The Impact of Corporate Media News on Market Valuation

This article explores the influence of Web-based corporate reporting on the investors' valuation of companies in the information and communications technology industry. This study compiled 8,111 news items issued in the “Press Releases” tab of the firms' Web sites between January 2003 and April 2005, and analyzed what type of news items affects stock returns. The results show a positive price reaction to news regarding new customers, completion of acquisitions, strategic long-term decisions, and non-technological alliances. In contrast, the results show a negative price reaction to news regarding the launch of new or upgraded products.     

Grading Multiple Choice Exams with Low-Cost and Portable Computer-Vision Techniques

Although technology for automatic grading of multiple choice exams has existed for several decades, it is not yet as widely available or affordable as it should be. The main reasons preventing this adoption are the cost and the complexity of the setup procedures. In this paper, Eyegrade, a system for automatic grading of multiple choice exams is presented. While most current solutions are based on expensive scanners, Eyegrade offers a truly low-cost solution requiring only a regular off-the-shelf webcam. Additionally, Eyegrade performs both mark recognition as well as optical character recognition of handwritten student identification numbers, which avoids the use of bubbles in the answer sheet. When compared with similar webcam-based systems, the user interface in Eyegrade has been designed to provide a more efficient and error-free data collection procedure. The tool has been validated with a set of experiments that show the ease of use (both setup and operation), the reduction in grading time, and an increase in the reliability of the results when compared with conventional, more expensive systems.     

University teaching experience with the electronic European Language Portfolio: an innovation for the promotion of plurilingualism and interculturality / Experiencia docente universitaria con el Portfolio Europeo de Lenguas electrónico: una innovación para la promoción del plurilingüismo y la interculturalidad

Abstract

This article describes the teaching experience gained from the introduction of the Spanish electronic European Language Portfolio (eELP+14) in the university teaching of the Erasmus Intensive Language Course (EILC) within the Vives Network of Universities. The aim was to seek the views of teachers during their first experimental work with undergraduates in relation to their learning of Catalan culture and language. A pilot study was carried out following a mixed methods methodology, with a QUAN+qual design, through two online ad hoc questionnaires (pretest-posttest). Overall, the tool has been assessed positively with regard to pedagogical aspects (reflection and self-evaluation of the Biography) and communication aspects (the linguistic profile of the Passport), although some difficulties have been highlighted concerning the time students need to dedicate to it and the amount of time they actually have, as well as the need to introduce technological and linguistic improvements. On the one hand, the eELP is recognized as an educational innovation which is entirely suitable for the current university context, and on the other hand, it is considered to have only a moderate influence in the learning of languages and cultures.     

Web and social media usage by museums: Online value creation

This paper contributes to the understanding of online strategies in the context of museums as examples of cultural organisations, an underrepresented sector in the information management literature. It presents a theoretical framework for understanding the online strategies of museums’ use of Web and social media, their sources of online value (efficiency, novelty, lock-in, complementarities) and some measurements of Internet performance, such as the Alexa Internet ranking and the number of followers of museums in social media. This type of analysis has not been conducted before and the findings will help museum curators and managers of other cultural institutions to appreciate the impact of these technologies and to make better informed decisions regarding online strategies and resource allocation. In addition, the results of this research are applicable to similar organisations, such as archives and cultural exhibitions, as well as to other service organisations related to information, education and entertainment activities.     

The development of students’ use of additive and proportional methods along primary and secondary school

This study investigates the development of proportional and additive methods along primary and secondary school. In particular, it simultaneously investigates the use of additive methods in proportional word problems and the use of proportional methods in additive word problems. We have also studied the role played by integer and non-integer relationships between the given numbers and the nature of quantities (discrete or continuous) in the development of these phenomena. A test consisting of additive and proportional missing-value word problems was solved by 755 primary and secondary school students (from fourth to tenth grade). The findings indicate that the use of additive methods in proportional situations increased during primary school and decreased during secondary school, whereas the use of proportional methods in additive situations increased along primary and secondary school. Moreover, the presence or absence of integer ratios strongly affects this behavior, but the nature of quantities only has a small influence on the use of proportional methods.     

Transnationalism at the border: students’ experiences in border schools

To understand the development of educational research traditions, it is essential to scrutinize the internal dynamics of the theoretical and methodological developments within the community of scholars working in the area as well as the social needs that are served by such research. The adoption of qualitative approaches to the study of learning and instruction thus mirrors a complex pattern of changes in the role and use of education as a social resource in modern society. On the Scandinavian scene, the past decades have seen a rapid increase in interest in qualitative research and in philosophical positions such as hermeneutics and phenomenology that imply a qualitative approach to studying phenomena. It is argued that qualitative research is now well established, and that it is essential to further demonstrate its value to shed light on education as a social activity.     

Measuring the local economic impact of universities: an approach that considers uncertainty

The contribution of universities to society is due to the effects generated both in the supply and in the demand side, the latter being associated with the injection of demand as a result of the activities these institutions carry out. This paper focuses on the impact of the demand side by designing a methodology based on Monte Carlo simulations so as to introduce stochastic elements in calculating the economic impact of universities. We apply this methodology to the case of Valencian public universities, introducing stochastic elements in all the elements which imply assumptions with uncertainty. The results highlight the importance of considering uncertainty by generating multipliers which can vary around the average value by 18 % in the case of output and employment, and 10 % in the case of income.     

A Simulation Study Evaluating the Generalized Additive Model for Assessing Intervention Effects with Small Samples

Single subject (SS) designs are popular in educational and psychological research. There exist several statistical techniques designed to analyze such data and to address the question of whether an intervention has the desired impact. Recently, researchers have suggested that generalized additive models (GAMs) might be useful for modeling nonlinear effects that are common with SS designs. This study sought to extend the use of GAM from SS to a research design in which individuals may be placed in separate groups and receive different interventions. Results of the simulation study found that using a mixed model form of GAM (GAMM) resulted in higher power for detecting actual effects in the population than was true for either GAM or a Bayesian GAM estimator. Thus, GAMMs are recommended for use with SS designs when interventions are expected to induce nonlinear relationships between time and the outcome variable and individuals receive different treatments.     

“Talent” and the Misrecognition of Social Advantage in Specialized Arts Education

Attention has been drawn to the persistent underrepresentation of underserved populations in gifted education programs. Though a small number of working-class students, students of color, recent immigrants, and students with limited English proficiency attend these programs, access to gifted education remains closely linked to White and upper-middle-class populations. The question remains: how, in a system that claims to be committed to achieving equity, do such disparities come to be and, furthermore, how are they justified? In this article we attempt to make sense of this phenomenon by examining how discourses of talent are mobilized within the context of a particular kind of gifted education program: a specialized arts program within a Canadian public secondary school.