Digital Badges in the Classroom

• Mark Mabrito, Purdue University, USA

Digital badges are “micro-credentials” that can potentially represent student skills/achievements in more context-specific ways than traditional academic credentials, such as degrees, certificates/minors, or even course titles on a transcript. A badge is essentially a digital image that contains embedded metadata describing information about the task performed to earn the badge, criteria for assessment, and often evidence that was submitted by the learner to earn the badge. A digital badge program was introduced into an undergraduate business communication course designed specifically for nurses. Digital badges were framed as a way of helping students use classroom achievements to professionally brand themselves—that is, to connect skills learned in the classroom with skills that might be attractive to their employers. Many of the badges directly connected work required for the course with criteria for earning a badge. For example, students could earn badges in areas such as workplace communication, business presentations, and group collaboration, as well as for writing proposals, memos, and other types of documents. We may be at a crossroads where digital badges are still viewed by some as a somewhat “disruptive” technology in the classroom, since they are very different than traditional transcripts and diplomas. However, in higher education, such attitudes among faculty and students are shifting. In this context, digital badges may present an opportunity for students to document connections between the classroom and the real world in new and exciting ways.

A Difficult Subject: Working with Multiple Institutions to Improve Metadata and Usability of An Aggregated Digital Library

• Joshua Lynch, University of Illinois, USA

This paper examines the inextricable relationship between back-end metadata management and remediation, front-end search and discovery user interfaces, and access and usability. The Illinois Digital Heritage Hub is a state-wide metadata aggregation project that gathers and provides metadata records to the Digital Public Library of America. The project has widened access to local Illinois-based collections from dozens of institutions, making digital primary source materials in Illinois available to US-wide and global user groups. The project has been successful in onboarding institutions and in educating contributors’ staff on the minimum metadata requirements for providing records to the IDHH and DPLA. However, recommended metadata standards have been difficult to address, which have turned out to be crucial in search and discovery. This paper will focus on subject metadata in the IDHH and DPLA, why local institutions are not often applying recommendations and the effects of this unremediated metadata on search and discovery. The paper will then explore possible remediation solutions, such as working more closely with contributing institutions and automatic enhancements that can be performed to remediate subject metadata. The importance of incentivizing the often tedious, if not grueling work of remediating metadata will be discussed; local contributing institutions like to know the ends toward which they are working and demonstrating and articulating “ideal” metadata and its user empowerment may be more effective than more typical approaches like sharing project documentation and expecting institutions to adhere to standards without clearly explaining and demonstrating the purpose of these standards.

Scientific Urgency, Satellite Vision, and the Rise of Conflict Archaeology

• Fiona Greenland, University of Virginia, USA

The production and transfer of knowledge through satellite images achieved unprecedented visibility in 2016, when President Obama signed The Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act, a bipartisan measure to eliminate the sale of archaeological artifacts looted by terrorist groups. The Act's supporters built their case on satellite images and testimony from experts with varying levels of technical understanding of how such images are made, why their fidelity varies, and whether they constitute sufficient evidence for federal policymaking. This paper examines the standards of data reliability and robustness operationalized by scholars and civil servants who populated the conflict archaeology subfield at the height of its influence (2015-18) and introduced a new "professional vision" (Vertesi 2015). Conflict archaeology is a dynamic subfield whose participants converged briefly, working under intense media and political pressure, to provide specific knowledge. We draw from interviews and lab ethnography to show that standards of epistemic evidence were displaced by "good enough" performances of credible experience in crucial moments of knowledge transfer. Cross-disciplinary boundaries were dissolved so quickly that the media itself became the "trading zone" that coordinated scientific collaboration (Galison 1998). Contributing to Science and Technology Studies (STS) work on scientific collaboration with public stakeholders (Panofsky 2014; Stampnitzky 2015), we reveal the processes whereby evidentiary standards are relaxed or abandoned in spaces of scientific urgency.

Plagiarism Among Students in Kuwait University College of Social Sciences

• Dalal Albudaiwi, University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA
• Mike Allen, University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA

Plagiarism constitutes a problem threatening the integrity of education throughout the world. In the age of internet, students can easily copy and paste materials to complete assignments. In the past, plagiarism required students to visit libraries, and get information manually without the ability to simply cut and paste text into a document (Batane, 2010). Similar to many others terms, different scholars use a diverse set of criteria when applying the term “plagiarism,” but unanimously, scholars describe the impact as “literary theft” (Barnhart, 1988). Plagiarism practices differ among students in universities all over the world. Each university provides some policy regarding plagiarism and the consequences. Kuwait University (KUNIV) is one of the universities experiencing a number of plagiarism cases; however, there the policy to control plagiarism and the actions described to instructors remains difficult to implement and comprehend. This research investigates the awareness of the notion of plagiarism amongst Kuwaiti university students in the College of Social Sciences. Accordingly, the current research suggests improvements to increase the awareness of KUNIV students to avoid the specific issue of “copy and paste” plagiarism. The research examines factors shaping the definition of plagiarism among the students. In addition to the previous, the research examines the main motives leading students to plagiarize. Finally, the study evaluates the KUNIV plagiarism policy to assess areas for improvement.

Cloud Computing for Humanoid Robotics Tele-immersion

• Adriano Cavalcanti, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Central Washington University, Washington, United States
• Nick Newhard
• Bryce Harmsen
• Isaac Ruymen

​​​​This paper addresses challenges in telerobotics using cloud computing, immersive haptics reality, and semi-autonomous robotics. The purpose of our work is to improve low latency performances required to achieve realistic robotics tele-immersion. In telerobotics, semi-autonomous robots are controlled remotely over a wired or wireless connection. Methods focus on wireless communications at bandwidths necessary to transmit command and control signals from the controlling teleoperation unit, while returning live audiovisual and haptic feedback from the telerobot unit, controlled remotely by a human operator donning a virtual reality headset, microphone, and handheld controllers. Latency in communications between telerobot and teleoperator are a primary concern. Human operators must feel present in the remote environment inhabited by the telerobot, where feedback to the human operator is ideally both audiovisual and haptic.​

An Optimized Input Genetic Algorithm Model for the Financial Market

• David Ademola Oyemade, Senior Lecturer, Computer Science, Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun, Delta, Nigeria
• Arnold Ojugo, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Federal University of Petroleum Resources Effurun, Nigeria​​

​The financial market has continued to attract increasing investment in the last decade. The daily turnover of the foreign exchange (FOREX) market for example, has increased from 4.0 trillion USD in 2010 to 5.1 trillion USD in 2016. However, with all the contributions of researchers towards solving the time series problem of the financial market, 89% of retail investors and traders lose money in the FOREX financial market. We propose an optimized input genetic algorithm (OIGA) model for profit optimization in the FOREX financial market. The model emerged from instances of FOREX expert advisers having different properties and used for live trading. In the genetic algorithm model, each of these expert advisers formed an individual producing a profit or loss value over a period to time. All the expert advisers combine to form the population. The model incorporates an evaluation and optimization method for the properties of the expert advisers at the input level. The proposed model will be compared with the existing genetic algorithm models. The results of the implementation and tests will be published. When fully implemented, the model will hopefully serve as a positive step towards providing profitable expert advisers as a solution to a real life problem. ​

Exploration of the Causal Mechanisms Through Which Social Media Erodes Political Knowledge

• Sangwon Lee, University of Madison - Wisconsin, USA

Social media is rapidly emerging as an important source of news. At first glance, the widespread availability of political information on social media may be considered ideal for improving citizens' knowledge of current events. Yet, recent studies suggest that social media use can actually hinder the individual’s acquisition of political knowledge (e.g., Cacciatore et al., 2018; Lee and Xenos, 2019). Although the literature is beginning to recognize the detrimental effect that social media use can have on political knowledge, no studies published to date have addressed the underlying mechanisms behind this effect. This study proposes the potential causal mechanisms underlying this effect. I propose that exposure to political information on social media may diminish one’s political awareness by creating a false sense of being informed, reducing news consumption through reliable platforms, encouraging selective information scanning, and increasing exposure to inaccurate information (e.g., fake news). To test theoretical mechanisms, I conduct structural equation modeling with two-wave panel data (pre- and post- U.S. presidential election in 2020). In addition to survey research, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the findings from the surveys. In this way, this study aims to expand our understanding of the processes through which social media may actually erode political knowledge.

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