This thesis validates the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory for the first time in a field based environmental setting using a water quality-monitoring program within a girls' high school and compares the cognitive achievement of students in the water quality-monitoring school with those in non-water quality-monitoring schools. The psychosocial learning dimensions of the water quality-monitoring program are assessed using a modified form of the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory.The results indicate that students involved in the water quality-monitoring school were more homogenous and ranked higher in their cognitive achievement and transferability of concepts than students in the non-water quality-monitoring schools. Pre and post testing together with anecdotal information affirmed that there was a direct association between the quantitative results and qualitative information in relation to the learning dimension scales of the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory.Comparisons were made between similar water environmental programs in different countries and the water quality-monitoring school program results. The use of skills and constructivist techniques indicates that the water quality-monitoring program together with real life problem solving work is an effective method for improving science learning.

Visual programming languages employ visual representation to make programming easier and make programs more reliable and more accessible. Visual program testing becomes increasingly important as more and more visual programming languages and visual programming environments come into real use. In this work, we focus on one important class of visual programming languages: form-based visual programming languages. This class of languages includes electronic spreadsheets and a variety of research systems that have had a substantial impact on end-user computing. Research shows that form-based visual programs often contain faults, but that their creators often have unwarranted confidence in the reliability of their programs. Despite this evidence, we find no discussion in the research literature of techniques for testing or assessing the reliability of form-based visual programs. This lack will hinder the real use of visual programming languages. Our work addresses the lack of testing methodologies for form-based visual programs. In this document, we first examine differences between the form-based and imperative programming paradigms, discuss effects these differences have on methodologies for testing form-based programs, and analyze challenges and opportunities for form-based program testing. We then present several criteria for measuring test adequacy for form-based programs, and illustrate their application. We show that an analogue to the traditional "all-uses" dataflow test adequacy criterion is well suited for testing form-based visual programs: it provides important error-detection ability, and can be applied more easily to form-based programs than to imperative programs. Finally, we present a testing methodology that we have developed for form-based visual programs. To accommodate the evaluation model used with these programs, and the interactive process by which they are created, our methodology is validation-driven and incremental. To accommodate the user base of these languages, we provide an interface to the methodology that does not require an understanding of testing theory. We discuss our implementation of this methodology, its time costs, the mapping from our approach to the user interface, and empirical results achieved in its use. / Graduation date: 1998

The Advanced Certificate in Education Programme was launched in 2002 at the School of Education, Training and Development, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, in an attempt to upgrade and retrain science educators, given the drastic shortage of qualified science educators in South Africa. This research study investigated the development of scientific literacy within a group of fifteen educators during the first semester of their two-year Advanced Certificate in Education Programme. The study focused on scientific literacy and the relationship between language comprehension skills, readability and scientific literacy. This study aimed to examine whether the Natural Sciences and Biological Sciences module of the Advanced Certificate in Education Programme was effective in raising the level of scientific literacy of educators. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the collection of data. Students wrote a pre-test at the beginning of the first semester and the same test was written as the post-test at the end of the first semester. Semi-structured interviews with tutors were also conducted. Responses of students in the Student Evaluation Questionnaire, given at the end of their first year of study, were analysed to ascertain their perceptions about the tutors, their knowledge and understanding of the content and skills of the modules and the learning material. The questions used in the achievement test were adapted from the question bank of the Science Achievement Test used for Grade 8 learners in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat in 1998/1999. The same achievement test was used in the pre-test and post-test, using questions from the Life Science and Scientific Inquiry and the Nature of Science content areas. The results from this research study indicated that although the level of scientific literacy of educators improved, it was not statistically significant. The study also highlights that language and comprehension skills and inability of students to express their answers in writing hampered their performance in the scientific literacy test. This was demonstrated by the significant positive correlation between language comprehension and readability with scientific literacy. Specific areas of conceptual difficulty were also highlighted in this study. Implications of these findings for further research and delivery of mixed-mode programmes are discussed. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003

This thesis is concerned with the topic of research evaluation by bibliometric methods at European level. European level is defined in two perspectives: first as a set of countries grouped in EU (and its historic predecessors), second the Framework Programmes were appointed as a representative of pan-European research. It is investigated how bibliometric methods are used in a research development and evaluation on both political and academic level. The thesis maps the history of use of bibliometric methods and indicators in great detail and it analyzes the aim and impact of such use. The rationale of use of those methods as well as the enablers such as availability of data are investigated. An experiment of constructing and analyzing the set of relevant data is pursued to assess the relevancy and feasibility of such analysis. Based on the findings the thesis summarizes the options and opportunities of bibliometrics as a method for formation and evaluation of European research.

Submitted by Valdinei Souza (neisouza@hotmail.com) on 2016-11-01T19:54:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Sérgio Franklin - Tese.pdf: 3307961 bytes, checksum: 2610b37c0e02490ec91167da89b041aa (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Urania Araujo (urania@ufba.br) on 2016-11-21T21:17:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Sérgio Franklin - Tese.pdf: 3307961 bytes, checksum: 2610b37c0e02490ec91167da89b041aa (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-11-21T21:17:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sérgio Franklin - Tese.pdf: 3307961 bytes, checksum: 2610b37c0e02490ec91167da89b041aa (MD5) / A pesquisa aborda a percepção de uma comunidade científica sobre o sistema de revisão por pares, frente ao impacto que as tecnologias eletrônicas trazem ao sistema tradicional, visto que elas imprimem rapidez à comunicação, publicação e disseminação da informação científica. Nas últimas décadas, registra-se uma tendência em direção à chamada “revisão por pares aberta” (open peer review), fortemente impulsionada pela facilidade e pelo poder das tecnologias e pelos anseios da sociedade científica e em geral por sistemas mais transparentes e mais justos. Neste percurso, têm destaque os atores envolvidos no sistema e sua importância para a credibilidade dos periódicos científicos e para o desenvolvimento da ciência, agora com novas feições, que se denomina de ciência aberta. O objetivo da tese é analisar e compreender a percepção da comunidade científica sobre o sistema de revisão por pares de periódicos científicos. A estratégia metodológica epistêmica utilizada fundamenta-se nos pressupostos da sociologia da ciência e quanto à tipologia da pesquisa, é classificada como um estudo exploratório-descritivo, numa abordagem combinada de natureza qualitativa e quantitativa. Quanto aos aspectos quantitativos, a coleta de dados empíricos envolve o método survey e para os qualitativos adota a análise de conteúdo para tratamento dos dados das questões de natureza aberta, por meio de técnica infométrica (infometrics). A população foi composta por nove universidades brasileiras, da esfera federal, que mantém programa de pós-graduação na área de medicina. Para seleção dos programas utilizou se como ponto de corte aqueles avaliados pela CAPES com nota maior ou igual a 5, totalizando 14 programas As unidades de pesquisas são representadas por 365 professores. Os resultados apontam para uma insatisfação geral com o sistema de revisão por pares, pela comunidade estudada. O nível de preferência pelo modelo duplo-cego como o mais eficaz identificado contradiz a literatura estudada que indica o modelo simples-cego como o mais adotado na área de medicina. Apresenta uma percepção unânime de que o objetivo da revisão é melhorar a qualidade dos artigos publicados. Revela que interesses econômicos se constituem em obstáculos à transparência e credibilidade do sistema. Mostra que as tecnologias eletrônicas podem contribuir com a melhoria do sistema, por meio de software para controle de plágio, agilidade dos processos de revisão, servindo como um catalisador na abertura do sistema. Aponta que a maioria dos investigados se compraz em revisar artigos, mas que há uma falta de revisores dispostos a revisar, o que compromete a sustentabilidade do sistema. Há um nível de percepção elevado de que existe ausência de orientações e de treinamento de como revisar e que essas ações melhorariam o sistema de revisão por pare. O conjunto de dados indica que o estudo feito na área de medicina, em relação à literatura, no geral, acompanha as tendências internacionais. A partir dos resultados, podem-se vislumbrar novas pesquisas visto que se trata de um tempo em transformação paradigmática,abrangendo a comunidade da Ciência da Informação. / ABSTRACT The research addresses the perception of a scientific community about the peer review system under the contribution of the electronic technologies brought to the traditional system, since they improve the effectiveness of communication, publication and dissemination of scientific information. In the last decades, it is noted a trend towards so-called "open peer review" boosted by the facility and power of technology and the yearnings of the scientific society, and in general, for more transparent and fairer systems.. In this way, it has highlighted the actors involved in the system and its importance for the credibility of scientific journals and the development of science, now with new features, which is called open science. The aim of this thesis is to analyze and understand the perception of a scientific community on the peer review system of scientific journals. The epistemic methodological approach is based on the assumptions of the sociology of science and as to the typology, the research is classified as an exploratory and descriptive study, on a combined approach of qualitative and quantitative aspects . As for the quantitative aspects, the empirical data collection involves the survey method and the qualitative adopts content analysis for data processing of the open issues through infometrics technique. The population consisted of nine Brazilian Federal universities, which keeps graduate programs in medicine. For selection of programs used to as the cutoff point those evaluated by CAPES with highest score or equal to 5, totaling 14 programs Research units are represented by 365 teachers. The results point to a general dissatisfaction with the peer review system by the community studied. The level of preference for double-blind model as the most effective that was identified, contradicts the studied literature that indicate single-blind model as the most widely adopted in medicine area. It presents a unanimous perception that the review goal is to improve the quality of published articles. It reveals that economic interests constitute obstacles to the transparency and credibility of the system. It shows that electronic technologies can contribute to the improvement of the system through software to control plagiarism, the speed revision processes, and acting as a catalyst in the system opening. It points out that the majority investigated delight in review articles, but there is a lack of reviewers willing to review, which compromises the system's sustainability. There is a high level of perception that considers that there is a lack of guidelines and training on how to review and that these actions if adopted could improve the review system. The data set indicates that the study in medicine, in relation to literature, in general, follows international trends. From the results, we can envision new research as it is a time of paradigmatic transformation, including the community of Information Science.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Derived from the field of art curation, digital provenance is an unforgeable record of a digital object's chain of successive custody and sequence of operations performed on the object. It plays an important role in accessing the trustworthiness of the object, verifying its reliability and conducting audit trails of its lineage. Digital provenance forms an immutable directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure. Since history of an object cannot be changed, once a provenance chain has been created it must be protected in order to guarantee its reliability. Provenance can face attacks against the integrity of records and the confidentiality of user information, making security an important trait required for digital provenance. The digital object and its associated provenance can have different security requirements, and this makes the security of provenance different from that of traditional data. Research on digital provenance has primarily focused on provenance generation, storage and management frameworks in different fields. Security of digital provenance has also gained attention in recent years, particularly as more and more data is migrated in cloud environments which are distributed and are not under the complete control of data owners. However, there still lacks a viable secure digital provenance scheme which can provide comprehensive security for digital provenance, particularly for generic and dynamic ones. In this work, we address two important aspects of secure digital provenance that have not been investigated thoroughly in existing works: 1) capturing the DAG structure of provenance and 2) supporting dynamic information sharing. We propose a scheme that uses signature-based mutual agreements between successive users to clearly delineate the transition of responsibility of the digital object as it is passed along the chain of users. In addition to preserving the properties of confidentiality, immutability and availability for a digital provenance chain, it supports the representation of DAG structures of provenance. Our scheme supports dynamic information sharing scenarios where the sequence of users who have custody of the document is not predetermined. Security analysis and empirical results indicate that our scheme improves the security of the typical secure provenance schemes with comparable performance.