Finding our way

LONG BEFORE I GOT PREGNANT, MY HUSBAND AND I BEGAN TO PREPARE FOR THE KIND OF BIRTH I HAD ALWAYS IMAGINED FOR MYSELF: peaceful, normal, and without medication or unnecessary medical intervention. In the fall of 2008, I got pregnant. At that same time, I started a new career as a labor and delivery nurse in a hospital that specializes in high-risk labor and birth. My daughter's journey into this world turned out to be the beautiful normal experience we had always imagined. This special experience also helped shape the kind of care I offer as a new labor and delivery nurse.     

A Portrait of a Rugby Man with a ‘Broken Face’ Le Flambeau dans la nuit (Torch in the Night) (1927) by Henry Decoin

Although the historiography of the First World War has, on numerous occasions, examined deaths and injuries, and their causes and social impacts, only a small number of historians have studied the physical and mental consequences among athletes. While literature offers a way to portray a world that is devoid of substance, where characters are searching for escape, war writing raises the question of human beings' vulnerability. Based on the story of a rugby man with a ‘broken face', the article will consider how a former international rugby champion was unable to reintegrate back into himself into civilian life after losing his sight during the fighting. Henri Decoin was therefore an unusual witness to the First World War, who raised the existential issue faced by all ‘broken faces’, that is to say how to learn to live in society again with faces that bore the marks of war? With the literary character of ‘blind soldier’ deserving greater attention, that of the blind soldier-cum-sports champion has been given particular focus here, inasmuch as such a champion embodied a model of corporal excellence. Analysis of the novel Le Flambeau dans la nuit (Torch in the Night), published in 1927, explains how experience of life on the Western Front quite literally altered perceptions of the world for writers of the young generation. It is also observed how masculinity was called into question under the sign of disability, particularly within the rugby milieu. With few resources allowing reading of what the disfigured said about their mutilated bodies, beyond the information given by associations or in medical writings, this novel is indeed seen as a precious and useful source of information for historians.     

Public broadband investment priorities in the United States: an analysis of the broadband technology opportunities program

In 2009, U.S. Congress approved $7.2 billion to accelerate the deployment of advanced broadband networks and services to unserved and underserved regions of the country. Although primarily a short-term response to the economic crisis, the appropriation also indicates a willingness to seek a new balance between private sector and public sector initiatives in the development of the nation's broadband infrastructure. This paper is a first step in assessing the potential impact of the new government initiatives. It discusses in detail one component of the overall program, the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). The rationales and objectives of BTOP and its initial implementation are explored. Based on information in the BTOP database, 265 awards were examined to document award types, target communities, applications, technology, and access speeds. Whereas it is too early to assess the initiatives' effects on employment and other important social and economic objectives, it is appropriate to consider whether the awards made under the BTOP program advance a national broadband development agenda. Overall, they appear to. However, the present analysis found that projects focusing on minority populations may have received less emphasis in the BTOP awards than that announced in the stated goals of the program.     

Using natural language processing to support peer-feedback in the age of artificial intelligence: A cross-disciplinary framework and a research agenda

Advancements in artificial intelligence are rapidly increasing. The new-generation large language models, such as ChatGPT and GPT-4, bear the potential to transform educational approaches, such as peer-feedback. To investigate peer-feedback at the intersection of natural language processing (NLP) and educational research, this paper suggests a cross-disciplinary framework that aims to facilitate the development of NLP-based adaptive measures for supporting peer-feedback processes in digital learning environments. To conceptualize this process, we introduce a peer-feedback process model, which describes learners' activities and textual products. Further, we introduce a terminological and procedural scheme that facilitates systematically deriving measures to foster the peer-feedback process and how NLP may enhance the adaptivity of such learning support. Building on prior research on education and NLP, we apply this scheme to all learner activities of the peer-feedback process model to exemplify a range of NLP-based adaptive support measures. We also discuss the current challenges and suggest directions for future cross-disciplinary research on the effectiveness and other dimensions of NLP-based adaptive support for peer-feedback. Building on our suggested framework, future research and collaborations at the intersection of education and NLP can innovate peer-feedback in digital learning environments.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• There is considerable research in educational science on peer-feedback processes.
• Natural language processing facilitates the analysis of students' textual data.
• There is a lack of systematic orientation regarding which NLP techniques can be applied to which data to effectively support the peer-feedback process.

What this paper adds

• A comprehensive overview model that describes the relevant activities and products in the peer-feedback process.
• A terminological and procedural scheme for designing NLP-based adaptive support measures.
• An application of this scheme to the peer-feedback process results in exemplifying the use cases of how NLP may be employed to support each learner activity during peer-feedback.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• To boost the effectiveness of their peer-feedback scenarios, instructors and instructional designers should identify relevant leverage points, corresponding support measures, adaptation targets and automation goals based on theory and empirical findings.
• Management and IT departments of higher education institutions should strive to provide digital tools based on modern NLP models and integrate them into the respective learning management systems; those tools should help in translating the automation goals requested by their instructors into prediction targets, take relevant data as input and allow for evaluating the predictions.