Final FLaReNet deliverable: Language Resources for the Future - The Future of Language Resources

Language Technologies (LT), together with their backbone, Language Resources (LR), provide an essential support to the challenge of Multilingualism and ICT of the future. The main task of language technologies is to bridge language barriers and to help creating a new environment where information flows smoothly across frontiers and languages, no matter the country, and the language, of origin. To achieve this goal, all players involved need to act as a community able to join forces on a set of shared priorities. However, until now the field of Language Resources and Technology has long suffered from an excess of individuality and fragmentation, with a lack of coherence concerning the priorities for the field, the direction to move, not to mention a common timeframe. The context encountered by the FLaReNet project was thus represented by an active field needing a coherence that can only be given by sharing common priorities and endeavours. FLaReNet has contributed to the creation of this coherence by gathering a wide community of experts and making them participate in the definition of an exhaustive set of recommendations

Reuse and Repurposing of Online Digital Learning Resources within UK Higher Education: 2003-2010

This research set out to examine developments in reuse and repurposing of online digital resources within higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom (UK) over a period (2003-2010), when the emphasis of educational resource reuse and repurposing activity shifted from reusable learning objects (RLO) to open educational resources (OER). It aims to contribute to understanding of this transition, and locates this shift within a broader picture of UK HE activity within the UK, and a wider understanding of reuse of learning resources in digital, online form. The research presents a review and critical examination of the environment in which reuse practice occurred. It does this through macroenvironmental, mesoenvironmental and microenvironmental level reviews. The microenvionmental review is presented through research analysis of five case examples from UK HE and a sixth example from HE in Ireland. The mesoenvironmental review examines the significant changes in resource facilitation and practice during the research period. This thesis is particularly concerned with identifying and understanding how reuse of digital online learning resources was facilitated in practice, and whether reuse occurred, or occurred in the form(s) anticipated. The thesis identifies and examines themes and factors which appeared to have influenced, or had potential to influence, reuse in each case. Cross-case comparison offers a synthesis of the research observations. Finally, a structured approach to classifying factors is suggested based on this research. This leads to generalisable recommendations of how to facilitate digital online resource reuse in the future

Sustainability in design: now! Challenges and opportunities for design research, education and practice in the XXI century

Copyright @ 2010 Greenleaf PublicationsLeNS project funded by the Asia Link Programme, EuropeAid, European Commission

BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS AS A NEW FRONTIER OF ENTERPRISE DATA MANAGEMENT

Big Data and Analytics (BDA) promises significant value generation opportunities across industries. Even though companies increase their investments, their BDA initiatives fall short of expectations and they struggle to guarantee a return on investments. In order to create business value from BDA, companies must build and extend their data-related capabilities. While BDA literature has emphasized the capabilities needed to analyze the increasing volumes of data from heterogeneous sources, EDM researchers have suggested organizational capabilities to improve data quality. However, to date, little is known how companies actually orchestrate the allocated resources, especially regarding the quality and use of data to create value from BDA. Considering these gaps, this thesis – through five interrelated essays – investigates how companies adapt their EDM capabilities to create additional business value from BDA. The first essay lays the foundation of the thesis by investigating how companies extend their Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) capabilities to build more comprehensive enterprise analytics platforms. The second and third essays contribute to fundamental reflections on how organizations are changing and designing data governance in the context of BDA. The fourth and fifth essays look at how companies provide high quality data to an increasing number of users with innovative EDM tools, that are, machine learning (ML) and enterprise data catalogs (EDC). The thesis outcomes show that BDA has profound implications on EDM practices. In the past, operational data processing and analytical data processing were two “worlds” that were managed separately from each other. With BDA, these "worlds" are becoming increasingly interdependent and organizations must manage the lifecycles of data and analytics products in close coordination. Also, with BDA, data have become the long-expected, strategically relevant resource. As such data must now be viewed as a distinct value driver separate from IT as it requires specific mechanisms to foster value creation from BDA. BDA thus extends data governance goals: in addition to data quality and regulatory compliance, governance should facilitate data use by broadening data availability and enabling data monetization. Accordingly, companies establish comprehensive data governance designs including structural, procedural, and relational mechanisms to enable a broad network of employees to work with data. Existing EDM practices therefore need to be rethought to meet the emerging BDA requirements. While ML is a promising solution to improve data quality in a scalable and adaptable way, EDCs help companies democratize data to a broader range of employees

A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education

This review focuses on the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. It provides a synthesis of the research literature in the field and a series of illustrative examples of how these tools are being used in learning and teaching. It draws out the perceived benefits that these new technologies appear to offer, and highlights some of the challenges and issues surrounding their use. The review forms the basis for a HE Academy funded project, ‘Peals in the Cloud’, which is exploring how Web 2.0 tools can be used to support evidence-based practices in learning and teaching. The project has also produced two in-depth case studies, which are reported elsewhere (Galley et al., 2010, Alevizou et al., 2010). The case studies focus on evaluation of a recently developed site for learning and teaching, Cloudworks, which harnesses Web 2.0 functionality to facilitate the sharing and discussion of educational practice. The case studies aim to explore to what extent the Web 2.0 affordances of the site are successfully promoting the sharing of ideas, as well as scholarly reflections, on learning and teaching

Socio-technical transitions in South Africa’s electricity system

In the last century, markets, technical configurations, existing power relations, and prevailing ideologies in industrialised countries have co-evolved in ways that promote fossil-fuel-based systems. Relatedly, the literature on sustainability transitions (STs) has gained significance in the last twenty years, primarily because of increased interest by those who are concern with enabling shifts towards low-carbon sources of energy. This research examines the kinds of changes which take place in fossil fuel path-dependent systems in response to the pressure imposed by the advent of greener alternatives. Understanding how fossil-fuelled path-dependent systems respond to such demands enables us to identify counter-strategies, which may help accelerate sustainability transitions. Using a combination of the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions and institutional theory, the thesis presents case studies centred on South Africa’s coal-fired electricity regime, which is entrenched in a system known as the minerals-energy complex (MEC). The case studies examine how the coal-fired electricity regime tried to maintain stability in the face of pressure to decarbonise by diversifying to include more renewables-based and gas-fired electricity generation, each of which is considered as a niche. The findings from the case studies are organised into three articles. The first paper presents a case study on the establishment of the MEC and shows how it became a highly path-dependent system, posing a formidable obstacle and challenge for new entrants. The second paper investigates the contestation between the dominant regime incumbent, Eskom, versus the nascent renewable energy programme. This paper demonstrates an evolving strategy of regime resistance in response to several gains achieved by the renewables niche over time. The third paper examines the emergence of a gas-to-power niche against a backdrop of interactions between electricity and liquid fuel regimes. This paper shows the highly dynamic changes that take place in a regime as it tries to maintain stability. The overall findings demonstrate that the electricity regime evolved from highly stable to having features of a fractured regime, or what could be understood to be a form of destabilisation. The thesis contributes to the ST field by suggesting several ways in which regime stability and change could be better understood. These include enhanced theorising of regime resistance through analysis of the regime’s multi-dimensional selection environment and mobilising endogenous institutional concepts through various modes of change (drift, layering, conversion and displacement) into the theory. Policy recommendations suggest a fractured regime requires a temporally sensitive displacement policy mix. This is one in which varying stages of regime stability are recognised and potentially exploited by corresponding niche strategies

Access to recorded interviews: A research agenda

Recorded interviews form a rich basis for scholarly inquiry. Examples include oral histories, community memory projects, and interviews conducted for broadcast media. Emerging technologies offer the potential to radically transform the way in which recorded interviews are made accessible, but this vision will demand substantial investments from a broad range of research communities. This article reviews the present state of practice for making recorded interviews available and the state-of-the-art for key component technologies. A large number of important research issues are identified, and from that set of issues, a coherent research agenda is proposed

Identifying knowledge management processes and its effect on organisational performance in the airline industry context

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonIn today's increasingly competitive business environment, the use of knowledge to gain a competitive advantage has become a serious concern for all organisations. However, some industries have been affected more acutely than others in the transition to a knowledge-based economy. Despite the increasing number of studies relating to Knowledge Management (KM), few have explored this concept within the Airline Industry (AI). As all the studies and model of this research have built on the relationship between KM and organisational performance (OP), the AI is the context of the study within the area of Gulf Cooperative Countries (GCC). This area has been chosen as it provides a good airlines-based industry which is mature. A comprehensive and critical assessment of different KM models was made through a review of the available studies in order to evaluate KM and to identify the processes that affect OP. This research proposes a conceptual model that represents KM processes and OP measurements. This research adopts a qualitative research approach through a case study strategy to identify and test a conceptual model proposed from the literature review. Four international airlines companies were investigated through extensive face-to-face semi-structure interviews, followed by observations, and documentation with managers, senior managers, general managers (GMs) and vice presidents (VPs) to produce accurate results. Data findings were then reported and analysed. The main finding revealed that most studies relating to knowledge management processes and their effect on organisational performance took place in different sectors other than the AI. Also, KM processes and their effect on OP appear to be neglected, leading to conflicts in KM adoption. However, KM processes are applicable in the AI and these processes are not only used and implemented, but are also perceived as important in influencing positive OP. The only KM processes that generally received less support from the participants in terms of perceived effectiveness in affecting positive OP were knowledge translation/repurposing and knowledge disposal. The main contribution of this research is a novel model for KM processes and OP. This model serves as a guideline for the stakeholder and decision maker to be adopted in organisations to lead to more effective implementation and adoption of KM disciplines. It also provides a practical guideline for future KM research which at present seems fragmented within the AI. The suggestion for future research is to further validate and improve the generalisability of the KM processes model to the entire AI in the world and across other industries. Moreover, due to the time constraints and lack of funding, there were no attempts made in this research to assemble a sample that is representative of all the airlines in the world. In order to increase the generalisability of the results of this study, the sample size needs to be expanded and quantitative research might be considered

BlogForever D2.6: Data Extraction Methodology

This report outlines an inquiry into the area of web data extraction, conducted within the context of blog preservation. The report reviews theoretical advances and practical developments for implementing data extraction. The inquiry is extended through an experiment that demonstrates the effectiveness and feasibility of implementing some of the suggested approaches. More specifically, the report discusses an approach based on unsupervised machine learning that employs the RSS feeds and HTML representations of blogs. It outlines the possibilities of extracting semantics available in blogs and demonstrates the benefits of exploiting available standards such as microformats and microdata. The report proceeds to propose a methodology for extracting and processing blog data to further inform the design and development of the BlogForever platform

Teacher's appropriation practices of educational technology: a case study in Tartu International School

https://www.ester.ee/record=b5160257*es