4,182 research outputs found
An integrated approach to preparing, publishing, presenting and preserving theses
[Abstract]: This paper describes progress on a project funded by the Australian government to create Free
software; the Integrated Content Environment for research and scholarship (ICE-RS). ICE-RS is a
multi-faceted project which will add value to finished theses by making them available in both
HTML and PDF, as well as providing a mechanism for packaging multimedia theses. The project
will also concentrate on providing services for thesis production, with version control, automated
backup and collaboration services.
The paper begins with the established content management system that is the basis for the
project, ICE-RS , originally developed to create courseware packages. ICE includes distributed, version
controlled collaboration, using word processing software and works on multiple platforms, with
standard document formats. We survey other approaches to content authoring and publishing for
ETDs.
We showcase exploratory work on integration of the thesis writing process with Institutional
Repository software including publishing theses in both PDF and HTML with preservation and
descriptive metadata. The presentation will include demonstrations of thesis production at all stages
of development from proposal to completion.
In a more speculative vein, we will discuss opportunities for institutions to provide new levels of
support for candidates via automated thesis âdashboardâ progress reports, supervisor and examiner
annotation and comment and support for copyright considerations as early as possible in the
process
"Do screen captures in manuals make a difference?": a comparison between textual and visual manuals
Examines the use of screen captures in manuals. Three types of manuals were compared: one textual and two visual. The two visual manuals differed in the type of screen capture that was used. One had screen captures that showed only the relevant part of the screen, whereas the other consisted of captures of the full screen. All manuals contained exactly the same textual information. We examined immediate use on time (use as a job aid) and on learning (use as a teacher). For job-aid purposes, there was no difference between the manuals. The visual manual with full-screen captures and the textual manual were both better for learning than the visual manual with partial screen captures. We found no effect on user motivation. The tentative conclusion of this study is that screen captures seem not to be vital for learning or immediate use. If one opts for including screen captures, then the conclusion is that full-screen captures are better than partial one
Towards using online portfolios in computing courses
The direct experience we had with teaching a summer pre-college computing course in which we adopted an online portfolio approach has led us to consider the use of online portfolios in our regular computer science undergraduate courses. The technical challenges we foresee include: the necessary support from the college\u27s IT department; the use of Microsoft-based web authoring technologies vs. the use of Open Source / freeware counterparts; the need for adequate technical knowledge on the part of our faculty; the need for server-side hardware and software resources
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