Collective intelligence for OER sustainability

To thrive, the Open Educational Resource (OER) movement, or a given initiative, must make sense of a complex, changing environment. Since “sustainability” is a desirable systemic capacity that our community should display, we consider a number of principles that sharpen the concept: resilience, sensemaking and complexity. We outline how these motivate the concept of collective intelligence (CI), we give examples of what OER-CI might look like, and we describe the emerging Cohere CI platform we are developing in response to these requirements

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

Potential applications of simulation modelling techniques in healthcare: lessons learned from aerospace and military

The Aerospace and Military areas are to do with complex missions and situations. Modelling and Simulation (M&S) has been applied in many areas of defence ranging from space sciences, satellite engineering to multi-warfare (air warfare, undersea warfare), air & missile defence, acquisition, tactical military trainings & exercises, national security analysis and strategic decision making & planning, etc. The application of simulation modelling techniques in healthcare would improve the provision of healthcare services; however, their application has been much relatively feeble in the healthcare sector as compared to the defence sector. This paper presents results from a systematic literature survey on applications of modelling simulation techniques in the Aerospace & Military. The knowledge gained or lessons learned from the survey were finally used to analyze the potential applications of the simulation modelling techniques to the healthcare sector. Results show that in the defence sector, Distributed Simulation has now become a widely adopted technique. However, System Dynamics (SD) and Discrete Event Simulation (DSE) have also gained relative attention. From this survey it becomes clear that various simulation modelling techniques are useful for specific purposes and have potential applications in the healthcare sector

From scaling to governance of the land system: bridging ecological and economic perspectives

One of the main unresolved problems in policy making is the step from scale issues to effective governance. What is appropriate for a lower level, such as a region or location, might be considered undesirable at a global scale. Linking scaling to governance is an important issue for the improvement of current environmental management and policies. Whereas social–ecological science tends to focus on adaptive behavior and aspects of spatial ecological data, new institutional economics focuses more on levels in institutional scales and temporal dimensions. Consequently, both disciplines perceive different scaling challenges while aiming at a similar improvement of effective governance. We propose that future research needs to focus on four themes: (1) How to combine spatial properties such as extent and grain with the economic units of market and agent; (2) How to combine the different governance instruments proposed by both perspectives; (3) How to communicate the different scaling perspectives (hierarchy vs. no hierarchy) and meanings to policy makers and other stakeholders; and (4) How to deal with the non-equilibrium conditions in the real world and the disciplinary perspectives. Here, we hypothesize that a combined system perspective of both disciplines will improve our understanding of the missing link between scaling and governanc

The role of social networks in students’ learning experiences

The aim of this research is to investigate the role of social networks in computer science education. The Internet shows great potential for enhancing collaboration between people and the role of social software has become increasingly relevant in recent years. This research focuses on analyzing the role that social networks play in students’ learning experiences. The construction of students’ social networks, the evolution of these networks, and their effects on the students’ learning experience in a university environment are examined

Dyslexia and Minecraft Education. A qualitative study exploring Minecraft Education as a tool for working with English literature for students with dyslexia

The following thesis aims to explore the experiences pupils with dyslexia have when using Minecraft Education to work with English literature. The study used a qualitative approach where 10 pupils with dyslexia had to complete different tasks in Minecraft education after reading a chapter from the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The participants’ experiences were captured using screen recording and interviews following the pupil’s completion of the tasks related to the reading. Thematic analysis of the collected data revealed three themes with codes: multimodal visualization, creativity, and game literacy. The findings from the themes showed that pupils benefited from the visual aspects of Minecraft Education, as it is often not present in combination with English literature. Further, the creative aspect combined with feelings of mastery made the experience more motivational for the pupils. The pupils also placed a high value on cooperation and wanted it incorporated into the tasks. However, while this could benefit some pupils, it could also impose difficulties for teachers as they have to prevent unvented gaming behavior

Multimedia technologies and online task-based foreign language teaching-learning

Teaching and learning a foreign language at a distance implies many challenges, namely regarding oral skills. At Universidade Aberta (the Portuguese Open University), and taking into account its virtual pedagogical model (Pereira, 2007) and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Alves, 2001), we suggest curricular paths which include online communicative practices, both oral and written, within the present pedagogical offer, following a student- centred, task-oriented approach. Thus, in this text, we share some examples of training activities in German, French and English, focusing on oral practice, and based on digital resources. These digital resources comprise multimedia materials, either produced by the teachers or the students, as well as other materials available on the web 2.0. Our teaching and research practice within the field of foreign languages and in e-learning, in particular, leads us to conclude that the multimedia resources used are suitable for the online teaching and learning of foreign languages (see third question of questionnaire), especially for professionally engaged adults, as is the case with Universidade Aberta’s students, providing them with real-life situations that foster the teaching-learning of languages in the virtual environment. We include responses to a questionnaire survey filled out by a group of students.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio