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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Why Don't You Act Your Age?: Recognizing The Stereotypical 8-12 Year Old Searcher By Their Search Behavior, Michael Green
Why Don't You Act Your Age?: Recognizing The Stereotypical 8-12 Year Old Searcher By Their Search Behavior, Michael Green
Boise State University Theses and Dissertations
Online search engines for children are known to filter retrieved resources based on page complexity, and offer specialized functionality meant to address gaps in search literacy according to a user's age or grade. However, not every searcher grouped by these identifiers displays the same level of text comprehension, or requires the same aid with search. Furthermore, these search engines typically rely on direct feedback to ascertain these identifiers. This reliance on self identification may cause users to accidentally misrepresent themselves. We therefore seek to recognize users from skill based signals rather than utilizing age or grade identifiers, as skill dictates …
Improving Spellchecking For Children: Correction And Design, Brody Downs
Improving Spellchecking For Children: Correction And Design, Brody Downs
Boise State University Theses and Dissertations
Children commonly use software applications such as search engines and word processors in the classroom environment. However, a major barrier to using these programs successfully is the ability of children to type and spell effectively. While many programs make use of spellcheckers to provide spelling corrections to their users, they are designed for more traditional users (i.e., adults) and have proven inadequate for children. The aims of this work is twofold: first, to address the types of spelling errors children make by researching, developing, and evaluating algorithms to generate and rank candidate spelling suggestions; and second, to evaluate the impact …
Fostering The Retrieval Of Suitable Web Resources In Response To Children's Educational Search Tasks, Oghenemaro Deborah Anuyah
Fostering The Retrieval Of Suitable Web Resources In Response To Children's Educational Search Tasks, Oghenemaro Deborah Anuyah
Boise State University Theses and Dissertations
Children regularly turn to search engines (SEs) to locate school-related materials. Unfortunately, research has shown that when utilizing SEs, children do not always access resources that specifically target them. To support children, popular and child-oriented SEs make available a safe search filter, which is meant to eliminate inappropriate resources. Safe search is, however, not always the perfect deterrent as pornographic and hate-based resources may slip through the filter, while resources relevant to an educational search context may be misconstrued and filtered out. Moreover, filtering inappropriate resources in response to children searches is just one perspective to consider in offering them …
Cultivating Community Interactions In Citizen Science: Connecting People To Each Other And The Environment, Bret Allen Finley
Cultivating Community Interactions In Citizen Science: Connecting People To Each Other And The Environment, Bret Allen Finley
Boise State University Theses and Dissertations
Citizen science leverages a distributed user-base which participates in crowd-sourced scientific inquiry. Geotagger is a citizen science project that allows people to collaboratively investigate the natural world around them and share their findings. Citizens are rarely compensated for their work and individual contributors can feel isolated which leads to motivation problems. This thesis focuses on engaging citizen scientists and motivating their contributions via social interaction and engagement. As a part of this work, a number of social enhancements have been developed as extensions to the existing Geotagger project. These enhancements and their effect on social engagement were evaluated using in-field …