Invisible Barriers: Identifying restrictions affecting New Zealanders' access to the Internet

The Internet is an important technology worldwide. People use the Internet for research, communication, shopping, entertainment, etc. In addition to these benefits, the Internet provides access to dangerous or illegal material. Because of this, some content and services may be blocked by governments, Internet Service Providers, organizations, or individuals. This blocking, whether for security or for network efficiency, has significant effects on people’s access to services and information, which may not be considered when implementing restrictions. Although studies have been conducted on Internet blocking in many countries, no one has yet examined what is being blocked in New Zealand. In this thesis, we measured the prevalence of Internet blocking in New Zealand and the reasons leading to a decision to block access to websites or Internet services. Although several different tools existed, they could not be used directly because they either concentrated on a narrow range of services or did not work in an environment where some services they depended upon were blocked. For this reason, we developed our own tool called WCMT based on the issues identified from previous tools. We conducted our study using WCMT in order to identify blocked websites and services in our quantitative analysis, complemented by interviews with key informants in our qualitative analysis

The Impact of Motivation and Strategy Use on Course Outcome in Digital Learning Environment- A case Analysis of a Business School Course

Using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) multiple times in an undergraduate business school course in a University in New Zealand, 188 students completed the questionnaire to explore how students’ motivation and strategy use changed as they progressed and how these constructs predict students’ course outcome. In contrast to other studies, our results showed varying levels of motivation as well as increasing strategy usage as the course progressed. Our exploratory analysis identified three subgroups within the class, each of which reported differently in terms of motivation and strategy use. From this analysis and course outcome data we infer how these finding may contribute to theory and classroom practice

Exploring the Cyclical Nature of Self-Regulation in Blended Learning: A Longitudinal Study

This study discusses how students\u27 temporal, adaptive processes, and learning regulation can be understood using multi-channel data. We analyzed the behaviors of 189 students to identify a range of self-regulated learning (SRL) profiles that lead to different achievement in a large-scale undergraduate course seeing how students\u27 SRL unfold during the course, which helps understand the complicated cyclical nature of SRL. We identified three SRL profiles by administrating and analyzing the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) three times. We looked at how students adopt different SRL profiles as the course progressed through process mining and clustering techniques to clarify the cyclical nature of SRL. We demonstrated how process mining was used to identify process patterns in self-regulated learning events as captured. Analyzing sequential patterns indicated differences in students\u27 process models. It showed the added value of taking the order of learning activities into account, contributing to theory and practice

Onset and duration of 2% lidocaine as inferior alveolar nerve block versus buccal/lingual infiltration of 4% articaine in mandibular second molars: Clinical trial study

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The effectiveness of buccal or lingual (B/L) infiltration of 4% articaine as supplemental injection for pulp anesthesia of mandibular teeth was confirmed in previous studies. However, this study was aimed to compare the effectiveness of 2% lidocaine as inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) versus B/L infiltration of 4% articaine for pulp anesthesia, as primary injection in mandibular second molars. METHODS: Thirty adult volunteers ranging from 18 to 40 years old with no systemic disease or medicine intake were included in this split-mouth, double-blind, randomized clinical trial study. Each mandibular side of included subjects was allocated randomly to control group (IANB using 2% lidocaine and 1/80000 epinephrine using direct technique) and B/L infiltration group using 4% articaine (Septanest; Septodont, Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, France). After obtaining base line sensitivity, electric pulp testing (EPT) was done at 5, 8, 11, 15, 20, 25, 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90 minutes post injections. The data were analyzed using chi-square test. RESULTS: The success rate of anesthesia for IANB group was 83.3% (25 of 30 subjects) and 30% (9 of 30 subjects) for B/L infiltration group, and the difference between the groups was statistically significant (P = 0.0005). The mean onset time of pulp anesthesia for IANB group was 22.6 ± 30.9 minutes and 65.5 ± 38.0 for B/L infiltration group, and the difference between the groups was statistically significant (P = 0.0001). The mean duration time of pulp anesthesia for IANB group was 53.0 ± 27.4 minutes and 10.6 ± 17.2 for B/L infiltration group, and the difference between the groups was statistically significant (P = 0.0001). CONCLUSION: The results indicated that IANB using 2% lidocaine was more successful than B/L infiltration of 4% articaine in onset and duration of pulp anesthesia of mandibular second molars as primary injections. KEYWORDS: Articaine; Lidocaine; Local Anesthesia; Molar; Inferior Alveolar Nerve; Volunteer

Using students' participation data to understand their impact on students' course outcomes : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MPhil degree at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand, Master of Philosophy degree in Information Technology

Many students with diverse needs are enrolled in university courses. Not all these students are able to be successful in completing their courses. Faculty members are keen to identify these students who have the risk of failing their courses early enough to help them by providing timely feedback so that students can meet the requirements of their courses. There are many studies using educational data mining algorithms which aim to identify at risk students by predicting students’ course outcomes, for example, from their forum activities, content requests, and time spent online. This study addresses this issue by clustering the students’ course outcomes using students’ class participation data which can be obtained from various online education technological solutions. Using data mining in educational systems as an analytical tool offers researchers new opportunities to trace students’ digital footprints in various course related activities and analyse students’ traced data to help the students in their learning processes and teachers in their educational practices. In this study the focus is not only on finding at risk students but also in using data for improving learning process and supporting personalized learning. In‐class participation data was collected through audience participation tools, the out‐of‐class participation data was collected from Stream and combined with the qualitative and quantitative data from questionnaires. The participation data were collected from 5 different courses in the mainstream university programs. Our first aim was to understand the perception of students regarding the effect of participation and using the audience participation tools in class and their effects on students’ learning processes. Moreover, we would like to identify to what extents their perceptions match with their final course outcomes. Therefore, the tool has been used in different mainstream courses from different departments. The results of our study show that students who participated more and thought that the tool helped them to learn, engaged and increased their interest in the course more, and eventually achieved highest scores. This finding supports the view that inclass participation is critical to learning and academic success

Invisible Barriers: Identifying restrictions affecting New Zealanders' access to the Internet

The Internet is an important technology worldwide. People use the Internet for research, communication, shopping, entertainment, etc. In addition to these benefits, the Internet provides access to dangerous or illegal material. Because of this, some content and services may be blocked by governments, Internet Service Providers, organizations, or individuals. This blocking, whether for security or for network efficiency, has significant effects on people’s access to services and information, which may not be considered when implementing restrictions. Although studies have been conducted on Internet blocking in many countries, no one has yet examined what is being blocked in New Zealand. In this thesis, we measured the prevalence of Internet blocking in New Zealand and the reasons leading to a decision to block access to websites or Internet services. Although several different tools existed, they could not be used directly because they either concentrated on a narrow range of services or did not work in an environment where some services they depended upon were blocked. For this reason, we developed our own tool called WCMT based on the issues identified from previous tools. We conducted our study using WCMT in order to identify blocked websites and services in our quantitative analysis, complemented by interviews with key informants in our qualitative analysis

Determining home users' vulnerability to Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) attacks

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) technology is used worldwide since it has simplified the installation and management of the devices. As a result, many devices are now equipped with UPnP capabilities. Unfortunately using UPnP in home routers puts routers at risk of abuse. For example, it is easier for hackers to discover the devices and use device vulnerabilities in order to make malicious attacks to cause financial or reputation damage to the users. In this paper, we have analyzed the UPnP protocol and its different vulnerabilities. Furthermore, we have emphasized how common the problem is with the home users' devices. Hence, we suggest a tool to achieve transparency in the health of the Internet by detecting UPnP enabled devices which are likely to be attacked on home networks. The tool will look for UPnP based attacks when people's routers have been compromised. The tool is easy to install and use for novice home users and maintains their privacy too. This project aims not only to implement a tool for a user to determine whether his/her system is vulnerable to a particular attack, but also to measure the prevalence of vulnerabilities at national or global level. Thus a larger framework is required to collect and manage the results from individual users

STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND ITS CHANGES AS THE COURSE PROGRESSES

Increasingly universities use educational tools within their learning systems. It is assumed that the provision of these tools would stimulate self-regulated learning. There are studies which show students are different regarding tool use but they compared tool use regarding age and gender. We investigated students’ motivation which affects the amount of tool use in a real classroom. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was run three times in an undergraduate course at a leading University in New Zealand to explore students’ self-reports on their motivation and use of learning strategies. A group of 188 students participated in the questionnaire to explore how students’ motivation changed as the course progressed. Our preliminary analysis showed that students motivation levels increased and decrease at different points in the course. The trend for students’ use of strategies such as rehearsal, elaboration, metacognitive self-regulation, and critical thinking increased, but their organizational strategies decreased

Educational Technology Tools: Longitudinal Views of Students

Although electronic educational tools have become popular, few studies have considered their effectiveness. Some studies have investigated the effectiveness of the tools’ “game” aspects. We investigated students’ perceptions of the classroom tools that they used and their perceived effect on learning, and examine the effect of features such as competition and gamification, on their perceptions and motivation. Despite individual differences in motivation, students had similar perceptions of the usefulness of the tools but used them differently according to their motivation and personal conditions. Outcomes for students were generally perceived as positive, including satisfaction with the tools, improved engagement, facilitation of learning, valued classroom interactivity, anonymity, and immediate feedback. The findings of the study also showed that the tools’ features of gamification and competition facilitated and motivated increased participation