1,720,975 research outputs found
MOOClets
No full textRandomized experiments in online educational environments are ubiquitous as a scientific method for investigating learning and motivation, but they rarely improve educational resources and produce practical benefits for learners. We suggest that tools for experimentally comparing resources are designed primarily through the lens of experiments as a scientific methodology, and therefore miss a tremendous opportunity for online experiments to serve as engines for dynamic improvement and personalization. We present the MOOClet requirements specification to guide the implementation of software tools for experiments to ensure that whenever alternative versions of a resource can be experimentally compared (by randomly assigning versions), the resource can also be dynamically improved (by changing which versions are presented), and personalized (by presenting different versions to different people). The MOOClet specification was used to implement DEXPER, a proof-of-concept web service backend that enables dynamic experimentation and personalization of resources embedded in frontend educational platforms. We describe three use cases of MOOClets for dynamic experimentation and personalization of motivational emails, explanations, and problems
The MOOClet Framework: Unifying Experimentation, Dynamic Improvement, and Personalization in Online Courses
No full textHow can educational platforms be instrumented to accelerate the use of research to improve students' experiences? We show how modular components of any educational interface-e.g. explanations, homework problems, even emails-can be implemented using the novel MOOClet software architecture. Researchers and instructors can use these augmented MOOClet components for: (1) Iterative Cycles of Randomized Experiments that test alternative versions of course content; (2) Data-Driven Improvement using adaptive experiments that rapidly use data to give better versions of content to future students, on the order of days rather than months. A MOOClet supports both manual and automated improvement using reinforcement learning; (3) Personalization by delivering alternative versions as a function of data about a student's characteristics or subgroup, using both expert-authored rules and data mining algorithms. We provide an open-source web service for implementing MOOClets (www.mooclet.org) that has been used with thousands of students. The MOOClet framework provides an ecosystem that transforms online course components into collaborative micro-laboratories, where instructors, experimental researchers, and data mining/machine learning researchers can engage in perpetual cycles of experimentation, improvement, and personalization. © 2021 ACM
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Enhancing Online Problems Through Instructor-Centered Tools for Randomized Experiments
No full textDigital educational resources could enable the use of randomized experiments to answer pedagogical questions that instructors care about, taking academic research out of the laboratory and into the classroom. We take an instructorcentered approach to designing tools for experimentation that lower the barriers for instructors to conduct experiments. We explore this approach through DynamicProblem, a proof-ofconcept system for experimentation on components of digital problems, which provides interfaces for authoring of experiments on explanations, hints, feedback messages, and learning tips. To rapidly turn data from experiments into practical improvements, the system uses an interpretable machine learning algorithm to analyze students' ratings of which conditions are helpful, and present conditions to future students in proportion to the evidence they are higher rated. We evaluated the system by collaboratively deploying experiments in the courses of three mathematics instructors. They reported benefits in reflecting on their pedagogy, and having a new method for improving online problems for future students
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe 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
Recommended from our members
The ABC's of Mathematics Perceptions
Get PDFWhat does the word "math" evoke? It is in many ways a fraught term eliciting negative reactions and unpleasant memories. In this dissertation, I explore the variety of ways we humans perceive this concept, starting with the internal (perceptions of ability), then the personal journey (perceptions of belonging), and finally the external (perceptions of conception). I employ a mixture of experiments and computational modeling in order to develop a more holistic understanding of how people perceive math and reinforce human studies with data collected from naturalistic settings - specifically, the internet, to explore word usage and how discussions of math seem to dier from mentions of other concepts
- …
