"A Two-Stage Prediction Model for Web Page Transition"

Utilizing data from a log file, a two-stage model for step-ahead web page prediction that permits adaptive page customization in real-time is proposed. The first stage predicts the next page of a viewer based on a variant of a Markov transition matrix computed from page sequences of other visitors who read the same pages as that viewer did thus far. The second stage re-analyzes the incorrect exit/continuation predictions of the first stage through data mining, incorporating the visitor's viewing behavior observed from the log file. The two-stage process takes advantage of a robust, theory-driven nature of statistical modeling for extracting the overall feature of the data, and a flexible, data-driven nature of data mining to capture any idiosyncrasies and complications unresolved in the first stage. The empirical result with a test site implies that the first stage alone is sufficiently accurate (50.3%) in predicting page transitions. Prediction of site exit was even better with 100% of the exit and 90.8% of the continuation predictions being correct. The result was compared against other models for predictive accuracy.

Beyond motivation: Differences in score meaning between assessment conditions

Written communication is a skill necessary for not only the success of undergraduate students, but for post-graduates in the workplace. Furthermore, according to employers the writing skills of post-graduates tend to be below expectations. Therefore, the assessment of such skills within higher education is in high demand. Written communication assessments tend to be administered in one of two conditions: 1) course embedded and 2) a low-stakes, non-embedded condition. The current study investigated possible construct-irrelevant variance in writing assessment scores by using data from a mid-sized public university in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Specifically, 157 student products were scored using the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Written Communication rubric by Multi-State Collaborative trained raters. A final sample size of 57 student products were in the non-embedded assessment condition and 107 student products were in the embedded assessment condition. Differential item functioning analyses were conducted using a Rasch Rating Scale model and an Ordinal Regression wherein Verbal SAT was used an external criterion of ability. Said differently, this study investigated whether students of the same proficiency had different probabilities of receiving particular written communication scores. After controlling for motivation, the results provide evidence of possible differential item functioning for Content Development as well as Genre and Disciplinary Conventions. Students of the same ability tend to obtain higher written communication scores in the non-embedded assessment condition. These results raise concerns about the presence of construct-irrelevant variance aside from motivation. Future research should investigate faculty feedback, allotted time, and task structure as possible sources of construct-irrelevant variance when using low-stakes, non-embedded assessments of written communication

A Tripartite Framework for Leadership Evaluation

The Tripartite Framework for Leadership Evaluation provides a comprehensive examination of the leadership evaluation landscape and makes key recommendations about how the field of leadership evaluation should proceed. The chief concern addressed by this working paper is the use of student outcome data as a measurement of leadership effectiveness. A second concern in our work with urban leaders is the absence or surface treatment of race and equity in nearly all evaluation instruments or processes. Finally, we call for an overhaul of the conventional cycle of inquiry, which is based largely on needs analysis and leader deficits, and incomplete use of evidence to support recurring short cycles within the larger yearly cycle of inquiry

A Comparative Analysis of Collaborative Filtering Similarity Measurements for Recommendation Systems

Collaborative Filtering (CF) is a widely used technique in recommendation systems to suggest items to users based on their previous interactions with the system. CF involves finding correlations between the preferences of different users and using those correlations to provide recommendations. This technique can be divided into user-based and item-based CF, both of which utilize similarity metrics to generate recommendations. Content-based filtering is another commonly used recommendation technique that analyzes the attributes of items to suggest similar items. To enhance the accuracy of recommendation systems, hybrid algorithms that combine CF and content-based filtering techniques have been developed. These hybrid systems leverage the strengths of both approaches to provide more accurate and personalized recommendations. In conclusion, collaborative filtering is an essential technique in recommendation systems, and the use of various similarity metrics and hybrid techniques can enhance the quality of recommendations

Proceedings of the ECCS 2005 satellite workshop: embracing complexity in design - Paris 17 November 2005

Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr). Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr)

Generating Effective Recommendations Using Viewing-Time Weighted Preferences for Attributes

Recommender systems are an increasingly important technology and researchers have recently argued for incorporating different kinds of data to improve recommendation quality. This paper presents a novel approach to generating recommendations and evaluates its effectiveness. First, we review evidence that item viewing time can reveal user preferences for items. Second, we model item preference as a weighted function of preferences for item attributes. We then propose a method for generating recommendations based on these two propositions. The results of a laboratory evaluation show that the proposed approach generated estimated item ratings consistent with explicit item ratings and assigned high ratings to products that reflect revealed preferences of users. We conclude by discussing implications and identifying areas for future research

A COLLABORATIVE FILTERING APPROACH TO PREDICT WEB PAGES OF INTEREST FROMNAVIGATION PATTERNS OF PAST USERS WITHIN AN ACADEMIC WEBSITE

This dissertation is a simulation study of factors and techniques involved in designing hyperlink recommender systems that recommend to users, web pages that past users with similar navigation behaviors found interesting. The methodology involves identification of pertinent factors or techniques, and for each one, addresses the following questions: (a) room for improvement; (b) better approach, if any; and (c) performance characteristics of the technique in environments that hyperlink recommender systems operate in. The following four problems are addressed:Web Page Classification. A new metric (PageRank × Inverse Links-to-Word count ratio) is proposed for classifying web pages as content or navigation, to help in the discovery of user navigation behaviors from web user access logs. Results of a small user study suggest that this metric leads to desirable results.Data Mining. A new apriori algorithm for mining association rules from large databases is proposed. The new algorithm addresses the problem of scaling of the classical apriori algorithm by eliminating an expensive joinstep, and applying the apriori property to every row of the database. In this study, association rules show the correlation relationships between user navigation behaviors and web pages they find interesting. The new algorithm has better space complexity than the classical one, and better time efficiency under some conditionsand comparable time efficiency under other conditions.Prediction Models for User Interests. We demonstrate that association rules that show the correlation relationships between user navigation patterns and web pages they find interesting can be transformed intocollaborative filtering data. We investigate collaborative filtering prediction models based on two approaches for computing prediction scores: using simple averages and weighted averages. Our findings suggest that theweighted averages scheme more accurately computes predictions of user interests than the simple averages scheme does.Clustering. Clustering techniques are frequently applied in the design of personalization systems. We studied the performance of the CLARANS clustering algorithm in high dimensional space in relation to the PAM and CLARA clustering algorithms. While CLARA had the best time performance, CLARANS resulted in clusterswith the lowest intra-cluster dissimilarities, and so was most effective in this regard