Describes prototype system that provides retrieval from hierarchically structured full-text databases such as legal statutes and regulations and engineering standards. Enhanced retrieval is provided through integration of three different access techniques dependent on inherent hierarchical text structure: menu, Boolean combination of keywords,…

Software design is still a craft; techniques are based on the way things have been done, not on basic theorems or design principles. Suggests that academic software design needs to be more like a science or technology and that a taxonomy of design solutions or classification method is required. Describes two case studies. (MLW)

Discusses research on scientific communication. Topics include theory-less and formal technical/natural scientific models of scientific communication; social-scientific, power-sensitive models; the sociology of scientific communication; sciences as fields of competition; fraud and deception; potential surplus value across subject information…

Provides background information and basic options of Didascalia, a computer-assisted language learning center at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) in the domain of language methodology and technology. (CK)

Predicts that, over the next several decades, technological advancements in large scale database construction and maintenance, high speed digital transmission networks, and highly precise intelligent searchware will result in a worldwide information system. A projected model illustrates pricing and retrieval rate changes that may be expected over…

Describes the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia that contains an online collection of full-text databases delivered through a single search program. Highlights include user support services; use of Standard Generalized Markup Language; users; and providing a model for other universities. (LRW)

Develops analytical techniques to determine "borrowability," the ease with which a lexical item or category of lexical items can be borrowed by one language from another. These techniques are then applied to Spanish borrowings in Bolivian Quechua on the basis of a set of bilingual texts. (29 references) (MDM)

Discusses an experiment with the "Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors" which aimed to adapt established criteria for the evaluation of information retrieval systems to the assessment of searcher performance in online bibliographic searching. The concept of relevance is discussed, and the Cranfield paradigm for the evaluation of information…

Presents a method of modeling the relevance relationship in information retrieval to answer the question of the theoretical limits of certain statistical methods. Hypergeometric probability distribution is used to construct an abstract model of a database of MEDLINE records, and results of tests of vector retrieval methods are reported. (28…

Outlines prevalent electronic information pricing models along with their strengths and weaknesses. Highlights include full-time equivalent (FTE) student counts; pure head counts; print plus fee; concurrent users; IP (information provider) classes; by transaction, connect time or retrieval; other factors, e.g., total budget and materials budget;…

Suggests a method that allows searchers to analytically compare the Boolean and probabilistic information retrieval approaches. Sample performance figures are provided for queries using the Boolean strategy, and for probabilistic systems. The variation of performance across sublanguages and queries is examined, as well as the performance of models…

Three experiments assessed the contributions of age-of-acquisition (AoA) and frequency to visual word recognition. Three databases were created from electronic journals in chemistry, psychology and geology in order to identify technical words that are extremely frequent in each discipline but acquired late in life. In Experiment 1, psychologists…

The complexity of the modern workplace means that decision makers are entertaining the idea of providing employees with software applications that are designed to provide true support and on-the-job training from the employee's desktop computer. An electronic performance support system (EPSS) is the tool that can make such training a reality when…

To meet accountability challenges from a customer-satisfaction perspective, an urban institution of higher education has developed an integrated approach to studying the freshman year experience in order to develop comprehensive outcomes measures for assessing freshman success. Multiple sources of data (freshman satisfaction survey data,…

There are increasing numbers of commercially available computer graphics packages, both in terms of hardware and software, that can be utilized by instructors, practitioners, and students of education. With the proliferation of low-cost graphic terminals, time-sharing capabilities, and recent advances in mini- and microcomputers, computer graphics…