Linked Data Annotation Without the Pointy Brackets: Introducing Recogito 2

Recogito 2 is an open source annotation tool currently under development by Pelagios, an international initiative aimed at facilitating better linkages between online resources documenting the past. With Recogito 2, we aim to provide an environment for efficient semantic annotation—i.e., the task of enriching content with references to controlled vocabularies—in order to facilitate links between online data. At the same time, we address a perceived gap in the performance of existing tools, by emphasizing the development of mechanisms for manual intervention and editorial control that support the curation of quality data. While Recogito 2 provides an online workspace for general-purpose document annotation, it is particularly well-suited for geo-annotation, in other words annotating documents with references to gazetteers, and supports the annotation of both texts and images (i.e., digitized maps). Already available for testing at http://recogito.pelagios.org, its formal release to the public occurred in December 2016.     

I Have Seen the Future and It Is Not Here Yet …; or,On Being Ambitious for Audience Research

Audience research, after a promising period during which some crucial advances were made, seems to be in decline in several ways, yet its tasks remain as important as ever. This article, originally a presentation at the 2003 Versailles Conference on the Future of Audience Research, makes the case for expanding our vision of the field’s possibilities. To do this, it revisits some of the forgotten achievements of the Uses and Gratifications tradition, offers a critique of the dominant “Hall model” for conceiving media/audience relations, and outlines the key concept of an alternative approach: the concept of a “viewing strategy,” which has been at the heart of the 2003–2004 international project on the reception of The Lord of the Rings.     

Knowledge producers or knowledge consumers? Argumentation and decision making about environmental management

A longitudinal study of 250 students following the Salters Advanced Chemistry (SAC) course probed a range of chemical ideas including the exothermicity of bond formation and the development of thinking about covalent, ionic and intermolecular bonds. Students responded to the same diagnostic questions on three occasions: at the start, after eight months and sixteen months of a twenty-month course. At the start, many students demonstrated misunderstandings about these chemical ideas, but in general their understanding improved as the course progressed. By the end of the study, about half knew that bond making is exothermic. Initially, few described covalent bonds accurately or understood hydrogen bonding. A majority gave responses at the final survey which were in line with ideas and language a chemist may use. Students attributed changes to the use of context-based materials including a drip-feed approach which allowed their understanding to develop over time. However, some aspects of chemical bonding, including ionic bonding and intermolecular bonds other than hydrogen bonds remained problematic for students despite explicit teaching. The findings have implications for post-16 chemistry teaching, suggesting that a review of teaching strategies is needed in some areas.     

Developing Self‐Directed Executive Functioning: Recent Findings and Future Directions

How do children become increasingly self‐directed across development, achieving their goals without help from others? How might such developments be impacted by societal changes in how children spend their time? Children's abilities to achieve their goals are supported by developing executive functions (EFs), cognitive processes that predict important life outcomes. Efforts to improve children's EFs have benefitted their externally driven executive functioning, where goals and instructions are provided by others. Less is known about self‐directed EF, when children must decide independently what to do and when. We present recent findings demonstrating that children are better at engaging self‐directed EF when they have good understanding of options to choose among, and if they spend time in activities that they play a large role in directing. Within this context, we discuss the potential role of opportunities to plan, mind‐wander, and play, and present the critical next steps in investigating the influence of changing environments on self‐directed EF.     

支持开放教育资源项目的方法

本文考察了英国教育技术互用性标准中心（CETIS）通过支持国家项目（即英国联合信息系统委员会（JISC）和高等教育委员会的英国开放教育资源试点项目,详见http：／／www．jisc．ae．uk／oer）,以促进发布开放教育资源方面的经验,并探索了如何让我们的支持模式对其他相关项目有所启发,并能改编用于鼓励开放课件运动的可持续性技术支持网络。作为一个涵盖英国众多大学的国家层面的创新举措,众多开放教育资源提供者参与了英国开放教育资源（UKOER）,这包括个别教育者、学科联合体和机构。考虑到这种多样性,从一开始我们就意识到没有任何一种技术解决方案能适合所有的项目。因此,也没有委托专门的工具、描述性标准、交流或分发机制（除要求所有制作的资源应该放在国家学习资源库中外,详见http：／／jorum．ae．uk）。为了支持这一项目,我们引导采取不同的方法和形成不同的社群,也许在支持发布开放教育资源方面,任何类似的跨机构创新都将会面临相似的问题。我们的项目支持方法已从具体的细节问题发展到提供基本的支持原则,从而预测其他问题,并推动最佳实践。我们的做法是：通过会议上的技术汇报和讨论机会,以及在博客上发帖,激发讨论;通过技术评论讨论,并记录针对这些公布在网上的讨论的总结性内容,从而调查个别项目的技术选择;针对通过以上方式所发现的问题,以及项目博客上凸显的问题,做出相应的反馈。考虑到如何使这一方法在更广泛的范围内应用,我们也反思了这种公开的工作模式所面临的挑战、这一方法的开支、适应性,以及我们所认为的其在支持开放教育资源管理和传播方面所扮演的角色。