403,216 research outputs found

    Review of the environmental and organisational implications of cloud computing: final report.

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    Cloud computing – where elastic computing resources are delivered over the Internet by external service providers – is generating significant interest within HE and FE. In the cloud computing business model, organisations or individuals contract with a cloud computing service provider on a pay-per-use basis to access data centres, application software or web services from any location. This provides an elasticity of provision which the customer can scale up or down to meet demand. This form of utility computing potentially opens up a new paradigm in the provision of IT to support administrative and educational functions within HE and FE. Further, the economies of scale and increasingly energy efficient data centre technologies which underpin cloud services means that cloud solutions may also have a positive impact on carbon footprints. In response to the growing interest in cloud computing within UK HE and FE, JISC commissioned the University of Strathclyde to undertake a Review of the Environmental and Organisational Implications of Cloud Computing in Higher and Further Education [19]

    The provision of distance education within the HE sector - some areas for concern

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    This paper presents a summary of the findings of a recent survey of the way in which UK higher education institutions (HEIs) are offering distance education (DE) courses, the types of courses being offered, and their modes of delivery. From analysis of the findings of this survey, it is apparent that the emphasis of HEIs is very much on the exploitation of available teaching technology in the delivery of DE courses. However, teaching at a distance is quite different from face-toface teaching, and the evidence suggests that many HEIs fail to implement any meaningful academic staff training for the new role of DE tutor. The authors consider the difficulties this presents to academic staff who are required to move from face-to-face teaching to online facilitating. The paper concludes with an examination of the current provision of staff development and training within UK HEIs and suggests the type of academic staff training required if DE courses are to become truly core activities

    EvoTanks: co-evolutionary development of game-playing agents

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    This paper describes the EvoTanks research project, a continuing attempt to develop strong AI players for a primitive 'Combat' style video game using evolutionary computational methods with artificial neural networks. A small but challenging feat due to the necessity for agent's actions to rely heavily on opponent behaviour. Previous investigation has shown the agents are capable of developing high performance behaviours by evolving against scripted opponents; however these are local to the trained opponent. The focus of this paper shows results from the use of co-evolution on the same population. Results show agents no longer succumb to trappings of local maxima within the search space and are capable of converging on high fitness behaviours local to their population without the use of scripted opponents

    Educational change and ICT: an exploration of priorities 2 and 3 of the DfES e-strategy in schools and colleges: the current landscape and implementation issues

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    Landscape review of integrated online support for learners and collaborative approaches to personalised learning activities

    Emerging technologies for learning (volume 2)

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    Mediated culture / mediated education

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    It took tens of thousands of years for writing to emerge after humans spoke their first words. It took thousands more before the printing press and a few hundred again before the telegraph. Today a new medium of communication emerges every time somebody creates a new web application. A Flickr here, a Twitter there, and a new way of relating to others emerges. New types of conversation, argumentation, and collaboration are realized. Using examples from anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, YouTube, classrooms, and "the future," this presentation will demonstrate the profound yet often unnoticed ways in which media "mediate" our conversations, classrooms, and institutions. We will then apply these insights to an exploration of the implications for how we may need to rethink how we teach, what we teach, and who we think we are teaching

    Breaking free from the unsustainable now

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    This paper challenges the traditional concept of 'the product' in our contemporary addictive consumer society and embarks on an interdisciplinary journey to design a way to break free from what we argue is the unsustainable now. This may be achieved by taking the product's perspective and placing it in a wider sustainable context where deeper aspects of value, meaning and use can be explored. By utilising ecological system dynamics including; adaptability, interconnectedness, rhythm and flexibility we seek to move beyond mechanistic design approaches and embrace a deeper and more ecological view of sustainable design. We provide initial research findings from an experimental sustainable product design project in which these concepts are embedded and explored and we conclude by speculating on forward strategies aimed at furthering change and action for designers and educators moving towards a truly sustainable society
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