Population differences in constructive memory

An experiment was conducted to evaluate constructive memory in fourth-grade low-SES black and middle-SES white children. The children were read nine short passages; each passage was composed of two premise statements and a filler sentence. The children were tested by a recognition procedure. Thirty-six test sentences were presented randomly. Four sentences were associated with each passage (true premise, false premise, true inference, and false inference). Subjects were asked to make yes/no recognition decisions based on whether the test sentence was identical to a sentence presented at study. Middle-SES white children made few errors, except to true inference test sentences. This pattern of performance is consistent with the constructive view of memory. Low-SES black children also had a high error rate to true inference items. However, this outcome may not reflect constructive memory because they also had a high error rate to some of the other types of test sentences.     

Using Questionnaires in Teacher Research

Teacher research is described as being beneficial and yet it is hampered by teachers' lack of knowledge about research, including how to use popular research methods. Given that accounts by teachers describing their use of such methods in a systematic manner might prove useful for their peers, this article describes my experience of using a questionnaire in teacher research.     

Preparing a Data Scientist: A Pedagogic Experience in Designing a Big Data Analytics Course

In this article, we present an experiential perspective on how a big data analytics course was designed and delivered to students at a major Midwestern university. In reference to the MSIS 2006 Model Curriculum, we designed this course as a level 2 course, with prerequisites in databases, computer programming, statistics, and data mining. Students in the class were mostly seniors or at the graduate level, and had a strong technical and quantitative background. We include details of concepts covered in the course, as well as summaries of four major sample course assignments used. Some of the concepts covered include large‐scale data collection and management using the Hadoop ecosystem, stream mining, visual analytics, and social network analytics. Besides Hadoop, the course also introduced various IBM and Teradata big data tools. We show how the course modules align with the intended learning goals and course objectives. A post‐course survey indicated that the structure and organization of the course helped students clearly and concisely assimilate the course content.     

Closing the Gap Between Photojournalist Research and Photojournalism Practice: Exploring the Motivations of the Subjects of Sensitive Photo Essays

This study is the first to inquire about the factors that influence people’s willingness to allow professional photojournalists to tell their stories through the medium of the photo essay. Guided by Self-Disclosure Theory, in-depth interviews were conducted with the subjects of 15 peer-judged award-winning photo essays. These were drawn from the multiple picture categories of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Monthly Clip Contest, the annual NPPA Best of Photojournalism Contest, and the annual World Press Photo Contest between 2013 and 2017. The topics of the photo essays were sensitive in nature. Analysis reveals support and appreciation amongst photo-essay subjects for the profession of photojournalism. Motivations derived from the sensitivity and professionalism with which each interviewee was initially approached, a need to tell a different side of the story, a desire to inspire others or invoke change, and the memory-keeping and permanence afforded through published professional photojournalism.     

State of the library and information science blogosphere after social networks boom: A metric approach

A metric analysis of blogs on library and information science (LIS) between November 2006 and June 2009 indexed on the Libworm search engine characterizes the community's behavior quantitatively. An analysis of 1108 personal and corporate blogs with a total of 275,103 posts is used to calculate survival rate, production (number of posts published), and visibility via such indicators as links received, Technorati authority, and Google's PagePank. Over the study period, there was a 52% decrease in the number of active blogs. Despite the drop in production over this period, the average number of posts per blog remained constant (14 per month). The most representative blogs in the discipline are identified. The emergence of such platforms as Facebook and Twitter seems to have meant that both personal and corporate blogs have lost some of their prominence.     

The European university landscape: A micro characterization based on evidence from the Aquameth project

This paper provides a new and systematic characterization of 488 universities, from 11 European countries: Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and UK. Using micro indicators built on the integrated Aquameth database, we characterize the European university landscape according to the following dimensions: history/foundation of university, dynamics of growth, specialization pattern, subject mix, funding composition, offer profile and productivity.