The Convergence of Digital-Libraries and the Peer-Review Process

Pre-print repositories have seen a significant increase in use over the past fifteen years across multiple research domains. Researchers are beginning to develop applications capable of using these repositories to assist the scientific community above and beyond the pure dissemination of information. The contribution set forth by this paper emphasizes a deconstructed publication model in which the peer-review process is mediated by an OAI-PMH peer-review service. This peer-review service uses a social-network algorithm to determine potential reviewers for a submitted manuscript and for weighting the relative influence of each participating reviewer's evaluations. This paper also suggests a set of peer-review specific metadata tags that can accompany a pre-print's existing metadata record. The combinations of these contributions provide a unique repository-centric peer-review model that fits within the widely deployed OAI-PMH framework.Comment: Journal of Information Science [in press

THE NATURE OF FEEDBACK:HOW DIFFERENT TYPES OF PEER FEEDBACK AFFECT WRITING PERFORMANCE

Although providing feedback is commonly practiced in education, there is general agreement regarding what type of feedback is most helpful and why it is helpful. This study examined the relationship between various types of feedback, potential internal mediators, and the likelihood of implementing feedback. Five main predictions were developed from the feedback literature in writing, specifically regarding feedback features (summarization, identifying problems, providing solutions, localization, explanations, scope, praise, and mitigating language) as they relate to potential causal mediators of problem or solution understand and problem or solution agreement, leading to the final outcome of feedback implementation.To empirically test the proposed feedback model, 1073 feedback segments from writing assessed by peers was analyzed. Feedback was collected using SWoRD, an online peer review system. Each segment was coded for each of the feedback features, implementation, agreement, and understanding. The correlations between the feedback features, levels of mediating variables, and implementation rates revealed several significant relationships. Understanding was the only significant mediator of implementation. Several feedback features were associated with understanding: including solutions, a summary of the performance, and the location of the problem were associated with increased understanding; and explanations to problems were associated with decreased understanding. Implications of these results are discussed

PEER-REVIEWING, FEEDBACK & ASSESSMENT IN ENGINEERING TEACHING

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On Secure Workflow Decentralisation on the Internet

Decentralised workflow management systems are a new research area, where most work to-date has focused on the system's overall architecture. As little attention has been given to the security aspects in such systems, we follow a security driven approach, and consider, from the perspective of available security building blocks, how security can be implemented and what new opportunities are presented when empowering the decentralised environment with modern distributed security protocols. Our research is motivated by a more general question of how to combine the positive enablers that email exchange enjoys, with the general benefits of workflow systems, and more specifically with the benefits that can be introduced in a decentralised environment. This aims to equip email users with a set of tools to manage the semantics of a message exchange, contents, participants and their roles in the exchange in an environment that provides inherent assurances of security and privacy. This work is based on a survey of contemporary distributed security protocols, and considers how these protocols could be used in implementing a distributed workflow management system with decentralised control . We review a set of these protocols, focusing on the required message sequences in reviewing the protocols, and discuss how these security protocols provide the foundations for implementing core control-flow, data, and resource patterns in a distributed workflow environment

The computer as means of communication for peer-review groups

In a scientific-writing course, 15 of 54 students used a review-supporting computer program, PREP-EDITOR (PREP), to communicate with their peers about drafts. In an exploratory study, 10 students were interviewed regularly: 5 used PREP and 5 met face-to-face to exchange comments on drafts. The study showed that use of PREP did not increase time spent on various writing activities. The PREP group reported a large number of computer-related problems, whereas the non-PREP group reported more difficulties with assignments and course organization. It appeared that the technology was omnipresent in PREP users' perception of the course. The system of computer-mediated peer review has many of the drawbacks of 'distance learning,' but because networks are increasingly used by collaborating authors, we should teach our students how to use them sensibly

Methodological issues in using sequential representations in the teaching of writing

This study looks at a specific application of Ainsworth’s conceptual framework for learning with multiple representations in the context of using multiple sequential graphic organizers that are student‐generated for a process‐writing task. Process writing refers to writing that consists of multiple drafts. It may be a process of re‐writing without feedback or re‐writing based on feedback where the teacher or peers will provide feedback on the original draft and then the students will revise their writing based on the feedback given. The objective was to explore how knowledge of students’ cognitive processes when using multiple organizers can inform the teaching of writing. The literature review analyzes the interaction of the design, function and task components of the framework; culminating in instructional approaches for using multiple organizers for classes with students of different writing abilities. Extended implications for designers of concept mapping tools based on these approaches are provided