Earlier
this year I took the Google [Advanced Power Searching with Google
MOOC]1. For one of the assignments I did some research on a
relatively long standing interest of mine – the use of internet in exams
in Denmark, a topic on which I wrote part of my [MA thesis]2, and
which motivates some of my interest in epistemology of assessment and
epistemic commitments in information seeking now. I’ve written/presented
on that under the title: “[What is it to ‘know’ when we search]3”
and it’s something I hope the [Edinburgh Extended Knowledge
Project]4 explores further. I’ve copied the assignment template
(completed obviously!) below for other’s interest. Note there are some
nice search tips in there too :-). There are also a couple of nice
videos: * Fantastic BBC summary (I’ve used this in talks before) *
Danish Education minister – [Steen Lassen talking about the
policy]5 Advanced Power Searching Assignment Choose a search
problem that’s complex enough to require at least three Advanced Power
Search skills. Document how you solved the problem. 1. What is
your research goal? What will you do with the information? This should
be a complete sentence and/or phrased as a question. In 2009 I was
reading a lot about a Danish experiment with the use of internet access
in exams, a 3 year pilot. I want to follow up on this and see whether or
not the experiment is to be implemented/maintained. 2. What
questions do you need to answer in order to achieve your research goal?
List at least three questions that are directly related to the goal
listed above. Are there policy documents/statements in Denmark in
the last year which refer to internet access in exams of the future? Are
there any “final reports” of the pilot which refer to plans for future
implementation and sum up findings? What are the properties of any
future exams – i.e., what did they learn whether they’ve decided to
implement or not – how have the exams changed post ‘internet access
pilot’? 3. What queries did you type in during your research
(either to Google or databases/sites you discovered)? List at least
three queries you used when searching. These should correspond to the
questions above. They should demonstrate advanced power searching
skills. Denmark exams, which was then limited to “last year” and
-language (to remove irrelevant tests for immigrants). News reports gave
me links to the minister in charge which allowed me to search for them.
In 2010 Steen Lassen linked me to the final report on the pilot
(Undervisningsministerie (Ministry of Education), and Afdelingen for
Gymnasiale Uddannelser (Department of Secondary Education). “Endelig
Rapport Fra Følgegruppen for Forsøget Med Digitale Prøver Med Adgang Til
Internettet i Udvalgte Fag På Stx Og Hhx (Final Report of the Monitoring
Group Experiment with Digital Samples with Access to Internet in
Selected Subjects at Stx and HHX).” Undervisningsministerie (Ministry of
Education), September 2010.
[http://www.uvm.dk//media/Files/Udd/Gym/PDF10/101007_it_rapport_13%20september%202010.ashx]6.)
which I translated using google translate. I refound this in my Zotero
archive (using search) removed my translations from the citation and
searched google for citations of the report. None were found. Googling
the URL brought up one other report (slightly later) from the site
[http://www.uvm.dk/Uddannelser-og-dagtilbud/Gymnasiale-uddannelser/I-fokus-paa-omraadet-gymnasiale-uddannelser//media/UVM/Filer/Udd/Gym/PDF10/101007_it_rapport_13%20september%202010.ashx]7
Unfortunately I still can’t find english language example questions; a
within document search on the translated document gives some examples
(mostly in readable english!) as well as a summary of findings (plus the
above english document). It appears nothing new has been published
recently. To check, I searched the Danish version of the Danish
education site (internet=internet in danish). Their internal search
doesn’t allow filtering by date, so I switched to a site:http://uvm.dk/
search, for which I did an “translated foreign pages” search
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=internet+http%3A%2F%2Fuvm.dk%2F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=internet+eksamener+http://uvm.dk/&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=DNS&sa=X&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbs=clir:1,clira:a,clirtl:de%3Bfr%3Bes%3Bit%3Bda&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42080656,d.d2k&fp=461ace6cdefb9ef0&biw=1600&bih=656]8
4. What resources (specific websites) did you use when gathering
information? How did you know they were credible? List at least three
websites and how you evaluated their credibility: verified with multiple
sources, primary source, etc. Some news reports (e.g. ) led me to
the government site where a search for the ministers name gave nothing.
I searched for “internet examinations” (using the terms used in a report
I’d already found) and was directed to an English language summary which
wasn’t there when I looked a few years ago
[http://eng.uvm.dk/news//UVM-EN/Content/News/Eng//media/UVM/Filer/English/Fact%20sheets/091118_ICT_in_upper_secondary.ashx]9
Prior knowledge (from an authority) gave me a useful link on the Danish
govt website (in Danish, so very hard to find without knowledge), which
then let me access another report. I did find a number of sample current
assessment pages: * (written assignment samples) * Sample problems for
maths (with a focus on ICT use) * Primary exam sample manuals The
google translations are fine to read for samples, and the pages are
almost all on the ministry websites. 5. What was your final
result? Answer the question you listed in question 1 above. Even if you
did not achieve your research goal, describe why you stopped when you
did. See above. I still can’t find anything other than press
releases/interviews to support a shift to this new system (e.g. no new
policy document), this may be because I’m expecting to see a green
paper/white paper as we’d have in the UK on this sort of thing, and that
may not be necessary in Denmark. 6. What did you learn while
conducting your research? List at least one interesting fact or insight
that helped you further your research. What did you learn about the
research process that you will do again or differently next time?
The use of “translated pages” function is fantastic, I didn’t know it
allowed you to browse within the site maintaining the translation, and
fortunately Danish seems to be translated rather well. 7. What
Advanced Power Searching skills did you apply during this exercise? Your
problem should be sufficiently complex so that you applied at least
three of these. * Use advanced search to find pages written in a
particular language. * Use search settings to set a level of filtering,
turn on/off search-as-you-type, set the number of results shown, block
unwanted sites, and choose whether to personalize results or not. * Use
advanced search to search websites from a specific country; use the left
hand panel to search as if you were in a particular location. * Use web
history to revisit pages you have found previously. * Use Google News
and the News Archive search to locate newspaper and news blog articles.
- Use context terms to find specific types of sources. * Use the language appropriate to the author’s social and historical context (synonyms). * Recognize the kind of problem you are asking and match the kinds of resources to search. * Use people (online and offline) as resources to help identify information.
Footnotes
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http://sjgknight.com/finding-knowledge/ma/ “MA Thesis” ↩
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http://sjgknight.com/finding-knowledge/2014/02/knowledge-in-search/ ↩
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http://sjgknight.com/finding-knowledge/2013/03/the-extended-knowledge-project/ ↩
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http://www.uvm.dk/~/media/Files/Udd/Gym/PDF10/101007_it_rapport_13%20september%202010.ashx ↩
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http://www.uvm.dk/Uddannelser-og-dagtilbud/Gymnasiale-uddannelser/I-fokus-paa-omraadet-gymnasiale-uddannelser/~/media/UVM/Filer/Udd/Gym/PDF10/101007_it_rapport_13%20september%202010.ashx ↩
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https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=internet+http%3A%2F%2Fuvm.dk%2F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=internet+eksamener+http://uvm.dk/&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=DNS&sa=X&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbs=clir:1,clira:a,clirtl:de%3Bfr%3Bes%3Bit%3Bda&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42080656,d.d2k&fp=461ace6cdefb9ef0&biw=1600&bih=656 ↩
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http://eng.uvm.dk/news/~/UVM-EN/Content/News/Eng/~/media/UVM/Filer/English/Fact%20sheets/091118_ICT_in_upper_secondary.ashx ↩