Closing the communications loop on the computerized peer‐assessment of essays

The use of self‐ and peer‐assessment is not new to higher education. Traditionally its use has required the complex and time‐consuming management of coursework submissions by the tutor, in an attempt to maintain validity and anonymity of the assessment process. In the last few years a number of computerized systems have been developed that are capable of automatically supporting, managing and performing the assessment process. The requirement for student anonymity and the release of the tutor from the process of marking have reduced the ability to develop the iterative process of feedback. This feedback is considered essential in supporting student learning and developing reflective practice. This paper describes the enhancement of a computerized assessment system to support anonymous computer‐mediated discussion between marker and marked having previously performed peer‐assessment. A detailed description is provided of the integrated assessment process, and an analysis of the use of this anonymous discussion is presented. Anonymous student feedback is presented and analyzed with respect to the perceived benefits of using the system with respect to enhancing the student learning process

Closing the communications loop on the computerized peer‐assessment of essays

The use of self‐ and peer‐assessment is not new to higher education. Traditionally its use has required the complex and time‐consuming management of coursework submissions by the tutor, in an attempt to maintain validity and anonymity of the assessment process. In the last few years a number of computerized systems have been developed that are capable of automatically supporting, managing and performing the assessment process. The requirement for student anonymity and the release of the tutor from the process of marking have reduced the ability to develop the iterative process of feedback. This feedback is considered essential in supporting student learning and developing reflective practice. This paper describes the enhancement of a computerized assessment system to support anonymous computer‐mediated discussion between marker and marked having previously performed peer‐assessment. A detailed description is provided of the integrated assessment process, and an analysis of the use of this anonymous discussion is presented. Anonymous student feedback is presented and analyzed with respect to the perceived benefits of using the system with respect to enhancing the student learning process

PPAA: Peer-to-Peer Anonymous Authentication (Extended Version)

In the pursuit of authentication schemes that balance user privacy and accountability, numerous anonymous credential systems have been constructed. However, existing systems assume a client-server architecture in which only the clients, but not the servers, care about their privacy. In peer-to-peer (P2P) systems where both clients and servers are peer users with privacy concerns, no existing system correctly strikes that balance between privacy and accountability. In this paper, we provide this missing piece: a credential system in which peers are {\em pseudonymous} to one another (that is, two who interact more than once can recognize each other via pseudonyms) but are otherwise anonymous and unlinkable across different peers. Such a credential system finds applications in, e.g., Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANets) and P2P networks. We formalize the security requirements of our proposed credential system, provide a construction for it, and prove the security of our construction. Our solution is efficient: its complexities are independent of the number of users in the system

Do We Still Need Peer Review? An Argument for Change [Review]

How long has peer review been in crisis? At what point does crisis outlast emergency to become status quo? Attacks on the weaknesses of peer review appear with such regularity that they have migrated from scholarly journals to newspapers and magazines. Notwithstanding criticism—and bold experiments such as the experimental open peer review given online to Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s 2011 book Planned Obsolescence before its publication—the gears grind on, due in large part to the reward systems built around the mechanism of blind and anonymous review

Ping-Pong Swaps

We propose Ping-Pong Swaps: A secure pure peer-to-peer crosschain swap mechanism of tokens or cryptocurrencies that does not require escrow nor an intermediate trusted third party. The only technical requirement is to be able to open unidirectional payment channels in both blockchain protocols. This allows anonymous cryptocurrency trading without the need of a centralized exchange, nor DEX's in DeFi platforms, nor multisignature escrow systems with penalties. Direct peer-to-peer crosschain swaps can be performed without a bridge platform. This enables the creation of a global peer-to-peer market of pairs of tokens or cryptocurrencies. Ping-pong swaps with fiat currency is possible if banks incorporate simple payment channel functionalities. Some inmediate applications are simple and fast rebalancing of Lightning Network channels, and wrapping tokens in smartchains.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

TP-DS: A Heuristic Approach for Traffic Pattern Discovery System in MANET’s

As mobile ad hoc network (MANET) systems research has matured and several testbeds have been built to study MANETs, research has focused on developing new MANET applications such as collaborative games, collaborative computing, messaging systems, distributed security schemes, MANET middleware, peer-to-peer file sharing systems, voting systems, resource management and discovery, vehicular computing and collaborative education systems. Many techniques are proposed to enhance the anonymous communication in case of the mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). However, MANETs are vulnerable under certain circumstances like passive attacks and traffic analysis attacks. Traffic analysis problem expose some of the methods and attacks that could infer MANETs are still weak under the passive attacks. In this Research, proposed ‘Traffic pattern Discovery System in MANET’s, aheuristic approach(TP-DS) , enables a passive global adversary to accurately infer the traffic pattern in an anonymous MANET without compromising any node. TP-DS works well on existing on-demand anonymous MANET routing protocols to determine the source node, destination node and the end-to-end communication path. Detailed simulations show that TP-DS can infer the hidden traffic pattern with accuracy as high than the TP-DS and gives the result with accuracy of 95%. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.150310

Improve Your Modeling Skills with the Help of Your Peers – Developing and Introducing a Digital Case Study and Peer Feedback App in an Information Systems Class

The overall goal of this research study is to improve students’ modeling skills in large-scale educational settings by providing video-based case studies and introducing a formative peer feedback process to enable asynchronous, anonymous collaboration among the students. To this aim, we designed a learning concept and implemented an app that supports the provision of video-based case studies and the conduction of a double-blind peer feedback process. Our results from introducing the digital learning concept in an introductory course targeting information systems students indicate that the students’ motivation and reflection on the learning content could be fostered, and their modeling skills could be improved. Overall, we contribute with insights into how to conduct video-based case studies combined with peer feedback processes in information systems education

Stay Awhile and Listen: User Interactions in a Crowdsourced Platform Offering Emotional Support

Internet and online-based social systems are rising as the dominant mode of communication in society. However, the public or semi-private environment under which most online communications operate under do not make them suitable channels for speaking with others about personal or emotional problems. This has led to the emergence of online platforms for emotional support offering free, anonymous, and confidential conversations with live listeners. Yet very little is known about the way these platforms are utilized, and if their features and design foster strong user engagement. This paper explores the utilization and the interaction features of hundreds of thousands of users on 7 Cups of Tea, a leading online platform offering online emotional support. It dissects the level of activity of hundreds of thousands of users, the patterns by which they engage in conversation with each other, and uses machine learning methods to find factors promoting engagement. The study may be the first to measure activities and interactions in a large-scale online social system that fosters peer-to-peer emotional support

Providing incentive to peer-to-peer applications

Cooperative peer-to-peer applications are designed to share the resources of participating computers for the common good of ail users. However, users do not necessarily have an incentive to donate resources to the system if they can use the system's resources for free. As commonly observed in deployed applications, this situation adversely affects the applications' performance and sometimes even their availability and usability. While traditional resource management is handled by a centralized enforcement entity, adopting similar solution raises new concerns for distributed peer-to-peer systems. This dissertation proposes to solve the incentive problem in peer-to-peer applications by designing fair sharing policies and enforcing these policies in a distributed manner. The feasibility and practicability of this approach is demonstrated through numerous applications, namely archival storage systems, streaming systems, content distribution systems, and anonymous communication systems

MuON: Epidemic based mutual anonymity in unstructured P2P networks

A mutual anonymity system enables communication between a client and a service provider without revealing their identities. In general, the anonymity guarantees made by the protocol are enhanced when a large number of participants are recruited into the anonymity system. Peer-to-peer (P2P) systems are able to attract a large number of nodes and hence are highly suitable for anonymity systems. However, the churn (changes in system membership) within P2P networks, poses a significant challenge for low-bandwidth reliable anonymous communication in these networks. This paper presents MuON, a protocol to achieve mutual anonymity in unstructured P2P networks. MuON leverages epidemic-style data dissemination to deal with churn. Simulation results and security analysis indicate that MuON provides mutual anonymity in networks with high churn, while maintaining predictable latencies, high reliability, and low communication overhead