Digital Badges in Education

Digital badges provide new affordances for online educational activities and experiences. When used with points and leaderboards, a badge can become a gamification element allowing learners to compete with themselves or others, and to know how close they are to accomplishing a goal and acquiring its accompanying reputation. In this role, badges motivate continued engagement, which increases time on task and supports skill acquisition through performance. Learning outcomes signified by badges can also be displayed in an e-portfolio or on web sites and are highly transportable to social media sites. In this role they summarize achievement and signal accomplishment. With these characteristics, digital badges have the potential to become an alternative credentialing system, providing visible recognition in digital symbols that link directly via metadata to validating evidence of educational achievements in public displays. This paper will trace the brief history of digital badges, define what they are, give examples of their use, and discuss their educational affordances

Dynamics of conflicts in Wikipedia

In this work we study the dynamical features of editorial wars in Wikipedia (WP). Based on our previously established algorithm, we build up samples of controversial and peaceful articles and analyze the temporal characteristics of the activity in these samples. On short time scales, we show that there is a clear correspondence between conflict and burstiness of activity patterns, and that memory effects play an important role in controversies. On long time scales, we identify three distinct developmental patterns for the overall behavior of the articles. We are able to distinguish cases eventually leading to consensus from those cases where a compromise is far from achievable. Finally, we analyze discussion networks and conclude that edit wars are mainly fought by few editors only.Comment: Supporting information adde

Crowd Development: The Interplay between Crowd Evaluation and Collaborative Dynamics in Wikipedia

Collaborative crowdsourcing is an increasingly common way of accomplishing work in our economy. Yet, we know very little about how the behavior of these crowds changes over time and how these dynamics impact their performance. In this paper, we take a group development approach that considers how the behavior of crowds change over time in anticipation and as a result of their evaluation and recognition. Towards this goal, this paper studies the collaborative behavior of groups comprised of editors of articles that have been recognized for their outstanding quality and given the Good Articles (GA) status and those that eventually become Featured Articles (FA) on Wikipedia. The results show that the collaborative behavior of GA groups radically changes just prior to their nomination. In particular, the GA groups experience increases in the level of activity, centralization of workload, and level of GA experience and decreases in conflict (i.e., reverts) among editors. After being promoted to GA, they converge back to their typical behavior and composition. This indicates that crowd behavior prior to their evaluation period is dramatically different than behavior before or after. In addition, the collaborative behaviors of crowds during their promotion to GA are predictive of whether they are eventually promoted to FA. Our findings shed new light on the importance of time in understanding the relationship between crowd performance and collaborative measures such as centralization, conflict and experience.National Science Foundation under Grant No. IIS-1617820Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138122/1/Zhang et al. 2017.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138122/4/a119-zhang.pdfDescription of a119-zhang.pdf : Published Versio

Mind the Skills Gap: The Role of Internet Know-How and Gender in Contributions to Wikipedia

Abstract Despite the egalitarian rhetoric surrounding online cultural production, profound gender inequalities remain in who contributes to one of the most visited Web sites worldwide, Wikipedia. In analyzing this persistent disparity, previous research has focused on aspects of current contributors and the existing Wikipedia community. We draw on unique panel survey data of young adults with information about both Wikipedia contributors and non-contributors. We examine the role of people's background attributes and Internet skills in participation on the site. We find that the gender gap in editing is exacerbated by a similarly significant Internet skills gap. Our results show that the most likely contributors are high-skilled males and that among low-skilled Internet users, no gender gap in Wikipedia contributions exists. Our findings suggest that efforts to understand the gender gap must also take Internet skills into account

An Exploratory Study of Values Alignments in a Teacher Professional Development Digital Badge System

This exploratory study used case study methods to identify whether value alignments between users and system features could be detected in an online digital badge system and learning environment, and if so, whether those value alignments could be said to affect use of the system. Values are “guiding principles of what people consider important in life” (Cheng & Fleischmann, 2010, n.p.) and are believed to have explanatory power in predicting behaviors and attitudes (Schwartz, 2007). A value sensitive design research method had to be devised anew to address the research questions and is arguably the major contribution of this study. First, a self-report scale (Portrait Values Questionnaire-RR) developed by Schwartz et al. (2012) was used to categorize the pragmatic values of teachers and administrators using the online VIF Learning Center badging into four higher order values: self-transcendence, conservation, openness to change, and self-enhancement. Statistically significant differences were found between male and female teachers, but not between teachers and administrators, nor between teachers mandated to use the system and those for whom use was optional. Second, the 19 values of Schwartz’s revised and refined theory of basic human values were used to assign human values to 11 feature-action pairs identified in the VIF Learning Center’s digital platform. Usage of the feature-action pairs was sparse, and data were spread unevenly, suggesting possible data loss or an indication that technical affordances were weak drivers of participation and engagement.Doctor of Philosoph

Crowd-powered systems

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-237).Crowd-powered systems combine computation with human intelligence, drawn from large groups of people connecting and coordinating online. These hybrid systems enable applications and experiences that neither crowds nor computation could support alone. Unfortunately, crowd work is error-prone and slow, making it difficult to incorporate crowds as first-order building blocks in software systems. I introduce computational techniques that decompose complex tasks into simpler, verifiable steps to improve quality, and optimize work to return results in seconds. These techniques develop crowdsourcing as a platform so that it is reliable and responsive enough to be used in interactive systems. This thesis develops these ideas through a series of crowd-powered systems. The first, Soylent, is a word processor that uses paid micro-contributions to aid writing tasks such as text shortening and proofreading. Using Soylent is like having access to an entire editorial staff as you write. The second system, Adrenaline, is a camera that uses crowds to help amateur photographers capture the exact right moment for a photo. It finds the best smile and catches subjects in mid-air jumps, all in realtime. Moving beyond generic knowledge and paid crowds, I introduce techniques to motivate a social network that has specific expertise, and techniques to data mine crowd activity traces in support of a large number of uncommon user goals. These systems point to a future where social and crowd intelligence are central elements of interaction, software, and computation.by Michael Scott Bernstein.Ph.D

Grassroots Heritage: A Multi-Method Investigation of How Social Media Sustain the Living Heritage of Historic Crises

Unprecedented uses of information and communication technology (ICT) and particularly social media (e.g., Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter) are occurring in times of crisis. This dissertation investigates the socio-technical practices emerging from the use of social media and how these practices help to sustain the living heritage of historic crises. The purpose is to provide empirical evidence on how heritage is a living and participatory phenomenon that needs to be considered when designing technology for heritage matters. The concepts of grassroots heritage and socially-distributed curation are offered as a way of interpreting heritage in the context of the participatory culture. This dissertation presents a multi-method investigation to determine what crisis narratives appeared in social media and how social media were used to sustain these narratives through curatorial activities. The first study surveys the social media presence of 111 crisis events that occurred between 1960 and 2010 to examine if and how past historically significant crisis events were being commemorated in the present day through new media. Then, ethnographic and automated collection methods were used to identify narratives appearing in the social media landscape for four crisis events that exhibited a high social media presence in the survey. The dissertation presents five meta-narratives for two crisis cases: (1) the 1984 Bhopal gas leak and (2) the 2001 September 11 attacks. One critical finding is that people sustain the heritage of historic crises in the digital world by perpetually revising narratives while adapting these messages to the new media of today. The second study critiques both the concept of “curator” as a profession as well as the concept of “curation” that is emerging from the social web to develop an initial conceptual model of curation. The final study involved the application and assessment of this initial conceptual model by analyzing the curatorial activities that produced the crisis narratives found in the first study. From this assessment, I articulate a theoretical model called socially-distributed curation to inform the design of future social technology

Contribution à la modélisation des métadonnées associées aux documents multimédias et à leur enrichissement par l’usage

De nos jours, ce ne sont pas que les collections multimédias qui deviennent de plus en plus volumineuses, mais aussi les métadonnées qui les décrivent. L’extraction des métadonnées est très coûteuse en consommation de ressources. Cela pose le problème de la gestion efficace de ces grands volumes de données, en minimisant cette consommation. Le fait que les utilisateurs sont en constante interaction avec les documents multimédias et les métadonnées complique encore plus cette gestion. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions le problème de la gestion de métadonnées en intégrant les interactions des utilisateurs à deux niveaux: dans le processus de création de métadonnées et dans leur enrichissement. La grande variété de standards et normes de métadonnées existants ne sont pas interopérables. Les solutions proposées à ce problème d’interopérabilité se sont focalisées sur la création d’ontologies qui décrivent les contenus multimédias du point de vue sémantique, sans forcément prendre en compte les standards de métadonnées et d’autres informations de plus bas niveau sur les documents. Pour résoudre ce problème nous proposons un format de métadonnées qui intègre les standards et normes les plus utilisés et qui est flexible et extensible en structure et en vocabulaire. Dans le cadre d’un système de gestion des contenus multimédias, le processus d’indexation est celui qui consomme le plus de ressources, à travers les algorithmes d’indexation qui extraient les métadonnées. Dans les systèmes classiques, cette indexation est accomplie avec un ensemble d’algorithmes d’indexation figé dans le temps, sans se soucier de la consommation des ressources ni de l’évolution des besoins de l’utilisateur. Pour prendre en compte les besoins que l’utilisateur spécifie dans sa requête, afin de n’extraire que les métadonnées nécessaires et ainsi limiter d’un côté le volume de métadonnées à gérer et de l’autre la consommation des ressources, nous proposons de répartir le processus d’indexation en deux phases: une fois à l’acquisition des contenus (indexation implicite), et une deuxième fois, si besoin, au moment de l’exécution de la requête de l’utilisateur (indexation explicite) en ayant recours à une liste d’algorithmes d’indexation déterminée principalement en fonction de la requête de l’utilisateur. L’utilisateur est de plus en plus pris en compte dans les systèmes multimédias à travers ses interactions avec le système et le document. Nous proposons d’aller plus loin dans la prise en compte de l’utilisateur, en considérant ses interactions avec les différentes parties du document mais aussi avec les métadonnées qui décrivent le document. Cela a été réalisé à travers l’extension du format de métadonnées proposée, par l’ajout d une température à chaque élément du format, qui varie dans le temps, étant calculée en fonction de la façon dont l’utilisateur interagit avec le document, mais aussi avec les métadonnées dans une période de temps. Nous avons validé nos propositions dans deux domaines différents: la vidéo surveillance et le commerce électronique. Le projet LINDO nous a permis la validation du format des métadonnées et de la sélection des algorithmes d’indexation dans le cadre de l’indexation explicite, dans le cadre de la vidéo surveillance. Dans le domaine du commerce électronique, nous avons exploité les interactions des utilisateurs réels avec un site de vente en ligne pour calculer la température des métadonnées associées aux pages du site pendant une période de deux mois. Nous avons utilisé cette température pour réaliser le reclassement des résultats obtenus pour une requête de l’utilisateur. Nous avons réalisé un test utilisateur sur une vingtaine de personnes. Ce test montre que pour certaines requêtes de l’utilisateur ce reclassement des résultats aide les utilisateurs à trouver les informations recherchés plus vite. Ce travail a permis de répondre au problème de la prise compte de l’utilisateur dans le processus de gestion des documents multimédias, en proposant: un modèle de métadonnées qui intègre les standards de métadonnées les plus utilisés; l’indexation différée des contenus multimédias (indexation implicite et explicite); l’enrichissement des métadonnées en considérant les interactions des utilisateurs avec le système, les documents multimédias et les métadonnées