Facilitating flexible learning by replacing classroom time with an online learning environment: A systematic review of blended learning in higher education

Higher education institutions are trying to provide more flexibility and individualization, which is mainly realized through the use of new technologies and implemented in online or blended learning designs. This systematic review aims to investigate the impact of replacing classroom time with an online learning environment. The meta-analysis (k = 21 effect sizes) applied strict inclusion criteria concerning research design, measurement of learning outcomes and implementation of blended learning. The estimated effect size (Hedge's g) was positive, although not significantly different from zero and the confidence interval [-0.13, 0.25], suggesting that overall differences between blended and conventional classroom learning are small, and, at best, very small negative or moderate positive effects are plausible. This means that despite a reduction in classroom time between 30 and 79 per cent, equivalent learning outcomes were found. Consequently, blended learning with reduced classroom time is not systematically more or less effective than conventional classroom learning.     

The RIX Wiki: the use of multimedia advocacy to support person-centred planning in a special needs secondary school – implications for current policy and practice

The article documents findings from a pilot study undertaken in 2012–2013 in a special needs secondary school in the England, that trialled the use of a multimedia advocacy tool, “The RIX Wiki”. The trial was part of the pathfinder programme, which aimed to reform existing Special Education Needs provision, from the system of statementing to one of developing education health care plans. The reforms became enshrined in the Children and Families Act (2014). The findings were overall positive and helped with person-centred planning processes. The discussion is framed within current and future policy directives. We argue that multimedia advocacy approaches and software tools, like the “RIX Wiki” will have a continued role to play in ensuring the needs, aspirations and choices of children and young people with learning disabilities remain central.     

高职院校学习预警平台的构建及其实证分析

开展信息化、智慧化预警工作是实现全面精准育人的重要途径,而预警应用平台无疑是预警工作的有力工具和实践载体,其设计方案应用效果的好坏直接决定着学习预警信息化愿景的达成度。文章在分析高职院校学习预警工作现状的基础上,从工作流程设计、平台框架设计和平台建设方法等3个方面提出了解决方案,并对平台的应用效果进行了实证分析,结果表明:平台的应用扩展了预警范围、提升了预警的精准度和时效性、提高了工作效率,且干预更为灵活、个性化,可为当前高职院校学习危机的实践改革提供新思路。     

Meeting Information Needs through Global Partnerships: A Roadmap to Becoming a Global Health Sciences Library

Abstract

Supporting global health priorities through the development of robust health science librarianship partnerships is of significant importance. Increased demand for synthesizing evidence-based information, collating quality resources, and increasing research productivity to improve human health requires integration of library and information science skills and expertise. The Health Sciences Library (HSL) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), exists to be an indispensable partner in health information and knowledge, teaching and learning, and research. As global efforts at UNC expanded, the HSL sought to ensure that our global engagement strategy and integration were aligned with campus priorities and partner needs. The HSL created a global research partnership plan: identify resources that improve efficiency, increase access to information, build in-country capacity and expertise—all while strengthening collaborations across multiple countries. Creating a meaningful and sustainable engagement strategy was central to envisioning our path forward and can be used as a framework for consideration by librarians in similar settings.     

Quality flaw prediction in Spanish Wikipedia: A case of study with verifiability flaws

In this work, we present the first quality flaw prediction study for articles containing the two most frequent verifiability flaws in Spanish Wikipedia: articles which do not cite any references or sources at all (denominated Unreferenced) and articles that need additional citations for verification (so-called Refimprove). Based on the underlying characteristics of each flaw, different state-of-the-art approaches were evaluated. For articles not citing any references, a well-established rule-based approach was evaluated and interesting findings show that some of them suffer from Refimprove flaw instead. Likewise, for articles that need additional citations for verification, the well-known PU learning and one-class classification approaches were evaluated. Besides, new methods were compared and a new feature was also proposed to model this latter flaw. The results showed that new methods such as under-bagged decision trees with sum or majority voting rules, biased-SVM, and centroid-based balanced SVM, perform best in comparison with the ones previously published.     

欧洲阅读联盟(EURead)推广阅读活动与启示

[目的/意义]欧洲阅读联盟是欧洲社会力量开展阅读活动的母平台，联盟成员所开展的阅读活动既有差异，也有共性，社会影响力大。通过对欧洲阅读联盟成员所办阅读活动及其规律的分析，可为我国公共图书馆主导与开展阅读活动提供借鉴。[方法/过程]概述欧洲阅读联盟，对其成员类型进行解析，并对每一成员的阅读项目进行共性分析，凝练出阅读活动的经验及规律。[结果/结论]我国应建立多级阅读推广力量，建立政府购买阅读服务长效机制，开放图书馆的阅读活动空间，提升阅读活动频率，开发多样化、差异化的阅读活动。     

基于深度学习的中文专利自动分类方法研究

[目的/意义] 面向当前国内专利审查和专利情报分析工作中对于海量专利分类的客观需求，设计了7种基于深度学习的专利自动分类方法，对比各种方法的分类效果，从而助力专利分类效率和效果的提升。[方法/过程] 针对传统机器学习方法存在的缺陷，基于Word2Vec、CNN、RNN、Attention机制等深度学习技术，考虑专利文本语序特征、上下文特征以及分类关键特征，设计Word2Vec+TextCNN、Word2Vec+GRU、Word2Vec+BiGRU、Word2Vec+BiGRU+TextCNN等7种深度学习模型，以中国专利为例，选取IPC主分类号的"部"作为分类依据，对比这7种模型与3种传统分类模型在中文专利分类任务中的效果。[结果/结论] 实证研究效果显示，采用考虑语序特征、上下文特征及强化关键特征的深度学习方法进行中文专利分类具有更优的分类效果。     

A Bioethos for Bodies: Respecting a Priceless Resource

The value that willed body donors provide to medical education is priceless. Their precious gift helps to teach anatomy, spatial relationships between morphological structures, anatomical variation, and professionalism to medical students in a way that plastic models, podcasts, and lectures cannot. They are also an important resource for medical research and a wide variety of postgraduate training opportunities. While many body donation programs throughout the world are nonprofit organizations, there are body donation companies in the United States that sell donors for-profit. These “body brokers” have accumulated large profits from this business. It is incongruous that others would profit from such a priceless, freely donated gift. To prevent this incongruity, it is proposed that the international anatomical community develop a normative culture (a bioethos) for body donation programs. This would involve the conscious and systematic development of ethical principles for the day-to-day policies and practices of institutions that collect and use human bodies. With the development of this bioethos, a cultural shift in how donors are treated would occur and, over time, this would become the normal practice. These principles would become fundamental and foundational for the procurement and use of priceless human tissues.     

An analysis of review content and reviewer variables that contribute to review helpfulness

Review helpfulness is attracting increasing attention of practitioners and academics. It helps in reducing risks and uncertainty faced by users in online shopping. This study examines uninvestigated variables by looking at not only the review characteristics but also important indicators of reviewers. Several significant review content and two reviewer variables are proposed and an effective review helpfulness prediction model is built using stochastic gradient boosting learning method. This study derived a mechanism to extract novel review content variables from review text. Six popular machine learning models and three real-life Amazon review data sets are used for analysis. Our results are robust to several product categories and along three Amazon review data sets. The results show that review content variables deliver the best performance as compared to the reviewer and state-of-the-art baseline as a standalone model. This study finds that reviewer helpfulness per day and syllables in review text strongly relates to review helpfulness. Moreover, the number of space, aux verb, drives words in review text and productivity score of a reviewer are also effective predictors of review helpfulness. The findings will help customers to write better reviews, help retailers to manage their websites intelligently and aid customers in their product purchasing decisions.     

Proclaiming Library Worth in a Program Prioritization Process at a Mid-Sized Public University

Abstract

In an economic climate when colleges can no longer presume that legislators see institutions of higher learning as tacit public goods, institutions around the country are facing budget cuts. This article presents a case study of the experience of a mid-sized public state university and its Library in a budget crisis undergoing a university-wide program prioritization process. The authors review the process of writing three reports on the Library’s value, along with the approach to engaging staff in the process including a retreat. This article raises questions about what every library should consider assessing and provide tools for libraries navigating similar terrain.