A Game Theoretic Approach to Peer Review of Grant Proposals

This paper studies the grant peer review process employed by the Turkish regional development agencies, which is adapted from a review procedure of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Union. To model this process, we consider a Bayesian strategic-form game played by three reviewers who observe both a common and a private score signal about an evaluated project and assign their scores to minimize the sum of their disutilities from the false acceptance and false rejection of the project. We numerically compute the Bayesian Nash equilibria of this game and conduct several comparative statics exercises, after calibrating the model parameters accordingly. We also introduce two simpler review processes and compare their performances to that of the calibrated process in terms of outcome statistics, involving pass and fail rates of the evaluated projects, and manipulation statistics, involving the reviewers’ manipulation rate and size of scores.     

Web3D技术的教学应用研究

该文主要研究了Web3D技术的基本概念、Web3D技术的实现方法、典型的Web3D技术及Web3D技术在教育教学领域的实际应用,并以实际案例对Web3D技术的教学应用进行了验证性研究。可以预见,在将来的网络教学资源设计和开发研究应用中,Web3D技术一定会具有强大的应用潜力。     

Creating a departmental culture for communication grants

Extramural funding to support communication research influences and is influenced by the culture of our discipline, universities, and departments. Both the National Communication Association and the International Communication Association have established closer ties to funding agencies and encouraged members' grant writing pursuits through mentorship and convention programs, newsletter columns, and publicity. Universities vary in how much support they have available as infrastructure to assist in the submission and administration of grants. Some institutions facilitate extramural funding endeavors through mentoring programs, university-wide research centers, sharing of indirect costs, and space. Department cultures, too, vary in the resources available to support grants. Departments in many ways have the most direct effects on grant-supporting cultures. In addition to activities indicated for the discipline and university, departments can build a grant culture by recognizing grant writing in their personnel practices, creating systems for rewarding and supporting grant activities, and having policies in place for the many related issues (e.g., release time, indirect cost sharing, research assistants). Finally, the interpersonal culture, whether colleagues recognize and support grants, plays a major role in individual pursuit of, and satisfaction with, seeking extramural funding to support communication research.     

Guest reviewers

What if new cars could adjust in-car devices to particular ways of speaking around the world? General Motors sought communication research to inform the design of culturally competent in-car human–machine interfaces. We discuss concerns and tensions that arise when balancing commitments of naturalistic study with design development goals. We emphasize the importance of awareness, attentiveness, and cooperation to ensure research integrity.     

Cloud Computing Basics for Librarians

“Cloud computing” is the name for the recent trend of moving software and computing resources to an online, shared-service model. This article briefly defines cloud computing, discusses different models, explores the advantages and disadvantages, and describes some of the ways cloud computing can be used in libraries. Examples of cloud services are included at the end of the article.     

基于Web的多媒体教学系统结构

基于Web的多媒体教学系统是一个由硬件、软件、教学内容、教学管理机构组成的一体化有机的系统。从系统物质基础、教学系统支撑平台、学生如何进行学习三个方面来考察。     

给多元化评价的实施留出改革的空间——兼议平行志愿推行的得失

多元化评价、多样化选拔已成为高校招生考试制度改革的重要目标取向。本文在多元化评价的视野下,审视当前正在实施与推行的“平行志愿”录取方式的利弊得失,并提出了相应建议,期盼给多元化评价的实施留出改革的空间。     

基于Web的多媒体教学系统结构

基于Web的多媒体教学系统是一个由硬件、软件、教学内容、教学管理机构组成的一体化有机的系统。从系统物质基础、教学系统支撑平台、学生如何进行学习三个方面来考察。     

English language acquisition and educational attainment at the end of secondary school

There has been relatively little empirical research on the impact of stage of fluency in English of bilingual pupils. However, this issue is increasingly important given growth in the bilingual school population in England of over one‐third between 1997 and 2004 to around 10% of the school population. This study evaluates the relationship between stage of English fluency and performance in public examinations at age 16 for all pupils within an inner London local education authority. Two methodological approaches are used to study the associations. The first looks at the context and the trend data for the case‐study local authority (LEA) in terms of languages spoken and the performance of bilingual pupils in schools. This is followed by a detailed statistical regression analysis to isolate the unique association between level of fluency in English and pupils' performance at age 16, after controlling for the effect of a range of other pupil and school background factors. The results confirm a strong relationship between stage of fluency in English and educational attainment, with the performance of bilingual pupils increasing as measured stage of fluency in English increases. Pupils in the early stages of fluency perform at very low levels, while bilingual pupils who are fully fluent in English perform better, on average, than English‐only speakers. However, the latter results are not due to bilingualism per se since the difference is no longer statistically significant after controlling for other measured pupil background variables. All EAL (English as an Additional Language) pupils make better than expected progress over the two years between age 14 and age 16. The final section questions the appropriateness of the Qualification and Curriculum Authority's (QCA) approach to the assessment of bilingual pupils, which contrasts with the local authority's good practice. Based on the findings of this study, we argue that there is a need to develop a national assessment strategy that better meets the needs of bilingual learners. The policy implications for national and local government and for school improvement practitioners are reviewed.     

Active Learning through Modeling: Introduction to Software Development in the Business Curriculum*

Modern software practices call for the active involvement of business people in the software process. Therefore, programming has become an indispensable part of the information systems component of the core curriculum at business schools. In this paper, we present a model‐based approach to teaching introduction to programming to general business students. The theoretical underpinnings of the new approach are metaphor, abstraction, modeling, Bloom's classification of cognitive skills, and active learning. We employ models to introduce the basic programming constructs and their semantics. To this end, we use statecharts to model object's state and the environment model of evaluation as a virtual machine interpreting the programs written in JavaScript. The adoption of this approach helps learners build a sound mental model of the notion of computation process. Scholastic performance, student evaluations, our experiential observations, and a multiple regression statistical test prove that the proposed ideas improve the course significantly.