Introducing Electronic Information Services to First-Year Composition Students: Pedagogical and Practical Concerns

More and more of the college and university library\u27s resources are becoming computerized. As first year students enter the library, they are often confronted with an overwhelming array of computer terminals and workstations. While some students are avid computer users, others are fearful or intimidated. Regardless of one\u27s proclivity towards electronic resources and services, the first year student must learn how to evaluate the relevancy of each of the various systems to their own research needs and make a selection that is best suited to their particular tasks. This presentation will review general considerations and guidelines for including electronic library resources into the research component of first year composition classes. Introducing computerized databases into the research process presents numerous challenges to the composition instructor. Parting from the traditional research strategies often presented in the published research guides may lead the instructor into uncharted territories. Yet, the availability of electronic sources has become so prolific that ignoring them or minimizing their use would be an extreme disservice to the students. CD-ROM technology and locally mounted databases have brought sophisticated searching capabilities into the hands of the entire university community, including first year undergraduates. A strong research component in the first year writing course can provide a firm foundation on which advanced thinking and writing skills can develop. While the vast array of electronic resources may present exciting or intriguing possibilities, instructors must be careful not to overwhelm the students with too much or to present online systems as the best answer for every research need. Putting these electronic resources into an appropriate context for the beginning researcher is paramount to teaching their effective utilization. A thorough presentation of the research process, with its conceptual underpinnings and strategies, provides the broad framework within which these resources may be most effectively utilized. In this presentation I will discuss selecting databases and using electronic resources in the introductory level composition course. A close working relationship with the instruction librarian will help to ensure adequate coverage of electronic services for the novice researcher and maintain an appropriate balance with print sources as well. While taking advantage of the improved access to information through electronic means, educators must integrate critical thinking and evaluative skills throughout the students\u27 research and writing processes. The many options available in our information-rich society force us to make choices, and we must help the first year students realize that computer, though it may provide opportunity, does not always mean best

How the agent’s gender influence users’ evaluation of a QA system

In this paper we present the results of a pilot study investigating the effects of agents’ gender-ambiguous vs. gender-marked look on the perceived interaction quality of a multimodal question answering system. Eight test subjects interacted with three system agents, each having a feminine, masculine or gender-ambiguous look. The subjects were told each agent was representing a differently configured system. In fact, they were interacting with the same system. In the end, the subjects filled in an evaluation questionnaire and participated in an in-depth qualitative interview. The results showed that the user evaluation seemed to be influenced by the agent’s gender look: the system represented by the feminine agent achieved on average the highest evaluation scores. On the other hand, the system represented by the gender-ambiguous agent was systematically lower rated. This outcome might be relevant for an appropriate agent look, especially since many designers tend to develop gender-ambiguous characters for interactive interfaces to match various users’ preferences. However, additional empirical evidence is needed in the future to confirm our findings

Optimal growth under military threat

National Defense is a public good that requires resources for its production and its availability affects the economic behavior of private agents. A major policy problem of the government is to find an optimal allocation of resources between private use and national defense. It is shown that, in a simple optimal growth framework, a government's solution may not be the one that satisfies the military authority's objective. Attention is drawn to the need of cooperation between these two bodies and to the importance of the transparency of military expenditures in reaching a compromise that satisfies the public

A Truly Crazy Idea About Type-IIB Supergravity and Heterotic Sigma-Models

We construct an explicit and manifestly (1,0) heterotic sigma-model where the background fields are those of 10D, N=IIB supergravity.Comment: 10 Pages, Latex (self contained macros

Visual representation of concepts : exploring users’ and designers’ concepts of everyday products

To address the question on how to enhance the design of user-artefact interaction at the initial stages of the design process, this study focuses on exploring the differences between designers and users in regard to their concepts of an artefact usage. It also considers that human experience determines people’s knowledge and concepts of the artefacts they interact with, and broadens or limits their concept of context of use. In this exploratory study visual representation of concepts is used to elicit information from designers and users, and to explore how these concepts are influenced by their individual experience. Observation, concurrent verbal and retrospective protocols and thematic interviews are employed to access more in depth information about users’ and designers’ concepts. The experiment was conducted with designers and users who were asked about their concepts of an everyday product. Three types of data were produced in each session: sketches, transcriptions from retrospectives verbal reports and observations. Through an iterative process, references about context, use and experience were identified in the data collected; this led to the definition of a coding system of categories that was applied for the interpretation of visuals and texts. The methodology was tested through preliminary studies. Their initial outcomes indicate that the main differences between designers’ and users’ concepts come from their knowledge domain, while main similarities are related to human experience as source that drives concept formulation. Cultural background has been found to influence concepts about product usability and its context of use. The use of visual representation of concepts with retrospective reports and interviews allowed access to insightful information on how human experience influence people’s knowledge about product usability and its context of use. It is expected that this knowledge contributes to the enhancement of the design of product usability

Issues in the relationship between technology and practice

The paper explores some of the key themes and discussion points that were aired at the Association of Learning Technology conference in 2004. It discusses the findings of several of the keynote speakers and presenters within the context of the relationship between technology, practice and innovation. It references the papers presented in the technology infrastructure and new technology strands of the conference to examine whether educational technology currently has an appropriate balance between innovation and good practice. It then presents a case study of application in practice through some of the development activities that a national funding body, the JISC, has put into place. Finally, it draws conclusions about how well the learning technology community is achieving appropriate balance between innovation and technology