students, and faculty members’ personal approach to providing or withholding support. A review of the literature found that graduate students with disabilities may not receive appropriate support to complete their online degree programs because they often have to deal with faculty members who have negative attitudes towards them, accommodations provided by the university which may not be appropriate, and faculty members being unaware of accommodations or not being trained in best practices to support their students. These factors may have a negative impact on their ability to complete their online graduate degree programs. Archival data from a survey done at an online university in the United States in response to a literature review which called for additional studies on faculty perceptions of working with graduate students in the online environment. Using a secondary data source gives the researcher the opportunity to gain a more in-depth understanding of the data in ways which are different from the original study. Using manual coding methods to perform qualitative content analysis on the 130 responses to the original survey questions, the researcher discovered faculty attitudes towards working with their students were generally positive. But when it came to the faculty attitudes towards providing accommodations, the prevalent academic culture of resistance and skepticism towards students with disabilities belonging in higher education was corroborated. Noting that faculty believed there was more that the institution should be doing to support both students with disabilities and the faculty working with them, the researcher also discovered faculty members who not only were transforming the way they interacted with their online graduate students with disabilities but who also desired changes to the university policies and procedures to increase graduation rates for those students.
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