Help:Conceptual clarification activity

1. Introduction and objectives

Conceptual clarification activities in educational contexts (glossaLAB.edu) should contribute to clarifying relevant concepts and techniques addressed in a subject, using the glossaLAB platform. The platform is aimed at conceptual clarification from any area of knowledge to favour interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary cooperation, used in scientific and educational contexts. Given that many concepts that can be clarified in this subject are used in other subjects, there may be a confluence of clarifications of the same concept from different points of view. The aim is to bring these points of view together in a vision that is as comprehensive, coherent and synthetic as possible.

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Three phases are envisaged for the implementation of an activity of this type:

1. The introductory phase is aimed at familiarising with the environment, creating the user and starting the interaction with the contents and users of the platform. To do so, students review the concepts linked to the subject of study and, in case they find small corrections or suggestions on the content of any of the articles, changes are proposed by editing the article page, or through comments on the discussion page attached to the article in question. The latter requires you to have previously created a user and to be authenticated. Edited changes will not be visible in the reading mode of the page -although they will be visible in editing mode- until the teacher in charge of the articles in question has approved them. In order to be informed of the changes made, it is important to add the articles in which you have participated to the user's watch list (an article or page can be added to the list by checking the star on the right-hand side of the article window menu, one line below the title).
2. Article draft phase: this involves starting your own article in the draft space (identified by the prefix Draft: before the title of the draft article). Working in this space has the advantage that users can edit without the articles being indexed or findable in the search engine bar, although a user who knows the address (e.g. the teacher) could reach it, view it in reading mode and collaborate in editing the draft or making suggestions. At the beginning of the activity, the teacher will suggest a series of concepts whose clarification is of interest to the subject. Each student starts an article with the required sections and elements - as explained in the next section - and at a designated date the teacher provides early feedback on formal issues and re-orientations on how to elaborate the article. An intermediate submission box will be used where only text and addresses of contributed articles will be provided.
3. Phase of completion of conceptual clarifications: the student completes the contributions started by developing the intended clarifications, including the necessary references and the elements considered appropriate (images, equations, codes) taking care not to violate intellectual property rights and to ensure that the contributions are original, except in those parts that have been properly attributed to the original sources (including, if applicable, artificial intelligence tools). This phase will remain open until near the end of the course in order to accompany the study of the subject. Once the clarifications on glossaLAB have been completed, the report to be handed in will include a summary list of the articles that have been opened and those to which contributions have been made and, as an annex, the contributions made that are obtained directly through the platform, as indicated in the section 'material to be handed in'.

2.Clarification activity in glossaLAB

Figure 1: Presentation page of a conceptual clarification activity in glossaLAB.

Figure 1 shows the glossaLAB page where the subject clarification activity is presented. In addition to some general indications - including a video presentation of the activity and instructions on the user creation process - this page offers a preliminary list of concepts whose clarification is of interest for the study of the subject. With hyperlinks coloured in blue, you will see those concepts that have already been opened but are of interest for the study of the subject and are susceptible to be improved or extended; and coloured in red, you will see those concepts whose clarification is waiting to be initiated. If you follow one of these red links, the system will give you the possibility to start it yourself in the draft space (where the titles of the articles are preceded by the prefix "Draft:"). Thus, throughout the clarification process, the number of blue links will increase and the number of red links will decrease, although we will also be able to add new concepts that deserve to be clarified. Among the concepts already initiated, some point out insufficiencies that the teacher has highlighted as improvements that should be introduced - located in a box at the head of the article, as illustrated in fig.2. However, the mere critical reading of the articles indicated, or others that have been reached in an attempt to better understand the concepts involved, can easily lead to discovering clarifications that deserve to be corrected or completed in some sense.

Figure 2: Example of an article in which a teacher highlights improvements that should be made. It also highlights how to access the discussion section attached to each concept.

2.1 Making proposals on previous contents

As indicated in §1, to suggest a change to previous content, simply edit the article, or post a comment on the discussion page attached to each article (which can be accessed from the link highlighted in Figure 2).

a) Direct editing of previous content

With regard to the direct editing of page contents, it is important to note whether or not the displayed editing of the article allows the latest content proposals to be seen. As Figures 4 and 5 show, immediately below the title bar, there is a message that indicates precisely this. There are therefore two different situations:

(i) That the content displayed matches the last edit as shown in Figure 3, in which case the page can be edited without further caution, not least because of the facilities offered to undo undesired changes and the fact that proposed changes will not be visible until the teacher approves them. Therefore, after the proposed changes have been made, they can only be seen by accessing the link shown in Fig. 4 in the line referring to the revision status (at the top of the article).

(ii) That the content displayed does not match the most recent revision because it has not yet been approved, as illustrated in Fig. 4. When making any proposed changes it is important to take into account the latest unapproved revisions, otherwise, these revisions would be overwritten and it is the purpose of the conceptual clarification to collaborate with the other attempts at clarification. Therefore, direct editing should be avoided, and instead, the view of the most recent revision should be accessed first using the link highlighted in Fig. 4, integrated into the message about the revision status.

Figure 3: Editing an article for which the most recent version is visible (because it is approved).

Figure 4: Editing of an article for which a modification has been proposed but not yet approved.

Figure 5: Viewing the most current version (not yet approved) as a preliminary step to a new proposal on the most current version.

When accessing the most recent version, a revision message is displayed as shown in Fig. 5. If we now edit the content, you will be working on the latest proposal, which is appropriate. When the teacher reviews the changes, they will become visible after the teacher has made, if necessary, some changes so that the visible version can be taken as valid.

b) Editing comments on the talk page

Users can justify changes and express their opinions about the articles on the discussion page associated with each article. This mechanism is especially useful when a modification of the article's content is intended and it is preferable to discuss it with the authors and curators involved to resolve contradictions, ambiguities, etc. and to avoid a potential edit war. To do this, simply access the "Discussion" tab highlighted in Fig. 2 and edit the comment as shown in Fig. 6 by entering the comments you consider appropriate (in which case it is recommended to sign the comment using the code editor, as 4 tildes in a row '~~~~' generate an automatic signature as shown in the figure).

Figure 6: Entering a comment on an article's discussion page using the code editor and automatic comment signature.

2.2 Editing new article proposals in the draft space

As justified at the beginning of § 2, the editing of new articles must be done in the draft space, on the one hand, because in this namespace the proposed contents are directly visible to all users without the need to be approved by the teacher; on the other hand, because they are contents that cannot be found directly from the platform's search box (see Fig. 1), nor are they indexed. In this way, you can work without the content being exposed - except for those who know the name of the page - and thus enjoy a certain degree of privacy, while at the same time, other classmates or the teacher can collaborate in editing it - if they know the name of the page.

a) Using the visual editor

As illustrated in Figure 7, the visual editor facilitates the proper formatting of articles through a wide palette of resources, accessible from the toolbar. These include:

• style selector (e.g. for formatting titles, allowing for proper articulation of the article);
• text formatting (size, superscripts, code, etc.);
• link editor (facilitating the introduction of links from within the platform itself, which is essential for collaborative clarification work, or from outside the platform);
• bibliographic citations editor (which is of paramount importance for referencing the bibliographic sources used without which the conceptual clarification carried out would be - so to speak - orphaned);
• lists format (numbered or not);
• isolated symbols (𝝮);

as well as more advanced visual editing tools (accessible from the 'insert ^∨' menu and highlighted in Fig. 7), such as the equation editor, the code editor, and the image upload interface. In general, these are very intuitive tools that facilitate the editing of these special elements.

Figure 7: Editing an article in the draft space (Draft:) using the visual editor. Equation editing, code editingand image uploading tools are highlighted.

The visual editor of equations allows you to enter the code and immediately see its effect, while a wide palette of formats allows you to select a variety of mathematical symbols, allowing you to obtain excellent presentation results.

The visual code editor, allows you to select the code language and display it in the presentation window using standardised colour codes to distinguish the syntax.

The image upload interface allows uploading new images and their associated metadata (e.g. a caption) or selecting existing images from the platform's image bank.

In the case of content produced in the draft space, it will be necessary to indicate the name of the article (or its link) to the teacher or any other person with whom you wish to collaborate in the clarification process.

b) Feedback and migration to glossaLAB.edu collection

After the review, the teacher will provide feedback through the discussion space of the drafted article, and once it is complete enough to be useful for the study of the subject, the teacher will move the article from the draft space to the main space, adding it to the glossaLAB.edu collection, which will allow its indexation together with the rest of the articles of the subject (or of a higher level in the tree of categories of glossaLAB knowledge domains if it is appropriate and meets the established quality criteria).

3. Examples and required contents of clarification articles

3.1 Example of an open and clarified concept (s. article in glossaLAB)

Fig.8 highlights in red what is contributed by the author and in green what corresponds to subsequent actions, particularly those involving the teacher. Note, firstly, the use of epigraphs introduced by title styles, although in this case, given the brevity of the entry, the articulation is minimal. It is also worth noting that the introduction of a mathematical equation is very easy thanks to the visual equation editor.

Figure 8: Example of an article contributed by a student, after having been reviewed by the teacher.

However, we would like to focus on two fundamental components of the clarification article: (i) the bibliographical references used; and (ii) the links to other glossaLAB articles.

a) Bibliographical references

With regard to bibliographical references, these should be as precise as possible, namely, the sources effectively used are properly acknowledged, which parts of the statement are supported by these sources, and finally that the mention of the source describes it sufficiently. This means the reader has to be able, on the one hand, to assess its reliability, and on the other, to access it for further information if he/she so wishes. Such complete identification is achieved, as can be seen in Fig. 8, by means of two critical components:

1. The in-text citation by means of the mark and link as superscript, ^[1], located in the body of the article right after the place where it has been used, serving as justification for what has been stated immediately before. Its inclusion is very simple using the visual editor, by accessing Quote ^⌵ in the toolbar. In the window that pops up, enter the full reference as indicated below and the tool automatically creates the numbered links and the full reference element at the bottom of the article.
2. The complete reference consists of a detailed description of each bibliographic reference located in the references section, whose heading is the only element that - in the case of using visual editing - must be added by the author at the end of the article, as the rest is automatically added progressively through the information provided by the author when using the Cite ⌵ tool. This information, which has to be adapted to the APA citation standard, must provide the necessary and sufficient information in the appropriate format to assess and access the source referred to. In the case of a literal citation, the original text should be placed in quotation marks and the reference should specify on which page or pages it is found (or the digital document from which it has been extracted and when); whereas if the relationship between what is stated in the article and the source is not literal, it is sufficient to specify the document. However, the reference provided must always be complete, e.g. a URL is never a sufficient reference, as it should not be assumed that the reader will go to the document in question; whereas, in general, the reader will want to assess the reliability and relevance of the reference by reading the complete reference, taking into account the author, the date of publication, the title, and the publication medium in which it is found (Fig. 5 distinguishes analytically the parts that make up the reference provided as an example). It is precisely this information that should be contained in a full citation, and if any of this information is not available, the citation styles indicate how to refer to it (e.g. using abbreviations such as "n.d." to indicate that no information on the date of publication is available). In the case of the use of artificial intelligence tools, which due to their unreliability are never recommended as a source of information (which includes inconsistencies, errors, misinformation, non-existing references, etc), it is essential to refer to its usage and how they have been employed.

b) Links to other glossaLAB contents

As for links to other articles, Fig.8 shows two links in blue that correspond to articles already clarified on the platform. However, they could also appear in red if it is a concept whose clarification awaits. In either case, these links point to one of the central objectives of the activity - and of the platform as a whole - that of collaboratively clarifying the matter at hand, which is done from the network of concepts which are linked through the theoretical relations established between them. To introduce these links, it is important to review the contents referred to and establish a meaningful relationship, which often leads to our capacity to contribute, albeit in small details, to the other articles.

3.2 Example of a concept that is completed

Let us suppose that we wish to complete the concept referred to as an example in the previous section, "Decibel level", where the previous author had not contributed any code (in Fig. 9, it is shown in red the contribution that has been contributed by another person and that completes here a hypothetical new author).

Figure 9: Example of an article completed by a second author.

As indicated in § 2.1.a, once the second author has completed his/her addition, as it has not yet been reviewed by the teacher, neither the addition nor the attribution to the second author will be displayed. However, the authorship and the contents added can be consulted in the 'view history' tab of the article, where it is also possible to see specifically which contributions have been made by the second author (even if the editing has been carried out through several iterations), and the contents not yet approved for further editing can also be accessed.

4. Resources for the review of contributions made in glossaLAB

With the double purpose of (i) evaluating the clarification activity properly and (ii) preserving the legitimacy of glossaLAB as a public platform subject to reproduction and intellectual property laws, it is necessary to observe: on the one hand, guaranteeing the originality of the texts; on the other, distinguishing the contents that have actually been produced by the authors and those generated by artificial intelligence tools.

This requires providing sufficient information to distinguish both the contributions actually made and the final result. The "Revision history" offered by glossaLAB on each of its pages significantly facilitates the retrieval of this information for the preparation of the activity report. Figure 10 shows, for the example provided in section 3, the operations that would be sufficient for each of the articles in which a contribution had been made.

Figure 10: Review of the contents introduced by the author.

To access this history, simply click on the "View history" link, located one line below the title of the article (green box in Fig. 8). Then, as can be seen in Figure 10, select the versions to be compared (normally, the version before our intervention began and the latest revision) and finally click on "Compare selected revisions".

Figure 11 shows the result obtained by such a comparison: (i) at the top, the subtractions and additions with respect to the previous edition, which in the example, consists of having replaced one bibliographic reference with another; (ii) below, the article is displayed in its current state after the last edition.

Figure 11: Result of the comparison of revisions that allows highlighting the contents that have been effectively contributed by the author and the final result of the article with the proposed changes.

For each article, it is sufficient to provide the pdf of this result and a text document (without any formatting) containing only the text provided by the author that can be extracted precisely from the historical comparisons.

When the contribution to an article has been made through a discussion, the same will be done as above, only from the discussion page.

Material to be delivered

Activity report. Although the contributions will be first elaborated in the glossaLAB platform, which will serve as a repository of definitions and code, for the assessment of the activity, it must also be provided within the online text space of the Moodle delivery:

(i) the indication - under the heading New articles - of which new article(s) have been produced and their corresponding URLs;

(ii) the indication - under the heading Completed articles - of which articles have been amended either on the article page or on the discussion page and their corresponding URLs;

(iii) the indication - under the heading Use of AI - of the use made of AI in the development of your contributions.

Additionally it will be added for each of the articles to which contributions have been made:

1. A .pdf document of the result of the revision comparison as described in § 4 (using as filenames: article_student.pdf, e.g. Decibelic_Level_JM_Díaz.pdf)
2. A .txt text document (without any formatting) containing exclusively the text contributed by the author, as described in § 4 (using as filenames: article_student.txt, e.g. Decibelic_Level_JM_Díaz.txt)

This information will serve as a guide for the assessment of the activity according to the criteria below and as a basis for checking the necessary originality of the contributions made in the clarification process.