Peer assessment and knowledge discovering in a community of learners

Thanks to the exponential growth of the Internet, Distance Education is becoming more and more strategic in many fields of daily life. Its main advantage is that students can learn through appropriate web platforms that allow them to take advantage of multimedia and interactive teaching materials, without constraints neither of time nor of space. Today, in fact, the Internet offers many platforms suitable for this purpose, such as Moodle, ATutor and others. Coursera is another example of a platform that offers different courses to thousands of enrolled students. This approach to learning is, however, posing new problems such as that of the assessment of the learning status of the learner in the case where there were thousands of students following a course, as is in Massive On-line Courses (MOOC). The Peer Assessment can therefore be a solution to this problem: evaluation takes place between peers, creating a dynamic in the community of learners that evolves autonomously. In this article, we present a first step towards this direction through a peer assessment mechanism led by the teacher who intervenes by evaluating a very small part of the students. Through a mechanism based on machine learning, and in particular on a modified form of K-NN, given the teacher’s grades, the system should converge towards an evaluation that is as similar as possible to the one that the teacher would have given. An experiment is presented with encouraging results

Towards a quantitative evaluation of the relationship between the domain knowledge and the ability to assess peer work

In this work we present the preliminary results provided by the statistical modeling of the cognitive relationship between the knowledge about a topic a the ability to assess peer achievements on the same topic. Our starting point is Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives in the cognitive domain, and our outcomes confirm the hypothesized ranking. A further consideration that can be derived is that meta-cognitive abilities (e.g., assessment) require deeper domain knowledge

Tracing the creation and evaluation of accessible Open Educational Resources through learning analytics

The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) has been continuously growing and with it the need to addressing the diversity of students’ learning needs. Because of that, OER should meet with characteristics such as the web accessibility and quality. Thus, teachers as the creators of OER need supporting tools and specialized competences. The main contribution of this thesis is a Learning Analytics Model to Trace the Creation and Evaluation of OER (LAMTCE) considering web accessibility and quality. LAMTCE also includes a user model of the teacher’s competences in the creation and evaluation of OER. Besides that, we developed ATCE, a learning analytics tool based on the LAMTCE model. Finally, it was carried out an evaluation conducted with teachers involving the use of the tool and we found that the tool really benefited teachers in the acquisition of their competences in creation and evaluation of accessible and quality OER.La adopción de Recursos Educativos Abiertos (REA) ha ido en aumento y con ello la necesidad de abordar la diversidad de necesidades de aprendizaje de los estudiantes. Por ello, los REA deben cumplir con características tales como la accesibilidad web y la calidad. Así, los profesores como los creadores de REA necesitan de herramientas de soporte y competencias especializadas. La principal contribución de la tesis es el modelo LAMTCE, un modelo de analíticas de aprendizaje para hacer seguimiento a la creación y evaluación de REA considerando la accesibilidad web y la calidad. LAMTCE también incluye un modelo de usuario de las competencias del profesor en creación y evaluación de REA. Además, se desarrolló ATCE, una herramienta de analíticas de aprendizaje que está basada en el modelo LAMTCE. Finalmente, se llevó a cabo un estudio con profesores involucrando el uso de la herramienta encontrando que ésta realmente benefició a los profesores en la adquisición de sus competencias en creación y evaluación de REA accesibles y de calidad

Design model for integrating learning management systems and massive open online courses on a digital e-Learning platform: implications for Zimbabwean universities.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Available affordances for learning provide opportunities for advanced technology-enhanced teaching and learning. Digital learning environments can make relevant learning content available to students using existing infrastructure. This creates an environment which requires different learning management systems (LMS) to interact with, and exchange information. Increasing use of mobile devices, digital learning platforms, LMS, and massive open online courses (MOOCs), has necessitated integration design approaches. However, ignorance of resources offered and discouragement and frustrations arising from the economic situation in Zimbabwe regarding regulated access to electronic services make automation of teaching processes a great challenge. In this thesis, a design model for integrating LMS and MOOCs on a digital learning platform is proposed. From an e-learning point of view, the study contributes to the working of e-learning management systems through automation process of uploading content to LMS. From a computer science point of view, the study contributes to software engineering principles where it puts together three different platforms; LMS, MOOCs and digital learning platforms under one design. Methodologically, the study uses design science research (DSR) framework with software modelling language to address challenges in teaching and learning. This study describes how the Technology Adoption Model (TAM) and Task-Technology Fit (TTF) model can be used together with DSR in relation to design model evaluation. A software modeling language was used to create the logical designs, which were evaluated using experimental design approach. Software engineering experts and lecturers were invited to validate proposed logical designs. The key deliverables of the study include requirements specifications for the design model for integrated learning management systems, as well as the logical designs for the design model. The design model, as per requirements specification and the evaluation thereof, are based on TAM and TTF. The hybrid model proposed was further validated using structural equation modeling via the partial least squares and path modeling. In our views, the interventions of integration work would support decision making, which influences choices made by policy makers when taking decisions about higher education technological infrastructure

Prediction Of Pressure Coefficients For Flat Lip Vertical Gates

The main function of dam structures is to regulate the discharges and heads of water required to satisfy the demand of power generation and water quantity supplied to river or stream behind the structure, hence the sluice gate will play the big role to achieve this process and then its design needs much more attention. The sluice gate within the tunnel of the dam is exposed to many types of static and hydrodynamic forces .Among these forces is the hydraulic downpull force which created from difference between downward force produced by flow passing over the top surface of gate and uplift force exerted by the jet flow on bottom gate surface . The evaluation of positive and / or negative downpull force values is important due to its effects on closure of the gate. The estimation of such force needs determination of many related parameters such as pressure distribution along and cross the bottom gate surface, top pressure ,jet velocity issuing below the gate ,operation head and the head downstream the gate shaft. In present research, the hydraulic model is used to carry out the required measurements and different types of gate lip shapes have been examined with various flow conditions and gate openings to evaluate the downpull force coefficient. The analysis of results assured that the geometry of the lip gate has significant effects on the hydrodynamics forces and consequently on its operation which in the case of its negative value will prevent the gate to close and make some failures and damages

Prediction of Time-Dependent Deflection of High Strength Concrete Panels

This work presents a model for predicting analytically the time dependent deflection of high strength concrete HSC slabs. This model considers the factors that are significantly influence the long-term deflection of concrete slabs. Realising the effect of time on slab flexural rigidity, the proposed method follow the method of conducting short-term deflection of slabs.The analytical deflection based on the proposed method are compared with the experimental work conducted by the authors in 2005 (1) and also with several field measured deflections

RESIDENTIAL BUILDING DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN KURDISTAN REGION GOVERNMENT

Nowadays, Residential buildings have become the most important part of real-estate markets in (KRG). The layout of housing in Kurdistan has transformed the face of major cities across the Region. Rapid changes since 2003, have witnessed copious architectural structures and large housing projects that have reshaped the landscape of its cities. The aim of this study is to study the housing developing policy in KRG. The objectives of the study are to evaluate the KRG's housing development policy and to investigate the types of house and the price range preferred by the potential buyer. The study focus on private residential building development projects and it is carried out by questionnaires and interviews. The respondents are the house buyers and the developers. A total of 100 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents and 78 questionnaires were returned duly answered. The data collected is analyzed using the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) and Average Index. The results of research indicated that the KRG’s housing development policy covers the ownership of the project land, full repatriation of project investment and profits allowed, import of spare parts tax exempt up to 15% of project cost and the employment of foreign workers allowed. Moreover, the types of house preferred by the house buyers are of double storey type and to be of corner lot. The price range preferred by the potential buyers are between (40,000 to 100,000) USD

Erbil Citadel Landscape Assessment In Order To Regional Best Practices

Many heritage areas around the world are suffered from neglect in maintenance or rehabilitation, and never consider their historical values as an attraction places for visitors, in addition to these problems a lot of ancient buildings were removed in different old cities and a new modern constructions were shown instead of traditional ones, and that leads to visual and structural distortion and thus a problem in tourism. The area surrounding the citadel of Erbil suffered from many of these troubles, thus we have to focus on them, and present suggestions to solve the problems by presenting a world successful experience in this fiel

Sustainability In Construction Projects: Part 2 (Case Studies)

The guideline developed in a companion study by the authors is applied and studied in this work to assess the sustainability score of several big construction projects in Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Results were varied as the sustainability measures being applied on certain steps and neglected on many others .Attention on this issue can be found in the conclusions

Environmental Pollution and Impacts of Dust Storms on the Traffic Safety

The study aims to investigate the negative effect that the dust storms leave on the human health in general and on the traffic safety as well. Five represented samples of the dust have been collected from the storms which occurred during (2009 and 2010) in Tikrit city/ north of Iraq to find it's particle size distribution, existence of heavy metals, and radioactive minerals, in addition, a survey that consists from 70 samples has been collected to examine the driving difficulty during such condition. Grain size analysis show that the silt size forming the majority (62.6% ), fine sand (23.52%) and clay (13.88%) , also CaCO3 and organic content have been determined with average (25.9%) and (2.11%) respectively. The heavy metals including Cd, Ni, Pb, Cr, Co, and Zn showing that Zn , Ni, Co and Cr are more than the standards in the crust of the earth which considered pollutant elements while Cd and Pb are less than the standards. It was found that 92% of the drivers face difficulty during driving in dusty weather, 47% of the drivers has health problems concerns the dusty weather and 20% of them tend to change their destination or drive faster when they face dust storm while drivin