The Físchlár-News-Stories system: personalised access to an archive of TV news

The “Físchlár” systems are a family of tools for capturing, analysis, indexing, browsing, searching and summarisation of digital video information. Físchlár-News-Stories, described in this paper, is one of those systems, and provides access to a growing archive of broadcast TV news. Físchlár-News-Stories has several notable features including the fact that it automatically records TV news and segments a broadcast news program into stories, eliminating advertisements and credits at the start/end of the broadcast. Físchlár-News-Stories supports access to individual stories via calendar lookup, text search through closed captions, automatically-generated links between related stories, and personalised access using a personalisation and recommender system based on collaborative filtering. Access to individual news stories is supported either by browsing keyframes with synchronised closed captions, or by playback of the recorded video. One strength of the Físchlár-News-Stories system is that it is actually used, in practice, daily, to access news. Several aspects of the Físchlár systems have been published before, bit in this paper we give a summary of the Físchlár-News-Stories system in operation by following a scenario in which it is used and also outlining how the underlying system realises the functions it offers

An inquiry-based learning approach to teaching information retrieval

The study of information retrieval (IR) has increased in interest and importance with the explosive growth of online information in recent years. Learning about IR within formal courses of study enables users of search engines to use them more knowledgeably and effectively, while providing the starting point for the explorations of new researchers into novel search technologies. Although IR can be taught in a traditional manner of formal classroom instruction with students being led through the details of the subject and expected to reproduce this in assessment, the nature of IR as a topic makes it an ideal subject for inquiry-based learning approaches to teaching. In an inquiry-based learning approach students are introduced to the principles of a subject and then encouraged to develop their understanding by solving structured or open problems. Working through solutions in subsequent class discussions enables students to appreciate the availability of alternative solutions as proposed by their classmates. Following this approach students not only learn the details of IR techniques, but significantly, naturally learn to apply them in solution of problems. In doing this they not only gain an appreciation of alternative solutions to a problem, but also how to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses. Developing confidence and skills in problem solving enables student assessment to be structured around solution of problems. Thus students can be assessed on the basis of their understanding and ability to apply techniques, rather simply their skill at reciting facts. This has the additional benefit of encouraging general problem solving skills which can be of benefit in other subjects. This approach to teaching IR was successfully implemented in an undergraduate module where students were assessed in a written examination exploring their knowledge and understanding of the principles of IR and their ability to apply them to solving problems, and a written assignment based on developing an individual research proposal

Leveraging the Legacy of Conventional Libraries for Organizing Digital Libraries

Περιέχει το πλήρες κείμενοWith the significant growth in the number of available electronic documents on the Internet, intranets, and digital libraries, the need for developing effective methods and systems to index and organize E-documents is felt more than ever. In this paper we introduce a new method for automatic text classification for categorizing E-documents by utilizing classification metadata of books, journals and other library holdings, that already exists in online catalogues of libraries. The method is based on identifying all references cited in a given document and, using the classification metadata of these references as catalogued in a physical library, devising an appropriate class for the document itself according to a standard library classification scheme with the help of a weighting mechanism. We have demonstrated the application of the proposed method and assessed its performance by developing a prototype classification system for classifying electronic syllabus documents archived in the Irish National Syllabus Repository according to the well-known Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) scheme

Exploring the Use of Computer Based Exams for Undergraduate Accounting

This paper explores the use of computer-based exams (CBEs) for undergraduate accounting. The primary objective of writing this paper was to establish whether CBEs should be integrated with paper-based exams as a summative assessment in undergraduate accounting modules. Professional accounting organisations and universities and colleges in Ireland were contacted to establish whether CBEs had been adopted and, if so, to take relevant lessons from their experience. The literature reviewed the experiences of students, academics, institutions and professional accounting organisations using CBEs worldwide. Findings from this desk-based research indicated an overall positive experience with CBEs. The professional accounting organisations are continuing to adopt CBEs as a method of assessment, with one professional accounting organisation adopting CBEs for examinations across their entire syllabus. In contrast, four of nine third level institutions in Ireland use CBEs. CBEs are not unique to professional accounting organisations. The adoption of CBEs in undergraduate accounting is an area that needs further exploration. This will help determine best practice to facilitate students who wish to pursue a career in accountancy, and support completion of the professional accounting exams. An area for further research is to interview academics to hear their reasons for not adopting CBEs, and to survey the student experience of CBEs for post-undergraduate and post-professional accounting

Reorganizing Educational Institutional Domain using Faceted Ontological Principles

The purpose of this work is to find out how different library classification systems and linguistic ontologies arrange a particular domain of interest and what are the limitations for information retrieval. We use knowledge representation techniques and languages for construction of a domain specific ontology. This ontology would help not only in problem solving, but it would demonstrate the ease with which complex queries can be handled using principles of domain ontology, thereby facilitating better information retrieval.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures, KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION Journal Pape

A historical analysis of senior cycle state examinations in the school subject English from 1878-2016: a longitudinal study

This thesis critically examines senior cycle examination in Ireland for the school subject English from colonial to modern times. It explores the development of examinations as a method of senior cycle assessment and, in light of the cultural, political, economic and social changes of each era, documents the main themes that dominate the English examinations. These themes and examination items provide significant insights into the cultural ideologies that have shaped senior cycle examinations since the establishment of the Intermediate Education Board in 1878. The main themes were identified through the analysis of the examination papers across four eras between 1878-2016, and this thesis explores whether or not the content of what was examined mirrored the political and cultural perspectives of successive eras. The research utilises a mixed-method approach, using both historical analyses of the documents, allied with a quantitative analysis of the examination papers. The theoretical framework explores the impact of policy on the syllabus, and how this was reflected in the examinations. Finally, the examination papers are recognised as important social and historic records which have documented social and cultural change in Ireland.N