No description available.

Globally, a wealth of educational data has been collected on learner performance in a bid to improve and monitor the quality of education. Unfortunately, the data seem to have had only limited influence on learning and teaching in classrooms. This thesis aimed to bridge this gap between the availability of learner performance data and their use in informing planning and action in schools. A design research approach was used to optimise the feedback system for the South African Monitoring system for Primary schools (SAMP). Design research aims to produce both an intervention to address a complex real-world challenge and to develop design guidelines to support other designers faced with similar challenges in their own context. In this research, the process of developing and improving the feedback system was also used to examine ways of facilitating the use of the feedback. Multiple cycles of design, implementation and evaluation of four different prototypes of the feedback system were conducted, employing evaluations from both experts (e.g. Dutch and South African academics, research and educational psychologists, instrument designers and teacher trainers) as well as school users (teachers, principals and HoDs). Mixed methods were employed throughout the study, with different sub-samples of school users sampled from the population of 22 schools (English, Afrikaans and Sepedi) in the Tshwane region participating in SAMP. The various research cycles incorporated interviews, observations, journals, questionnaires, the Delphi technique and expert evaluations to examine not only data-use, but also aspects such as problem-solving, planning, data-literacy and attitudes towards evidence-based practice in the schools. Data was analysed using Rasch Modelling, descriptive statistics and computer-aided qualitative data analysis. The study showed that an effective feedback system facilitates appropriate use through a gradual process of enlightenment, is flexible and responsive to user inputs, values collaboration and includes instrument, reporting and support components in its design. An optimum feedback system also positively influences school feedback and monitoring culture by providing opportunities for positive experiences with feedback and increasing data-literacy. This improves the chances of feedback being used for planning, decision-making and action in the schools. An effective feedback system must also offer a comprehensive package to accommodate different users, with various levels of data sophistication, functioning in diverse contexts. The research also showed that an effective feedback system mediates thinking about educational instruction and curriculum and can therefore be a potent change agent. Use of clear, simple, intuitive data presentation in the feedback system allows for experiential learning to increase user data-literacy. The design research approach employed in this study offers an appropriate and powerful approach to adapting, developing and optimising a feedback system. User involvement in design research ensures greater contextualisation and familiarity with the system, while engendering trust and a greater sense of ownership, all of which increase the receptiveness and responsiveness of users to feedback. Finally, the research also contributed design guidelines for other developers of feedback systems, an integrated conceptual framework for use of monitoring feedback and a functioning feedback system employed by 22 schools in the Tshwane region. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / unrestricted

In this thesis, the reader will follow a design research project, which was initiated based on a situation of not getting the expected quality of service from the staff, when visiting a traditional restaurant. The aim of the study was to solve the experienced problematic situation by constructing an information system, but also to contribute to the greater body of knowledge regarding artefact design, service quality and customer experience. The thesis also emphasizes that digital tools can be designed for businesses which are typically not tech-heavy and that novel IT solutions do not necessarily have to be very “high-tech”.The thesis included the theoretical perspectives of service quality dimensions, the service quality gap model, expectation-confirmation, and the conceptualization of an information system artefact. This design perspective of the system was combined with theories describing the gap between what customers expect in terms of service quality during a visit, and how the customers perceive that service quality during the visit.As methodology, action design research was applied as guidance how to practically conduct the design process of a digital artefact. It suggested division of the project into four stages: first, problem formulation where the problem area is defined and described. Second, building, intervention and evaluation stage, where the artefact was created together with the participating restaurants. Third, reflection and learning of the outcome, and last, formulation of learning, to explicate the generalizable knowledge of the thesis.The research study concluded that a digital artefact, by applying the action design research approach, could be designed and constructed to ultimately raise the customers’ perceived service quality. The main findings were that the designed artefact could be accepted and utilized differently between various instances of traditional restaurants. Further, the results indicated that service staff members had different attitudes towards the artefact, depending on their professional experience. It was also concluded that the re-allocation of spent time and not having to look for staff when in need of service, were the two most important factors for the customer. While utilizing the system, the time previously spent looking for staff, when in need of service, could instead be spent enjoying the meal and the expected experience. At the same time, the customer did not have to worry about actively looking for a service provider.

Fragmentation refers to the difficulties that students face when attempting to utilise substantive knowledge to make a useable big picture of the past. What possibilities are there to prevent fragmentation, within the framework of regular history teaching in school? In this thesis I tackle this question with interest in teaching methods proposed by history teachers. The research project is designed with the intention to provide the participating teachers with “reasonably good conditions” to be able to form an opinion about the problem of fragmentation. In the research project the participating teachers take part of litterature from the research field of history teaching, and processing the problem of fragmentation through discussion in focus groups and through planning of a history course. In this study I investigate how eight history teachers, given “reasonably good conditions”, imagine feasible teaching in order to prevent fragmentation within the frames of a History 1a1 course. Three research objects are being investigated. What are the teachers´ views regarding: 1) efficient teaching to prevent fragmentation? 2) the framework of teaching? 3) a History course that is including an action plan in order to prevent fragmentation? The study shows that the teachers experience limited possibilities to conduct efficient teaching to prevent fragmentation within the frames of a History 1a1-course. The teachers still, regardless of these limitations, find it possible to conduct strategically focused teaching to prevent fragmentation. The teaching strategies presented by the teachers can be more or less significant and the teachers are not necessarily prepared to allot time and resources to these strategies. Feasible teaching in order to prevent fragmentation is not necessarily associated with strategically aimed teaching. / Elevers svar på vad som har hänt i det förflutna består många gånger av lösryckt historisk stoffkunskap i form av årtal, anekdoter, händelser och historiska personer. Få elever kan använda historiska kunskaper för att konstruera stora och användbara bilder av det förflutna. I denna explorativa designstudie undersöks historielärares föreställningar om hur fragmentering kan motverkas i historieundervisningen.   Studien baseras på empiriskt material från "workshops" med åtta historielärare på gymnasiet. Lärarnas huvuduppgift bestod i att planera och presentera en planering av en Historia 1a1-kurs som innefattar en handlingsplan för att motverka fragmentering. Analysen visar bland annat att de medverkande lärarna upplever möjlighetsrummet att bedriva effektiv undervisning mot fragmentering inom ramarna för Historia 1a1-kursen som begränsat, dock inte obefintligt. Inom detta begränsade möjlighetsrum ser lärarna bland annat vissa möjligheter att bedriva strategiskt inriktad undervisning mot fragmentering.

Statistical research can be more difficult to plan than other kinds of projects, since the research must adapt as knowledge is gained. This dissertation establishes a formal language and methodology for designing experimental research strategies with limited resources. It is a mathematically rigorous extension of a sequential and adaptive form of statistical research called response surface methodology. It uses sponsor-given information, conditions, and resource constraints to decompose an overall project into individual stages. At each stage, a "parent" decision-maker determines what design of experimentation to do for its stage of research, and adapts to the feedback from that research's potential "children", each of whom deal with a different possible state of knowledge resulting from the experimentation of the "parent". The research of this dissertation extends the real-world rigor of the statistical field of design of experiments to develop an deterministic, adaptive algorithm that produces deterministically generated, reproducible, testable, defendable, adaptive, resource-constrained multi-stage experimental schedules without having to spend physical resource.

With the current trend in cloud computing and virtualization, more organizations are moving their systems from a physical host to a virtual server. Although this can significantly reduce hardware, power, and administration costs, it can increase the cost of analyzing performance problems. With virtualization, there is an initial performance overhead, and as more virtual machines are added to a physical host the interference increases between various guest machines. When this interference occurs, a virtualized guest application may not perform as expected. There is little or no information to the virtual OS about the interference, and the current performance tools in the guest are unable to show this interference. We examine the interference that has been shown in previous research, and relate that to existing tools and research in root cause analysis. We show that in virtualization there are additional layers which need to be analyzed, and design a framework to determine if degradation is occurring from an external virtualization layer. Additionally, we build a virtualization test suite with Xen and PostgreSQL and run multiple tests to create I/O interference. We show that our method can distinguish between a problem caused by interference from external systems and a problem from within the virtual guest.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Inwieweit verbinden uns Materialien, die uns umgeben mit den Orten von denen sie stammen? Wie verändern sich Landschaften und soziotechnische Infrastrukturen wenn Gebrauchsmaterialien in alternativen industriellen Symbiosen produziert werden? Und welche Rolle spielt die (karto)-grafische Dokumentation in ergebnisoffenen und transdisziplinären Forschungs- und Gestaltungsprozessen?