Comparing the use of edited and unedited text in parser self-training

We compare the use of edited text in the form of newswire and unedited text in the form of discussion forum posts as sources for training material in a self-training experiment involving the Brown reranking parser and a test set of sentences from an online sports discussion forum. We find that grammars induced from the two automatically parsed corpora achieve similar Parseval f-scores, with the grammars induced from the discussion forum material being slightly superior. An error analysis reveals that the two types of grammars do behave differently

Online scaffolding through asynchronous online discussion forum

Since the last decade, the rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT), brings a lot of changes to nearly every fields of life including management, entertainment, financial, and legislation (Mohd Fuad, 2014). With internet, humans have access to infinite knowledge and communication can be made to people across the globe with just a few clicks. The immense potential of internet creates interest for the educators to take advantage and implement online communication in educational setting

Developing the developers – supporting development of online conference presentations

Delivering online tuition has become standard practice in most universities with many students receiving part of their tuition online. However, so far there appears to be a resistance to utilising online delivery for staff and academic development. An online academic development conference was delivered to 150 teaching staff delegates over the course of a week. The conference structure was to have a keynote presentation and eleven shorter discussion presentations, each with their own dedicated asynchronous discussion forum. Conference presenters were each asked to produce a video presentation of up to 7 minutes and run an associated online forum. This paper reports on the experience of the presenters in producing their video presentations and running the forums. It will highlight the valuable development opportunity for presenters as well as summarising their experiences. Finally it will outline the lessons we have learnt and propose some recommendations for others considering running online staff development conferences

Assessing Online Discussion Forum Participation

As a socially constructive learning tool, discussion forums remain central to online education. They have continued to evolve in functionality, acquiring ever-increasing usability features. However, development has lagged in providing instructors the means to assess student work in forums. The author submits an overview of his software program that provides instructors with the means to evaluate forum work quickly, easily, and repeatedly. The software accomplishes this by accessing the forums\u27 underlying database, searching for manifest and latent data, and calculating data associated with an array of metrics. This is a Web-based tool built on Open Source and standards-based languages, providing opportunities to port the program to numerous Learning Management Systems. It is the intention of this author to provide this tool, when completed, for such use as a free, Open Source tool. Interested parties may e-mail the author for progress updates. Currently, however, further work on the project must await the completion of another project, the author\u27s dissertatio

Genre repertoire in Online Discussion Forum: A case from Thailand

An online discussion forum becomes more significant in facilitating people to share opinions. Companies must understand how consumers use the online forum. We study an influential online discussion forum in Thailand, Pantip.com, in order to classify user behaviours in the cosmetic discussion forum. We adopt the concept of genre and genre repertoire to assist our content analysis. We analyse 77 discussion threads, which contain a “cosmetic” keyword during a 6-week period in late 2014. Our preliminary analysis shows that the genre repertoire found on Pantip.com consists of three genres: (1) Information sharing, (2) Opinion discussion, and (3) Question asking. A theoretical contribution from this study is that we show how genre theory can be used to describe an online discussion forum, and a practical contribution is that business companies could adopt the insights generated to form their communication practices to customers, which are inline with existing genres

Roles and student identities in online large course forums: implications for practice.

The use of large online discussion forums within online and distance learning continues to grow. Recent innovations in online learning the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and concomitant growth in the use of online media for the delivery of courses in traditional campus based universities provides both opportunity and challenge for online tutors and learners alike. The recognition of the role that online tutor and student identity plays in the field of retention and progression of distance learners is also well documented in the field of distance learning. Focusing on a course forum linked to a single level 2 undergraduate module and open to over a thousand students, this ideographic case study, set in a large distance learning university, uses qualitative methodology to examine the extent to which participation in a large forum can be considered within community of practice frameworks (COP) and contributes to feelings of efficacy, student identity and motivation. The paper draws on current theory pertaining to online communities and examines this in relation to the extent to which the forum adds to feelings of academic and social integration. The study concludes that although the large forum environment facilitates a certain degree of academic integration and identity there is evidence that it also presents a number of barriers producing negative effects on student motivation and online identity

Evaluating quality in online asynchronous interactions between students and discussion facilitators

Online discussion forums have become an essential part of university courses, whether the course is conducted online, or face to face, or in mixed or blended mode. Discussion forums are considered to engage students better with the course content and encourage them to share and gain knowledge from each other. However, online engagement does not always happen automatically between students. Hence grading of discussion forum participation has been recommended to ensure quality student participation. Currently, a major focus has been put onto the better use of discussion forums, but the way in which the quality of participation can be evaluated has yet to be adequately investigated. Furthermore, evaluation of the instructor participation in a discussion forum and its impact on students and their contributions is lacking. In this paper, we report on our research into online discussion forum quality through analysis of discussion forum activities, along with student focus group meetings and instructor interviews. We have devised a set of criteria for evaluating discussion forum activities. Our results show that students depend highly on the instructor's feedback and the participation of the students can only be evaluated with reference to the moderation of the instructors

Enhancing Learning Interaction through Inter-Forum Group Discussion in Online Learning: A Case Study on Online Teaching of Research in English Language Teaching Course

This research aimed to develop a model of Inter-Group Discussion Forum (IGDF) application   as media to increase students’ interaction and participation in the discussion forum during the online learning. Data were collected through the process of the implementation of discussion forum using IGDF application during the online learning of Research in English Language Teaching (ELT) courses during the teaching period of 2014.2. Data of the students participation were collected through online observation, and data about the students’ perception of the IGDF model were collected by providing an online close and open ended questionnaires and analyzed by calculating the percentage. The results of this study indicated that the application of IGDF is applicable in online learning. The amount of participation and the quality of the interaction from the discussion through IGDF has not shown significant improvement. The main obstacle came from the technical problems associated with passwords and the ability to follow the discussion in a discussion forum between groups. However, the variety types of posting has increased. Each group is able to post presentations, questions, responses, and commands. Students' perceptions toward the IGDF proved significant where there was 88.46% of them stated that the discussion forum with IGDF is very good discussion among the group and it can increase interaction among students in the online learning