The Nature of Group Work

1989 ◽  
Vol 33 (13) ◽  
pp. 852-856 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary M. Olson

Collaborative work, while very common, is also difficult. The reasons for pursing collaborative work are described, along with some of the most common sources of difficulty. New information technologies may provide support for collaboration. But in order to develop appropriate technology, it is necessary to draw upon existing theory and data in cognitive and social science. In addition, it is important to carry out observational studies of collaborative work to look for opportunities for technology intervention.

Author(s):  
George Kamberelis ◽  
Greg Dimitriadis

This essay is both historical and conceptual, first highlighting the origins, tensions, and continuities/discontinuities of focus group research, then arguing for how such research embodies three primary, related functions: inquiry, pedagogy, and political. The quasi-unique potentials or affordances of focus group work are explored, including mitigating the researcher’s authority; disclosing the constitutive power of discourse; approximating the natural; filling in knowledge gaps and saturating understanding; drawing out complexity, nuance, and contradiction; disclosing eclipsed connections; and creating opportunities for political activism. Contemporary threats to focus group work are described, and new research frontiers are proposed, especially in relation to new information technologies. The essay integrates historical, conceptual, and practical perspectives to fully explain the potentials of focus group research, with the goal of advancing a set of understandings about focus group work that attends to its relatively unique potentials for conducting qualitative inquiry across a wide range of topics and disciplinary contexts.


Author(s):  
Ricardo Mejía ◽  
Nicolás Peñaranda ◽  
Arturo Molina ◽  
Godfried Augenbroe

The expansion of Internet-based tools has opened new opportunities to improve collaborative work through the development of a new generation of tools designed to support e-work and e-collaboration. The concepts of e-work and e-collaboration have been evolved through the increasing demand of collaborative environments to support distributed networked activities. This trend has triggered the development of new Information Technologies in order to enable the collaboration and interaction of product development teams in distributed environments.


Author(s):  
George Kamberelis ◽  
Greg Dimitriadis

This chapter is both historical and conceptual, first highlighting the origins, tensions, and continuities/discontinuities of focus group research and then arguing for how such research embodies three primary, related functions: inquiry, pedagogy, and political. The quasiunique potentials or affordances of focus group work are explored, including mitigating the researcher’s authority; disclosing the constitutive power of discourse; approximating the natural; filling in knowledge gaps and saturating understanding; drawing out complexity, nuance, and contradiction; disclosing eclipsed connections; and creating opportunities for political activism. Contemporary threats to focus group work are described and new research frontiers are proposed, especially in relation to new information technologies. The chapter integrates historical, conceptual, and practical perspectives to fully explain the potentials of focus group research, with the goal of advancing a set of understandings about focus group work that attends to its relatively unique potentials for conducting qualitative inquiry across a wide range of topics and disciplinary contexts.


Author(s):  
Larisa E. Kresova

The activities of the American Memory Library, aimed at on activization of children’ reading interests in Germany are considered. The history, the collection composition, the material and technical basis and the organization of library space, as well as the usage of new information technologies in children's libraries of Germany are illuminated.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-356
Author(s):  
V.P. Kovalchuk ◽  
I.M. Kovalenko ◽  
S.V. Kovalenko ◽  
V.M. Burkot ◽  
V.O. Kovalenko

Innovations change the world in all spheres of life, and education is not an exception. Modern requirements of time put us new challenges that require the use of new information technologies at all stages of the educational process in higher education institutions, in particular the use of the Internet. In addition, it has been noted that Internet resources increase motivation and contribute to the formation of a fully developed personality. Testing and evaluating students' knowledge and abilities is an integral part of the credit-module system. One of the forms of evaluation of the initial level of knowledge, consolidation and improvement of assimilation of information is testing. It should be noted that in a number of countries, testing has shifted traditional forms of control — oral and written exams and interviews. However, in Ukraine, educators remain adherents of a combination of testing and classical analysis of material. It allows the most efficient distribution of the training time of a practical class, 100% control of the knowledge and the effectiveness of mastering the material of all the students of the academic group. Technical progress stimulates the search for new variants and possibilities of testing, its various variations. One of the options that can help solve this problem was a smartphone. In order to facilitate the work of the teacher at the Department of Microbiology, an online testing system with the use of smartphones was introduced. Online testing is conducted among students with Ukrainian and English language training. With the Google Forms platform, the teacher creates a form which contains the student's records and tests. Students directly from the teacher get a link to fill out an online form directly at the lesson. For testing, a database containing standard KROK-1 licensed test tasks is used. The form can contain any number of test tasks that are in arbitrary order, as well as a changed order of distractors, which makes it impossible to write off. At the same time, all students are in the same conditions: all write one option. After submitting the form, the student receives a notification that his response is recorded. Re-linking is not possible. In turn, the teacher receives a message on the result of the test in the table — the ratio of correct answers to the total number of questions, as well as options for their answers. First and foremost, questions are displayed on which students gave the largest number of incorrect answers. This allows the topic to be considered in the process of discussion of the most difficult tasks from the students perspective, and in the future it will allow more efficiently to create forms for on-line tests and to focus on these issues.


Author(s):  
Aleksandr Mitin

The article discusses the possibilities of automation of legal activities. Special attention is paid to the new branch of the business LegalTech, which allows providing legal services using information technology. Some projects in this area are briefly described: FreshDoc document designer, VideoContract app, and electronic trading platforms such as Legal Space and Pravoved.Ru. Although the legal community is not quite ready to work in such conditions, higher education institutions are already reforming their curricula, developing disciplines that allow gaining professional competence in introducing technologies that automate legal work, and so on. The author, in turn, offers using chat bots in legal clinics, gives examples of new disciplines for master’s degree programs, considers the idea of passing final examinations outside universities in certification centers, etc. It is emphasized that in jurisprudence there are a lot of typical situations in which typical decisions need to be made, and here artificial intelligence will be a good helper, and scientists will have more time to undertake a comprehensive analysis of law. Thus, even with the advent of new technologies, the creative work of lawyers will always be in demand.


In recent years, the Middle East’s information and communications landscape has changed dramatically. Increasingly, states, businesses, and citizens are capitalizing on the opportunities offered by new information technologies, the fast pace of digital transformations, and enhanced connectivity. These changes are far from turning Middle Eastern nations into network societies, but their impact is significant. The growing adoption of a wide variety of information technologies and new media platforms in everyday life has given rise to complex dynamics that beg for a better understanding. Digital Middle East sheds a critical light on continuing changes that are closely intertwined with the adoption of information and communication technologies in the MENA region. Drawing on case studies from throughout the Middle East, the contributors explore how these digital transformations are playing out in the social, cultural, political, and economic spheres, exposing the various disjunctions and discordances that have marked the advent of the digital Middle East.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1062
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Koszela ◽  
Wojciech Mueller ◽  
Jakub Otrząsek ◽  
Mateusz Łukomski ◽  
Sebastian Kujawa

The paper concentrates on researching the possibilities of using modern information technologies in animal production in order to monitor and identify behavior and well-being of cows. Having in mind the challenges related to managing dairy herds, and economic pressure put on breeders (as well as the broadly defined well-being of animals), an endeavor was made to create a new method, which would be competitive in comparison with the existing solutions. The proposed method of collecting data and data processing with beacon devices as well as data warehouse, allows—according to the authors—a more complete identification of behaviors and physiological condition of a dairy herd. It is also worth pointing out that this method is competitive in terms of price. By virtue of the multitude of data that were collected, a decision was made to resign from processing data on a local computer and use a cloud compute engine instead. The presented information system creates a sequence of components, which were subject to verification both on the level of creating and conducting research. Research results that were received were then compared with knowledge presented in the literature. A vital element of validation of the aforementioned methodology was comparing results that were achieved in the course of research work with the system making use of pedometer. The aim of the authors was to develop a new information technology solution, as well as a method based on beacons, which are rather universal devices, with the use of data warehouses, allowing the identification of behavior and physiological state of milk cattle, the method which would be competitive in comparison with the existing solutions, especially in terms of price. In the proposed solution, both information coming from microcomputers and weather forecast data coming from weather forecast stations, which make the above identification easy, were used as data sources.


1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-145
Author(s):  
I. I. Khaimzon

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document