The INFORMATION REFRACTION Page

Definitions:

"The possibility for impacts from information refraction lies in the transmission of data across such boundaries as from user to user, machine to machine, and user to machine."

"Information transfer between any two environments involves a boundary between the two environments, each of which has respective representational and operational properties... All use of information requires transfer of information across a boundary between a user and a processing medium, or between two processing media."

From Harvey, Bilotta, and Grese, "Information Refraction," in Object-Oriented Behavioral Specifications, Kilov and Harvey, eds. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996), pp. 31-40.

An example might be the transfer of the intent to vote across the boundary between a voter (a human being) and a voting system, using some form of specialized data entry for voting, such as a "butterfly ballot" or a punched card ballot.

Another (similar) example might be the transfer of the intent to respond to a test question in a certain way in an educational setting. All of the focus (during the 2000 U.S. presidential campaign) has been on voting technologies and the limitations of certain voting technologies. Little notice has been given to the fact that related technologies are extensively utilized in education. The question then could well be asked: are the intentions of children (or older learners) always accurately recorded and processed? Standardized tests use the most expensive technology and subject test questions to careful scrutiny and evaluation. Much daily machine-scored testing in educational settings has not been evaluated as thoroughly and is processed (i.e., graded) with less expensive technology. In the common one-right-answer grading approach, all alternatives to choosing (and correctly marking) the "right" answer are "wrong": no marks, more than one mark (as well as a single wrong mark), not erasing sufficiently before making a second mark. Some information may be lost (as when a learner doesn't answer questions, gives up and answers in a repetitive pattern, stops before all assigned items are answered, or goes beyond the assigned answers. Any of these might reflect a child's alienation from the testing process. Sophisticated programming can identify all of these patterns.

Contact for this page: <harvey@rmu.edu> Valerie J. Harvey