Alon Sela, Orit Milo, Eugene Kagan and Irad Ben-Gal
The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel method to enhance the spread of messages in social networks by “Spreading Groups.” These sub-structures of highly connected…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel method to enhance the spread of messages in social networks by “Spreading Groups.” These sub-structures of highly connected accounts intentionally echo messages between the members of the subgroup at the early stages of a spread. This echoing further boosts the spread to regions substantially larger than the initial region. These spreading accounts can be actual humans or social bots.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reveals an interesting anomaly in information cascades in Twitter and proposes the spreading group model that explains this anomaly. The model was tested using an agent-based simulation, real Twitter data and questionnaires.
Findings
The messages of few anonymous Twitter accounts spread on average more than well-known global financial media groups, such as The Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg. The spreading groups (also sometimes called BotNets) model provides an effective mechanism that can explain these findings.
Research limitations/implications
Spreading groups are only one possible mechanism that can explain the effectiveness of spread of tweets from lesser known accounts. The implication of this work is in showing how spreading groups can be used as a mechanism to spread messages in social networks. The construction of spreading groups is rather technical and does not require using opinion leaders. Similar to the case of “Fake News,” we expect the topic of spreading groups and their aim to manipulate information to receive growing attention in public discussion.
Practical implications
While harnessing opinion leaders to spread messages is costly, constructing spreading groups is more technical and replicable. Spreading groups are an efficient method to amplify the spread of message in social networks.
Social implications
With the blossoming of fake news, one might tend to assess the reliability of news by the number of users involved in its spread. This heuristic might be easily fooled by spreading groups. Furthermore, spreading groups consisting of a blend of human and computerized bots might be hard to detect. They can be used to manipulate financial markets or political campaigns.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates an anomaly in Twitter that was not studied before. It proposes a novel approach to spreading messages in social networks. The methods presented in the paper are valuable for anyone interested in spreading messages or an agenda such as political actors or other agenda enthusiasts. While social bots have been widely studied, their synchronization to increase the spread is novel.
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This paper aims to review the literature on the utility of employing the construct of cognitive style in understanding behaviour in web‐based learning environments.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to review the literature on the utility of employing the construct of cognitive style in understanding behaviour in web‐based learning environments.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper initially examines whether the web architecture may be matched to an individual's cognitive style in order to facilitate learning, before progressing to assess whether different architectures influence a web users' internal representations of web‐based learning systems, as measured by concept map drawings. Other issues explored are users' web navigation and users' sense of learning community when receiving instruction via web‐based learning environments.
Findings
The studies reviewed indicate that cognitive style is a pertinent factor for consideration when assessing the success with which users engage with web‐based learning systems.
Research limitations/implications
Some of the studies reviewed here are small‐scale and caution is urged in generalising the findings.
Practical implications
In terms of the practical implications, however, it is suggested that web‐based systems should be designed with consideration to individual differences in user characteristics, as this is related to the success with which users learn, navigate and interact socially in an online environment. However, it is concluded that more research is required in order to produce general rules relating cognitive style to the use of web‐based learning systems.
Originality/value
The findings from the numerous studies on the implications of considering the function of individual differences in using web‐based learning are notable and useful in the context of web‐based instruction.
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Constantin Bratianu, Alexeis Garcia-Perez, Francesca Dal Mas and Denise Bedford
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how biological scientists form research ethics for data sharing, and what the major factors affecting biological scientists’ formation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how biological scientists form research ethics for data sharing, and what the major factors affecting biological scientists’ formation of research ethics for data sharing are.
Design/methodology/approach
A research model for data sharing was developed based on the consequential theorists’ perspective of ethics. An online survey of 577 participants was administered, and the proposed research model was validated with a structural equation modeling technique.
Findings
The results show that egoism factors (perceived reputation, perceived risk, perceived effort), utilitarianism factors (perceived community benefit and perceived reciprocity) and norm of practice factors (perceived pressure by funding agency, perceived pressure by journal and norm of data sharing) all contribute to the formation of research ethics for data sharing.
Research limitations/implications
This research employed the consequentialist perspective of ethics for its research model development, and the proposed research model nicely explained how egoism, utilitarianism and norm of practice factors influence biological scientists’ research ethics for data sharing, which eventually leads to their data sharing intentions.
Practical implications
This research provides important practical implications for examining scientists’ data sharing behaviors from the perspective of research ethics. This research suggests that scientists’ data sharing behaviors can be better facilitated by emphasizing their egoism, utilitarianism and normative factors involved in research ethics for data sharing.
Originality/value
The ethical perspectives in data sharing research has been under-studied; this research sheds light on biological scientists’ formation of research ethics for data sharing, which can be applied in promoting scientists’ data sharing behaviors across different disciplines.
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Kathleen Marshall Park and Anthony M. Gould
Merger waves have typically been viewed through the prism of either corporate strategy or macro-economics. This paper aims to broaden debate about factors that cause – or are…
Abstract
Purpose
Merger waves have typically been viewed through the prism of either corporate strategy or macro-economics. This paper aims to broaden debate about factors that cause – or are associated with – mergers/merger waves over a 120-year period. It ascribes “personalities” to six distinct waves and draws an overarching conclusion about how merger architects are viewed.
Design/methodology/approach
Databases and interviews are used to piece together detail about CEOs associated with six distinct and recognized merger-waves during a 120-year focal period. The study establishes and defends, a priori, principles for interrogating data to get a sense of each wave-era’s corporate personality/idiosyncrasy. For each era, two exemplar CEO-profiles are presented and – through inductive-reasoning – held out as representative.
Findings
Distinct personalities are associated with six merger waves. Each wave is given a summary anthropomorphic description which conveys a sense that it may be viewed as the non-rationale expression of aggregate and historically distinct CEO behavior within a circumscribed timeframe.
Research limitations/implications
The work’s key limitation – explicitly acknowledged – is that it amassed data/evidence from disparate historical sources. However, the authors have developed and defended principles for addressing this concern.
Practical implications
Improved investment analyses, in particular. The work prefigures formal establishment of a new variable-set impacting share-price prediction.
Social implications
The paper offers a perspective on how psychological/personality-related variables impact management decision-making, creating something of a bridge between mostly non-overlapping research disciplines.
Originality/value
The paper broadens debate about how and why merger waves occur. It removes the exclusive analysis of merger waves from the hands of economic historians and strategic management theorists.
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This bibliography was originally compiled for the purpose of a Doctoral degree submitted to Loughborough University of Technology in March 1993. The information in this…
Abstract
This bibliography was originally compiled for the purpose of a Doctoral degree submitted to Loughborough University of Technology in March 1993. The information in this bibliography, which was started in the last quarter of 1989, was continuously updated by collecting data from all the important current journals and abstracting and indexing sources. It covers all of hypertext, including HyperCard and other hypertext/hypermedia systems which are being used for teaching and training. These systems are also used for conducting research in this field. Full efforts were made to cover all the publications such as periodical articles, conference papers/Proceedings, books and reports that were published until the first quarter of 1993.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze teacher candidates’ implied assumptions, attitudes, and concerns about occasional teaching. Data were gathered from 100 teacher candidates…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze teacher candidates’ implied assumptions, attitudes, and concerns about occasional teaching. Data were gathered from 100 teacher candidates over the course of three academic years. Each of the participants posed two questions at the beginning of an online occasional teaching course that they would like to be answered by the end of the course. An awareness of teacher candidates’ questions will be useful in the process of improving pre-service teacher preparation and professional development in occasional teaching.
Design/methodology/approach
On the first day of the course, the teacher candidates were asked to reflect upon their first practicum experience and post these reflections to the Sakai discussion forums board. As a follow-up to this introductory activity, the author then invited the teacher candidates to compose and share two (open-ended) questions they would like addressed in this occasional teaching course. These questions were submitted and retained by the author for the duration of the course. The author referred to these teacher candidates’ questions over the term of the course to ensure that the teacher candidates’ queries were being addressed and their misconceptions were being challenged. Over the course of this study, the 100 teacher candidate participants (n=100) each offered two questions for a total of 200 questions. However, not all questions were unique. The study design employed the use of qualitative and quantitative methods. The participants’ questions were transcribed, organized, coded and categorized. Data were initially bracketed into meaning units, coded for relevant categories, refined and related to enable the development of encompassing themes. Each question was coded only once based on the central issue or premise of the question. Frequency distributions and percentages of common responses were also derived from participant responses.
Findings
Findings suggest that teacher candidates are most concerned with classroom management, curriculum and instruction, getting hired as an occasional or long-term occasional teacher, administrators’ and classroom teachers’ expectations of occasional teachers, legal aspects of occasional teaching, and working with special populations.
Research limitations/implications
Due to attrition, the final number of respondents was 100. It can be argued that the group of students who withdrew from the occasional teaching course may have had different perceptions, concerns, and questions from those who completed the study. More research should be conducted on occasional teaching. Such research may help the author to improve the situation for students, teachers, administrators, teacher candidates, and occasional teachers. Conducting a longitudinal study with the same students would also be useful to identify whether or not they were satisfied with the amount of preparation they had during their pre-service teacher training.
Practical implications
A critical beginning for teacher educators is to capture the initial questions and conceptions that their teacher candidates possess on entry into pre-service education programmes. Teacher education programmes should begin considering courses that will help pre-service teachers reconstruct and modify their preconceived perceptions about occasional teaching, in hopes that it will promote professional growth and development. Faculties and boards of education should consider creating a “How-To” resource manual that is aligned with the Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession, and designed for newly hired occasional teachers, regular classroom teachers, administrators, and teacher candidates. This manual could include case studies accompanied by a series of thought-provoking questions and real-world guidance from the “experts in the field” which will prove helpful when teacher candidates are preparing for their interviews.
Originality/value
Occasional teaching is the route into the profession for the majority of Ontario’s new graduates. This gradual and increasingly extended process toward full entry to the profession results in more competition each year for the next group of first-year teachers and greater reliance on occasional teaching. Despite these findings, few teacher education programmes in Ontario, Canada offer courses, workshops, or training to help prepare their teacher candidates for occasional teaching as their possible point of entry into the teaching profession. This lack of preparation is a major concern for the teaching profession as a whole. To fully address these concerns, occasional teacher training must be provided for all teacher candidates. Faculties and boards of education need to develop a well-qualified, highly skilled occasional teacher who through training becomes a well-developed specialist at teaching at one school today, in another tomorrow, and in still another the day after tomorrow. Occasional teaching training courses and programmes must provide prospective occasional teachers with the skills they need to enter any classroom and provide a positive learning atmosphere. This applied research will inform efforts to improving pre-service teacher preparation and professional development in occasional teaching.
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Sandra K Abell and Katherine S Cennamo
This chapter details our story of developing and using a series of videocases in elementary science teacher preparation. The Reflecting on Elementary Science videocases provide…
Abstract
This chapter details our story of developing and using a series of videocases in elementary science teacher preparation. The Reflecting on Elementary Science videocases provide models of best practices in reform-based elementary science teaching. They reduce the complexity of teaching into a manageable story situated in a specific context, so that preservice teachers can uncover and reflect upon their theories about science learning and teaching. Through an accompanying research program, we have found that the videocases perturb student thinking and catalyze them to think like a teacher as they refine their science education theories.
Richard E. Boyatzis and David A. Kolb
Contends that a typology of skills based on a framework of learningstyles and experiential learning theory, rather than a framework of jobperformance or some other personality…
Abstract
Contends that a typology of skills based on a framework of learning styles and experiential learning theory, rather than a framework of job performance or some other personality construct, provides a language and guidance for assessment methods to describe knowledge at the performance level of adaptation. It requires development of the concept of learning skills which are: domainspecific and knowledge‐rich; descriptive of an integrated transaction between the person and the environment; and developed by practice. Reviews and reports data from numerous studies to establish the ESP′s reliability, relational validity, criterion validity and construct validity. The ESP can be used as a vehicle for providing personal and organizational feedback on skills, and expectations and intent regarding skills in jobs and development programmes.