Academic social bookmarking: An empirical analysis of Connotea users

Three groups of social bookmarking users, namely experienced users, users with moderate level of experience, and novice users, were investigated, in terms of their reported tagging behaviors, perceived usefulness of social bookmarking in information discovery and management, and perceived usefulness of the bookmarking features provided. Based on the empirical analysis of the Connotea users, who are primarily in academia, the study shows that experienced academic users generally prefer to use social bookmarking while moderately experienced and novice users still prefer to use the traditional bookmarking methods, such as creating and using bookmarks on a dedicated computer. Experienced academic users were also found to create more tags per bookmark comparing to the other two groups. Most novice academic users, however, only created one tag per bookmark, which just met Connotea's minimum requirement. Surprisingly different from the collaborative design nature of the social bookmarking systems, the study finds that our participants, particularly experienced academic users, prefer to create and use their own bookmarks rather than sharing bookmarks created by others. In fact, experienced users have significantly higher frequency (once every two weeks) of creating bookmarks than the other two groups (once a month or less). In addition, website design features and functions, such as automatic collection of bibliographic information, are regarded by all participants as helpful for information discovery. The in-depth examination and discussion of the opinions of Connotea users may be useful for further improvement of the design features and usage applications, particularly for academic social bookmarking websites. The results may also have potential implications to the future development of social bookmarking services in general.     

Chronic neglect of family violence: more than a decade of reports to guide US policy

For more than a decade, several boards and committees have reviewed the state of policy, research, and services on child maltreatment and other forms of family violence in the US. Although these efforts have resulted in a redefinition of the tasks involved in protecting people within their homes, this new conceptualization has yet to have a substantial effect on policy, research, and services. Some positive steps have been taken, but most are still modest in scope. They may be dwarfed by the growing challenges in family and community life.     

Adjunctive behavior of the rat under periodic food delivery in a 24-hour environment

The behavior of 4 rats living in complex environments was monitored 24 h per day during free-feeding baseline and under conditions of periodic access to food. Under the periodic schedules, the minimum interfood interval (IFI) was increased from 16 to 512 sec in an ascending series. Periodic food produced robust overall increases in investigation of the feeder, drinking, general activity, and rearing, but not in wheel-running. The temporal distribution of behavior within the IFI was similar across subjects and supported the hypothesis that some responses were largely time-locked to the period immediately following eating, while other responses expanded to fill the interval. However, these response differences were not adequately captured by present classification schemes. Finally, the distribution of drinking following a food pellet strongly resembled the distribution of drinking following bouts of feeding in baseline. The results suggest that adjunctive behavior stems from three sources: (1) a simple increase in the number of opportunities for expression of normal preprandial and postprandial behavior, (2) an increase in the preprandial behavior directed toward the site of expected food, and (3) an increase in the postprandial distribution of both site-directed and more general exploratory behavior. These findings suggest that adjunctive behavior is not extraneous, but is an orderly distribution of responses ordinarily related to feeding and foraging for food.     

Opinion and the world of possibilities

Editor's Note: This is the concluding essay in a three-part series in which Professor Morson examines the intellectual maladies of the intelligentsia. The first essay, which appeared in the Spring 1993 issue, drew upon Russian intellectual history to clarify the concept of “the intelligentsia” and suggested its utility for an understanding of the politicized segment of the American professoriate. In the second essay, which appeared in the Winter 1993–94 issue, he contrasted the deterministic theories so attractive to both these groups with choice as experienced in the day-to-day realm of contingent events. Continuing this analysis, Professor Morson now examines “chronocentrism,” the view that the present moment is intellectually privileged in comparison with the past, showing it to be another of the basic elements of utopian thought. Exploring the relationship of multiple possibilities to intellectual freedom and pluralism, Professor Morson argues that there is a close connection between the appreciation of “open time” on the one hand, and the belief in free-wheeling dialogue, the tolerance necessary for democracy, intellectual modesty in the face of the world's complexity, and a rich sense of opinion, on the other. This essay is an adaptation of the final chapter of his new book,Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time, and appears by the generous permission of Yale University Press.     

Effects of delayed retention on multiple-choice test performance

In two experiments, immediate feedback defined as feedback following the completion of a 40-item multiple-choice test and delayed feedback (received 48 hr later) were examined in a simulated classroom situation with college students. As defined, delayed feedback was not superior to immediate feedback, as would be predicted by the delayed retention effect. Also, feedback in the form of correct answer only was superior to correct answer plus distractors lending partial support to the frequency theory of recognition memory. In addition to not finding the delayed retention effect, an analysis of errors in experiment two did not support the interference—perseveration hypothesis as an explanation for the type of error committed following immediate feedback.