Assessing Anonymous Communication on the Internet: Policy Deliberations

Anonymous communication on the Internet offers new opportunities but has ill-understood risks. This article helps to ground the policy debates by examining some fundamental aspects of anonymous social behavior and current controversies over anonymous communications. It is a companion to the article in this issue, "Anonymous Communication Policies for the Internet: Results and Recommendations of the AAAS Conference." It examines the social character of anonymous communication and the ways that anonymous communication has played important roles for professionals such as journalists and the police. It also explains some of the new technological supports for anonymous communication on the Internet. The openness, decentralization, and transnational character of the Internet challenge the efficacy of traditional control mechanisms and have raised issues related to accountability, law enforcement, security and privacy, governmental empowerment, and e-commerce. Yet, to ban or restrict all anonymous communication online because of the harms it could bring would deny its benefits to those people who may legitimately gain from it. This article helps to understand how to balance these positions.     

New directions for lifelong learning using network technologies

The requirements placed on learning technologies to support lifelong learning differ considerably from those placed on technologies to support particular fragments of a learning lifetime. The time scales involved in lifelong learning, together with its multi‐institutional and episodic nature are not reflected in today’s mainstream learning technologies and their associated architectures. The article presents an integrated model and architecture to serve as the basis for the realisation of networked learning technologies serving the specific needs and characteristics of lifelong learners. The integrative model is called a ‘Learning Network’ (LN) and its requirements and architecture are explored, together with the ways in which its application can help in reducing barriers to lifelong learning.     

What can Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) offer academic development?

Abstract

Academic development is often seen as a compliance activity, divorced from the teaching context and what teachers are trying to achieve in their classroom. In this case study, we researched Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) as a reflective, non-judgmental approach to help tutors identify coherence between their teaching intentions and practice. Our results provided evidence that IPR helped tutors reflect on ways to improve their teaching. It also led to unexpected ‘discoveries’ not typically afforded by conventional academic development. We conclude that IPR offers a formative, teacher-focussed and contextual approach that has not been clearly defined in the literature. We offer the IPR model followed in this study for academic developers and researchers alike.     

Two New Statistics to Detect Answer Copying

Two new indices to detect answer copying on a multiple-choice test—S₁ and S₂—were proposed. The S₁ index is similar to the K index (Holland, 1996) and the K₂ index (Sotaridona & Meijer, 2002) but the distribution of the number of matching incorrect answers of the source and the copier is modeled by the Poisson distribution instead of the binomial distribution to improve the detection rate of K and K₂. The S₂ index was proposed to overcome a limitation of the K and K₂ index, namely, their insensitiveness to correct answers copying. The S₂ index incorporates the matching correct answers in addition to the matching incorrect answers. A simulation study was conducted to investigate the usefulness of S₁ and S₂ for 40- and 80-item tests, 100 and 500 sample sizes, and 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% answer copying. The Type I errors and detection rates of S₁ and S₂ were compared with those of the K₂ and the ω copying index (Wollack, 1997). Results showed that all four indices were able to maintain their Type I errors, with S₁ and K₂ being slightly conservative compared to S₂ and ω. Furthermore, S₁ had higher detection rates than K₂. The S₂ index showed a significant improvement in detection rate compared to K and K₂.     

Professionalisation of operating department practice: an evolutionary perspective

The health care professionals staffing the operating theatres of UK hospitals are pursuing a professionalisation agenda based around increasing the academic level of the credential required for entry to their professional register. This paper explores the impact of this on registered Operating Department Practitioners (ODPs) and Theatre Nurses by proposing a theory of professionalisation as an inter- and intra-professional evolutionary process, which resonates with the Red Queen's Hypothesis. The findings show how registered professionals carry out a benchmarking exercise to determine the most suitable route of professional development. The ODPs and nurses who decide to participate in credentialised continuing professional development do so to remain competitive with the new breed of graduates entering the profession. However, their continued study only serves to bring them to the level of the new breed professionals; they are running fast to stand still. We explore and comment on the ripple of behaviours the rise in academic credential produces.     

Using visual support in preschool phonemic segmentation training

In an earlier training study we found that the use of visual support in phonemic segmentation training provided no additional value for poor readers and spellers from schools for children with learning disabilities, having problems segmenting speech (Kerstholt, van Bon & Schreuder 1994). Previous research (e.g., Hohn & Ehri 1983) suggests, however, that visual support – such as alphabet letters – does facilitate the segmentation teaching of preschoolers. Hence, it was expected that visual support would be beneficial in phonemic segmentation training only prior to formal reading and spelling instruction. The purpose of the present study was to test this expectation. One group of preschoolers was trained in phonemic segmentation with diagrams and alphabet letters as visual support, another group was trained without visual help. Results show the preschoolers to improve their phonemic segmentation, reading and spelling skill significantly. It made no difference, however, whether the children were trained in phonemic segmentation with or without the help of visual support. The findings of the present study and those of our earlier study indicate visual support to be useful in phonemic segmentation training only under certain conditions. It is suggested that differences in orthographic properties of the languages involved may explain the difference between the Anglo-Saxon studies that did show an additional effect of letters and a number of Dutch studies that did not.