Designing a trust evaluation model for open‐knowledge communities

The openness of open‐knowledge communities (OKCs) leads to concerns about the knowledge quality and reliability of such communities. This confidence crisis has become a major factor limiting the healthy development of OKCs. Earlier studies on trust evaluation for Wikipedia considered disadvantages such as inadequate influencing factors and separated the treatment of trustworthiness for users and resources. A new trust evaluation model for OKCs—the two‐way interactive feedback model—is developed in this study. The model has two core components: resource trustworthiness (RT) and user trustworthiness (UT). The model is based on more interaction data, considers the interrelation between RT and UT, and better represents the features of interpersonal trust in reality. Experimental simulation and trial operation for the Learning Cell System, a novel open‐knowledge community developed for ubiquitous learning, show that the model accurately evaluates RT and UT in this example OKC environment.     

Measuring user satisfaction from e-Government services: Lessons from Jordan

User satisfaction is a crucial factor for continual usage of e-Government services and for the success or failure of e-Government projects. The main challenge for Jordanians is what are the key determinants of their satisfaction? This paper aims to identify the key factors that determine Jordanians' e-Satisfaction with Jordan's e-Government services portal. Based on an extensive review of relevant literature, five hypotheses are formulated and five factors are identified (i.e., security and privacy, trust, accessibility, awareness of public services, and quality of public services) that may affect the Jordanians' level of satisfaction towards using the Jordan e-Government portal (www.jordan.gov.jo). Survey data from 400 employees in four universities in the northern region of Jordan were collected and used to test the proposed hypotheses. Based on multiple linear regression and factor analyses, our empirical analysis demonstrates several key findings. These findings indicate the usefulness and importance to unveil the key drivers of e-Satisfaction so as to provide feedback in a set of recommendations that will enable creating e-Government portals which are compatible with citizens' needs, desires, and expectations. They also provide insights for both practitioners and governmental policy-makers to enhance e-Government portals via accounting diverse factors of technical, behavioral, managerial, and motivational aspects. Finally, implications and recommendations of these findings were discussed.     

Students and school characteristics related to elementary school students' views of the nature of science

The purpose of this study is to investigate student- and school-level factors that help to explain the difference in the nature of science (NOS) views. Overall, the design of this study is correlational. The sample consisted of 3062 students enrolled in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades of elementary schools in Turkey. A hierarchical linear modelling was selected as a modelling technique. This study has established the importance of the student's socioeconomic background, learning approaches undertaken, self-efficacy, and motivational goals in the formation of their NOS views. The findings reveal that quality of both the physical infrastructure of schools and the educational resources in schools, parent educational levels, student achievement, self-efficacy, experience of meaningful learning, and learning goal orientation are positively related to different dimensions of student NOS views. Additionally, performance goal orientation and rote learning approaches have a negative relationship with different dimensions of student NOS views.     

Vocational Schools in Turkey: An Administrative and Organizational Analysis

The data used in this paper were derived from a larger project which had the aim of critically evaluating the Turkish vocational education system on a number of different levels. This article examines the administrative and organisational practices in a selected group of secondary vocational schools in Turkey from the point of view of school administrators, teachers and industrial managers. The results indicate that the Turkish vocational education system is characterised by a centralised, top-down bureaucracy, which inhibits innovative capacity. The authors argue that a degree of decentralisation is necessary at various levels of the system.     

Results of a citation analysis of knowledge management in education

The purpose of this study was to examine research and trends in knowledge management in education (KME) published in selected professional sources during the period 1990–2008. Citation analysis was used in this study to investigate documents related to KME, which were indexed in the Web of Science, Education Researches Information Center and ScienceDirect. Knowledge management‐ and educational technology‐related keywords were used jointly in the search for documents. There were a total of 125 documents judged to be relevant to the field of KME and were analysed. As a result of this study, it can be seen that the documents and the number of citations related to the KME field has been continuously increasing since 2005. It is recommended that a combination of citation analysis and other types of analyses should be used in future research studies.     

Changes in organisation of instep kicking as a function of wearing compression and textured materials

This study investigated effects of wearing compression garments and textured insoles on modes of movement organisation emerging during performance of lower limb interceptive actions in association football. Participants were six skilled (age?=?15.67?±?0.74 years) and six less-skilled (age?=?15.17?±?1.1 years) football players. All participants performed 20 instep kicks with maximum velocity in four randomly organised insoles and socks conditions, (a) Smooth Socks with Smooth Insoles (SSSI); (b) Smooth Socks with Textured Insoles (SSTI); (c) Compression Socks with Smooth Insoles (CSSI); and (d), Compression Socks with Textured Insoles (CSTI). Results showed that, when wearing textured and compression materials (CSSI condition), less-skilled participants displayed significantly greater hip extension and flexion towards the ball contact phase, indicating larger ranges of motion in the kicking limb than in other conditions. Less-skilled participants also demonstrated greater variability in knee–ankle intralimb (angle–angle plots) coordination modes in the CSTI condition. Findings suggested that use of textured and compression materials increased attunement to somatosensory information from lower limb movement, to regulate performance of dynamic interceptive actions like kicking, especially in less-skilled individuals.     

Choosing the right imaging method in muscle hernias: musculoskeletal ultrasonography

Muscle hernia (MH) is a focal protrusion of muscle into the overlying subcutaneous tissue through an acquired or congenital facial defect. Herniation in the thigh muscles is not common and there are limited reports evaluating this pathology using ultrasonography (US). A 28-year-old amateur football player presented with a palpable mass on the anterior aspect of his right thigh. Sonographic examination demonstrated a MH through a fascial defect, which is called mushroom appearance. Based on the clinical and sonographic findings, the diagnosis of a MH in the rectus femoris muscle was established. Today, there is no doubt anymore on the role of musculoskeletal US in the field of sports injuries. Therefore, with its various advantages (non-invasive, practical and convenient, inexpensive, etc.), US is the key imaging method in the diagnosis of MHs.