15,584 research outputs found
Model Cards for Model Reporting
Trained machine learning models are increasingly used to perform high-impact
tasks in areas such as law enforcement, medicine, education, and employment. In
order to clarify the intended use cases of machine learning models and minimize
their usage in contexts for which they are not well suited, we recommend that
released models be accompanied by documentation detailing their performance
characteristics. In this paper, we propose a framework that we call model
cards, to encourage such transparent model reporting. Model cards are short
documents accompanying trained machine learning models that provide benchmarked
evaluation in a variety of conditions, such as across different cultural,
demographic, or phenotypic groups (e.g., race, geographic location, sex,
Fitzpatrick skin type) and intersectional groups (e.g., age and race, or sex
and Fitzpatrick skin type) that are relevant to the intended application
domains. Model cards also disclose the context in which models are intended to
be used, details of the performance evaluation procedures, and other relevant
information. While we focus primarily on human-centered machine learning models
in the application fields of computer vision and natural language processing,
this framework can be used to document any trained machine learning model. To
solidify the concept, we provide cards for two supervised models: One trained
to detect smiling faces in images, and one trained to detect toxic comments in
text. We propose model cards as a step towards the responsible democratization
of machine learning and related AI technology, increasing transparency into how
well AI technology works. We hope this work encourages those releasing trained
machine learning models to accompany model releases with similar detailed
evaluation numbers and other relevant documentation
Is a Seat at the Table Enough? Engaging Teachers and Students in Dataset Specification for ML in Education
Despite the promises of ML in education, its adoption in the classroom has
surfaced numerous issues regarding fairness, accountability, and transparency,
as well as concerns about data privacy and student consent. A root cause of
these issues is the lack of understanding of the complex dynamics of education,
including teacher-student interactions, collaborative learning, and classroom
environment. To overcome these challenges and fully utilize the potential of ML
in education, software practitioners need to work closely with educators and
students to fully understand the context of the data (the backbone of ML
applications) and collaboratively define the ML data specifications. To gain a
deeper understanding of such a collaborative process, we conduct ten co-design
sessions with ML software practitioners, educators, and students. In the
sessions, teachers and students work with ML engineers, UX designers, and legal
practitioners to define dataset characteristics for a given ML application. We
find that stakeholders contextualize data based on their domain and procedural
knowledge, proactively design data requirements to mitigate downstream harms
and data reliability concerns, and exhibit role-based collaborative strategies
and contribution patterns. Further, we find that beyond a seat at the table,
meaningful stakeholder participation in ML requires structured supports:
defined processes for continuous iteration and co-evaluation, shared contextual
data quality standards, and information scaffolds for both technical and
non-technical stakeholders to traverse expertise boundaries
The Rise of Public Networks for Economic Inclusion: Strategic Dilemmas Experienced by Flemish SSE-Organizations
In this article, we summarize the dominant experiences, discussions, and judgments of Flemish SSE-organizations joining emerging public multi-actor networks to tackle the socio-economic challenge of economic inclusion. Based on a longitudinal qualitative research track combining case-study research, focus group research and action research (i.e. pilot studies), we recently find out that the initial enthusiasm, willingness and interest of SSE-organizations to participate has gradually been replaced by emerging feelings of cautiousness, disappointment, and frictions. When considering the dominant underlying classical rational management paradigm of these networks, we can better understand the precise nature and origin of these growing frictions. As such, emerging strategic network paradigms seem to provoke serious dilemmas. Based on our research results these frictions relate to (i) the reasons for being invited to participate, (ii) the meaning of related concepts (i.e. quality, professionalism, and innovation), (iii) the assumed disturbance of competition, and (iv) the pressure of isomorphic management model
Organizational Design of Secondary Aviation/Aerospace/Engineering Career Education Programs
Modern nations operate within a global economy, relying heavily on the aviation industry for efficient and effective transportation of passengers and goods. The Boeing 2018 Pilot and Technical Outlook Report indicated that over the next 20 years, the aviation industry will need almost two and a half million new aircrew and maintenance employees to meet anticipated global demand. The industry will also need engineers, aviation managers, and workers in other aviation and aerospace disciplines. Aviation and aerospace jobs require solid backgrounds in mathematics, science, and technology; the development of pre-college aviation / aerospace / engineering career education programs would presumably enhance student preparation in these areas and increase the workforce pipeline for the industry. The goal of this study was to identify and evaluate the underlying organizational factors of successful secondary aviation / aerospace / engineering career education programs, through application of measures traditionally associated with organizational theory.
Analysis of collected data involved exploratory factor analysis to identify underlying factors, confirmatory factor analysis to verify significant relationships between manifest variables and latent constructs and to ensure a good-fitting measurement model, and structural equation modeling to identify significant relationships between latent constructs and achieve the best-fitting model of these relationships for the collected data. Variables were Likert-scale responses to literature-based survey items associated with organizational vision, leadership, communication, collaboration, decision-making, flexibility, accountability, resource availability, motivation, and learning. Additionally, participants were invited to provide comments related to any of the survey items to explain or add detail to their response selection. These comments were reviewed both as they related to individual survey items and for detection of underlying themes. Participants in the study comprised stakeholders associated with career education programs in the disciplines of interest, including students, parents, alumni, school / program faculty and staff, industry members, and advisory board members.
Hypothesis testing results suggested that the most important factor in predicting success for an aviation / aerospace / engineering academy or program is personal motivation related to learning. Though other underlying factors, including leadership / collaborative environment, organizational accountability, and resource availability were clearly related to perceived program success, they appeared to have indirect relationships with success. It is also important to recognize that a paired qualitative analysis of participant comments generated themes that transcended survey item topics, and the identification of these themes supported the conclusions from hypothesis testing regarding underlying factors. Personal motivation was the most commonly recurring theme in comments, supporting the hypothesis testing result indicating its predictive strength for an organization’s success.
Understanding the constructs that are most closely related to an organization’s success, as they are perceived by its stakeholders, offers current program leaders and groups interested in creating new programs evidence they can use to design the frameworks for their programs. Anticipated workforce shortages warrant study of how to increase the number of candidates not only in post-secondary academic and training programs, but to shift recruiting earlier through implementation of quality secondary-level programs that are established on a foundation of research-based strategies for success
An Investigation of the Role of Corporate Social Responsibility Features in Attracting and Retaining Employees
Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown in parallel to organizations’ adoption of the triple bottom line (economic, environmental, social) approach to performance, and stakeholders’ expectations for organizations to contribute to a greater social good (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). As a burgeoning area of research, the CSR literature has mostly been conducted from a macro-level (organization-level) perspective aiming to answer questions about the implications of CSR for organizations and society. Micro-level (individual-level) research is comparatively less common, but is beginning to grow as well (Rupp & Mallory, 2015).
While micro-level research has made significant progress toward answering some important questions, it is limited by a lack of knowledge and guiding theory of the psychological foundations of CSR that explain when and why it affects organizational stakeholders such as employees or job-seekers (Aguinis & Glavas, 2013). The CSR literature is also highly-fragmented and full of confusing parallels and inconsistencies. It is characterized by numerous conceptual definitions (Dahlsrud, 2008) and measurement tools (Morgeson, Aguinis, Waldman, & Siegel, 2013), making it challenging for researchers to agree on what actually constitutes CSR and compare results.
The research presented here applies a new approach to conceptualizing and measuring CSR in hopes of overcoming the limitations mentioned above. First, a theoretical model is described that distinguishes between “CSR content” and “CSR features” and proposes four CSR features that are likely to be of relevance to stakeholders: CSR-identity alignment, CSR commitment, employee involvement in CSR, and CSR proactivity. The model also proposes attributions as the primary psychological mechanism explaining how CSR features, in combination, influence employees’ organizational commitment and job-seekers’ organizational attraction.
This model was tested through two studies. The first study involved the development of a self-report measure of CSR features and the distribution of a survey to a sample of 371 employees in a variety of organizations. Results revealed that CSR features and attributions significantly predicted employees’ organizational commitment. The second study utilized an experimental methodology to examine the effects of different combinations of CSR features on organizational attractiveness. A sample of 397 students were randomly assigned to view the websites of two fictitious organizations – one that engaged in CSR and one that did not – across eight different conditions (plus a no-CSR control condition) that differed in terms of high/low combinations of three CSR features (i.e., alignment, employee involvement, and commitment). Participants were asked to play the role of job-seekers and rate the attractiveness of each organization. Results revealed that engaging in CSR significantly raised participants’ ratings of organizational attractiveness, but the CSR feature manipulations did not have an effect. Directions for future research, limitations, and implications for theory and practice are discussed
An Empirical Investigation Of Information Technology Mediated Customer Services In China
Information technology mediated customer service is a reality of the 21st century. More and more companies have moved their customer services from in store and in person to online through computer or mobile devices. Using 208 respondents collected from two Chinese universities, this paper investigates customer preference over two service delivery model (either in store or online) on five type of purchasing (retail, eating-out, banking, travel and entertainment) and their perception difference in customer service quality between those two delivery model. Results show that a majority of Chinese students prefer in store and in person for eating out. For ordering tickets for travel and entertainment, they prefer computer/mobile device. For retail purchasing and banking, less than half of the students prefer in person services. In general, the results show that ordering through computer/mobile devices has become more popular in China and has received higher rating for most of customer service quality except security compared to ordering in store. In addition, it is found that there exist a gender difference in purchasing preference and perception in service delivery quality in China
The visual preferences for forest regeneration and field afforestation : four case studies in Finland
The overall aim of this dissertation was to study the public's preferences for forest regeneration fellings and field afforestations, as well as to find out the relations of these preferences to landscape management instructions, to ecological healthiness, and to the contemporary theories for predicting landscape preferences. This dissertation includes four case studies in Finland, each based on the visualization of management options and surveys.
Guidelines for improving the visual quality of forest regeneration and field afforestation are given based on the case studies. The results show that forest regeneration can be connected to positive images and memories when the regeneration area is small and some time has passed since the felling. Preferences may not depend only on the management alternative itself but also on the viewing distance, viewing point, and the scene in which the management options are implemented.
The current Finnish forest landscape management guidelines as well as the ecological healthiness of the studied options are to a large extent compatible with the public's preferences. However, there are some discrepancies. For example, the landscape management instructions as well as ecological hypotheses suggest that the retention trees need to be left in groups, whereas people usually prefer individually located retention trees to those trees in groups. Information and psycho-evolutionary theories provide some possible explanations for people's preferences for forest regeneration and field afforestation, but the results cannot be consistently explained by these theories.
The preferences of the different stakeholder groups were very similar. However, the preference ratings of the groups that make their living from forest - forest owners and forest professionals - slightly differed from those of the others. These results provide support for the assumptions that preferences are largely consistent at least within one nation, but that knowledge and a reference group may also influence preferences.Väitöskirjassa tutkittiin ihmisten maisemapreferenssejä (maisemallisia arvostuksia) metsänuudistamishakkuiden ja pellonmetsitysten suhteen sekä analysoitiin näiden preferenssien yhteyksiä maisemanhoito-ohjeisiin, vaihtoehtojen ekologiseen terveyteen ja preferenssejä ennustaviin teorioihin. Väitöskirja sisältää neljä tapaustutkimusta, jotka perustuvat hoitovaihtoehtojen visualisointiin ja kyselytutkimuksiin.
Tapaustutkimusten pohjalta annetaan ohjeita siitä, kuinka uudistushakkuiden ja pellonmetsitysten visuaalista laatua voidaan parantaa. Väitöskirjan tulokset osoittavat, että uudistamishakkuut voivat herättää myös myönteisiä mielikuvia ja muistoja, jos uudistusala on pieni ja hakkuun välittömät jäljet ovat jo peittyneet. Preferensseihin vaikuttaa hoitovaihtoehdon lisäksi mm. katseluetäisyys, katselupiste ja ympäristö, jossa vaihtoehto on toteutettu.
Eri viiteryhmien (metsäammattilaiset, pääkaupunkiseudun asukkaat, ympäristönsuojelijat, tutkimusalueiden matkailijat, paikalliset asukkaat sekä metsänomistajat) maisemapreferenssit olivat hyvin samankaltaisia. Kuitenkin ne ryhmät, jotka saavat ainakin osan elannostaan metsästä - metsänomistajat ja metsäammattilaiset - pitivät metsänhakkuita esittävistä kuvista hieman enemmän kuin muut ryhmät. Nämä tulokset tukevat oletusta, että maisemapreferenssit ovat laajalti yhteneväisiä ainakin yhden kansan tai kulttuurin keskuudessa, vaikka myös viiteryhmä saattaa vaikuttaa preferensseihin jonkin verran.
Nykyiset metsämaisemanhoito-ohjeet ovat pitkälti samankaltaisia tässä väitöskirjassa havaittujen maisemapreferenssien kanssa. Myöskään tutkittujen vaihtoehtoisten hoitotapojen ekologisen paremmuuden ja niihin kohdistuvien maisemallisten arvostusten välillä ei ollut suurta ristiriitaa. Kuitenkin joitakin eroavaisuuksia oli; esimerkiksi sekä maisemanhoito-ohjeiden että ekologisten hypoteesien mukaan säästöpuut tulisi jättää ryhmiin, kun taas ihmiset pitivät eniten yksittäin jätetyistä puista. Informaatiomalli ja psyko-evolutionaarinen teoria tarjoavat mahdollisia selityksiä uudistushakkuisiin ja pellonmetsitykseen kohdistuville preferensseille, vaikkakaan tutkimuksen tuloksia ei voida täysin selittää näillä teorioilla
Recommended from our members
UNDERSTANDING STAKEHOLDERS PERCEPTION TOWARDS HUMAN-WILDLIFE INTERACTION AND CONFLICT IN A TIGER LANDSCAPE-COMPLEX OF INDIA
Human-population of the earth exceeding 6 billion and growing at an estimates rate of 1.2% per year (US census Bureau, 2002) will lead to increase in human-wildlife encounters. Attacks on humans are perhaps the least understood of these encounters, but the most interesting and emotionally connected to people (Quigley Howard 2005). The main aim of the study if to understand stakeholders’ perception towards human-wildlife interaction and conflicts in Corbett National park, India. We used a standardized IRB (Institutional Review Board) approved questionnaire to survey 315 household from 15 villages lying within and around Corbett National Park of India using snow-ball technique and stratified random sampling technique.. We also surveyed and analyzed the head of the village, snow-ball technique and stratified random technique survey differently. We used multivariate regression analysis to understand the data obtained from questionnaire survey. Later, we also designed a conceptual model to understand factors influencing human-wildlife interaction; and an empirical model to identify factors affecting human-wildlife conflicts. The results of the study identified that most of the encounters with wildlife occurred while collecting timber or grass from forests. Wild pigs, elephants and cheetal are the species mainly responsible for crop-loss in our study area. Majority of the stakeholders were engaged in timber and grass collection from forested area. Multivariate regression results suggests that stakeholders whose farms were located far from highway, had good fencing and who had better socio-economic status faced least threat from wildlife with respect to crop-loss, livestock loss and human-life loss/injury. The simulation results of dynamic system experiment suggests that habitat loss and poaching play a very significant role in tiger population and its future. The study concludes that a holistic multi-disciplinary conservation approach is needed to address the increasing conflict issues in India. More emphases should be given on community based-conservation strategies and policies. Watch-towers, pits, solar-powered fencing are the best and most effective ways to keep wildlife away from damaging crops and killing livestock. Sustainable development and better higher education is the key to conserving tigers in India
The Role of Perceptions for Community-Based Marine Resource Management
Every community-based marine resource management (CBMRM) inherently takes place in a highly complex social–ecological environment, and stakeholder perceptions related to various aspects of the natural and social environment guide behavior in every stage of the management process. This paper provides an introduction to the psychology of perception with regard to marine resource management. In particular, it offers a typology of CBMRM relevant perceptions along with an analysis of psychological, societal, and physical factors that modulate them. Based on this analysis, we propose the introduction of specially trained local Perception Experts (PE's), whose role will be to recognize and reflect individual perceptions of involved stakeholders, and to communicate them at community meetings where decisions are made. This empirically testable addition to current CBMRM schemes could help to increase participation, develop management measures that fit the capacities of the involved stakeholders more accurately, and hence, contribute to a faster rehabilitation of marine resources
- …