Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Collaborative Design Projects: Evaluating Students' Online Discussions, S. Lambert

Sarah Lambert

This paper reports on the author’s work to evaluate student online discussion, a learning tool used in a face-to-face graphic design subject centred around a collaborative design project. A modified teaching and learning model with new online resources was trialled with approx 45 undergraduate design students in session 1 of 2003. The 4 students in each project team were allocated a specific role based on contemporary design studio practice. An online discussion space was set up for each project team. A number of evaluation techniques were used including a content analysis of online discussion postings on which this paper focuses. …

Minding Your Own Business: Can A Business Excellence Framework Translate To The Education Sector? , Margie H. Jantti

Margie Jantti

As the first education and training organisation to be recognised with an Australian Business Excellence Award in the Award’s 14 year history, the University of Wollongong Library has demonstrated how the principles of excellence can readily be translated to the education and service sector. Many higher education institutions are planning or preparing for the audit process developed by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). The audit process, particularly the internal self assessment will be firmly focussed on practices and processes aligned with the stated vision and mission of the institution; how plans and objectives are translated into operational activities; how …

Assessing One-Shot Instruction: Using Post-Assignment Evaluations To Build Better Assignments, Jennie E. Callas

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2008

As instruction librarians, teaching is the focus of our job, and evaluations of our teaching effectiveness should contribute to discussions of our overall performance. Traditional course evaluations are used by faculty who spend full semesters with students, but how can we evaluate teaching effectiveness in one-shot sessions? Freshman English students at R-MC evaluate library instruction AFTER they turn in the annotated bibliography assignment the instruction targets. The evaluation, which was developed in part because the original assignment was unsuited to the library’s resources and tools, enables students to reflect on their completion of the assignment and to evaluate teaching effectiveness …

Teaching Web 2.0 To Student 1.5: Effective Methods For Introducing New Information Tools, Robin L. Ewing, Melissa K. Prescott

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2008

Contrary to the perception that undergraduate students are expert users of social networking and other Web 2.0 tools, reference and instruction librarians at St. Cloud State University have discovered that many students are unaware of Web 2.0 tools besides Facebook, Wikipedia, and YouTube. Drawing from classroom experiences as well as student feedback, this session will discuss ways to include Web 2.0 information tools such as podcasts, wikis, blogs, video streaming, social bookmarking, and RSS in information literacy instruction. The presenters will discuss techniques for introducing students to new information tools, ways to incorporate these tools into class assignments, and methods …

Slides: Assessing Opportunities And Barriers To Reducing The Environmental Footprint Of Oil And Gas Development In Utah, Douglas Jackson-Smith, Lorien Belton, Brian Gentry, Gene Theodori

Opportunities and Obstacles to Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Natural Gas Development in Uintah Basin (October 14)

Presenter: Dr. Douglas Jackson-Smith, Utah State University--Logan Campus

37 slides

Collecting Legacy Corpora From Social Science Research For Text Mining Evaluation, Bei Yu, Min-Chun Ku

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

In this poster we describe a pilot study of searching social science literature for legacy corpora to evaluate text mining algorithms. The new emerging field of computational social science demands large amount of social science data to train and evaluate computational models. We argue that the legacy corpora that were annotated by social science researchers through traditional Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) are ideal data sets to evaluate text mining methods, such as text categorization and clustering. As a pilot study, we searched articles that involve content analysis and discourse analysis in leading communication journals, and then contacted the authors regarding …

Ohio Regional Forum Report Findings From The Survey And Small Small-Group Participation, Ryan E. Spohn

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The Midwest Child Welfare Implementation Center (MCWIC) is collaborating with The Ohio Office of Families and Children (OFC) to develop and implement a new technical assistance (TA) model. This project is a part of Ohio's systemic effort to improve its child welfare outcomes, and will materially alter how OFC works with Ohio's county-administered child welfare offices. It will build Ohio's capacity to implement evidence-informed and promising child welfare interventions.

To inform the process of developing a new technical assistance model, MCWIC hosted a series of ten regional forums throughout the state during July, 2010. The purpose of these events was …

Zach's News, Georgia Southern University, Zach S. Henderson Library

University Libraries News Online (2008-2023)

• Database trial and evaluation: Oxford Music Online
• Book Review: The Last Empty Places

Stakeholder Engagement In Social Learning To Resolve Controversies Over Land-Use Change To Plantation Forestry, Andrea J. Leys, Jerome K. Vanclay

Professor Jerome K Vanclay

Rapid land-use change arising from incentives for afforestation has created tensions in rural communities previously dominated by agricultural enterprises. This paper reports on an innovative experiment with social learning that incorporated participatory modelling to resolve community concerns in a case study of plantation forestry in the Upper Clarence catchment of north-eastern NSW Australia. The development of a diagnostic framework helped identify socioeconomic and environmental issues within the community for investigation by a self-selected participatory advisory committee (PAC) representing a diversity of views. Implementation of a social learning exercise offered empathetic and intellectual engagement among PAC members that maintained interest, built …

A General Evaluation Of The Geneva International Centre For Humanitarian Demining (Gichd) - Final Report, David Hewitson, Ariana Calza Bini

Global CWD Repository

The Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) is generally perceived to be relevant and effective within the mine action sector, although there are some vocal, and potentially significant groups that take a more negative view.

In interviews with attendees at the 13th International Meeting of National Mine Action Programme Directors and UN Advisors, 65% of respondents were positive about the Centre's relevance and 63% about its effectiveness.

The Centre's publications were generally very well received. The Francophone programme enjoyed an entirely enthusiastic and positive response from all who deal with it. Eighty per cent of respondents said that they …

Advice From The Trenches: Post Purchase Evaluation, Annie Smith, Regina Koury, Cheryl Sebold, Jenny Semenza

Annie Smith

Presented as part of a larger presentation about evaluating and purchasing databases and negotiating database licenses, this section focused on post purchase evaluation of databases. Databases are constantly changing their content and their features and these need to be monitored. In addition, this presentation covers how to collect and analyze usage statistics.

Zach's News, Georgia Southern University, Zach S. Henderson Library

University Libraries News Online (2008-2023)

• Friends' Events
• Database trials and evaluation: American Theological Library Association Historical Monographs Collection , and American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection

An Evaluation Of A Physical Activity-Based Residential Treatment Program, Eric Alan Mikkelsen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study evaluated a physical activity-based residential treatment program. It explored the current literature on adolescent treatment implementing physical exercise with parental participation, specifically at residential treatment centers. While the current literature strongly supports physical exercise and family involvement in adolescent treatment, research on combining physical exercise with family involvement is insufficient at best.

The data were obtained from Telos Residential Treatment Center, an all-boys treatment program that incorporates a triathlon into their treatment curriculum and keeps pre- and posttest scores of the Youth Outcome Questionnaire for their students as well as completed questionnaires from students' parents. Research questions addressed …

Effects Of Library Instruction On University Students’ Satisfaction With The Library: A Longitudinal Study, Anthony Stamatoplos, Robert Mackoy

Robert Mackoy

Consideration of satisfaction should be an important part of the evaluation of library services. Satisfaction depends, to some extent, on patron expectations of services. This study evaluated changes in student expectations following library instruction and how they were related to overall, long-term satisfaction with the library. Satisfaction appeared to be related to student perceptions of information accessibility, staff competence and helpfulness, computer usefulness and ease of use, and skill level for using libraries. The study suggests that libraries may be well served by measuring patron satisfaction and learning what variables drive satisfaction at particular libraries.

Developing A Curriculum Evaluation Model For The English Language Center At Brigham Young University, Rie Teraoka

Theses and Dissertations

Evaluation is an important process in any language program curriculum to determine whether the program is meeting the needs of students, teachers and others who are involved in the program. The English Language Center (ELC) at Brigham Young University (BYU) is a unique institution that functions as 1) a language school for students from different backgrounds and with various purposes of learning English and 2) as a lab school for undergraduate and graduate students studying TESOL at BYU to have practical teaching experiences. Because of these two purposes, there are constant changes to the curriculum at the ELC. Evaluation is …

Zach's News, Georgia Southern University, Zach S. Henderson Library

University Libraries News Online (2008-2023)

• Database trial and evaluation: ProQuest Newsstand
• New Databases, thanks to the Student Technology Fee
• Hot Doc: President's Budget

Science Overlay Maps: A New Tool For Research Policy And Library Management, Ismael Rafols, Alan L. Porter, Loet Leydesdorff

alan l porter

We present a novel approach to visually locate bodies of research within the sciences, both at each moment of time and dynamically. This article describes how this approach fits with other efforts to locally and globally map scientific outputs. We then show how these science overlay maps help benchmark, explore collaborations, and track temporal changes, using examples of universities, corporations, funding agencies, and research topics. We address their conditions of application and discuss advantages, downsides and limitations. Overlay maps especially help investigate the increasing number of scientific developments and organisations that do not fit within traditional disciplinary categories. We make …

Evaluating Eu Policies On Public Services: A Citizens' Approach, Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz-Fuentes

Judith Clifton

This article evaluates EU policies on public services – particularly public network services - from the citizens´ point of view. It is first argued that citizens´ perceptions are important because the provision of fundamental services is at stake and because they constitute the infrastructure necessary for social and economic development. Citizens’ “voice” can, therefore, be known, analysed and used in the design of improved policy on public services along with other indicators. Changing EU policy on public services is synthesised and classified into two main phases in section two. Citizen satisfaction with public services as revealed through surveys from 1997 …

Process Evaluation Of An Innovative Sun Protection Intervention Targeting Adolescents, Sandra C. Jones, Keryn M. Johnson, Donald C. Iverson, Jeffrey Thom

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The purpose of the current intervention was to target a defined segment of the adolescent population with a sun protection ‘offering’ that positioned sun protection as beneficial and addressed identified barriers (particularly inconvenience and image). A community intervention was conducted in one defined geographic region over the 2009/2010 Summer school holidays. Key elements of the intervention included the distribution of augmented products, promotional materials with a pre-tested impactful message, and partnerships with community and commercial organisations. The intervention was successful in creating interest and attention among adolescents. This paper reports on the process evaluations, focusing on barriers, facilitators and lessons …

Australian Mental Health Consumers' Contributions To The Evaluation And Improvement Of Recoveryoriented Service Provision, Sarah L. Marshall, Lindsay G. Oades, Trevor P. Crowe

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Munch And Move: Evaluation Of A Preschool Healthy Eating And Movement Skill Program, Louise L. Hardy, Bridget P. Kelly, Lesley King, Louise Farrell, Sarah Howlett

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

A Subjective Evaluation Of Attitudes Towards E-Health, S. Banna, Helen Hasan, J. Meloche

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

E-health, the provision of healthcare services via the Internet, has the potential to address the limited capacity of the healthcare system and thereby improve health outcomes. While there is considerable development of e-health services in practice, research in this important area often lags practice and takes a restricted view of user needs. The study presented in this paper undertakes a holistic evaluation of perceptions of e-health services and tools by addressing the activities of diverse stakeholders from healthcare practitioners to the general public. The research uses Q-methodology to explore the opportunities, challenges, barriers, and potential benefits of e-health to guide …

Neoliberalism And The Biophysical Environment: A Synthesis And Evaluation Of The Research, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This article both synthesizes and critically evaluates a now large, multi-disciplinary body of published research that examines the neoliberalization of environmental regulation, management, and governance. Since the late 1970s, neoliberal ideas and ideals have gradually made their way into the domain of environmental policy as part of a wider change in the global political economy. While the volume of empirical research is now such that we can draw some conclusions about this policy shift, the fact that the research has evolved piecemeal across so many different disciplines has made identifying points of similarity and difference in the findings more difficult. …

Sure Start And Its Evaluation In England, Edward Melhuish, Jay Belsky, Jacqueline Barnes

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In 1998 a U.K. government review concluded that disadvantage among young children was increasing and early intervention could alleviate poor outcomes. It recommended a change in service design and delivery, integrating across all relevant agencies, to be area-based, with all children under five and their families as clients. Among the aims were avoiding the stigmatization often associated with targeted programs while fostering child, family and community functioning. From 1999 the first Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) focused on the 20% most deprived areas, including about half of children living below the official poverty line. Sure Start has evolved over time …

Le Programme Sure Start Et Son Evaluation En Angleterre, Edward Melhuish, Jay Belsky, Jacqueline Barnes

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Compressive Evaluation In Human Motion Tracking, Yifan Lu, Lei Wang, Richard Hartley, Hongdong Li, Dan Xu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

The powerful theory of compressive sensing enables an efficient way to recover sparse or compressible signals from non-adaptive, sub-Nyquist-rate linear measurements. In particular, it has been shown that random projections can well approximate an isometry, provided that the number of linear measurements is no less than twice of the sparsity level of the signal. Inspired by these, we propose a compressive anneal particle filter to exploit sparsity existing in image-based human motion tracking. Instead of performing full signal recovery, we evaluate the observation likelihood directly in the compressive domain of the observed images. Moreover, we introduce a progressive multilevel wavelet …

The Impact Of The Mckinney-Vento Program On The End-Of-Grade Test Scores Of Homeless Grade 6 Students, George Hendricks

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Congressional concern about homeless students resulted in the McKinney-Vento Act (MCKV) in 2001, which provides funds to local educational agencies (LEAs). MCKV is almost a decade old, yet no evaluations of its academic effectiveness have been reported. Using a systems theory framework, this study answered research questions (RQs) involving whether normally housed students in Grade 6 scored higher than homeless students in Grade 6 in reading (RQ 1) and math (RQ 2) on end-of-grade (EOG) test scores and whether homeless students in Grade 6 from LEAs that received MCKV funding scored better in reading (RQ 3) and math (RQ 4) …

Making Sense Of Exit Exam Policies: A Phenomenological Study Of English Language Development Teachers, Scott N. Forrest

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is a lack of understanding regarding how sensemaking could be incorporated into a professional development program to improve teacher quality and student achievement. The lived experiences of high school English language development teachers as they interpret English language development and one state's high school exit exam instructional policies were explored in this phenomenological study. The conceptual framework that supported this study is based on the theory of sensemaking, the processes by which educators interpret and implement policies. The participants were English language development teachers of English learners who have not yet passed the exit exam. Data were collected through …

Mid Term Evaluation Of The Mine Action Programme In Afghanistan, European Union

Global CWD Repository

Elements of both projects can be seen as very successful. Overall, the UNMAS project was more successful, whereas UNDP's ANBP was seen as increasingly under-performing, and became less relevant, during this funding period. However, the work of ANBP's Implementing Partners (IPs), and in particular the HALO Trust's village level Weapons & Ammunition Disposal (WAD) programme, initially funded by ANBP, is seen as highly successful.

Evaluating Information: Introduction To College Research For A Developmental Writing Course, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

The ability to evaluate information successfully in all formats is highly relevant to students both in their coursework and their everyday lives. This lesson plan aims to encourage students to think critically about this important component of information literacy, and provides a foundation for beginning college students to build upon as they progress through college and on to their careers.