Life Cycle Management Considerations of Remotely Sensed Geospatial Data and Documentation for Long Term Preservation

As geospatial missions age, one of the challenges for the usability of data is the availability of relevant and updated metadata with sufficient documentation that can be used by future generations of users to gain knowledge from the original data. Given that remote sensing data undergo many intermediate processing steps, for example, an understanding of the exact algorithms employed and the quality of that data produced could be key considerations for these users. As interest in global climate data is increasing, documentation about older data, their origins, and their provenance are valuable to first-time users attempting to perform historical climate research or comparative analysis of global change. Incomplete or missing documentation could be what stands in the way of a new researcher attempting to use the data. Therefore, preservation of documentation and related metadata is sometimes just as critical as the preservation of the original observational data. The Goddard Earth Sciences–Data and Information Service Center (GES DISC), a NASA Earth science Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) that falls under the management structure of the Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS), is actively pursuing the preservation of all necessary artifacts needed by future users.

In this article, we will detail the data custodial planning and the data lifecycle process developed for content preservation, and our implementation of a Preservation System to safeguard documents and associated artifacts from legacy (older) missions, as well as detail lessons learned regarding access rights and confidentiality of information issues. We also elaborate on key points that made our preservation effort successful; the primary points being drafting of a governing baseline for historical data preservation from satellite missions and using the historical baseline as a guide to content filtering of what documents to preserve. The Preservation System currently archives documentation content for High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS), Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) mission data, and the 1960s era Nimbus mission. Documentation from other missions like the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), and the Atmospheric Infra-Red Sounder (AIRS) are also slated to be added to this repository, as well as other mission datasets to be preserved at the GES DISC.     

Effort Analysis: Individual Score Validation of Achievement Test Data

Whenever the purpose of measurement is to inform an inference about a student’s achievement level, it is important that we be able to trust that the student’s test score accurately reflects what that student knows and can do. Such trust requires the assumption that a student’s test event is not unduly influenced by construct-irrelevant factors that could distort his score. This article examines one such factor—test-taking motivation—that tends to induce a person-specific, systematic negative bias on test scores. Because current measurement models underlying achievement testing assume students respond effortfully to test items, it is important to identify test scores that have been materially distorted by non-effortful test taking. A method for conducting effort-related individual score validation is presented, and it is recommended that measurement professionals have a responsibility to identify invalid scores to individuals who make inferences about student achievement on the basis of those scores.     

The Problems with the Future: Educational Futurism and the Figural Child

This article contributes to work on temporality in education. Challenging the future‐oriented focus in contemporary education, the authors question how ideas and assumptions regarding the future—centred on the Child—can set narrow boundaries around children in schools. In carrying out this task, we employ the work of Lee Edelman and John Dewey to examine the educational ramifications of the focus on the future, which we call ‘educational futurism’. The argument seeks specifically to explore how educational futurism imposes limits on educational discourse and privileges a certain future—making it unthinkable to imagine ways outside of such a privileged future. Juxtaposing Lee Edelman and John Dewey, we draw out connections and disconnections between their disparate philosophies, illustrating the ways in which educational futurism ignores or overlooks the lived experiences of children. We conclude by briefly noting the queerness of children and the impact of such queerness on broadening discussions of the future of children and their educations.     

Competency,epistemology and pedagogy: curriculums holy trinity

In this era of heightened calls for accountability and standards, clear visions of competence are more necessary than ever and, moreover, these planned products of education need explicit articulation. Such articulation falls within the purview of the formal curriculum and it is with this that the present article concerns itself. It draws on a past Ontario, Canada curricular initiative, The Common Curriculum, as the vehicle through which to examine the difficulties inherent in spelling out a conception of competence. Such difficulties, it is argued, stem from the inextricable link between definitions of competence and their associated epistemological and pedagogical implications.