Engineering a multi-purpose test collection for Web retrieval experiments

Past research into text retrieval methods for the Web has been restricted by the lack of a test collection capable of supporting experiments which are both realistic and reproducible. The 1.69 million document WT10g collection is proposed as a multi-purpose testbed for experiments with these attributes, in distributed IR, hyperlink algorithms and conventional ad hoc retrieval.WT10g was constructed by selecting from a superset of documents in such a way that desirable corpus properties were preserved or optimised. These properties include: a high degree of inter-server connectivity, integrity of server holdings, inclusion of documents related to a very wide spread of likely queries, and a realistic distribution of server holding sizes. We confirm that WT10g contains exploitable link information using a site (homepage) finding experiment. Our results show that, on this task, Okapi BM25 works better on propagated link anchor text than on full text.WT10g was used in TREC-9 and TREC-2000 and both topic relevance and homepage finding queries and judgments are available.     

LEARNERS' EMOTIONAL AND PSYCHIC RESPONSES TO ENCOUNTERS WITH LEARNING SUPPORT IN FURTHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING

ABSTRACT:   This article investigates the experience of individual learners who have been allocated learning support in the further education system in England. The particular focus is on interviewees' constructions of their emotional and psychic experiences. Through the adoption of a psycho-social perspective, learners' tendency to 'idealise' their learning support workers is understood as a strategy for coping with the anxiety generated by a range of previous experiences. The implications for policy-makers are discussed.     

Third-year College Retention and Transfer: Effects of Academic Performance, Motivation, and Social Connectedness

We studied the effects of academic performance, motivation, and social connectedness on third-year retention, transfer, and dropout behavior. To accommodate the three outcome categories and nesting of data within institutions, we fit a hierarchical multinomial logistic regression path model with first-year academic performance as a mediating effect. Our sample included 6,872 students representing 23 four-year universities and colleges. This work expands the current state of persistence research by (1) considering the effects of motivation and social connectedness on college persistence beyond the first year of college, (2) testing whether the effects of motivation and social connectedness on third-year retention and transfer are direct, indirect, or both, and (3) testing whether the effects of academic performance, motivation, and social connectedness are different for retention and transfer. We found that academic performance has large effects on likelihood of retention and transfer; academic self-discipline, pre-college academic performance, and pre-college educational development have indirect effects on retention and transfer; and college commitment and social connectedness have direct effects on retention. Academic self-discipline led to greater first-year academic performance, which suppressed its effect on retention and transfer. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2nd Annual National Symposium on Student Retention, Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 2006.     

Classroom Interpreting and Visual Information Processing in Mainstream Education for Deaf Students: Live or Memorex?

This study examined visual information processing and learning in classrooms including both deaf and hearing students. Of particular interest were the effects on deaf students' learning of live (three-dimensional) versus video-recorded (two-dimensional) sign language interpreting and the visual attention strategies of more and less experienced deaf signers exposed to simultaneous, multiple sources of visual information. Results from three experiments consistently indicated no differences in learning between three-dimensional and two-dimensional presentations among hearing or deaf students. Analyses of students' allocation of visual attention and the influence of various demographic and experimental variables suggested considerable flexibility in deaf students' receptive communication skills. Nevertheless, the findings also revealed a robust advantage in learning in favor of hearing students.     

Massive Open Online Courses: designing for the unknown learner

University teachers are faced with a problem of ‘knowing’ their learners when teaching on a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). This paper explores and analyses what the University of Edinburgh has come to know about its recent MOOC participants, highlighting one particular course. We draw attention to barriers and enablers from co-existent understandings and expectations of course design, and from an abundance of highly qualified participants. We compare characteristics of participants who report a positive experience with those who do not. Mixed messages about teacher presence may have implications that go beyond MOOCs. We contemplate whether the participant group should be seen as a single massive multivocal entity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential opportunity for MOOCs to challenge standardization, homogenization and commodification of education. Shifting attention from the achievements of an individual to what can be done with a multitude, MOOCs may open up new educational arenas.     

What verbal protocols reveal about the reading strategies of deaf students: a replication study

Deaf students' reading strategies were identified by investigating these students' self-reported thinking during reading. In an earlier study (Schirmer, 2003), 10 elementary-level students attending a state school for the deaf had constructed meaning, monitored comprehension and activated strategies to improve comprehension, and evaluated comprehension, but had not demonstrated each of the reading strategies within these three overarching activities, all observed in previous studies of hearing skilled readers. Also, the students used a considerably greater variety of reading strategies for constructing meaning than for the other two activities. The replication study used the same procedure. Six elementary-level students attending a site-based public school classroom for deaf students thought aloud after reading each page of a short story. Analysis of these verbal reports indicated the participants performed similarly to those in the first study, thus supporting the reliability of results regarding reading strategies of readers who are deaf.     

Assessing the impact of a study skills programme on the academic development of nursing diploma students at Northumbria University, UK

Background: The Government's nursing recruitment campaign has widened access for those wishing to enter the profession, resulting in some students entering university with clinical experience but little experience of academic writing or using libraries. For these students, the library and study advice staff have an important role to play in helping them acquire appropriate information literacy and study skills. Objective: To evaluate the impact of workshops supplementing online instruction in study skills on students’ study and writing skills, and level of information literacy. Methods: A small group of pre‐registration nursing students identified as needing support with information literacy and study skills participated in focus groups to identify areas of concern, and were offered four remedial workshops. A follow‐up focus group explored whether the students’ needs had been addressed. Further evaluation of the workshops’ impact was completed by diagnostic testing within the University's information literacy programme, Skills Plus. Outcomes: The results showed that all students who attended at least one workshop improved their academic grade in their next assignment. Qualitative data indicated that the students’ confidence level and information literacy, including referencing skills, had improved. Conclusion: Evaluating the impact of this intervention has provided the evidence to demonstrate the value of this additional support.     

Technological development and political stability: Patenting in Latin America and the Caribbean

We examine the effect of national political institutions on patent application rates. The expected future value of a patent, like any other form of property, depends at least partially on certainty about the future. In circumstances where policy stability is greatest, and hence political uncertainty least, one should expect more aggressive pursuit of intellectual property rights. We test these ideas using a 27 year panel of Latin American and Caribbean nations, estimating US patent applications and domestic patent applications by local inventors for each observation, and holding other economic and technological inputs to innovation constant. Our principal finding is that political stability matters to patenting. For US patent applications institutional system tenure, regardless of system type, increases patent applications. For domestic patent applications, institutional stability has either a weakly negative or insignificant effect, a result we attribute to generally escalating local patenting standards over time. The type of government influences both US and domestic patent applications rates, with a veto-players institutional coding better predicting marginal patenting rates than regime type.