Sustainable Efficiency and Usability for E-Learning Systems: Practical guide

This Guide has been written as a continuation of the efforts made during the SF-HEAT project to apply usability best practices in the design and development of the e-learning system of the project. The main idea that underlies the methodology behind the Guide is that educational effectiveness and efficiency crucially depends on the usability of the e-learning system. The Guide focuses on a simple practical approach related to a modified ADDIE model for sustainable usability improvement of the e-learning system

Efficiency and Usability of E-Learning Systems : Project-Oriented Methodology Guide

The book presents the efforts of the NBU team to put forward an integralmethodology for evaluation of E-Learning systems. It has been created within the WELKOM project (2004-2006), financed by the Leonardo da Vinci EC program. The methodology given here has been applied successfully for deploying and optimizing three different E-Learning systems in three different contexts – a private industrial company (Turbomeca, France), a SAP training company (VBS, Bulgaria), and a university (NBU, Bulgaria)

La recherche et l’innovation, derniers remparts contre la désindustrialisation ?

La désindustrialisation touche depuis trente ans le secteur de l’aluminium en France. La plupart des usines françaises ont fermé et les enjeux économiques, devenus mondiaux, ont durablement transformé un secteur qui fut l'un des fleurons de l'industrie française. En 1959, le Laboratoire de recherches des fabrications (LRF), un centre de recherches sur l'électrolyse (de l’aluminium), à Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, est créé à quelques mètres de l'usine productrice d'aluminium. Le LRF est l’unique laboratoire français et l’un des plus importants au monde dans son domaine. Seule de l'ancien modèle économique du XXe siècle, l'usine de Saint-Jean, démarrée en 1907, a survécu grâce à sa double fonction : production de métal et vitrine d'une technologie à succès. Cette longévité est-elle due à l'important centre de recherches auquel elle est reliée ? Est-ce son rôle d'usine-vitrine technologique qui lui a permis de résister ? Plus généralement, la recherche seule peut-elle permettre ou favoriser le maintien en France d'une activité industrielle que beaucoup voient condamnée ?The deindustrialization process has affected the aluminium sector for thirty years in France. Most of the French aluminium plants have closed their doors. Now on a world scale, the economic stakes have lastingly transformed the French aluminium sector. In 1959, a research centre dedicated to aluminium production, the Laboratoire de recherches des fabrications (LRF), was founded in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, very close to the aluminium smelter of Saint-Jean, started up in 1907. The LRF is the only research centre in France and one of the most important worldwide in its domain. Nowadays, the smelter of Saint-Jean is the last plant of the aluminium 20th century economic model to resist thanks its double role : metal production and showcase of a successful technology. Concerning the smelter, is this “longevity” due to the presence of the research centre ? Due to its role of showcase plant ? More generally, may research activities allow or promote the aluminium industry in France – an industry perceived by many as condemned to disappear 

The Gettier Intuition from South America to Asia

This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong-Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to engage in “reflective” thinking

Behavioral Circumscription and the Folk Psychology of Belief: A Study in Ethno-Mentalizing

Is behavioral integration (i.e., which occurs when a subjects assertion that p matches her non-verbal behavior) a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from nearly 6,000 people across twenty-six samples, spanning twenty-two countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we suggest that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely asserts that p, non-linguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology

The Ship of Theseus Puzzle

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence

De Pulchritudine non est Disputandum? A cross-cultural investigation of the alleged intersubjective validity of aesthetic judgment

Since at least Hume and Kant, philosophers working on the nature of aesthetic judgment have generally agreed that common sense does not treat aesthetic judgments in the same way as typical expressions of subjective preferences—rather, it endows them with intersubjective validity, the property of being right or wrong regardless of disagreement. Moreover, this apparent intersubjective validity has been taken to constitute one of the main explananda for philosophical accounts of aesthetic judgment. But is it really the case that most people spontaneously treat aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity? In this paper, we report the results of a cross-cultural study with over 2,000 respondents spanning 19 countries. Despite significant geographical variations, these results suggest that most people do not treat their own aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories of aesthetic judgment and the purpose of aesthetics in general.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Nothing at Stake in Knowledge

Many philosophers hold that stakes affect ordinary knowledge ascriptions. Here’s a version of a pair of cases aimed at supporting this: Bob and his wife are driving home on Friday and considering whether to stop at the bank to deposit a check. The lines at the bank are very long and so Bob considers coming back on Saturday. In the low stakes version, nothing of importance hinges on whether the check is deposited; in the high stakes version, it is very important that the check be deposited. Bob’s wife asks whether the bank will be open on Saturday. Bob says he drove past the bank last Saturday, and it was open. However, his wife points out that banks sometimes change their hours. Bob says “I know the bank will be open tomorrow”. In the low stakes case, many philosophers maintain that Bob does indeed know that the bank will be open; in the high stakes case, these philosophers maintain that Bob is ignorant – his statement that he knows the bank will be open tomorrow is false. These philosophers also maintain that this pattern of judgments is what we would expect from competent speakers confronted with this and similar cases (e.g., Cohen, 1999, 2013; DeRose, 1992, 2009; Fantl and McGrath, 2002; Nagel, 2008; Rysiew, 2001; Stanley, 2005). Though many philosophers agree that stakes play a role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, there is disagreement about what explains this. One view, epistemic contextualism, holds that “to know” is a context sensitive verb and that the truth conditions for knowledge ascriptions can vary across conversational contexts (e.g., DeRose, 2009). For instance, Bob’s statement “I know the bank will be open tomorrow” can be true in low stakes contexts and false in high stakes contexts. Another view, interest-relative invariantism, denies that “to know” is a context sensitive verb and that the truth conditions for knowledge ascriptions vary according to conversational contexts. Instead, cases like the Bank cases show that practical factors—i.e., stakes—play a distinctive role in determining whether the knowledge relation obtains (e.g., Stanley, 2005). Yet another alternative, which we’ll call classical invariantism, denies that “to know” is a context sensitive verb and that practical factors, such as stakes, play a direct role in determining whether the knowledge relation obtains. Instead, stakes affect knowledge ascriptions only by affecting our assessment of factors that have traditionally been taken to constitute or be necessary for knowledge, such as e.g., belief, quality of evidence, etc. (e.g., Bach, 2005; Weatherson, 2005; Ganson, 2007; Nagel, 2008). If this is right, then the role of stakes in knowledge ascriptions fails to motivate such surprising views as epistemic contextualism or interest-relative invariantism. Naturally, epistemic contextualists and interest-relative invariantists deny this, claiming that even when the factors that have traditionally been taken to constitute or be necessary for knowledge are held fixed, stakes continue to play a role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions (e.g., DeRose, 2009; Lawlor, 2013). So we see a dispute over what best explains the role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascriptions. It is thus extremely surprising that a wide range of empirical evidence suggests that ordinary knowledge ascriptions fail to display any sensitivity to stakes (e.g., Buckwalter, 2010; Buckwalter and Schaffer, 2015; Feltz and Zarpentine, 2010; May, Sinnott-Armstrong, Hull, and Zimmerman, 2010; Turri, forthcoming; though see e.g., Pinillos, 2012; Pinillos and Simpson, 2014; Sripada and Stanley, 2012). If stakes really do not play any role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, one of the main motivations for epistemic contextualism and interest relative invariantism would be undermined. Perhaps these different explanations of the role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascription are born out of nothing more than a myth (Schaffer and Knobe, 2009). If so, classical invariantism about knowledge might be best supported—not because it provides the best explanation of the role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, but rather because the failure of stakes to play a role in ordinary knowledge ascription would undercut an important motivation for its two competitors, epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. These radical alternatives to classical invariantism, lacking evidence in support of one of their important motivations, should perhaps then fall. Classical invariantism would stand. In the remainder of this article, we’ll disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We’ll accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism