1,720,957 research outputs found
Architecture and Usage Information for a Course-Aligned, GPT-Powered Chatbot
No full textLarge Language Models (LLMs) offer impressive natural language understanding abilities and are suitable for the development of educational chatbots for engineering students. We present the architectural design of the Oliver chatbot, an LLM application for answering natural language queries over a corpus of course-aligned documents. Oliver is based on a Retrieval Augmented Generation system and is equipped with a user-friendly web interface. We present Oliver’s use-cases and demonstrate how logging data can be used for generating reports on student learning throughout a term. We support this using data obtained during the Fall of 2023, in which Oliver was deployed to a class of approximately 100 Mechatronics Engineering students
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
First Impressions on Supporting Students with a Course-Aligned, AI-powered Virtual Teaching Assistant (TA), Oliver
No full textWe show in this paper that an LLM-based tutor with a simple, web-based interface is readily used by students to answer natural language queries without specific training. Through analysis of the log data of nearly 3000 separate interactions, we find that students tend to use the tutor to clarify concepts and explain sticking points in laboratory assignments. Results indicate that the chatbot was used throughout the course at times outside of regular help-seeking hours, indicating that the tutor provides personalized support to students who are in need of help even when it is not available. Finally, through analysis of the log data, we can generate useful insights into student learning throughout the course
EXPERIENCE TEACHING CIRCUIT COURSES TO CIVIL ENGINEERS
No full textAt the University of Waterloo, students from many non-electrical engineering programs are required totake basic circuits courses. These courses are often disliked by students who do not see their relevance andcannot contextualize the material. In 2019 a new version of this course was developed to cater to the specific needs of civil engineering students. The new course was based around teaching civil engineers circuit theory through relevant examples and focusing on the content that civil engineers would reasonably be expected to see in the field. Lab exercises were developed to encourage independent capacity in circuit building and deep understanding of sensors and instrumentation. Student satisfaction with the course and performance on assessments has increased with the changes
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Enhancing Learning via AI-Generated Feedback and Resubmission of Formative Assessments
No full textLarge Language Models (LLMs) are equipped with strong natural language understanding abilities. These abilities can be leveraged to evaluate and provide feedback on student work, provided that the model is properly prompted. We find that this feedback is more detailed, personalized, and requires fewer resources to produce than human-generated feedback. Due to the reduction in resources, students were permitted to resubmit their formative assessments throughout a course. Results show that students who consistently resubmitted performed statistically significantly better on their summative assessments, despite having indistinguishable patterns of access to course materials
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