Introduction to the special issue on teaching and learning in information retrieval

We present an overview of the special issue in this paper. The main objective is to provide information for lecturers on how to improve the student experience, using current knowledge in the field. To this end we present an overview of six papers covering areas as diverse as tools and methods used to support teaching and learning, pedagogical challenges in teaching mathematics for search, etc

An inquiry-based learning approach to teaching information retrieval

The study of information retrieval (IR) has increased in interest and importance with the explosive growth of online information in recent years. Learning about IR within formal courses of study enables users of search engines to use them more knowledgeably and effectively, while providing the starting point for the explorations of new researchers into novel search technologies. Although IR can be taught in a traditional manner of formal classroom instruction with students being led through the details of the subject and expected to reproduce this in assessment, the nature of IR as a topic makes it an ideal subject for inquiry-based learning approaches to teaching. In an inquiry-based learning approach students are introduced to the principles of a subject and then encouraged to develop their understanding by solving structured or open problems. Working through solutions in subsequent class discussions enables students to appreciate the availability of alternative solutions as proposed by their classmates. Following this approach students not only learn the details of IR techniques, but significantly, naturally learn to apply them in solution of problems. In doing this they not only gain an appreciation of alternative solutions to a problem, but also how to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses. Developing confidence and skills in problem solving enables student assessment to be structured around solution of problems. Thus students can be assessed on the basis of their understanding and ability to apply techniques, rather simply their skill at reciting facts. This has the additional benefit of encouraging general problem solving skills which can be of benefit in other subjects. This approach to teaching IR was successfully implemented in an undergraduate module where students were assessed in a written examination exploring their knowledge and understanding of the principles of IR and their ability to apply them to solving problems, and a written assignment based on developing an individual research proposal

Exploratory Practice: Researching the Impact of Songs on EFL Learners' Verbal Memory

Traditionally popular songs have been used as a way of enhancing listening and auditory perception skills and teaching vocabulary, but not necessarily for memory recall. Popular song gap-fills are already commonplace within the EFL (English as a foreign language) field; however, this study found that more attention needs to be given, to the lexical, grammatical and phonological items that learners are instructed to retain. The results of this study suggest that, verbal memory is a vital part of language learning that should be incorporated into popular song gap-fills and that EFL teachers, theorists and textbook authors need to review the way language in popular songs is encoded, stored and retrieved, by incorporating memory strategies, following guidelines on gap-selection, including a phonological aspect and using a recycling activity. In this article traditional and contemporary understandings of verbal memory and popular song are outlined and comprehensively analysed within relevant fields that embrace ELT (English language teaching), Biology, Psycholinguistics, Neurolinguistics and Cognitive Psychology perspectives and discusses their pedagogical implications

Innovation and Employability in Knowledge Management Curriculum Design

During 2007/8, Southampton Solent University worked on a Leadership Foundation project focused on the utility of the multi-functional team approach as a vehicle to deliver innovation in strategic and operational terms in higher education (HE). The Task-Orientated Multi-Functional Team Approach (TOMFTA) project took two significant undertakings for Southampton Solent as key areas for investigation, one academic and one administrative in focus. The academic project was the development of an innovative and novel degree programme in knowledge management (KM). The new KM Honours degree programme is timely both in recognition of the increasing importance to organisations of knowledge as a commodity, and in its adoption of a distinctive structure and pedagogy. The methodology for the KM curriculum design brings together student-centred and market-driven approaches: positioning the programme for the interests of students and requirements of employers, rather than just the capabilities of staff; while looking at ways that courses can be delivered with more flexibility, e.g. accelerated and block-mode; with level-differentiated activities, common cross-year content and material that is multi-purpose for use in short courses. In order to permit context at multiple levels in common, a graduate skills strand is taught separately as part of the University’s business-facing education agenda. The KM portfolio offers a programme of practically-based courses integrating key themes in knowledge management, business, information distribution and development of the media. They develop problem-solving, communications, teamwork and other employability skills as well as the domain skills needed by emerging information management technologies. The new courses are built on activities which focus on different aspects of KM, drawing on existing content as a knowledge base. This paper presents the ongoing development of the KM programme through the key aspects in its conception and design

What do faculties specializing in brain and neural sciences think about, and how do they approach, brain-friendly teaching-learning in Iran?

Objective: to investigate the perspectives and experiences of the faculties specializing in brain and neural sciences regarding brain-friendly teaching-learning in Iran. Methods: 17 faculties from 5 universities were selected by purposive sampling (2018). In-depth semi-structured interviews with directed content analysis were used. Results: 31 sub-subcategories, 10 subcategories, and 4 categories were formed according to the “General teaching model”. “Mentorship” was a newly added category. Conclusions: A neuro-educational approach that consider the roles of the learner’s brain uniqueness, executive function facilitation, and the valence system are important to learning. Such learning can be facilitated through cognitive load considerations, repetition, deep questioning, visualization, feedback, and reflection. The contextualized, problem-oriented, social, multi-sensory, experiential, spaced learning, and brain-friendly evaluation must be considered. Mentorship is important for coaching and emotional facilitation

Teaching and learning in information retrieval

A literature review of pedagogical methods for teaching and learning information retrieval is presented. From the analysis of the literature a taxonomy was built and it is used to structure the paper. Information Retrieval (IR) is presented from different points of view: technical levels, educational goals, teaching and learning methods, assessment and curricula. The review is organized around two levels of abstraction which form a taxonomy that deals with the different aspects of pedagogy as applied to information retrieval. The first level looks at the technical level of delivering information retrieval concepts, and at the educational goals as articulated by the two main subject domains where IR is delivered: computer science (CS) and library and information science (LIS). The second level focuses on pedagogical issues, such as teaching and learning methods, delivery modes (classroom, online or e-learning), use of IR systems for teaching, assessment and feedback, and curricula design. The survey, and its bibliography, provides an overview of the pedagogical research carried out in the field of IR. It also provides a guide for educators on approaches that can be applied to improving the student learning experiences

From library skills to information literacy

The application of new technologies and the acquisition of new sources and methods of information dissemination, as well as the provision of libraries services, requires the special education of the users in order to take advantage of these sources and services. In this paper, an investigation of the Greek academic libraries and their user education sessions is attempted. This research aims to explore the user education sessions offered by the libraries, with special regards to the education, the type of user education sessions and their contents. For the collection of the elements, the questionnaire method is selected. The current situation as much as it concerns the libraries and the applied teaching methods at the Greek education institutions, is presented

Ensuring the discoverability of digital images for social work education : an online tagging survey to test controlled vocabularies

The digital age has transformed access to all kinds of educational content not only in text-based format but also digital images and other media. As learning technologists and librarians begin to organise these new media into digital collections for educational purposes, older problems associated with cataloguing and classifying non-text media have re-emerged. At the heart of this issue is the problem of describing complex and highly subjective images in a reliable and consistent manner. This paper reports on the findings of research designed to test the suitability of two controlled vocabularies to index and thereby improve the discoverability of images stored in the Learning Exchange, a repository for social work education and research. An online survey asked respondents to "tag", a series of images and responses were mapped against the two controlled vocabularies. Findings showed that a large proportion of user generated tags could be mapped to the controlled vocabulary terms (or their equivalents). The implications of these findings for indexing and discovering content are discussed in the context of a wider review of the literature on "folksonomies" (or user tagging) versus taxonomies and controlled vocabularies

Organic.Edunet Web Portal: User Satisfaction Analysis

The Organic.Edunet Web portal is a multilingual federation of educational repositories, developed in order to enhance the availability and retrieval of quality educational resources about Organic Agriculture (OA) and Agroecology (AE). This paper presents the results of an online survey that took place from March to August 2010 in order to evaluate the user satisfaction from the Organic.Edunet Web portal. A standard methodology was followed in this survey, which was based on the WebQual questionnaire with the required modifications. The collected results were analyzed and statistically processed in order to lead to the corresponding conclusions