Understanding crowdsourcing projects: A systematic review of tendencies,workflow, and quality management

Crowdsourcing is a powerful method that leverages human intelligence to solve problems in the medical, linguistics, machine learning, and in a considerable number of other fields of study. This systematic review aims to understand how crowdsourcing projects are designed and executed in the state-of-the-art, considering the following dimensions: Task execution, quality management, and platform usage. Our results summarized trends of the important aspects of a crowdsourcing project, such as crowd and task types, crowdsourcing platforms, and activities used to manage the quality; we also addressed functions and limitations in traditional crowdsourcing platforms, the definition of a crowdsourcing workflow, and the lack of standardization when developing a crowdsourcing project. As future works, we wish to design a conceptual model that represents the important elements of a crowdsourcing project and their relationships, also, we wish to do further researchers focusing on how the quality mechanisms listed in this work should be used in crowdsourcing projects to get reliable results.     

Philosophical Kinanthropology (Philosophy of Physical Culture,Philosophy of Sport) in Slavonic Countries: The Culture,the Writers,and the Current Directions

Until recently, English-speaking scholars have had few outlets to review the philosophy of sport literature generated in Slavonic countries. Existing English texts of this nature consist primarily of review essays providing little historical and cultural context from which to understand the development of specific tendencies in lines of inquiry from this part of the world (23,24,27). This article attempts to fill this gap in understanding by 1) briefly describing the cultural history of the Slavonic region, and, within this context, 2) identifying key sport philosophers and their current trends of philosophic thought in sporting practices. It is hoped that this project will better inform scholars of the philosophy of sport research being done in Slavonic nations, will advance new scholarship in the English-speaking world, and will encourage more international collaboration within the discipline of philosophical kinanthropology     

Musikalische Aktivitäten von Kindern und Jugendlichen

This article deals with playing a musical instrument as an important form of music related activities in the development and socialization of children and youth. The authors discuss aspects of arts education and reflect concepts of interest. They focus on the musical socialization and its contexts of today, so the question, which children and young persons are playing an instrument as well as a systematic analysis of places where adolescents are playing music. The self-organized and non-goal oriented learning processes in music activities are focused, reflecting theories of social inequalities. The results of the empirical findings show differences related to social class in playing an instrument and its choice, but not in places where music is done. Especially if adolescents play an instrument with corresponding interest, intensity, forms of activities and motifs of playing do not differ by social background.     

Psychometric Properties of the Portuguese Version of the Compassionate Love for Close Others and Humanity Scale among Older People

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Compassionate Love for Close Others and for Strangers and Humanity Scale (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005 Sprecher , S. , & Fehr , B. ( 2005 ). Compassionate love for close others and humanity . Journal of Social and Personal Relationships , 22 , 629 – 651 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) among older people. The psychometric properties of the two versions of the scale were analyzed by means of factor analysis, internal consistency, and criterion-related validity methods. The exploratory factor analysis supported a one-dimensional structure of the scale. The Compassionate Love for Close Others and for Strangers and Humanity Scale presented good psychometric properties, with satisfactory levels of internal consistency. The criterion-related validity of the scale was established by correlating compassionate love for others and for humanity with forgiveness, gratitude, and religiosity. Those who experience high levels of compassionate love for close others and strangers/humanity were more likely to report unconditional forgiveness, gratitude, and religiosity. The Portuguese version of the Compassionate Love for Close Others and for Strangers and Humanity Scale seems to be reliable and valid. The significance and limitations of the results are discussed.     

Analysis of the Methods and Research Topics in a Sample of the Brazilian Distance Education Publications, 1992 to 2007

Abstract

The objective of this study was to identify the methodological approaches employed in a sample of Brazilian distance education scientific literature and compare with similar publications in the United States. Brazilian sample articles (N = 983) published in several journals and meetings were compared with a sample of articles published in The American Journal of Distance Education (AJDE) from 1987 to 2006. A categorization system based on Gall, Gall, and Borg (2006 Gall, J. P., Gall, M. D. and Borg, W. R. 2007. Educational research: An introduction, Boston: Pearson.  [Google Scholar]) and Lee, Driscoll, and Nelson (2007) Lee, Y. and Driscoll, M. P. 2007. “Trends in research: A content analysis of major journals”. In Handbook of distance education, 2nd, Edited by: Moore, M. G. 31–41. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.  [Google Scholar] was used. The methodological approach employed in the Brazilian sample was predominantly qualitative, and this feature remained largely unchanged over the past seven years. The predominant research method continues to be exploratory, followed by case studies. Of note, the most frequent research topic in AJDE articles was evaluation, contrasting with the predominant topic of management in Brazilian publications.     

Environmental education research in Brazil: some highlights from theses and dissertations

Abstract

This article discusses an analysis of abstracts of Brazilian theses and dissertations on environmental education from a database organised and maintained by a group of researchers in the EArt Project (www.earte.net). In presenting extracts of key trends in this dataset, our aim is to provide a snapshot of the many possible approaches to, and histories of, Brazilian environmental education research. The data also allow us to raise some questions that explore possible ‘blank spots’, ‘blind spots’ and ‘bald spots’ in Brazilian research on environmental education. Given the temporal development of the research field since the 1980s, we illustrate these ‘spots’ by exploring data related to epistemological and methodological diversity, from the viewpoint of knowledge areas as well as the graduate programmes that have been developing research on environmental education. Finally, we draw a picture of the methodological trends that have been privileged by Brazilian researchers, and pose questions as to what is needed in shaping an agenda for research on environmental education in Brazil into the future.     

Number of days required for reliably estimating physical activity and sedentary behaviour from accelerometer data in older adults

The purpose of the study was to examine the minimum number of monitoring days for reliably estimating physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) from accelerometer data in older adults. Forty-two older adults from a local senior centre participated in this study. Participants wore an ActiGraph wGT3X-BT on the right hip for 7 consecutive days. Accelerometer data were downloaded to a computer and converted to activity count data in 60s epochs. Time spent in SB and different PA intensity categories were estimated with commonly used activity count cut-points. Participants with at least 7 valid days of monitoring (≥10 h^.day^?1) were included in the analysis. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated for determining single-day monitoring reliability. The Spearman-Brown prophecy formula was used to estimate the minimum number of monitoring days required for achieving an ICC of 0.80. Single-day ICC values for time spent in SB and PA intensity categories ranged from 0.45 to 0.61. Minimum number of monitoring days required for achieving an ICC of 0.80 ranged from 2.5 to 4.9 days. In this study, a minimum of 5 consecutive days of monitoring was required for reliably estimating SB and PA from accelerometer data in older adults.     

Winter outdoor trekking: spiritual aspects of environmental education

This text deals with the potential spiritual aspects of being outdoors within the framework of non-formal and informal education. The course being examined was organized by the Vacation School of Lipnice – Outward Bound Czech Republic, and the participants in this course made up the research sample. While the research was not directly focused on the spiritual dimension of the human way of being, our analysis of the interviews (n = 12) and the results of the Prague Spirituality Questionnaire (n = 10) indicate a connection between the fortnight spent trekking through the winter landscape and spirituality in terms of the educational potential it has for personal development. The data obtained in the interviews may be structured into the following main semantic fields connected with nature: naturalness, the element of fire, senses, aesthetic perceptions, bad weather, and spiritual dimension. In the questionnaire respondents were inclined to include factors such as ethical enthusiasm, sense of belonging, and deep ecology. The results may be interpreted as suggesting that due to the immediacy of direct experience the two-week-long trekking journey in the winter landscape (snowshoeing and camping in tents) reinforces a dimension of environmental education that surpasses any rational verification and enters the spiritual realms.