The World Wide Web has become a medium for people to share information. People use Web-based collaborative tools such as question answering (QA) portals, blogs/forums, email and instant messaging to acquire information and to form online-based communities. In an online QA portal, a user asks a question and other users can provide answers based on their knowledge, with the question usually being answered by many users. It can become overwhelming and/or time/resource consuming for a user to read all of the answers provided for a given question. Thus, there exists a need for a mechanism to rank the provided answers so users can focus on only reading good quality answers. The majority of online QA systems use user feedback to rank users’ answers and the user who asked the question can decide on the best answer. Other users who didn’t participate in answering the question can also vote to determine the best answer. However, ranking the best answer via this collaborative method is time consuming and requires an ongoing continuous involvement of users to provide the needed feedback. The objective of this research is to discover a way to recommend the best answer as part of a ranked list of answers for a posted question automatically, without the need for user feedback. The proposed approach combines both a non-content-based reputation method and a content-based method to solve the problem of recommending the best answer to the user who posted the question. The non-content method assigns a score to each user which reflects the users’ reputation level in using the QA portal system. Each user is assigned two types of non-content-based reputations cores: a local reputation score and a global reputation score. The local reputation score plays an important role in deciding the reputation level of a user for the category in which the question is asked. The global reputation score indicates the prestige of a user across all of the categories in the QA system. Due to the possibility of user cheating, such as awarding the best answer to a friend regardless of the answer quality, a content-based method for determining the quality of a given answer is proposed, alongside the non-content-based reputation method. Answers for a question from different users are compared with an ideal (or expert) answer using traditional Information Retrieval and Natural Language Processing techniques. Each answer provided for a question is assigned a content score according to how well it matched the ideal answer. To evaluate the performance of the proposed methods, each recommended best answer is compared with the best answer determined by one of the most popular link analysis methods, Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search (HITS). The proposed methods are able to yield high accuracy, as shown by correlation scores: Kendall correlation and Spearman correlation. The reputation method outperforms the HITS method in terms of recommending the best answer. The inclusion of the reputation score with the content score improves the overall performance, which is measured through the use of Top-n match scores.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T15:11:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Claudio Roberto Machado Benite.pdf: 3958552 bytes, checksum: 2631fb4577d22a3f8aeeb3ce183b0f72 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-05 / This study investigated the use of collaborative social network as a training environment for critical reflection. The research intends to contribute to the understanding of the use of research networks as spaces to provide critical reflection, the understanding of the use of research networks as spaces to develop interventions in educational action and the study of training teachers of science/chemistry focusing school inclusion. The theoretical foundation of the study is centered on the Theory of Communicative Action by Habermas, suitable for analyzing the movement of action and on Vigotski the reference needed to reflect the production of speech. Participated in this study the components of the Rede Goiana Interdisciplinar de Pesquisa em Educação Especial/Inclusiva RPEI , five trainer teachers, eight graduate students, thirteen undergraduate students and twelve teachers of basic education, besides students of the licentiate course in chemistry from four higher education institutions, all from Goiás State. Reflecting about the relationship between research and teaching activities, this research was configured as an action-research, divided into three spiral cycles: the first featured by discussions on face-to-face environment in RPEI, involving theoretical and practical conceptions about the training of teachers for inclusion; the second, by the identification of conceptions of trainer teachers of chemistry from a higher education institution about school inclusion and teaching activities in this perspective; finally the third spiral cycle represented the plan of action through discussion forums in virtual environment, contribution to the formation of chemistry teachers on inclusion. Analyzing the dialogical activities on Moodle platform, our results pointed out that the activities like this allow us understanding how the language that express the verbal thought is employed by those involved in a dialogue. Also it has permitted to identify the processes that the participants use to appropriate social languages relative to pedagogical actions to chemistry teaching, in an inclusion perspective when mediated by experienced teachers, aiming the mutual understanding among those involved. / Esta tese objetivou investigar o uso de rede social colaborativa como ambiente de formação para reflexão crítica. A pesquisa tencionou contribuir para a compreensão da utilização de redes de pesquisa como espaços para propiciar o processo de reflexão crítica, a compreensão da utilização de redes de pesquisa como espaços para elaboração de intervenções na ação pedagógica e o estudo da formação de professores de ciências/química no âmbito da inclusão escolar. A fundamentação teórica do estudo está centrada na Teoria da Ação Comunicativa de Habermas adequada para analisar o movimento da ação e, em Vigotski, o referencial necessário para a reflexão da produção do discurso. Participaram da investigação os componentes da Rede Goiana Interdisciplinar de Pesquisa em Educação Especial/Inclusiva RPEI, cinco professores formadores, oito alunos de pós-graduação, treze alunos de graduação e doze professores da educação básica, além de alunos dos cursos de química licenciatura de quatro instituições de ensino superior, todos do Estado de Goiás. Refletindo sobre a relação existente entre pesquisa e a ação docente, esta investigação se configurou como uma pesquisa-ação, dividida em três ciclos espirais: o primeiro caracterizado por discussões em ambiente presencial na RPEI envolvendo concepções teórica e prática sobre a formação de professores para a inclusão; o segundo pela identificação das concepções de formadores de professoress de química de uma instituição de ensino superior sobre inclusão escolar e a ação docente nesta perspectiva; por fim, o terceiro ciclo-espiral representou o plano de ação por meio de fóruns de discussão em ambiente virtual contribuindo para a formação de professores de química no âmbito da inclusão. Analisando as atividades dialógicas na plataforma Moodle, nossos resultados apontam que atividades como esta nos permite compreender a forma com que a linguagem que expressa o pensamento verbal é empregada pelos envolvidos durante um diálogo. Nos permitiu, também, identificar os processos por meio dos quais os participantes se apropriam de linguagens sociais relativas à ação pedagógica voltada ao ensino de química numa perspectiva inclusiva quando mediadas por professores mais experientes visando o entendimento mútuo dos envolvidos.

Depuis une vingtaine d’années, les activités culturelles et créatives (art, architecture, etc.) sont plébiscitées par les pouvoirs publics et les scientifiques pour leur rôle culturel mais aussi économique, social et urbain. Leur agglomération spatiale dans d’anciens quartiers industriels et ouvriers fait peser de multiples enjeux sur ces territoires. Planifiée par les décideurs politiques ou construite par des dynamiques spontanées, cette agglomération transforme des espaces en friche en quartiers créatifs. Ces quartiers sont le lieu d’ancrage de clusters qui lient les travailleurs créatifs dans un réseau social d’échange et de coopération marqué par l’entre-soi. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’interroger le fonctionnement et les enjeux des quartiers créatifs en vérifiant l’hypothèse de la mise en place d’un club de travailleurs créatifs au sein de ces territoires. Défini comme un regroupement volontaire d’individus autour de la jouissance exclusive de biens et de services, le club est porteur à la fois de dynamiques collectives de partage et de logiques d’entre-soi et de ségrégation. Questionner son existence dans les quartiers créatifs introduit une réflexion autour de la cohésion et de la fragmentation sociales d’une part, et de la créativité et de l’innovation d’autre part.Fondée sur une analyse qualitative croisée de trois quartiers créatifs des villes de Nantes, Marseille et Grenoble, cette thèse montre comment des clubs de travailleurs créatifs se forment dans ces territoires, quel est leur fonctionnement et quels sont leurs impacts sociaux et économiques. / For twenty years, cultural and creative activities (art,architecture, etc.) have been promoted by public authorities and scientists for their cultural, economic,social and urban roles. Their spatial agglomeration informer industrial districts implies multiple issues on these territories. Planned by political decision-makers or resulting from spontaneous dynamics, this agglomeration transforms industrial wasteland into creative quarters.Clusters that link creative workers in collaborative social networks are embedded in these quarters. These social networks are characterized by cooperation and a senseof togetherness.This thesis aims to question the functioning and the stakes of creative quarters by confirming the hypothesis of the establishment of a creative workers’ club within these territories. The club is defined as a voluntary grouping of individuals around the exclusive enjoymen tof goods and services. It carries both collective dynamics of sharing and logics of exclusion and segregation.Questioning its existence in creative quarters induces a reflection on social cohesion and fragmentation on the one hand, and creativity and innovation on the other one. Based on a qualitative analysis of three creative quarters in the cities of Nantes, Marseille and Grenoble, this thesis illustrates how clubs of creative workers are formed in these territories, how they work and what their social and economic impacts are.