Multiobjective Line Balancing Game:Collaboration and Peer Evaluation

We introduce a spreadsheet-based game, the multiobjective line balancing (MOLB) game, to teach assembly line balancing as a common topic of discussion in operations research, operations management, supply chain management, or management science courses at the undergraduate or graduate level. The MOLB game was designed based on the triple bottom line framework, in which the economic, social, and environmental aspects of line balancing decisions are simultaneously taken into account. The MOLB game can be played in teams of three or four students. First, each team receives unique information for balancing an assembly line. Each team should find as many feasible balances as possible in a collaborative form and then send the Pareto solution set and the best found solution to a peer team. In the second round of the game, the teams assess the results of a peer team first by trying to find infeasible or non-Pareto solutions and second by attempting to improve on the provided solutions. Finally, the reviewer team presents the results of the peer-review process to the entire class.</p

Metaheuristic Optimization Frameworks: a Survey and Benchmarking

This paper performs an unprecedented comparative study of Metaheuristic optimization frameworks. As criteria for comparison a set of 271 features grouped in 30 characteristics and 6 areas has been selected. These features include the different metaheuristic techniques covered, mechanisms for solution encoding, constraint handling, neighborhood specification, hybridization, parallel and distributed computation, software engineering best practices, documentation and user interface, etc. A metric has been defined for each feature so that the scores obtained by a framework are averaged within each group of features, leading to a final average score for each framework. Out of 33 frameworks ten have been selected from the literature using well-defined filtering criteria, and the results of the comparison are analyzed with the aim of identifying improvement areas and gaps in specific frameworks and the whole set. Generally speaking, a significant lack of support has been found for hyper-heuristics, and parallel and distributed computing capabilities. It is also desirable to have a wider implementation of some Software Engineering best practices. Finally, a wider support for some metaheuristics and hybridization capabilities is needed

Data Curation as Governance Practice

Data governance is concerned with leveraging the potential value of data in data infrastructures. In IS research, data governance has developed as a management perspective, implying a narrow view of who makes decisions about the data in infrastructures. In contrast, we propose a data governance in practice view and focus on the day-to-day decisions of users working with the data. Drawing on an interpretive case study of three data infrastructures in the Norwegian public sector, we ask: How can we characterize data governance in practice? We find that the work of data curation is a fundamental element of data governance practice. Data emerge dynamically as assets, enfolding the involved users’ interests and contexts. We contribute to the IS literature in two ways. First, we characterize three main practices of data curation: achieving data quality, filtering the relevant data, and ensuring data protection. In so doing we foreground the role of the users as contributing to shaping data infrastructures. Second, we develop an analytical framework which specifies the unfolding of user involvement in data infrastructures-in-use and conceptualizes this work as emergent. Our contributions have implications for developing training support for users as data curators, and for the ethics of data managemen

Evaluating the Impact of 1:1 Laptops on High School Science Students and Teachers

This thesis is the culmination of a 6-year-long longitudinal study into the impact of 1:1 laptops on the experiences and achievements of high school science teachers and students. Set in the context of 16 Sydney high schools during the Australian Digital Education Revolution, this thesis explores the practices of teachers and students with 1:1 laptops in the sciences, the impact of the 1:1 laptops on student attainment in standardised external examinations, and ultimately investigates the reasons behind the findings. As a thesis-by-publication, this thesis consists of two introductory chapters, five journal papers (four of which have been published in peer-reviewed journals, with the fifth under review) making up five chapters, an overall discussion and a self-reflection. Ultimately, this thesis provides a detailed, mixed methods commentary of the experiences of schools, teachers and students over the five years of the much maligned Digital Education Revolution, something that is missing in the national public domain. Within the larger sphere of educational technology research globally, this thesis contributes to filling in some of the gaps existing in the extant literature, particularly in terms of quantitative analysis and statistically significant findings. Future research would benefit from the methodologies, visual representations and overall findings contained within this thesis. In fact, several recent eminent literature reviews and meta-analyses include some of the papers that make up this thesis