the purpose of the present study is to develop appropriate scoring scales for each of the defined stages of the writing process, and also to determine to what extent these scoring scales can reliably and validly assess the performances of efl learners in an academic writing task. two hundred and two students’ writing samples were collected after a step-by-step process oriented essay writing ins...

We characterize electronic discussion forums as being of one of the following two types: Brainstorming Forums and Arguments Structuring Forums. In this work we analyze and classify the types of threading models occurring as a function of the type of forum. For our analysis we study forums attached to the 25 news sources most used by the aggregator Google News, as detected by a 2007 study. Most ...

In this argumentative paper, the web-based brainstorm application Mindpool is introduced as a complement to traditional corporate suggestion systems. Though being inspired by, and greatly related to, general electronic brainstorming (EBS) applications, Mindpool differs in several important aspects. By combining features traditionally found in EBS with the benefits of nominal groups Mindpool out...

Affinity diagraming is a powerful method for encouraging and capturing lateral thinking in a group environment. The Affinity+ Concept was designed to improve the collaborative brainstorm process through the use of large display surfaces in conjunction with mobile devices like smart phones and tablets. The system works by capturing the ideas digitally and allowing users manually sort and group t...

Co-located meetings, as a fundamental part of our professional and educational lives heavily rely on visual information. In such meetings visual information consists of a) the artifact or “content” part (as for instance in brainstorming meetings the mind maps) and b) of nonverbal communication elements (like deictic gestures and gazes). Blind persons to a large extent do not have access to thes...

The purpose of this research is to further our understanding of the way groups work together to generate ideas while using a procedure called brainstorming. Brainstorming requires groups to follow four procedural rules while generating their ideas (Osborn 1957). However, two of theses rules seem to call for contradictory processes. One of these rules states that “freewheeling is welcomed; the w...