网络多媒体主题搜索研究及其教学应用

网络多媒体教学资源搜索与利用是信息教育中不可忽视的工作。基于主题搜索技术在专业领域中的应用,建立教育主题词集、提取网络多媒体表征信息、改进主题搜索策略,在已有的主题搜索器的基础上设计并实现了一个网络多媒体主题搜索系统,用于搜索Web中与教学有关的视频、音频、动画等多媒体资源,为有效利用多媒体网络教学资源提供了一个良好平台。实验结果显示,该系统能有效提高多媒体教学资源的搜索效率,在教育教学中具有重要的意义。     

Listening to Mothers II: Knowledge, Decision-Making, and Attendance at Childbirth Education Classes

In this column, a woman describes her concern that her childbirth classes did not provide the information she needed to make informed decisions during labor and birth. The results of the Listening to Mothers II survey suggest that this experience is not unusual. Although most women (97%) who participated in the survey wanted to know all or most of the potential risks of epidural, induction, and cesarean before consenting to have the intervention, the majority-including mothers who had experienced the intervention, women who were experienced mothers, and women who had attended childbirth classes-did not know the complications of induction or cesarean. These findings raise important questions about the outcomes of childbirth education. The factors that may contribute to these findings are discussed, and suggestions are made for insuring that women have the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about their maternity care.     

Web site credibility: Why do people believe what they believe?

This research investigates university students’ determinations of credibility of information on Web sites, confidence in their determinations, and perceptions of Web site authors’ vested interests. In Study 1, university-level computer science and education students selected Web sites determined to be credible and Web sites that exemplified misrepresentations. Categorization of Web site credibility determinations indicated that the most frequently provided reasons associated with high credibility included information focus or relevance, educational focus, and name recognition. Reasons for knowing a Web site’s content is wrong included lack of corroboration with other information, information focus and bias. Vested interests associated with commercial Web sites were regarded with distrust and vested interests of educational Web sites were not. In Study 2, credibility determinations of university students enrolled in computer science courses were examined for 3 provided Web sites dealing with the same computer science topic. Reasons for determining Web site inaccuracy included own expertise, information corroboration, information design and bias. As in Study 1, commercial vested interests were negatively regarded in contrast to educational interests. Instructional implications and suggestions for further research are discussed. Preliminary results from Study 1 were presented as a poster entitled “Users’ Confidence Levels and Strategies for Determining Web Site Veracity” (Iding et al. 2002a) and appeared in associated proceedings for The WWW 2002: The Eleventh International World Wide Web Conference, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Preliminary results from Study 2 were presented as a paper entitled, “Judging the Veracity of Web Sites” (Crosby et al. 2002) and appeared in associated proceedings for the International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE 2002) in Auckland, New Zealand.     

Searching for cochlear implant information on the internet maze: implications for parents and professionals

The present study has three purposes: (a) to determine who disseminates information on cochlear implants on the Web; (b) to describe a representative sample of Web sites that disseminate information on cochlear implants, with a focus on the content topics and their relevance to parents of deaf children; and (c) to discuss the practical issues of Web-based information and its implications for professionals working with parents of deaf children. Using the terms "cochlear implants" and "children," the first 10 sites generated by the four most popular search engines (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN, and America Online) at two points in time were selected for analysis, resulting in a sample of 31 Web sites. The majority of Web sites represented medically oriented academic departments and government organizations, although a wide variety of other sources containing information about cochlear implants were also located. Qualitative analysis revealed that the content tended to fall into eight categories; however, the important issues of educational concerns, habilitation following surgery, and communication methods were either addressed minimally or neglected completely. Using analytical tools that had been developed to evaluate "user friendliness" in other domains, each Web site was assessed for its stability, service/design features and ease of use. In general, wide variability was noted across the Web sites for each of these factors. The strong recommendation is made that professionals understand and enhance their knowledge of both the advantages and limitations of incorporating the new technology into their work with parents.     

A Review of: “LEARNING LATER By Brian Findsen”

Many older adults do not use health information available on the Internet. Older adults residing in affordable housing were taught to use the NIHSeniorHealth.gov Web site. Participants were predominantly African American women with limited education and income (N = 42). Outcomes included changes in computer and health Web site navigation skills. Results showed significant improvements for all demographic groups in both computer and Web site navigation (p < .001). Older minority adults with no prior computer experience were willing and able to learn to use health Web sites. Success factors included an instructor familiar with the community, peer training assistants, and a focus on new learner needs.     

Web site resources for waterbirth

In this column, the author reviews Web sites that provide information and resources on waterbirth.     

Unconventional sources as a new convention: The shifting paradigm of undergraduate writing

Recent research has remarked upon the widespread use of Internet sources by undergraduate students in support of their written ideas. Results of this research indicate there is a tendency for some students to cite sources whose content meets their expedient needs, while ignoring standards of rigor typically required for academic citation. Despite this tendency, the present study explores whether Web sources which would normally be considered unconventional for academic citation, in fact, offer enriching content. This study isolates the unconventional Web references from three second-language students' research papers for qualitative analysis. Results indicate that although the cavalier use of Web sources by students remains a serious concern, unconventional sites can sometimes be an unusually rich source of information. Such a finding has implications for how students are taught to consider Internet sources. Specifically, it is suggested that sites normally considered unconventional not be summarily dismissed as potential sources of information.     

Science on the Web: Students Online in a Sixth-Grade Classroom

Publications from newspapers to research journals are filled with claims about the Internet and its value for education, yet research is just beginning to evaluate uses of these new information resources in the classroom. As part of the University of Michigan Digital Library Project, this research was undertaken as a first step in designing tools for secondary students to access a digital library. The Web offered an initial site for learning how students interact with digital resources and use standard tools. The Web can be seen as a site for student inquiry in science, using it as an information resource that opens the boundaries of the classroom and creates the possibility for students to pursue questions of personal interest. This study looks at students in 6th-grade science classes as they use the Web to carry out an inquiry-based assignment. Their understanding and enactment of their assignment to do research on the Web, their engagement in information seeking, and their use of Web technologies are explored and analyzed. Findings include evidence that students use Web technologies easily but simplistically; that information seeking is a complex and difficult process for these students, who seek to reduce the task to finding an obvious answer or finding a good Web site; and that developing students' understanding of content through use of the Web is a challenge for students and teachers.     

Trends in culturally relevant interface design features for Latino Web site users

There is a lack of published research on designing Web-based instruction for the adult U.S. Latino population. Instructional designers need guidance on how to design culturally relevant learning environments for this audience, particularly for Latino people from Mexican heritage. The authors used content analysis to investigate the extent to which 20 U.S. state food stamp Web sites and 20 Mexican state government Web sites contained culturally relevant interface features targeted at the Spanish-speaking Latino population. Web sites were coded for 10 features distilled from Hofstede??s work on cultural differences. Results indicated that more culturally and linguistically relevant features, including Hofstede??s dimensions of collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance, as well as adequacy of information in Spanish, were found on Mexican than on U.S. Web sites. The findings suggest that Hofstede??s cultural dimensions theory might provide a useful framework for designing Web-based resources for the adult U.S. Spanish-speaking Latino population and provides additional evidence to further investigate if Web-based interface features tailored for U.S. Latino Web users motivate users, strengthen communication, and promote learning.     

Searching the Web to learn about a controversial topic: are students epistemically active?

Students are making an increased use of the Web as a source for solving information problems for academic assignments. To extend current research about search behavior during navigation on the Web, this study examined whether students are able to spontaneously reflect, from an epistemic perspective, on the information accessed, and whether their epistemic metacognition is related to individual characteristics, such as prior knowledge of the topic and the need for cognition. In addition, we investigated whether Internet-based learning is influenced by the activation of spontaneous epistemic metacognition in the search context. Forty-six psychology and engineering university students were asked to research information about a controversial subject in order to write an essay. They were also asked to think aloud during their research. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. As revealed by their spontaneous reflections, all participants were epistemically active, although to different extents and levels. As expected, there was evidence that students activated beliefs about the four epistemic dimensions identified in the literature, especially about the credibility of an electronic source and the criteria for justification of knowledge. Prior knowledge was not related to activation of epistemic beliefs in the search context, while the need for cognition significantly associated with aspects of source and its content evaluation. Two patterns of epistemic metacognition were identified and they significantly influenced Internet-based learning. Students who spontaneously generated more sophisticated reflections about the sources as well as the information provided, outperformed students who were active only at the first epistemic level. Educational implications are drawn.     

Perceptions of Business Students' Feature Requirements in Educational Web Sites

There is paucity of original research that explains phenomena related to content organization and site design of educational Web sites. Educational Web sites are often used to provide Web‐based instruction, which itself is a relatively recent phenomenon for business schools, and additional research is needed in this area. Educational Web sites are designed with a different set of criteria as compared with other sites, such as those having an e‐commerce or marketing focus. More research is needed to build a theoretical foundation for feature requirements in educational Web sites. As in any new approach to teaching and learning, critical issues need to be examined before Web‐based instruction is fully integrated into teaching processes. When developing educational Web sites, features that support pedagogy should be given primary consideration. It is therefore important to identify key elements that will have maximum impact on learning. Using Q‐sort analysis (a type of Factor Analysis), this study investigated feature requirements of educational Web sites as perceived by business students. Based on the analysis of user requirements in relation to several variables that were identified from a review of literature, group characteristics emerged from students' responses. Similarities and differences between groups were investigated, and implications of these results for development of educational Web sites are presented in this study.     

Mental constructions and constructions of web sites: learner and teacher points of view

This research focuses on knowledge and ways in which knowledge may be constructed in the learner's mind. Specifically, it addresses the Web as a cognitive supporter for learning, organising and constructing a new domain of knowledge. In particular, the research analyses student reflection on constructing web sites. The analysis is based on an ongoing reflection of 40 prospective and in‐service teachers who took a course on educational computational environments. The students were asked to choose a complex topic and to document the process of constructing a web site that would present their chosen topic. They were to reflect upon the process with regard to their decision making, difficulties encountered, ways of thinking, considerations and insights. Student reflection is analysed from two perspectives: the first perspective examines how the task of constructing a web site contributes to student learning of complex topics, the second perspective views the students as teachers who explore how constructing a web site contributes to their understanding of learning processes.     

Use of a World Wide Web Site Evaluation Tool in Chemistry

Material on the World Wide Web may be freely accessed by instructors and students, regardless of its source. Evaluation of such material can be facilitated by use of one of a number of web site evaluation tools. These assess a web site in terms of content and design by adapting established principles in each of these areas. The feasibility of using one such tool, originally developed for the evaluation of medical information sites, in chemistry has been explored. The tool was applied to 37 sites that cover the periodic table. Most of the criteria seemed to be as applicable to chemical sites as to those for which it was designed, and gave useful information on the quality aspects of each site. On the other hand, some of the criteria included for medical sites were inappropriate or too vague in the context of chemical sites, and additional criteria not present in the original tool would have been useful for this application. These observations have been used to construct a modified tool which should be more applicable for World Wide Web sites with chemical content.     

Maslow and Team Organization

Many middle schools use the Web to disseminate and gather information. Online barriers often limit the accessibility of the Web for students with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accessibility of home pages of a sample of middle schools. The authors located 165 Web sites using a popular online directory and evaluated the sites for accessibility. A software program quantified the number of accessibility errors at each site. Most middle school home pages had accessibility problems, and the majority of them represented severe concerns that should be given a high priority for improvement. The good news is that the majority of the errors can easily be corrected. The work reflects a need for middle schools to continuously examine the accessibility of their home pages. Direction for improving accessibility is provided.     

ENHANCING CLASSROOM COURSES WITH INTERNET TECHNOLOGY: ARE COURSE WEB SITES WORTH THE TROUBLE?

This article reports the findings of a survey of faculty who publish course Web sites associated with their classroom courses. The communication goals and educational objectives of the sites were identified and evaluated, along with the investment of time and resources required to create and maintain the sites. Most instructors indicated that their goals for the Web sites have been entirely or largely achieved, and most consider the sites to be essential to successful course design. Some of the sites have accomplished administration and communication objectives not readily achievable through traditional, nonelectronic classroom procedures. In contrast to Web usage in distance learning courses, however, few of the sites made use of the Web as an instructional medium to deliver partial or complete learning modules online. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the study for present and future classroom faculty.     

Toward more evidence-based practice

Childbirth educators are responsible for providing expectant parents with evidence-based information. In this column, the author suggests resources where educators can find evidence-based research for best practices. Additionally, the author describes techniques for childbirth educators to use in presenting research-based information in their classes. A sample of Web sites and books that offer evidence-based resources for expectant parents is provided.     

多智能体技术的软件检索与安装系统的研究

互联网给人们提供了无限丰富的信息，可是当前的浏览工具却没有提供有效的手段来缩短网络连接时间。由此提出了一个多智能体结构来辅助无线移动用户进行软件检索与安装，它是智能信息检索领域的重要课题。     

Examining the influence of expertise on the effectiveness of diagramming and summarising when studying scientific materials

A 2 (learning strategies: diagram vs. summary) × 2 (levels of expertise: low vs. high) experiment was conducted to compare the effectiveness of using diagrams to writing summaries for students given biological information to learn and who possessed different levels of expertise in that topic area. A main effect of learning strategy used on number of idea units encoded (in diagrams or summaries) was found: drawing diagrams was superior to writing summaries. However, no interaction effect between learning strategies and expertise was found. An examination of students’ subjective ratings of cognitive load revealed that those with low expertise reported higher levels of cognitive load when constructing diagrams. These findings suggest that using diagrams is effective for identifying and encoding important information when learning, but that it would be helpful to provide guidance about diagram use particularly to students who are novices in the topic area to reduce cognitive load.