The paper I chose to read is one called “Creating user-generated content for location-based learning: an authoring framework” written by E. FitzGerald. This research paper was featured in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning in 2012. This paper is about mobile learning and how content on location based platforms can be optimized to for learning. The issue that the author is trying to tackle is that many people who contribute with content for mobile learning platforms are not well versed in how to best create content to maximize learning amongst other users. The author has therefore tried to create a framework which users can use when creating but also when filtering content. FitzGerald has created a table in his paper which displays what type of content users typically include when creating content. As a conclusion to his paper FitzGerald discusses how his research could be used not only to guide the creation of content but also as a great way to tag content found on social media and through that filter content to only display what a certain user has expressed interest in seeing. The way that FitzGerald is imagining that user will use his findings is by being prompted to create content in a specific format and therefore making it easier for other users to use it for learning. Regular users will in effect seemingly be transformed into more valuable users who appear skilled in pedagogy.
This paper has significant overlap with the project that my group and I have been working on. Since we are hoping to have users create a majority of the content on our platform any way through which we can increase the quality of that content is certainly something of interest. More specifically what I would consider including are specific prompts visible to the user when they are creating a new pin or asking a question. Examples of such prompts might include showing the user specific words that in the past have generated response from other users. Or when it comes to answering a question prompting the user to explain the concept being asked about in a logical and thorough manner is another way through which the average quality of the answers can be increased. Something which this paper discusses quite a few times is tags and the power of tagging a post in order to make it easier for users to filter through content. This is a feature which we have already included in our project. Each time a new pin is created the person creating the post can tag their pin with a series of different themes or topics. These tags can then be used to by other users to search for posts on topics that they are specifically interested in. While not necessarily an improvement of the ideas discussed in the paper our project certainly is a solid implementation of the concepts discussed in the paper.