Theresa A. Steinbach

Adapting Peer Review to an Online Course: An Exploratory Case Study

With demonstrated benefits to higher level learning, peer review in the classroom has been well researched and popular since at least the 1990s. However, little or no prior studies exist into the peer review process for online courses. Further, we found no prior research specifically addressing the operational aspects of online peer review. This research addresses that gap by comparing the issues involved in managing peer review for an online course with those for a traditional classroom course. In an exploratory case study, two sections of the same introductory level course were taught by the same professor in the same academic term, one section in the traditional classroom and one as an online section. Both sections covered the same material in the same order. Online students had access to narrated PowerPoint recordings that tracked in-class lectures. The same assignments and exams were used. The two sections used a joint discussion board for posting questions and answers about the course material. In short, the two courses were almost identical, except for the steps necessary to make peer review operate in an online environment.

The Relevance of Information Systems Research: Informing the IS Practitioner Community; Informing Ourselves

Discussion of the relevance of Information Systems research to the practitioner community began in the 1990s. Though the issue has faded from top-tier journals, the problem remains. This article provides the first comprehensive consideration of the major papers relating to IS research relevance. It also recognizes that the problem of relevance is not one that is likely to be solved at the global IS level, or even the university level. Rather, the relevance of IS research ultimately will be determined by each individual researcher. To facilitate individual researchers’ progress in moving toward greater relevance, this research provides a concise plan of specific actions that are within the control of each individual IS researcher. These actions involve both how researchers attempt to inform the practitioner community about their work, and how researchers inform themselves about the concerns of practitioners. Several specific actions for improving the relevance of individual research are detailed.

An Exploratory Analysis of Intranet Benefits

An exploratory survey of business professionals from a broad range of organizations indicates that potential intranet benefits are both difficult to achieve and highly interrelated. Although many organizations implement intranets in the hope of generating cost savings or improving knowledge sharing across organizational units, this study indicates that the only likely benefit of implementing an intranet is faster access to information. The study also suggests that the most difficult benefit to achieve is generating a more cooperative work environment, and that developing an intranet that improves the quality and relevance of information is foundational to achieving most other intranet benefits.

A Computer Science Linked-courses Learning Community

Previous work has shown that factors such as student engagement and involvement can impact progress for computer science majors. One promising approach for improving student engagement is learning communities, which have a long history in academia but are relatively uncommon in computing. In this article we describe a linked-courses learning community for women and men of color majoring in development-focused computing degrees. We provide logistical information about the first offering of the learning community and assess the effectiveness of the community via a student survey. Our results show that students in the learning community are more likely to report that they have support for success in computer science courses and that they are a part of a community of programmers.

Improving Retention and Reducing Isolation via a Linked-courses Learning Community

Despite a rebound in enrollments, men of color and women remain underrepresented in computing. The literature indicates that student-student interaction, affinity for the computing major, and reduced feelings of isolation are important for retention of underrepresented groups in computing. Learning communities connect students with each other and faculty to improve collaboration, interaction, and enthusiasm. In an effort to improve retention of female and minority students at our institution, we have created two cohorts of a linked-courses learning community for development majors. Here we report on the academic performance and retention for the first cohort and on the impact of the community on attitudes toward computing among the second cohort. The linked-courses learning community showed improved retention rates and academic performance for students participating in the first cohort, and results from surveys administered to the second cohort show that participation in the community diminished feelings of isolation.

Evaluating a Linked-courses Learning Community for Development Majors

Despite a rebound in enrollments, men of color and women remain underrepresented in computing. The literature indicates that student-student interaction and affinity for the computing major are important factors for retention of underrepresented groups in computing, and learning communities connect students with each other and faculty to improve collaboration, interaction, enthusiasm. Despite their long history and promise for addressing retention, computing-focused learning communities remain rare. Here we present an evaluation of a linked-courses learning community for men of color and women majoring in a development-focused area of computing. We measure student attitudes and affinity for their major via a survey developed by the authors. Our results show that learning community students felt significantly more supported and were more likely to report that they belonged to a community of programmers than other students enrolled in the same programming class.

Informing Young Women about Computer Careers: Examining the Pervasiveness of the Geek Image

Organizations attempting to attract more women to the Information Technology field often focus on convincing young women that the computer field is not composed primarily of geeks and loners. However, relatively little prior research focuses on whether the geek or loner image is in fact a reality in the minds of young women. This research reports on the results of a study of 412 girls, ages sixteen through eighteen, in a major Midwestern United States city. The study found that, contrary to popular opinion, most of these girls do not view those who choose computer related careers as being geeks or loners. These results call for reassessment of resources currently allocated to combat the geek and loner image, particularly in large urban areas. The research also uncovers unexpected racial differences in how those who choose computer careers are perceived. Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee. Contact Publisher@InformingScience.org to request redistribution permission.

Encouraging Minority Enrollment in IT Degree Programs through Participatory Organizations

Worldwide demand for qualified IT workers has employers exploring under-represented segments of the workforce. The percentage of women IT workers is not keeping pace with the growth of the industry. Minority populations, which are country specific, are also under-represented segments. This paper focuses on three significant minority segments in the United States: women, African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Studies have shown that increasing the number of these three groups enrolled in university computer science programs can help ease the shortage of qualified IT workers. One approach to attract and retain these students is to encourage the use of participatory organizations. This paper traces the initial efforts of one university to retain these segments through student-led chapters of the Association for Computing Machinery – Women, National Society of Black Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. Critical success factors are identified for use by other universities interested in initiating similar programs.

Retention Rates for the First Three Years of a Linked-courses Learning Community

While enrollments in computing degrees and courses have grown rapidly in the past decade, both female and minority male students remain underrepresented in computing programs. This makes recruitment and retention of these populations a continuing concern. To attempt to address the issue at our institution, we created a linked-courses learning community targeting females and minority males enrolled in several computing majors. Here we present retention rates for the first three years of the linked-courses learning community. The results show that the learning community appeared to make a difference for some cohorts, improving their retention rate and academic performance over comparable institutional populations. Unfortunately, the more challenges a cohort faced in terms of factors that contribute to a difficult transition to college, the less the learning community was able to overcome these challenges. There were also other differences between the cohorts, as seen in attitudes measured by pre- and post-quarter surveys, that complicate generalizations about the impact of the learning community.

Framework to Enhance Nurses’ Use of EMR

Abstract The ability of nurses to adopt and successfully use EMR is expected to have a significant impact on achieving benefits such as reduction in healthcare costs and improvement in healthcare quality. A review of the current research literature reveals issues and concerns relating to the adoption and use of EMR by nurses in hospital environments. This article presents a literature review of such issues and concerns, and suggests a framework for enhancing the adoption and use of EMR by nurses and hospitals.