Students and instant messaging: a survey of current use and demands for higher education

Instant messaging (IM) is the term used to describe the technology through which ‘users can set up a list of partners who will be able to receive notes that pop up on their screens the moment one of them writes and hits the send button’. While early use could be described as mainly for fun, IM today is a serious communication medium. Remarkably, it seems that educational institutions have been doing very little with it, while several studies indicate that it could indeed be a valuable tool in education. As a first step towards a better understanding of the educational use of IM, we want to gain insights in how students currently use IM and what opportunities they themselves see for the medium. To that end we conducted a survey among students of the Fontys University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands. A large majority of the participating students indicated using IM for their studies. Also, when asked about their demands for a possible educational implementation, the majority were positive

C. C. Uhlenbeck´s work on the Basque language: (In memory of Rudolf P.G. de Rijk, 1937-2003)

C. C. Uhlenbeck worked on a wide variety of languages, but Basque is probably the language that was the most stable research interest throughout his career.In recent years, many unknown facts about Uhlenbeck's life have been unearthed, especially in Eggermont-Molenaar (2005) and Genee and Hinrichs (2009) (see also Josselin de Jong 1953). Cornelius Christiaan Uhlenbeck (CCU) was born in Voorburg near The Hague in the Netherlands in 1866. His ancestors had emigrated from Germany in the 1700s and, after a period in Dutch colonies in Asia, settled in the Netherlands. CCU went to school in Haarlem and published a book of poems in that period. After graduation he went to Leyden to study Dutch, where he defended his dissertation in 1888, at age 21. He spent a year in Russia studying Russian documents relevant for the study of the history of the Netherlands. He taught at a high school, in the meantime working on linguistic issues, and he collaborated on the voluminous Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal ('Dictionary of the Dutch language'). In 1892 he was appointed professor in Sanskrit at the University of Amsterdam. In 1899 he became a professor of Old Germanic languages in Leyden, where he worked until his early retirement in 1926, at age 60, mostly for medical reasons. The summers of 1910 and 1911 he spent doing fieldwork on the Blackfoot language in Montana, USA, but for the most part Uhlenbeck was an armchair linguist, and avid reader who got most of his information from books. In 1936 he moved to Lugano, Switzerland, with his wife, where he died in 1951 at age 84. He had kept on writing and publishing on linguistics until the year of his death. His nearly 500 publications (Bakker and Hinrichs 2009) reveal a broad range of interests: genealogy, mythology, history and, within linguistics, Eskimo languages, Algonquian languages, Basque, Sanskrit, Old Germanic languages, and etymology, typology, language contact, morphology and language change

C. C. Uhlenbeck´s work on the Basque language: (In memory of Rudolf P.G. de Rijk, 1937-2003)

C. C. Uhlenbeck worked on a wide variety of languages, but Basque is probably the language that was the most stable research interest throughout his career.In recent years, many unknown facts about Uhlenbeck's life have been unearthed, especially in Eggermont-Molenaar (2005) and Genee and Hinrichs (2009) (see also Josselin de Jong 1953). Cornelius Christiaan Uhlenbeck (CCU) was born in Voorburg near The Hague in the Netherlands in 1866. His ancestors had emigrated from Germany in the 1700s and, after a period in Dutch colonies in Asia, settled in the Netherlands. CCU went to school in Haarlem and published a book of poems in that period. After graduation he went to Leyden to study Dutch, where he defended his dissertation in 1888, at age 21. He spent a year in Russia studying Russian documents relevant for the study of the history of the Netherlands. He taught at a high school, in the meantime working on linguistic issues, and he collaborated on the voluminous Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal ('Dictionary of the Dutch language'). In 1892 he was appointed professor in Sanskrit at the University of Amsterdam. In 1899 he became a professor of Old Germanic languages in Leyden, where he worked until his early retirement in 1926, at age 60, mostly for medical reasons. The summers of 1910 and 1911 he spent doing fieldwork on the Blackfoot language in Montana, USA, but for the most part Uhlenbeck was an armchair linguist, and avid reader who got most of his information from books. In 1936 he moved to Lugano, Switzerland, with his wife, where he died in 1951 at age 84. He had kept on writing and publishing on linguistics until the year of his death. His nearly 500 publications (Bakker and Hinrichs 2009) reveal a broad range of interests: genealogy, mythology, history and, within linguistics, Eskimo languages, Algonquian languages, Basque, Sanskrit, Old Germanic languages, and etymology, typology, language contact, morphology and language change

Trade Languages in the Strait of Belle Isle

This paper investigates early language contact and the resulting contact languages on the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador in the Strait of Belle Isle region. The jargons and pidgins which arose between Native peoples and Portuguese, Breton, Basque and other European traders are traced and documented, and a possible case of relexification is briefly examined

An exploration of media repertoires in South Africa: 2002-2014

This dissertation explores trends in media engagement in South Africa over a period from 2002 until 2014. It utilises data from the South African Audience Research Foundation’s All Media and Products Surveys. Using factor analysis, six media repertoires are identified and, utilising structural equation modelling, marginal means for various demographic categories by year are estimated. Measurement error is determined with the aid of bootstrapping. These estimates are plotted to provide visual aids in interpreting model parameters. The findings show general declines in engagement with traditional media and growth in internet engagement, but these trends can vary markedly for different demographic groups. The findings also show that for many South Africans traditional media such as television remain dominant

Pollution in the open oceans: 2009-2013

This review of pollution in the open oceans updates a report on this topic prepared by GESAMP five years previously (Reports and Studies No. 79, GESAMP, 2009). The latter report, the first from GESAMP focusing specifically on the oceans beyond the 200 m depth contour, was prepared for purposes of the Assessment of Assessments, the preparatory phase of a regular process for assessing the state of the marine environment, led jointly by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO-IOC)

Introducing the SAPS System and a Corresponding Allocation Mechanism for Synchronous Online Reciprocal Peer Support Activities

While student populations in higher education are becoming more heterogeneous, recently several attempts have been made to introduce online peer support to decrease the tutor load of teachers. We propose a system that facilitates synchronous online reciprocal peer support activities for ad hoc student questions: the Synchronous Allocated Peer Support (SAPS) system. Via this system, students with questions during their learning are allocated to competent fellow-students for answering. The system is designed for reciprocal peer support activities among a group of students who are working on the same fixed modular material every student has to finish, such as courses with separate chapters. As part of a requirement analysis of online reciprocal peer support to succeed, this chapter is focused on the second requirement of peer competence and sustainability of our system. Therefore a study was conducted with a simulation of a SAPS-based allocation mechanism in the NetLogo simulation environment and focuses on the required minimum population size, the effect of the addition of extra allocation parameters or disabling others on the mechanism\'s effectiveness, and peer tutor load spread in various conditions and its influence on the mechanism\'s effectiveness. The simulation shows that our allocation mechanism should be able to facilitate online peer support activities among groups of students. The allocation mechanism holds over time and a sufficient number of students are willing and competent to answer fellow-students\' questions. Also, fine-tuning the parameters (e.g. extra selection criteria) of the allocation mechanism further enhances its effectiveness.Peer Support, Peer Allocation, Computational Simulations, System Dynamics, Distance Learning

An annotated bibliography of C. C. Uhlenbeck's writings on Basque (1888-1981)

This bibliography aims at presenting all of C. C. Uhlenbeck's publications on all aspects of the Basque language and the Basques in chronological order, including translations. The bibliography lists close to 100 items. Not all publications deal exclusively with Basque. We have also listed publications in which Basque is discussed in a wider context

Дослідження глобалізаційних процесів вітчизняними вченими

Аналізуються окремі праці вітчизняних учених у сфері дослідження проблематики глобалізаційного розвитку. Розглянуті головні положення наукових поглядів авторів у вивченні процесів трансформації держави, суспільства, інститутів політики та пра­ва. Обгрунтовано пріоритети політичної інституціоналізації сучасного світу на заса­дах гуманізації, інтелектуалізації та соціалізації.Анализируются отдельные работы отечественных ученых в области исследования проблематики глобализационного развития. Рассмотрены главные положения научных взглядов авторов в изучении процессов трансформации государства, общества, инсти­тутов политики и права. Обосновано приоритеты политической институционализа­ции современного мира на основе гуманизации, интеллектуализации и социализации.Separate works of domestic scientists in area research problematics of globalization development are analyzed. The main positions of scientific views of authors in studying of processes of transformation of the state, a society, policy and right institutionalization are considered. It is proved priorities political institute the modern world on the basis of a human­ization, intellectualization and socialization