Character N-Gram Tokenization for European Language Text Retrieval

The Cross-Language Evaluation Forum has encouraged research in text retrieval methods for numerous European languages and has developed durable test suites that allow language-specific techniques to be investigated and compared. The labor associated with crafting a retrieval system that takes advantage of sophisticated linguistic methods is daunting. We examine whether language-neutral methods can achieve accuracy comparable to language-specific methods with less concomitant software complexity. Using the CLEF 2002 test set we demonstrate empirically how overlapping character n-gram tokenization can provide retrieval accuracy that rivals the best current language-specific approaches for European languages. We show that n = 4 is a good choice for those languages, and document the increased storage and time requirements of the technique. We report on the benefits of and challenges posed by n-grams, and explain peculiarities attendant to bilingual retrieval. Our findings demonstrate clearly that accuracy using n-gram indexing rivals or exceeds accuracy using unnormalized words, for both monolingual and bilingual retrieval.     

Validating the Willingness to Self-Censor Scale: Individual Differences in the Effect of the Climate of Opinion on Opinion Expression

Hayes, Glynn, and Shanahan (2005) defined self-censorship asthe withholding of one’s opinion around an audience perceivedto disagree with that opinion. They argued that people differin their willingness to self-censor and introduced an 8-itemself-report instrument, the Willingness to Self-Censor scale,to measure this individual difference. The results of an experimentalstudy presented here provide further evidence of the constructvalidity of the scale. Each participant in the study was presentedwith a hypothetical scenario that contained information suggestinga group of people the participant was conversing with abouta controversial topic held opinions that were either uniformlysimilar to or different from the participant’s own opinion.Four weeks prior, each participant had responded to the Willingnessto Self-Censor scale and a measure of dispositional shyness.As expected, the manipulation of the climate of opinion affectedwillingness to express an opinion to the group, but more soamong those who scored relatively high on the Willingness toSelf-Censor scale. These results support the notion that somepeople rely on information about the climate of opinion moreso than do others when they decide whether or not to voice theiropinion publicly, and they suggest that the Willingness to Self-Censorscale measures this individual difference.     

Storytime with Fresh Professor,Part One

I wasn't always the Fresh Professor. At one point, I was just another starving actor, trying to make a living. But stories change over time, as do professional desires.     

Am I a Teaching Artist or an Administrator?

James Miles writes about his transition from teaching artist to administration. Is it for everyone?     

Export market orientation behavior of universities: the British scenario

This study seeks to extend our knowledge of export market orientation (EMO) in the context of British universities with regard to recruitment of international students. Export marketing remains an area of limited focus in the marketization of higher education literature. The study predominantly follows a quantitative research design using survey methods. A sample of British universities was studied and partial least-squares analysis was performed. The findings indicate that four export higher education-specific variables are important drivers of EMO in universities. The paper also confirms EMO's direct effects on university export performance and its indirect effects mediated through university international reputation. In light of these findings, a number of implications are advanced for university management. The study also makes important theoretical contributions: it contributes to a growing body of literature on marketing of higher education; it enriches the export marketing literature by examining EMO in a service setting and it adds to the EMO–export performance relationship by examining the mediating role of international reputation. The findings are limited to British universities. Therefore, they may not be generalizable to other geographical areas. In addition, the results of this study were obtained from a small sample size and generalization of the findings to other higher education institutions should be made with caution.