Big data for monitoring educational systems

This report considers “how advances in big data are likely to transform the context and methodology of monitoring educational systems within a long-term perspective (10-30 years) and impact the evidence based policy development in the sector”, big data are “large amounts of different types of data produced with high velocity from a high number of various types of sources.” Five independent experts were commissioned by Ecorys, responding to themes of: students' privacy, educational equity and efficiency, student tracking, assessment and skills. The experts were asked to consider the “macro perspective on governance on educational systems at all levels from primary, secondary education and tertiary – the latter covering all aspects of tertiary from further, to higher, and to VET”, prioritising primary and secondary levels of education

Chatbots' impact in the relationship between young adult consumers and the Portuguese banking sector

The Portuguese banking sector are taking a stand in the digital world through the implementation of chatbots – a virtual assistant that helps customers solve their financial problems, without the need of human interaction. Research has shown that chatbots can facilitate consumers’ lives, making them happier and more satisfied with the banking institutions. This study aims to determine the chatbots’ impact on the current relationship between young adults – a growing digital market segment – and the banking entities. The research pretends to determine whether the adoption of digital features, in particular chatbots, by the young adults’ main banking service provider is an opportunity to attract and retain more customers in the beginning of their financial life; and whether or not its adoption causes a significant impact in the level of satisfaction with the banks. Based on the literature review, an online questionnaire was distributed to young adults between 17 and 35 years old that benefit from the service of at least one operating banking entity in Portugal. Random selection was applied in the choice of the 179 participants in the study. Analysis of the responses demonstrate that a chatbot implementation, at this moment, would not change the relationship between the two parties – consumers and banks. The results indicate that chatbots in banking lack of personalization, range of responses and effectiveness due to being in an embryonic phase, making customers slightly happier and more satisfied, but not more loyal. On this basis, it is recommended that there be a focus on the software development and improvement and especially in its propagation by the banking entities. Further research is needed to enhance the conclusions obtained from the present study, using a larger sample.O sector bancário Português está a assumir a sua posição no mundo digital através da implementação de chatbots – um assistente virtual que ajuda os clientes a resolver os seus problemas financeiros sem a necessidade de interação humana. Pesquisas demonstraram que os chatbots podem facilitar a vida dos consumidores, tornando-os mais felizes e satisfeitos com as instituições bancárias. Este estudo tem como objetivo determinar o impacto dos chatbots na relação atual entre jovens adultos – um crescente segmento de mercado digital – e as entidades bancárias. A pesquisa tem como finalidade determinar se a adoção de recursos digitais, em particular os chatbots, pelo principal fornecedor de serviços bancários dos jovens trata-se de uma oportunidade para atrair e reter mais clientes no início da sua vida financeira; e se a sua adoção causa ou não um impacto significativo no nível de satisfação com os bancos. Com base na revisão de literatura, um questionário online foi distribuído a jovens entre os 17 e os 35 anos que beneficiam de pelo menos um serviço de uma entidade bancária presente em Portugal. A escolha dos 179 participantes do estudo foi aleatória. A análise das respostas demonstra que a implementação de um chatbot, neste momento, não mudaria o relacionamento entre as duas partes – consumidores e bancos. Os resultados indicam que os chatbots no setor bancário estão desprovidos de personalização, gama de respostas e eficácia devido a estarem numa fase embrionária, tornando os clientes ligeiramente mais felizes e satisfeitos, mas não mais leais. Com isto, recomenda-se que o foco seja o desenvolvimento e melhoramento do software e, principalmente, a sua divulgação por parte das entidades bancárias. Mais pesquisas são necessárias para aprimorar os resultados do presente estudo, através da aplicação de uma amostra maior

Data Narratives: Aesthetic Activation of Urban Space Through Augmented Reality

This chapter discusses Data Narratives, a commissioned augmented reality artwork resulting from a period as artist in residence with Dublin City Dashboard. Data Narratives focused on working with city data to create hybrid artistic representations of Dublin’s ongoing housing affordability crisis, acting both as activist artistic engagement with the socio-political-economic space of the city and aesthetic activation of urban space through augmented reality. As data describes and defines so much of our digital every day, the project and residency programme asked how it could be leveraged as a medium for artistic creation and how could art supply new insights into these data and the life worlds they describe? Additionally, the project explored collaborative methodologies working in AR, increasingly important for artists producing complex AR works with the latest generation AR toolkits. The chapter gives an account of this project detailing its ambition to utilize AR art to build AR prototypes that over-layered city neighbourhoods with a series of cell phone-based data-driven AR narratives. Contextual location-based narratives visualize and engage complex issues. The process of building an artistic AR layer built on civic data is detailed, and the paper discusses its provision of a contextual layer that promoted reflection, informed debate, supported decision making, while connecting city residents with their city through renditions of its data

USING IMAGERY PRACTICE TO IMPROVE AIRLINE PILOT SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

Pilot error remains the primary cause of airline airplane accidents (Federal Aviation Administration, n.d.). Airline pilots have relied on Crew Resource Management and Threat Error Management to reduce or eliminate errors (Helmreich & Foushee, 2019). Unfortunately, the worldwide accident rate continues to increase (International Air Transport Association, 2021), demonstrating the need for further research into improving aviation safety. Current regulations do not require imagery training for airline pilots to improve situational awareness (Federal Aviation Administration, 2017a). Athletes and other professionals, such as musicians and medical professionals, use imagery to improve performance (Munzert et al., 2009). Imagery practice may improve the situational awareness of airline pilots. This study examined the relationship between imagery practice and airline pilot situational awareness. The researcher used an experimental posttest design with a group of airline pilots that received imagery training and a practice period. The data analysis answered the research questions and objectives using data provided by the participants who completed an interactive video survey. The researcher compared the survey results with airline pilots without imagery practice, measuring Endsley\u27s (1995) three levels of situational awareness, including perception, comprehension, and projection. The study\u27s results produced three findings that emphasize the effects of the research. Pilots who practiced imagery more often had higher levels of situational awareness during the video survey than pilots who practiced less. Although there was an improvement in the group that practiced imaging a flight, further research may improve the effectiveness of imagery practice. More experienced pilots participated in the study compared to less experienced pilots. Further research regarding safety training experience and situational awareness could add to the findings of this study, along with Wang et al. (2021) findings regarding pilots using personal attributes such as emotional intelligence that replace inadequate training to maintain situational awareness

Master\u27s Tools and the Master\u27s House: A Historical Analysis Exploring the Myth of Educating for Democracy in the United States

Over the past forty-years, neoliberal education reform policies in the U.S. have spurred significant resistance, often galvanized by claims that such policies undermine public education as a vital institution of U.S. democracy. Within this narrative, many activists call to “save our schools” and return them to a time when public schools served the common good. With these narratives in mind, I explore the foundational and persistent power structures that characterize the U.S. as a means to reveal the fundamental purpose of its public education system. The questions that guide my research include: (1) With an understanding that capitalism, white supremacy, settler colonialism and heteropatriarchy are inherently inequitable, incredibly violent and undemocratic; how can we expect meaningful and lasting social protections or even emancipation within a nation-state constituted by these structures? (2) Consequently, can we then expect public education - an institution constructed and controlled by these structural forces - to be transformed into an equitable and democratic institution? (3) Is it even possible to attain state protections for the common good within the current global domain of finance capital? In this extensive historical analysis, I examine these questions using a critical theory lens, historical revisionism and discourse analysis to interrogate primary source materials, scholarly work, news stories, policies and industry publications. This research shows that public education is an extension of a duplicitous and despotic cultural political economy and thus has never been, nor ever could be, an institution that serves democratic or emancipatory purposes. I contend that it is imprudent to strive to transform public education to serve democratic purposes. My research makes evident how current education policies are a continuation of the original design of public education, yet modernized to bolster the imperious and ubiquitous interests of global financialization

Shifting Interfaces: art research at the intersections of live performance and technology

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/809 on 08.20.2017 by CS (TIS)This collection of published works is an outcome of my practice-led inter-disciplinary collaborative artistic research into deepening understanding of creative process in the field of contemporary dance. It comprises thirty written works published from 1999 to 2007 in various formats and platforms. This collection is framed by a methodological discussion that provides insight into how this research has intersected over time with diverse fields of practice including contemporary dance, digital and new media arts and non-art domains such as cognitive and social science. Fields are understood in the context of this research to be largely constituted out of the expert practices of individual collaborators. This research starts from an interest in the Impact of new media technologies on dance making/ choreography. The collection of works show evidence, established in the first two publications, of an evolving engagement with two concepts related to this interest: (1) the 'algorithm' as a process-level connection or bridge between dance composition and computation; (2) the empirical study of movement embedded as a 'knowledge base' in the practices of both computer animation and dance and thus forming a special correspondence between them. This collection provides evidence of this research through a period of community-building amongst artists using new media technologies in performance, and culminates in the identification of an emerging 'community of practice' coming together around the formation of a unique body of knowledge pertaining to dance. The late 1990s New Media Art movement provided a supportive context for Important peer-to-peer encounters with creators and users of software tools and platforms in the context of inter-disciplinary art-making. A growing interest in software programming as a creative practice opened up fresh perspectives on possible connections with dance making. It became clear that software's utility alone, including artistic uses of software, was a limited conception. This was the background thinking that informed the first major shift in the research towards the design of software that might augment the creative process of expert choreographers and dancers. This shift from software use to its design, framed by a focus on the development of tools to support dance creation, also provided strong rationale to deepen the research into dance making processes. In the second major phase of the research presented here, scientific study is brought collaboratively to bear on questions related to choreographic practice. This lead to a better understanding of ways in which dancers and choreographers, as 'thinking bodies', interact with their design tools and each other in the context of creation work. In addition to this collection, outcomes of this research are traceable to other published papers and art works it has given rise to. Less easily measureable, but just as valuable, are the sustained relations between individuals and groups behind the 'community of practice' now recognised for its development of unique formats for bringing choreographic ideas and processes into contact, now and in the future, with both general audiences and other specialist practices

The influence of human resources practices in consumer’s decision-making

A tomada de decisão do consumidor é comummente estudada pelo marketing e publicidade. Todavia, o presente estudo dedica-se à influência das práticas de recursos humanos (RH) na intenção de compra que determinará a escolha de investimento do consumidor, atendendo certas condições, tais como as taxas de juros. Com base nesta perspectiva singular, os dados foram obtidos a partir de 252 estudantes da Licenciatura de Gestão, de acordo com as suas decisões de investimento entre dois bancos Portugueses, representados por duas práticas de RH, com efeitos positivos ou negativos, e apresentadas como notícias reais. Os resultados mostram que apesar da prática de RH à qual o banco está associado, geralmente os participantes decidem por aquele que lhes é mais rentável. Contudo, quando a notícia é dirigida ao in-group, os participantes optam pelo banco que representa a prática de RH com a qual se identificam mais, apesar de lhes ser menos rentável. Os resultados apontam ainda a necessidade de estudar a influência das práticas de RH em diferentes sectores de actividade, com o intuito de confirmar o mesmo comportamento por parte do consumidor.Consumer’s decision-making is mostly approached by marketing and advertising domains. This study focuses rather on the influence of human resources (HR) practices on purchase intention that will determine consumer’s decision about where to invest, attending certain conditions, such as interest rates. Built upon this innovative perspective, the data was obtained from 252 students attending the Management Bachelor degree and their decision of investment accessed between two Portuguese banks, represented by two HR practices, with positive or negative effects, and presented as real news. Results show that regardless of the HR practice the bank is associated to, in general participants decide for the one which is more profitable to them. However, when the news is addressed to the in-group, participants decide for the bank with the HR practice by which they identify more, besides being less profitable to them. The findings demonstrate the necessity to approach other HR practices in different sectors of activity, in order to confirm the same consumer behavior

Mediating Buddhism - The Investigation of Buddha Brands in London: Resetting Realism in Religious Studies

Mediating Buddhism wants to “simply” study what the entity named “Buddhism” is and how to approach it. This leads to the following research questions: (1) What could be the starting point for studying Buddhism without focusing on religion alone, and what role could Buddhist mediators — images, concepts, or events — play in this? (2) Could the understanding of Buddhism be improved by comprehending it not as religion or secularism alone but also through other perspectives like science, art, technology, or ethics? (3) What impact does the study of mediational Buddhism have on religious studies as a discipline? (4) What are the implications of this study for the material religion approach, and how could these be improved? (5) Is Buddhism an object somewhere “out there,” and how can we better understand what Buddhism is, if it is anything? (6) How are actors like scientists, things, and events, gathered by Buddhist mediators, and vice versa? (7) Why was Bruno Latour (1947–2022) chosen as the theoretical background, not anyone else? (8) When studying Buddha brands, what is the relationship between religious studies and realism: representative, critical, or agnostic? The importance of Mediating Buddhism lies in its irrealist approach to studying Buddhism, which challenges traditional scientific realism in religious studies and explores the role of Buddhist mediators beyond the “religion vs. secularism” paradigm, ultimately shedding new light on understanding what Buddhism is. Mediating Buddhism aims to challenge traditional views of Buddhism by exploring its empty nature and how to approach it, with the support of Bruno Latour’s theoretical framework, which offers new perspectives and insights into this exciting field of study

Sensing it Coming: Regarding the Aesthetics of Risk

Today the ubiquitous guidance, warnings and protocols of risk management construct possible futures as risks to be managed. How is this need to manage risk transforming the contemporary visual language? Are its rhetorics of danger, reassurance or rationality effectively convincing us that we are prepared? Can art reconcile us with these issues and be a safe space for constructing resilience? This dissertation focusses on the rhetorics of risk from the perspective of art and visual culture, examining warnings, instructions, drills and data visualisations across risk and art

Persuasive interactive non-verbal behaviour in embodied conversational agents

Realism for embodied conversational agents (ECAs) requires both visual and behavioural fidelity. One significant area of ECA behaviour, that has to date received little attention, is non-verbal behaviour. Non-verbal behaviour occurs continually in all human-human interactions, and has been shown to be highly important in those interactions. Previous research has demonstrated that people treat media (and therefore ECAs) as real people, and so non-verbal behaviour is also important in the development of ECAs. ECAs that use non-verbal behaviour when interacting with humans or other ECAs will be more realistic, more engaging, and have higher social influence. This thesis gives an in-depth view of non-verbal behaviour in humans followed by an exploration of the potential social influence of ECAs using a novel Wizard of Oz style approach of synthetic ECAs. It is shown that ECAs have the potential to have no less social influence (as measured using a direct measure of behaviour change) than real people and also that it is important that ECAs have visual feedback on their interactants for this social influence to maximised. Throughout this thesis there is a focus on empirical evaluation of ECAs, both as a validation tool and also to provide directions for future research and development. Present ECAs frequently incorporate some form of non-verbal behaviour, but this is quite limited and more importantly not connected strongly to the behaviour of a human interactant. This interactional aspect of non-verbal behaviour is important in human-human interactions and results from the study of the persuasive potential of ECAs support this fact mapping onto human-ECA interactions. The challenges in creating non-verbally interactive ECAs are introduced and by drawing corollaries with robotics control systems development behaviour-based architectures are presented as a solution towards these challenges, and implemented in a prototypical ECA. Evaluation of this ECA using the methodology used previously in this thesis demonstrates that an ECA with non-verbal behaviour that responds to its interactant is rated more positively than an ECA that does not, indicating that directly measurable social influences will be possible with further development