Design Reviews with Remote Critics in an Asynchronous Environment

This paper documents the design and development of one activity called Student-Curated Galleries. In this activity, groups of students in a freshman studio in the College of Architecture used the web to present their work to remote critics who left comments for each of them. It was implemented using a technology called a Collaborative Website or CoWeb. A CoWeb looks and acts like any other website with one important exception: anyone can add new pages to the site or edit the pages which are already there using a standard web browser. (For details of the CoWeb and its uses, see (Collaborative Software Lab, 2000)

Surveying the Territory: GVU's Five WWW User Surveys

Introduction Five years is not very long on most historical scales, but for the World Wide Web (WWW) it constitutes a lifetime. A question almost as old as the web itself is, "Who is using it, and for what?" One way to answer this question is to use paper surveys, telephone surveys, or diaries which are some of the the same methods used to measure the audiences of other one-way media such as television and radio. However, something interesting happened in early 1994: the implementation of HTML Forms turned the web into a two-way medium which made it possible to contact the audience directly. To test the viability of the web as a survey medium and collect preliminary data on the web population, the first GVU WWW User Survey was conducted in January 1994. Subsequent surveys have been conducted approximately every six months. The collection of responses from over 55,000 Web users over five surveys has given us a unique perspective on the advances in surveying technology and meth

Using An Unstructured Collaboration Tool to Support Peer Interaction in Large College Classes

Published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Readers of this proceeding must contact publisher for further reprinting or re-use.Peer interaction may be a useful strategy for having students express their knowledge and get personalized feedback in large classes. In this paper we look at how a CoWeb ­ an unstructured collaboration space ­ was used to support a large college design class. Although the CoWeb was used for several purposes, we focus specifically on how it was used to support class discussions. We start with why we feel CoWeb discussions, and more generally online peer interaction, may be useful in light of our pedagogical goals. We then analyze the structure of the discussions and how students perceived them, and discuss how the online environment may have influenced behavior. From this analysis, we conclude the CoWeb was effective in helping students think about open-ended issues through online peer interaction. However, we also conclude that providing some structure might help online discussions appear more coherent and productive

Inconsistent self-reported mammography history: Findings from the National Population Health Survey longitudinal cohort

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Self-reported information has commonly been used to monitor mammography utilization across populations and time periods. However, longitudinal investigations regarding the prevalence and determinants of inconsistent responses over time and the impact of such responses on population screening estimates are lacking.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Based on longitudinal panel data for a representative cohort of Canadian women aged 40+ years (n = 3,537) assessed in the 1994–95 (baseline) and 1996–97 (follow-up) National Population Health Survey (NPHS), we examined the prevalence of inconsistent self-reports of mammography utilization. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the associations between women's baseline sociodemographic and health characteristics and 2 types of inconsistent responses: (i) baseline reports of ever use which were subsequently contradicted by follow-up reports of never use; and (ii) baseline reports of never use which were contradicted by follow-up reports of use prior to 1994–95.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among women who reported having a mammogram at baseline, 5.9% (95% confidence interval (CI): 4.6–7.3%) reported at follow-up that they had never had one. Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that women with such inconsistent responses were more often outside target age groups, from low income households and less likely to report hormone replacement therapy and Pap smear use. Among women reporting never use at baseline and ever use at follow-up, 17.4% (95%CI: 11.7–23.1%) reported their most recent mammogram as occurring prior to 1994–95 (baseline) and such responses were more common among women aged 70+ years and those in poorer health.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Women with inconsistent responses of type (i), i.e., ever users at baseline but never users at follow-up, appeared to exhibit characteristics typical of never users of mammography screening. Although limited by sample size, our preliminary analyses suggest that type (ii) responses are more likely to be the result of recall bias due to competing morbidity and age. Inconsistent responses, if removed from the analyses, may be a greater source of loss to follow-up than deaths/institutionalization or item non-response.</p