Effect of assertion headings and expandable examples in online engineering textbooks on student performance and satisfaction

Many engineering courses are transitioning from traditional paper textbooks to online and multimedia instructional modules to present content to students outside of class time. As the use of these online resources expands, research about the effective use and production of these resources should grow in tandem. Little research has focused on how textbook designs affect students’ learning in natural study conditions. Students prefer to use textbooks alongside homework or practice exams while studying, but many laboratory studies artificially prevent students from using textbooks while answering questions. Investigations have studied the effects of textbook design on test performance but have not looked at students' motivation to read the textbook, their perception of the textbook's usefulness, or their satisfaction with the textbook in helping learn material for the course. In this thesis, we study the effect of expandable worked examples and assertive headings in online instructional texts on students' learning and affective responses. In addition, we explore whether hand-drawn figures have any effect on student satisfaction and self-efficacy. Students consistently find worked examples to be useful, but their effectiveness may be limited by an expertise reversal effect, helping novice students but hindering advanced students. Interactive, expandable worked examples can expand to show, and contract to hide, as much detail as students see fit to support their learning. Section headings provide one means for improving students' ability to extract meaning from textbooks. While most textbooks use noun phrases that indicate the topic or subtopic of the following text, there is evidence that using complete sentence headings that summarize the text in that section (assertion headings) could improve student comprehension. Student feedback in the preliminary phases of our study compelled us to explore whether or not hand-drawn figures have any effect on student course satisfaction and self-efficacy. We studied these textbook features in an introductory electrical engineering course by assigning students to three different versions of an online textbook. A control group received traditional static worked examples and topic­-subtopic headings, one treatment group had expandable worked examples and assertion headings, and the final treatment group had only the expandable worked examples. Although measures of students' performance in the class such as grades on quizzes showed few significant changes, measures of students' attitudes toward the course showed that satisfaction with the materials had improved

The use of data-mining for the automatic formation of tactics

This paper discusses the usse of data-mining for the automatic formation of tactics. It was presented at the Workshop on Computer-Supported Mathematical Theory Development held at IJCAR in 2004. The aim of this project is to evaluate the applicability of data-mining techniques to the automatic formation of tactics from large corpuses of proofs. We data-mine information from large proof corpuses to find commonly occurring patterns. These patterns are then evolved into tactics using genetic programming techniques

Exploiting Latent Features of Text and Graphs

As the size and scope of online data continues to grow, new machine learning techniques become necessary to best capitalize on the wealth of available information. However, the models that help convert data into knowledge require nontrivial processes to make sense of large collections of text and massive online graphs. In both scenarios, modern machine learning pipelines produce embeddings --- semantically rich vectors of latent features --- to convert human constructs for machine understanding. In this dissertation we focus on information available within biomedical science, including human-written abstracts of scientific papers, as well as machine-generated graphs of biomedical entity relationships. We present the Moliere system, and our method for identifying new discoveries through the use of natural language processing and graph mining algorithms. We propose heuristically-based ranking criteria to augment Moliere, and leverage this ranking to identify a new gene-treatment target for HIV-associated Neurodegenerative Disorders. We additionally focus on the latent features of graphs, and propose a new bipartite graph embedding technique. Using our graph embedding, we advance the state-of-the-art in hypergraph partitioning quality. Having newfound intuition of graph embeddings, we present Agatha, a deep-learning approach to hypothesis generation. This system learns a data-driven ranking criteria derived from the embeddings of our large proposed biomedical semantic graph. To produce human-readable results, we additionally propose CBAG, a technique for conditional biomedical abstract generation

An ontology for formal representation of medication adherence-related knowledge : case study in breast cancer

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Medication non-adherence is a major healthcare problem that negatively impacts the health and productivity of individuals and society as a whole. Reasons for medication non-adherence are multi-faced, with no clear-cut solution. Adherence to medication remains a difficult area to study, due to inconsistencies in representing medicationadherence behavior data that poses a challenge to humans and today’s computer technology related to interpreting and synthesizing such complex information. Developing a consistent conceptual framework to medication adherence is needed to facilitate domain understanding, sharing, and communicating, as well as enabling researchers to formally compare the findings of studies in systematic reviews. The goal of this research is to create a common language that bridges human and computer technology by developing a controlled structured vocabulary of medication adherence behavior—“Medication Adherence Behavior Ontology” (MAB-Ontology) using breast cancer as a case study to inform and evaluate the proposed ontology and demonstrating its application to real-world situation. The intention is for MAB-Ontology to be developed against the background of a philosophical analysis of terms, such as belief, and desire to be human, computer-understandable, and interoperable with other systems that support scientific research. The design process for MAB-Ontology carried out using the METHONTOLOGY method incorporated with the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) principles of best practice. This approach introduces a novel knowledge acquisition step that guides capturing medication-adherence-related data from different knowledge sources, including adherence assessment, adherence determinants, adherence theories, adherence taxonomies, and tacit knowledge source types. These sources were analyzed using a systematic approach that involved some questions applied to all source types to guide data extraction and inform domain conceptualization. A set of intermediate representations involving tables and graphs was used to allow for domain evaluation before implementation. The resulting ontology included 629 classes, 529 individuals, 51 object property, and 2 data property. The intermediate representation was formalized into OWL using Protégé. The MAB-Ontology was evaluated through competency questions, use-case scenario, face validity and was found to satisfy the requirement specification. This study provides a unified method for developing a computerized-based adherence model that can be applied among various disease groups and different drug categories

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Bridging between Research and Practice

This book presents a fresh approach to bridging the perceived gap between academic and classroom cultures. It describes a unique form of research partnership whereby Cambridge University academics and school teachers together grappled with and reformulated theory—through in-depth case studies analysing practice using interactive whiteboards in five subject areas. The inquiry exploited the collaborators’ complementary professional knowledge bases. Teachers’ voices are particularly audible in co-authored case study chapters. Outcomes included deeper insights into concepts of sociocultural learning theory and classroom dialogue, more analytical mindsets, sustained new practices and ways of working collegially.; Readership: The book will interest academic and teacher researchers, initial teacher educators, professional development leaders, mentors, plus practitioners interested in using interactive whiteboards and dialogic teaching. It explores widening approaches to collegial development to reach educators working in other contexts (with and without technology). This could involve intermediate theory building or shortcutting by sharing and adapting the outcomes—springboarding teachers’ further critique and professional learning

Evaluating & engineering

On a regular basis, we learn about well-known online services that have been misused or compromised by data theft. As insecure applications pose a threat to the users' privacy as well as to the image of companies and organizations, it is absolutely essential to adequately secure them from the start of the development process. Often, reasons for vulnerable applications are related to the insufficient knowledge and experience of involved parties, such as software developers. Unfortunately, they rarely (a) have a comprehensive view of the security-related decisions that should be made, or (b) know how these decisions precisely affect the implementation. A vital decision is the selection of tools and methods that can best support a particular situation in order to shield an application from vulnerabilities. Despite of the level of security that arises from complying with security standards, both reasons inadvertently lead to software that is not secured sufficiently. This thesis tackles both problems. Firstly, in order to know which decision should be made, it is crucial to be aware of security properties, vulnerabilities, threats, security engineering methods, notations, and tools (so-called knowledge objects). Thereby, it is not only important to know which knowledge objects exist, but also how they are related to each other and which attributes they have. Secondly, security decisions made for web applications can have an effect on source code of various components as well as on configuration files of web servers or external protection measures like firewalls. The impact of chosen security measures (i.e., employed methods) can be documented using a modeling approach that provides web-specific modeling elements. Our approach aims to support the conscious construction of secure web applications. Therefore, we develop modeling techniques to represent knowledge objects and to design secure web applications. Our novel conceptual framework SecEval is the foundation of this dissertation. It provides an expandable structure for classifying vulnerabilities, threats, security properties, methods, notations and tools. This structure, called Security Context model, can be instantiated to express attributes and relations, as e.g., which tools exist to support a certain method. Compared with existing approaches, we provide a finer-grained structure that considers security and adapts to the phases of the software development process. In addition to the Security Context model, we define a documentation scheme for the collection and analysis of relevant data. Apart from this domain-independent framework, we focus on secure web applications. We use SecEvalsSecContextM as a basis for a novel Secure Web Applications' Ontology (SecWAO), which serves as a knowledge map. By providing a systematic overview, SecWAO supports a common understanding and supports web engineers who want to systematically specify security requirements or make security-related design decisions. Building on our experience with SecWAO, we further extend the modeling approach UML-based Web Engineering (UWE) by means to model security aspects of web applications. We develop UWE in a way that chosen methods, such as (re)authentication, secure connections, authorization or Cross-Site-Request-Forgery prevention, can be linked to the model of a concrete web application. In short, our approach supports software engineers throughout the software development process. It comprises (1) the conceptual framework SecEval to ease method and tool evaluation, (2) the ontology SecWAO that gives a systematic overview of web security and (3) an extension of UWE that focuses on the development of secure web applications. Various case studies and tools are presented to demonstrate the applicability and extensibility of our approach.Regelmäßig wird von erfolgreichen Angriffen auf Daten und Funktionen bekannter Onlinedienste berichtet. Da unsichere Anwendungen nicht nur eine Bedrohung für die Privatsphäre ihrer Nutzer, sondern auch eine Gefahr für das Image der betroffenen Unternehmen und Organisationen darstellen, ist es unverzichtbar, Anwendungen von Anfang an ausreichend zu schützen. Zwei Gründe für unsichere Anwendungen sind, dass die Beteiligten, wie z.B. Softwareentwickler, nur selten (a) vollständig überblicken, welche sicherheitsbezogenen Entscheidungen getroffen werden müssten oder (b) wissen, welche Auswirkungen diese konkret auf die Implementierung haben. Eine kritische Entscheidung ist die Auswahl von Werkzeugen und Methoden, die in einer bestimmten Situation von Nutzen sein könnten, um die Anwendung vor Schwachstellen zu schützen. Diese Gründe führen - trotz punktuellem Schutz durch das Vorgehen nach IT-Sicherheitsstandards - ungewollt zu Software, die nicht entsprechend ihres Schutzbedarfs abgesichert ist. Die vorliegende Arbeit nimmt sich beider Probleme an. Einerseits ist für die Entscheidungsfindung ein Verständnis von sogenannten "Wissensobjekten", wie Schwachstellen, Bedrohungen, Sicherheitseigenschaften, sicherheitsrelevanten Methoden, Notationen und Werkzeugen essentiell. Dafür ist nicht nur eine Bestandsaufnahme existierender Wissensobjekte wichtig, sondern auch deren Eigenschaften und Zusammenhänge untereinander. Andererseits können sicherheitsrelevante Entscheidungen für Webanwendungen sowohl Auswirkungen auf Quellcodes verschiedener Softwarekomponenten haben, als auch auf Konfigurationsdateien von Webservern oder auf Schutzmaßnahmen wie Firewalls. Mit einem Modellierungsansatz, der webspezifische Modellierungselemente beinhaltet, ist es möglich Sicherheitsmaßnahmen zu dokumentieren. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, die bewusste Absicherung sicherheitskritischer Webanwendungen zu unterstützen. Dazu werden Modellierungstechniken zur Darstellung von Wissensobjekten und zum sicheren Webanwendungsdesign entwickelt. Die Basis bildet unser konzeptionelles Framework SecEval. Es beinhaltet eine erweiterbare Struktur für Schwachstellen, Bedrohungen, Sicherheitseigenschaften, Methoden, Notationen und Werkzeuge. Diese Struktur (das sog. Kontextmodell) kann instanziiert werden, um Eigenschaften und Zusammenhänge darzustellen, z.B. Werkzeuge, die eine bestimmte Methode unterstützen. Im Vergleich zu existierenden Arbeiten wird eine detailliertere Struktur aufgebaut, die Sicherheit berücksichtigt und die Phasen des Softwareentwicklungsprozesses mit einbezieht. Zusätzlich zu dem Kontextmodell wird ein Dokumentationsschema zur Sammlung und Analyse passender Daten definiert. Abgesehen von SecEval, das nicht domänenspezifisch ist, liegt der Fokus auf dem Bereich sicherer Webanwendungen. Genutzt wird SecEvals Kontextmodell unter anderem als Basis für die SecWAO-Ontologie - einer Art Wissenslandkarte der Webanwendungssicherheit. SecWAO bietet eine einheitliche Kommunikationsgrundlage und unterstützt Webentwickler, die systematisch Sicherheitsanforderungen spezifizieren oder Designentscheidungen treffen wollen. Aufbauend auf der Struktur von SecWAO wird der Modellierungsansatz UML-based Web Engineering (UWE) mit Elementen zur Dokumentation von Sicherheitsaspekten erweitert. Auf diese Art können ausgewählte Methoden wie z.B. (Re)authentifikation, sichere Verbindungen, Autorisierung oder die Verhinderung von Cross-Site-Request-Forgery direkt in Bezug zur modellierten Webanwendung gesetzt werden. Zusammengefasst unterstützt der vorgestellte Ansatz Softwareentwickler während des Entwicklungsprozesses und umfasst (1) das konzeptionelle Framework SecEval, das die Evaluation von Methoden und Werkzeugen vereinfacht, (2) die Ontologie SecWAO, die einen systematischen Überblick über Websicherheit gibt und (3) eine Erweiterung von UWE für sichere Webanwendungen. Verschiedene Fallstudien und Werkzeuge werden vorgestellt, die die Anwendbarkeit und Erweiterbarkeit des Ansatzes zu veranschaulichen

College and Research Libraries 56 (5) September 1995

published or submitted for publicatio