Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

A Pedagogy for Original Synners

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the UnexpectedThis essay begins by speculating about the learning environment of the class of 2020. It takes place entirely in a virtual world, populated by simulated avatars, managed through the pedagogy of gaming. Based on this projected version of a future-now-in-formation, the authors consider the implications of the current paradigm shift that is happening at the edges of institutions of higher education. From the development of programs in multimedia literacy to the focus on the creation of hybrid learning spaces (that combine the use of virtual worlds, social networking applications, and classroom activities), the scene of learning as well as the subjects of education are changing. The figure of the Original Synner is a projection of the student-of-the-future whose foundational literacy is grounded in their ability to synthesize information from multiple information streams

CHORUS Deliverable 4.5: Report of the 3rd CHORUS Conference

The third and last CHORUS conference on Multimedia Search Engines took place from the 26th to the 27th of May 2009 in Brussels, Belgium. About 100 participants from 15 European countries, the US, Japan and Australia learned about the latest developments in the domain. An exhibition of 13 stands presented 16 research projects currently ongoing around the world

The design, implementation and evaluation of a web-based learning environment for distance education

In this study, the need was emphasised to investigate the effects of using the Web in teaching students at a distance using a multi-level evaluation framework. A Web-based learning environment was designed, developed, implemented and evaluated for this purpose. Constructivist epistemology provided the basis for developing various components and developing problem-centred and interactive activities. Management, tutorial, interaction and support components were designed to work with each other to construct the learning environment, deliver course content, facilitate interaction and monitor student progress.A methodology was designed to describe and assess the learning environment in terms of access (standardisation, speed, resources, the tutor and peers), costs (types, structure, factors influencing, etc.), teaching and learning functions (quality of course objectives, materials and resources, learning approach and student achievement), interactivity (quantity and quality of student-tutor and student-peer interaction), user-friendliness (user-interface design, ease of use and navigation design) and organisational issues. The learners were Egyptian first-grade secondary school students (32), assigned randomly, and the topic selected for the course being developed was mathematics. Feedback was obtained from both learners and experts in distance education and on-line learning during the developmental and field-testing of the learning environment. Quantitative and qualitative methods (on-line student and expert questionnaires, students' logs, performance in formative evaluation, content analysis of peer discussions, achievement test and cost-analysis) were combined to gain insights into students' satisfaction with the different instructional and technical features and capabilities of the learning environment, achievement of course objectives in comparison with conventional classroom students, factors influencing their learning and perceptions and the unit cost per student study hour.The results indicated that although the learning environment and course materials were accessible, interactive, well-structured, user-friendly and achievement was successful for the on-line group, no significant differences were identified between the on-line students and traditional classroom students in overall achievement or achievement of low-order and high-order learning objectives. In addition, it is unlikely any cost saving would be made from shifting to the Internet to deliver instruction and many major factors were found to influence the development and support costs of on-line learning

Towards Faster Spectrum Sensing Techniques in Cognitive Radio Architectures

AbstractIn the recent years, the subject of spectrum sensing techniques has been well studied in research community, highly motivated by the emergence of cognitive radio architectures. But in practice, given the complexity of proposed spectrum sensing techniques, the implementation of cognitive radio has become a tedious task. Unlike many papers in the literature, this paper focuses on implementation aspects of spectrum sensing. Especially, we attempt to reduce the time taken for spectrum sensing based on adaptive FFT approach employing statistical analysis. The first step of the many spectrum techniques is to obtain the FFT of input samples. Most of the existing spectrum analyzers like Tektronix RSA6000, Rohde & Schwarz FSVR etc employ detection and estimations algorithms based on the FFTs of the acquired samples. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to vary the FFT-size to obtain the spectrum information at a faster rate, applicable to cognitive radio environment. FFT size would be varied in accordance with statistical information obtained from the prediction engines. The proposed Adaptive FFT algorithm is studied as applied to the well known energy detection technique. Finally an implementation is carried out on USRP based on GNU Radio platform