1,721,000 research outputs found
Improving a tutor’s feedback assessment tool: transforming Open Mentor following two recent deployments
No full textEvidence shows the vital role that the quality of feedback plays on students' performance and on the overall increase of learning opportunities that good feedback creates for students. Based on this evidence, the Open University developed Open Mentor (OM), a system to support tutors enhance their feedback practice. Open Mentor Technology transfer (OMTetra), a JISC funded project, took OM and deployed it in two Higher Education institutions with the purpose of evaluating the process of transferability and continue the development of the tools available to tutors within the system. This paper describes the original OM and the enhancements identified after use and evaluations from tutors of the institutions involved
Supporting tutors with their feedback using Open Mentor
No full textAssessment has been identified as one of the major challenges faced by Higher Education Institutions (Whitelock, et al, 2007). As a response to the challenge, in a project funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) the Open University developed Open Mentor (OM), a learning support tool for tutors to help them reflect on the quality of feedback given to their students on assignments submitted electronically. It was developed on the fundamental theory that there was convincing evidence of systematic connections between different types of tutor comments and the level of attainment in an assignment (Whitelock et al 2004). The work initiated by the Open University is being continued at the University of Southampton and King’s College London through the JISC funded Open Mentor technology transfer (OMtetra) project. OMtetra aims at taking up OM and extend its uses by developing the system further and ultimately offer better support to tutors and students in the assessment process. The findings to date from the preliminary testing suggest that changes are required to the algorithm used in the analysis of feedback comments together with the introduction of a module for user authentication that would facilitate integration within any university system. In addition, changes to the types of assignments processed by OM have been also suggested by tutors who assess marked assignments as well as essays written by post-graduate students which do not necessarily need to have a mark but require complex feedback that allow students to enhance academic writing skills. OMtetra is an on-going project with high potential. We believe that the tools that result from the development and trial implementations of OM will contribute highly to the area of assessment and feedback in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) since it is an open source tool that will have wider applicability through the customisation process that is currently being undertaken. <br/
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
Improving a tutor’s feedback assessment tool: transforming Open Mentor following two recent deployments
No full textRecent changes in higher education have increased pressure on institutions to engage students in more reflective learning, alongside increased involvement in the assessment process through effective use of feedback and feedback opportunities. The paper presents the results of a technology transfer study where an innovation aimed at enhancing assessment practices through the qualitative analysis of tutor’s feedback, Open Mentor, is deployed in two higher education institutions. The study involved a first-round deployment of Open Mentor, followed by evaluation, a development phase and a second-round deployment, with a final evaluation of the technology focusing on the pedagogical potential of Open Mentor. The interest raised by Open Mentor provides a clear direction for future technologies to support tutors in the creation and delivery of quality feedback. It also shows the demand from tutors for support in this vital component of the teaching/learning transaction. Finally, theoretical and practical contributions from tutors offer a development path for Open Mentor, which promotes transfer of Open Mentor across institutions and academic department
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
Addressing the Challenges of Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education: A collaborative effort across three UK Universities
No full textAssessment has been identified as one of the major challenges faced by Higher Education Institutions (Whitelock, et al, 2007). As a response to the challenge, in a project funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Open Mentor (OM) was developed as a learning support tool for tutors to help them reflect on the quality of feedback given to their students on assignments submitted electronically. Its development was based on the fundamental theory that there was convincing evidence of systematic connections between different types of tutor comments and the level of attainment in an assignment (Whitelock, et al 2004). OM analyses, filters, and classifies tutor comments through an algorithm based on Bale’s Interaction Process. As a result, tutor’s feedback comments are classified into four categories namely: Positive reactions, Teaching points, Questions and Negative reactions. The feedback provided is analysed against an ideal number of feedback comments that an assignment given a mark of a specific band should have. Reports are provided in OM to support tutors in the task of reflecting on their feedback structure, content and style. The JISC-funded Open Mentor technology transfer (OMtetra) project is continuing the work initiated by the Open University implementing OM at the University of Southampton and King’s College London. OMtetra aims at taking up OM and extending its use by developing the system further and ultimately offering better support to tutors and students in the assessment process. A group of tutors from the University of Southampton and Kings’ College are at present using OM in their teaching and assessment. In this paper, we explore potential improvements to OM in three aspects: user interface, technology implementation and analysis algorithm design. For the user experience aspect suggested additions to OM include the creation of a simple entry form where tutors may validate the results of the analysis of the feedback comments. In addition, enhancements to OM will facilitate uploading of students and modules information into the system. Presently, OM utilises a built-in database of users that needs to be maintained separately from institutional systems. Improvements for this system feature include a more flexible authentication module which would simplify the deployment of the system in new environments and thus promote uptake by a larger number of institutions. In order to reach this goal, the system will be migrated to an open source framework which provides out-of-the-box integration with various authentication systems. The last to improve is the analysis algorithm. Currently, OM classifies tutors’ comments into four categories by applying an underlying text matching algorithm. This method could be improved if tutors are allowed to confirm comments’ classification through the OM interface and a free-text classification algorithm. As the number of users grow, so will the algorithm and analysis process, making it more comprehensive and intelligent as the keywords used during analysis are dynamically expanded. OMtetra is an on-going project with a lot of potential. We believe that the outcomes from the development and trial implementations of OM will contribute highly to the area of assessment in higher education
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
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