Blogging: Promoting Learner Autonomy and Intercultural Competence through Study Abroad

The current study explores closely how using a combined modalities of asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) via blogs and face-to-face (FTF) interaction through ethnographic interviews with native speakers (L1s) supports autonomous learning as the result of reflective and social processes. The study involves 16 American undergraduate students who participated in blogs to develop their intercultural competence over the course of one-semester study abroad. The results show that blogs afforded students the opportunity to work independently (e.g., content creation) and reflect upon cross-cultural issues. Critical reflection, however, relied on the teacher’s guidance and feedback, as most of the students were cognitively challenged by not being able to clearly articulate different points of view. It is likely that students were not accustomed to reflecting. The findings also indicate that task type fostered autonomy in different ways. While free topics gave students more control of their own learning, teacher-assigned topics required them to critically think about the readings. Lack of access to Internet at the host institution and family also contributed to a limited level of social interaction. The study concludes that well-designed tasks, effective metacognitive and cognitive skills, and the accessibility to Internet are essential to maximize the potentials of blogs for learner autonomy and intercultural communication

Information Outlook, January 2007

Volume 11, Issue 1https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2007/1000/thumbnail.jp

Being Omnipresent To Be Almighty: The Importance of The Global Web Evidence for Organizational Expert Finding

Modern expert nding algorithms are developed under the assumption that all possible expertise evidence for a person is concentrated in a company that currently employs the person. The evidence that can be acquired outside of an enterprise is traditionally unnoticed. At the same time, the Web is full of personal information which is sufficiently detailed to judge about a person's skills and knowledge. In this work, we review various sources of expertise evidence out-side of an organization and experiment with rankings built on the data acquired from six dierent sources, accessible through APIs of two major web search engines. We show that these rankings and their combinations are often more realistic and of higher quality than rankings built on organizational data only

How and why physicists and chemists use blogs

This study examined how and why chemists and physicists blog. Two qualitative methods were used: content analysis of blog and “about” pages and in-depth responsive interviews with chemists and physicists who maintain blogs. Analysis of the data yielded several cross-cutting themes that provide a window into how physicists and chemists use their blogs and what value they receive from maintaining a blog and participating in a blogging community. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for supporting scientists’ work

Potentials of social media for tacit knowledge sharing amongst physicians : preliminary findings

Tacit knowledge sharing amongst physicians, such as the sharing of clinical experiences, skills, or know-how, or know-whom, is known to have a significant impact on the quality of medical diagnosis and decisions. This paper posits that social media can provide new opportunities for tacit knowledge sharing amongst physicians, and demonstrates this by presenting findings from a review of relevant literature and a survey conducted with physicians. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten physicians from around the world who were active users of social media. Initial thematic analysis revealed eight themes as potential contributions of social web tools to facilitate tacit knowledge flow amongst physicians. The emergent themes are defined, linked to the literature, and supported by instances of interview transcripts. Findings presented here are preliminary, and final results will be reported after accomplishing all phases of data collection and analysis

BlogForever D3.3: Development of the Digital Rights Management Policy

This report presents a set of recommended practices and approaches that a future BlogForever repository can use to develop a digital rights management policy. The report outlines core legal aspects of digital rights that might need consideration in developing policies, and what the challenges are, in particular, in relation to web archives and blog archives. These issues are discussed in the context of the digital information life cycle and steps that might be taken within the workflow of the BlogForever platform to facilitate the gathering and management of digital rights information. Further, the reports on interviews with experts in the field highlight current perspectives on rights management and provide empirical support for the recommendations that have been put forward

Will health students engage with a health information blog?

Background: The health librarian at the University of Bedfordshire wanted to explore ways of reaching out to health students, especially distance learners and those juggling studies with full-time work. Objectives: The aim of this action research study was to assess the impact of a health information blog on a cohort of distance and part time learners studying for MSc Public Health. Methods: Data was collected by means of an online survey and visits to the blog were monitored using the Google Analytics programme. Results: Almost half of respondents reported that they had not visited the blog as they were not aware that the blog existed, despite targeted publicity and emails alerting them to the blog. However, students who had visited the blog found the information useful, both for preparing assignments and in their professional health care practice. Conclusions: Libraries need to ensure that blogs are adequately marketed and promoted, otherwise it is unlikely that they will be successful

The state-of-the-art in personalized recommender systems for social networking

With the explosion of Web 2.0 application such as blogs, social and professional networks, and various other types of social media, the rich online information and various new sources of knowledge flood users and hence pose a great challenge in terms of information overload. It is critical to use intelligent agent software systems to assist users in finding the right information from an abundance of Web data. Recommender systems can help users deal with information overload problem efficiently by suggesting items (e.g., information and products) that match users’ personal interests. The recommender technology has been successfully employed in many applications such as recommending films, music, books, etc. The purpose of this report is to give an overview of existing technologies for building personalized recommender systems in social networking environment, to propose a research direction for addressing user profiling and cold start problems by exploiting user-generated content newly available in Web 2.0