Teacher e-mail message strategies and students' willingness to communicate online

In light of the prevalent use of e-mail between teachers and students, researchers have highlighted the need to assess its uses and effects. Relying on the research and thinking of teacher immediacy and extra-class communication, we developed a scale that measures those e-mail message strategies that influence students' willingness to communicate online with their teachers. Next, we isolated those reasons that students use e-mail to interact with their teachers: (1) to clarify course material and procedures, (2) as a means of efficient communication, and (3) for personal/social reasons. Finally, we examined student characteristics such as gender and ethnicity, and history of e-mail use that may (or may not) influence their attitudes toward e-mail exchanges with teachers.     

上海深水外港建设设想

本文在分析了上海新港区选址得失的基础上,充分考虑到长江口的自然特点和航道状况,对上海深水外港建设提出了一个新的设想。     

Beyond ‘export education’: aspiring to put students at the heart of a university’s internationalisation strategy

For many universities around the world, internationalisation means the recruitment of fee-paying international students (so-called export education) for primarily commercial reasons. For UK universities, international (non-European Union) students account for approximately 13% of their annual revenues, making them highly dependent on international student recruitment. This paper discusses the attempt by one UK university to change direction and develop a new approach to internationalisation which puts an international learning experience for all students at the heart of its new strategic plan. It discusses the obstacles to changing direction in this way and shares some of the lessons learned about how to roll out an alternative university-wide internationalisation strategy.     

In search of query patterns: A case study of a university OPAC

A transaction log analysis of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) OPAC was conducted to identify query and search failure patterns with the goal of identifying areas of improvement for the system. One semester’s worth of OPAC transaction logs were obtained and from these, 641,991 queries were extracted and used for this work. Issues investigated included query length, frequency and type of search options and Boolean operators used as well as their relationships with search failure. Among other findings, results indicate that a majority of the queries were simple, with short query lengths and a low usage of Boolean operators. Failure analysis revealed that on average, users had an almost equal chance of obtaining no records or at least one record to a submitted query. We propose enhancements and suggest future areas of work to improve the users’ search experience with the NTU OPAC.     

A novel controller design and evaluation for networked control systems with time-variant delays

A new delayed state-variable model for networked control systems is presented, upon which a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) is designed. A method of delays-estimation online is also given. A fuzzy logic with LQR controller is addressed for the difficulty on implementation of LQR in networked control systems (NCSs) with time-variant delays. Simulation results prove that the novel controller can make the system stable and robustly preserve the performance in terms of time-variant delays.     

参考咨询服务在信息时代的拓展

文章首先论述了信息时代参考咨询服务的发展走向，然后论述了面临新的环境，参考咨询服务必须拓展服务方式、服务内容。     

Domesticating Computers and the Internet

The people who use computers and the ways they use them have changed substantially over the past 25 years. In the beginning highly educated people, mostly men, in technical professions used computers for work, but over time a much broader range of people are using computers for personal and domestic purposes. This trend is still continuing, and over a shorter time scale has been replicated with the use of the Internet. This paper uses data from four national surveys to document how personal computers and the Internet have become increasingly domesticated since 1995 and to explore the mechanisms for this shift. Now people log on more often from home than from places of employment and do so for pleasure and for personal purposes rather than for their jobs. Analyses comparing veteran Internet users to novices in 1998 and 2000 and analyses comparing the change in use within a single sample between 1995 and 1996 support two complementary explanations for how these technologies have become domesticated. Women, children, and less well-educated individuals are increasingly using computers and the Internet and have a more personal set of motives than well-educated men. In addition, the widespread diffusion of the PC and the Internet and the response of the computing industry to the diversity in consumers has led to a rich set of personal and domestic services.     

Using the Content of Online Privacy Notices to Inform Public Policy: A Longitudinal Analysis of the 1998-2001 U.S. Web Surveys

In the United States, Congress has had a long-standing interest in consumer privacy and the extent to which company practices are based on fair information practices. Previously, public policy was largely informed by anecdotal evidence about the effectiveness of industry self-regulatory programs. However, the Internet has made it possible to unobtrusively sample web sites and their privacy disclosures in a way that is not feasible in the offline world. Beginning in 1998, the Federal Trade Commission relied upon a series of three surveys of web sites to assess whether organizations post online privacy disclosures and whether these disclosures represent the U.S. definition of fair information practices. While each year's survey has provided an important snapshot of U.S. web-site practices, there has been no longitudinal analysis of the multiyear trends. This study compares a subset of equivalent individual-level web-site data for the 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 web surveys. Implications for using this type of research to inform public policy are discussed.     

Researching Internet Communities: Proposed Ethical Guidelines for the Reporting of Results

Communication researchers and social scientists are quickly discovering the value of data that exists in the postings of members of Internet e-mail, Usenet, and real-time groups. The ability to communicate with one's peers, no matter how esoteric the interests, is causing an explosion in the number of new virtual communities. The interpersonal dynamics of these groups are increasingly coming under the scrutiny of academic research. The publicly available archived records of Internet virtual communities are being analyzed for a wide variety of research interests. The ability to do naturalistic observations of group dynamics, as they are exhibited in these exchanges of text, has captured the attention of many researchers. The institutional review boards of major universities are granting researchers exempt or expedited (exempt from full review) status for this work, due to the public nature of the notes being analyzed. These studies often involve the lack of informed consent, where the group members under study are unaware they are being monitored. There is a potential for psychological harm to the members of these groups, depending on the way results are reported. This article explores the ethical considerations that must be taken into account to protect cyberspace participants. The guidelines proposed are based on the American Psychological Association ethical guidelines for use of human subjects in research. An explanation is offered as to how such guidelines can best be applied to the study of Internet communities. The constructs of Group Accessibility (the public/private nature of the actual cyberspace occupied by a group) and Perceived Privacy (the level of privacy that group members assume they have) are defined and proposed as two dimensions by which individual Internet communities may be evaluated in order to assure the ethical reporting of research findings.     

我国化学领域青年科技人才论文产出分析——以前5批青年千人为例

[目的/意义]目前，高层次人才引进已经成为我国提升科研实力的重要举措，考察人才引进后的论文产出情况，有助于掌握人才计划的实施效果。[方法/过程]文章通过Web of Science数据库下载题录信息，借助Bibexcel、CiteSpace和VOSViewer软件对前5批化学领域青年千人引进后发表论文的数量、结构、影响力、合作网络和基金支持情况进行分析。[结果/结论]研究发现，青年千人发表论文总数呈逐年上升趋势，论文平均被引高于化学领域国内和国际平均水平；存在若干已经形成规模的作者合作网络和机构合作网络，机构合作以国内机构合作为主；通过软件分析，青年千人研究的内容可以分为5个主要类别，分别是化学生物学、有机合成化学、新化学能源研究、高分子化学与物理、无机纳米材料；论文获得基金资助的水平高于全国论文项目资助的平均水平。研究提出通过建立合作网络、扩大合作网络规模，增加高影响力期刊发文数量，加强国际合作发表论文等建议提高中国化学研究的国际竞争力。