TEACHING TEAMWORK: AN EXPLORATION OF USING COOPERATIVE LEARNING TEAMS

The business world continues to change at a tremendous rate. We in the Information Systems field contribute to this rate of change and at the same time try to keep up with iL While the content in our field changes constantly, tile way in which we attempt to educate our students (pedagogy) has not changed for some time. One means to change the way we teach our students is through the use of alternative pedagogical models, such as the cooperative learning model. Cooperative learning is defined as the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other\u27s learning (Johnson, Johnson and Smith 199lb, p. 3). This paper presents an overview of the cooperative learning modeI, two examples of the model in use, and an exploratory assessment of the model. Additionally, limitations of this study, recommendations for future research and for practice have been provided

SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION: A SURVEY, ASSESSMENT, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

In recent years there has been a tremendous increase in the development of expert systems in organizations. This increased development is straining the already limited supply of qualified expert system developers. These expert system developers have come to be known as knowledge engineers, and their job as knowledge engineering. The process of knowledge engineering is divided into two tasks: knowledge acquisition and expert system construction. Knowledge acquisition has been defined as The process of extracting, structuring, and organizing knowledge from several sources, usually human experts, so it can be used in a program (Waterman 1986, p. 392). This process of knowledge acquisition has been identified as the bottleneck that currently constrains the development of expert systems. This paper summarizes what is known about the skills required and the techniques utilized in the knowledge acquisition process. Due to the similarities that exist between expert systems and traditional systems development, the literature pertaining to traditional information requirements determination and to systems analysts will be utilized to guide this exploration. Case study reports of actual expert system development projects and the practitioner literature will also be referenced. Given the lack of research in this area, future research directions are suggested to aid in developing a better understanding of the knowledge acquisition process. Pursuing these research questions should lead to the identification of· the skills and techniques necessary to successfully perform knowledge acquisition. Once these skills have been identified, selection and training programs can be developed to help reduce the shortage of qualified knowledge engineers and, ultimately, facilitate the increased development of expert systems in organizations

First Impressions: An Alternative Way to Start a Systems Development Course

The first meeting of any course and its many activities sets in motion the establishment of a course climate and addressing student expectations. How can students be actively and collaboratively engaged, in a non-threatening environment, having their curiosity aroused, and begin to learn about the course all during the first class meeting? This paper describes an approach used to begin a Systems Development course that attempted to do just that. Students were asked to interview one another using a set of questions provided by the instructor. The debriefing process was used to introduce the students to the importance of the interviewing process and interpersonal communication in the systems development process

Using Group Support Systems to Facilitate the Research Process

Group Support Systems (GSS) and their effects on group processes and outcomes have been an object of intense study over the past ten years. The purpose of this paper is to take a different perspective with respect to GSS research. Rather than discussing research about GSS, we will discuss the capabilities of GSS tools to support the process of doing research. A model of the steps involved in the research process is discussed and specific suggestions for the application of GSS tools are mapped to these research steps. GSS can provide a variety of benefits to researchers, including basic meeting support for multiple researchers in developing elements of the research project, electronically recording data from subjects, performing data analysis, and integrating information and data across the entire research process

First Direct Observation of Collider Neutrinos with FASER at the LHC

We report the first direct observation of neutrino interactions at a particle collider experiment. Neutrino candidate events are identified in a 13.6 TeV center-of-mass energy $pp$ collision data set of 35.4 fb${}^{-1}$ using the active electronic components of the FASER detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The candidates are required to have a track propagating through the entire length of the FASER detector and be consistent with a muon neutrino charged-current interaction. We infer $153^{+12}_{-13}$ neutrino interactions with a significance of 16 standard deviations above the background-only hypothesis. These events are consistent with the characteristics expected from neutrino interactions in terms of secondary particle production and spatial distribution, and they imply the observation of both neutrinos and anti-neutrinos with an incident neutrino energy of significantly above 200 GeV.Comment: Submitted to PRL on March 24 202