Evaluating Groupware Support for Software Engineering Students

Software engineering tasks, during both development and maintenance, typically involve teamwork using computers. Team members rarely work on isolated computers. An underlying assumption of our research is that software engineering teams will work more effectively if adequately supported by network-based groupware technology. Experience of working with groupware and evaluating groupware systems will also give software engineering students a direct appreciation of the requirements of engineering such systems.     

The influence of heterogeneous exposure and pre-deliberation queries on pretrial publicity effects

Prior research on pretrial publicity has produced mixed results and a roughly equal number of studies show an effect, show no effect, or show mixed results. We explored the effects of (a) homogenous vs. heterogeneous exposure (whether deliberating jurors were all exposed to the same publicity or not) and (b) pre-deliberation queries as potential contributors to mixed results. We found an effect for positive but not negative publicity on conviction rates but not evidence ratings. Exposure heterogeneity appears to explain these differences and pre-deliberation queries did appear to play some role in the obtained outcomes. Overall these findings do not replicate a robust publicity effect and future research should consider how homogeneous exposure and pre-deliberation opinion queries influence results.     

Comics and the Modern Library Catalog: New Rules for Breaking the Rules

Scholarly and curricular uses of comics extend to many disciplines in higher education, resulting in increased demand for institutional access to such materials. Despite nearly twenty years of justification in the literature for inclusion of such materials in libraries, there are not widely adopted conventions or models for engaging in the business of a comics collection. At San Diego State University, this presented an opportunity to pioneer new modes of access, from cataloging and organization to storage and retrieval. This article explores the process of making a collection of floppy comics accessible alongside a theoretical discussion of cataloging shortcomings and opportunities.     

Rats remember not wisely but too well

Rats were trained in a three-alternative spatial delayed matching-to-sample task in a starburst maze. Samples consisted of rewarded forced choices of one arm, and retention was indicated by rats’ returning to that arm after a 90-sec delay. If a rat made an error on its first choice, it was returned to the start compartment and allowed a second choice. Unlike in previous experiments with this task, all three arms were available during the animals’ second choices. The rats tended to perseverate in their second choices by returning to the arm that they had erroneously visited on their first choice. In Experiment 1, the accuracy of second choices following first-choice errors was below chance during the first block of sessions, when a 90-sec delay intervened between the first choice and the second choice, and at chance during the second block of sessions, when a short (5–6 see) delay intervened between first and second choices. In Experiment 2, long-delay and short-delay sessions were randomly presented to naive subjects. Similar results were obtained. In both experiments, the tendency to repeat the erroneous first choice was greater when long delays separated the two choices than when short delays were used. The results suggest that rats make their first-choice errors because they erroneously encode or remember the location of the sample and that they base their second choices on the same erroneous-memory. The increase in perseveration at long delays implies some kind of rehearsal-like mechanism that slows forgetting of the memory controlling the first choice.