Standardisation of Provenance Systems in Service Oriented Architectures --- White Paper

This White Paper presents provenance in computer systems as a mechanism by which business and e-science can undertake compliance validation and analysis of their past processes. We discuss an open approach that can bring benefits to application owners, IT providers, auditors and reviewers. In order to capitalise on such benefits, we make specific recommendations to move forward a standardisation activity in this domain

Issues in student training and use of electronic bibliographic databases

In an article in this journal Ottewill and Hudson (1997) raised a number of issues concerning students’ use of electronic bibliographic databases. They emphasized the need for co‐operation between academics and librarians in database training and in coursework where databases would be used. We report a project on students’ use of bibliographic databases. Our findings reveal that access to these databases, whilst solving many of the problems students experience in sourcing reference material for coursework and research, raises new intellectual problems due to the sheer breadth and depth of their coverage of subject matter. Typically database training programmes focus on search skills and the use of different interfaces. However, our findings demonstrate that students should be encouraged to develop a more critical perspective on databases since these can be seductive, time‐consuming and, in certain circumstances, counterproductive resources. Students would benefit from more guidance on the quality cues that academics and librarians employ when evaluating different databases and their contents

The use of computers as substitute tutors for marketing students

The use of computers as substitute tutors is associated primarily, though not exclusively, with multiple‐choice question formats (Ellington, Percival and Race, 1993). We report the findings of a project that involved the design, testing and evaluation of a set of computer‐based tutorials employing multiple‐choice questions with 700 students on postgraduate and undergraduate introductory Marketing modules. The computer‐based tutorials were designed to meet two main objectives, namely to help students in their formative assessment and to help staff monitor any difficulties students were experiencing with module content. However, students incorporated the tutorials into their learning in ways that had not been anticipated specifically; they used the tutorials for a number of related but different purposes, and their usage patterns varied considerably

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The Scope of Usage-Based Theory

Usage-based approaches typically draw on a relatively small set of cognitive processes, such as categorization, analogy and chunking to explain language structure and function. The goal of this paper is to first review the extent to which the ‘cognitive commitment’ of usage-based theory has had success in explaining empirical findings across domains, including language acquisition, processing and typology. We then look at the overall strengths and weaknesses of usage-based theory and highlight where there are significant debates. Finally, we draw special attention to a set of culturally generated structural patterns that seem to lie beyond the explanation of core usage-based cognitive processes. In this context we draw a distinction between cognition permitting language structure versus cognition entailing language structure. As well as addressing the need for greater clarity on the mechanisms of generalizations and the fundamental units of grammar, we suggest that integrating culturally generated structures within existing cognitive models of use will generate tighter predictions about how language works