Why did Nobody Reply to Me? A Keyword Analysis of Initiating Posts and Lone Posts in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Discussions

It is a common phenomenon that online discussion spaces are overabundant with lone posts; in other words, few posts receive replies from others. Admittedly, circumstantial factors and content affect whether a post receives replies. Yet, linguistic features within a post might also play a role in inviting replies. To investigate this hypothesis, a keyword analysis comparing initiating posts, which receive replies, to lone posts, which do not receive replies, was conducted. The posts were from the discussion in massive open online courses (MOOCs). MOOC discussion is one type of computer-mediated communication (CMC), with an emphasis on learning and is typically monitored by course facilitators. The keyword analysis revealed that initiating posts were often constructed in a question format, with hedges and indefinite pronouns to open up a dialogue and invite others to pitch in, whereas lone posts tended to be reflective and monoglossic in nature, yet with positive sentiments

トイレの状態，家庭内の汚染および飲料水を介した糞便曝露の関係：ザンビア・ルサカの未計画居住区における事例研究

京都大学新制・課程博士博士(地球環境学)甲第24986号地環博第247号新制||地環||49(附属図書館)京都大学大学院地球環境学舎環境マネジメント専攻(主査)教授 越後 信哉, 准教授 田中 周平, 教授 藤原 拓, 准教授 原田 英典学位規則第4条第1項該当Doctor of Global Environmental StudiesKyoto UniversityDFA

Discussion Analytics: Identifying Conversations and Social Learners in FutureLearn MOOCs

Discussion among learners in MOOCs has been hailed as beneficial for social constructive learning. To understand the pedagogical value of MOOC discussion forums, several researchers have utilized content analysis techniques to associate individual postings with differing levels of cognitive activity. However, this analysis typically ignores the turn taking among discussion postings, such as learners responding to others’ replies to their posts, learners receiving no reply for their posts, or learners just posting without conversing with others. This information is particularly important in understanding patterns of conversations that occur in MOOCs, and learners’ commenting behaviors. Therefore, in this paper we categorize comments in a FutureLearn MOOC based on their nature (post vs. reply to others’ post), classify learners based on their contributions for each type of post-ing, and identify conversations based on the types of comments composing them. This categorization quantifies the dynamics of conversations in the discussion activities, allowing monitoring of on-going discussion activities in FutureLearn and further analysis of identified conversations, social learners, and course steps with an unusually high number of a particular type of comment

Health Informatics Solution to Indoor Air Pollution: An Opportunity for Epidemiological Research

Indoor air pollution accounts for the particulate matters and chemical compounds from outdoor sources that penetrate into the home environment. It also contains chemical particles from cleaning products, wall paints, personal care products, indoor combustion, and microbial agents. Mounting evidence links sources from indoor air pollution to sick building syndrome (SBS). SBS decreases human productivity, impacts learning abilities, and has the potential to trigger existing asthmatic symptoms, cause dizziness, nausea, fatigue, irritation to the lungs, etc. To improve the management of IAQ among population health and for environmental health to keep up with its technological counterpart, it is crucial to increase awareness around this subject and to provide innovative means of collecting IAQ data. Therefore, this Capstone paper encapsulates a project spearheaded by the American Lung Association in Washington which is composed of an IAQ mobile gaming application with two components paramount to its functionality: a real-time air sensing device to collect data, and a health mobile application that enables data visualization. To explore the future of IAQ monitoring system, this paper focuses more heavily on the health informatics perspective of the sensing (or monitoring) device and its health mobile application. It also aims to examine potential research opportunities that would facilitate IAQ improvements and policy regulation around air pollution

Cardiac Health Diagnosis Using Higher Order Spectra and Support Vector Machine

The Electrocardiogram (ECG) is an important bio-signal representing the sum total of millions of cardiac cell depolarization potentials. It contains important insight into the state of health and nature of the disease afflicting the heart. Heart rate variability (HRV) refers to the regulation of the sinoatrial node, the natural pacemaker of the heart by the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system. The HRV signal can be used as a base signal to observe the heart's functioning. These signals are non-linear and non-stationary in nature. So, higher order spectral (HOS) analysis, which is more suitable for non-linear systems and is robust to noise, was used. An automated intelligent system for the identification of cardiac health is very useful in healthcare technology. In this work, we have extracted seven features from the heart rate signals using HOS and fed them to a support vector machine (SVM) for classification

Consumers who don\u27t want to look for information

A model to identify and classify consumers with high resistance to searching for information (HRSI) was developed and tested. We found that individuals with high levels of confidence about a purchase but who also ascribed low levels of personal importance to the transaction were significantly (p=.004) more likely to be HRSI. Using Multiple Discriminant Analysis, our model classified and predicted HRSI consumers well (p=.004, 57% above chance) but not low-resistance consumers (p=.6, 26.4% below chance).<br /

Running to Stand Still: How Organizations Get Users to Willingly Participate in Maintenance Upgrades

Maintenance upgrades are projects to replace an existing version of packaged software with a later version to facilitate maintenance. Encouraging willing user participation in such projects is challenging, since users receive little benefit. Through a case analysis of maintenance upgrades using the lens of communicative framing, we discover that a negatively valenced frame is best for encouraging willing user participation. Such a frame focuses on the need to upgrade to ensure organizational survival. Users are informed that their participation is important, not to improve benefits, but to ensure the organization can maintain existing business operations. This frame means the focus of a maintenance upgrade differs from traditional enterprise implementation projects in that both change management and project championship are less critical. In a maintenance upgrade, techniques for encouraging willing user participation focus on maintaining the status quo, not organizational change

The Locus of Word Frequency Effects in Skilled Spelling-To-Dictation

Master'sMASTER OF SOCIAL SCIENCE