Professionalization of teachers and problematization processes.

The article presents the research aimed at the development of innovative teaching approaches in the context of academic courses for in-service teachers. The problematic focus concerning the identification of strategies to support the renewal of teaching in the direction of greater personalization of interventions. It is assumed that the training processes are particularly related to the acquisition of skills for analyzing and comparing the professional practices, to design and adjust the action, to reflect on their own and others' practices, starting with the recognition of the problems associated with the management the growing heterogeneity of classes. The working hypothesis adopted confirms the value to be paid to reflexivity in professional training processes. </p

Ecosystems Effects on Software-Consuming Organizations: an experience report on two observational studies

Software engineers should have the ability to abstract the complexity of a whole system composed of products, demands and suppliers emerging from an interconnected network termed a software ecosystem (SECO). Since software suppliers resort to virtual integration, software-consuming organizations face difficulties performing IT management activities and analyzing what application or technology enter their SECO. In this context, the `silent' effects of nontechnical factors give rise to serious long-term problems, e.g., low productivity, investment loss, financial crisis, or bankruptcy. This paper presents an investigation of SECO effects on software-consuming organizations performing IT management activities in real settings. IT management teams have regular meetings to deliberate on acquisition decisions which they base on experience and IT market recommendations, including spreadsheets and distributed documents. Analysis of the decision space, business objective synergy, and technology/supplier dependency are identified as the most critical health indicators for SECO platform monitoring in IT management activities. This highlights the critical role acquisition preparation plays in the SECO context

Learning interaction in the language classroom

[Abstract] Over the past ten years, conversational analysis has had an important influence on second language acquisition and teaching. Following the work of Garfinkel, Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) described how individuals open and close conversations, take tums, choose a topic and achieve interactional synchrony. There has also been a new emphasis on the interaction and discourse processes underlying the acquisition of a second language (Alwright, 1980, 1984; Hatch, 1978; Larsen-Freeman, 1980; Kramsch, 1981). However, the application of this research to classroom practices is very slow and their implications for teachers and learners are even slower. This paper analyses the nature of the language leaming tas~, the interaction and the factors which determine it: the roles of the participants, the tasks accomplished and the type of knowledge they exchange (Kramsch, 1985). After analyzing what actually happens in foreign and second language classrooms, we can say that, despite its own characteristics the discourse generated in the~ classroom have features in cornmon with the natural discourse. Good intentions and emphasis on cornmunication have only been the first attempt to learn how to use the natural discourse in the context of language classrooms. So, we suggest leaming natural discourse in the language classroom by modifing discourse management operations at the level of: - tum talking - topic management - pragmatic adjustments - learner-Iearner interactionl/ teacher-Iearner interaction

The Knowledge Application and Utilization Framework Applied to Defense COTS: A Research Synthesis for Outsourced Innovation

Purpose -- Militaries of developing nations face increasing budget pressures, high operations tempo, a blitzing pace of technology, and adversaries that often meet or beat government capabilities using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies. The adoption of COTS products into defense acquisitions has been offered to help meet these challenges by essentially outsourcing new product development and innovation. This research summarizes extant research to develop a framework for managing the innovative and knowledge flows. Design/Methodology/Approach – A literature review of 62 sources was conducted with the objectives of identifying antecedents (barriers and facilitators) and consequences of COTS adoption. Findings – The DoD COTS literature predominantly consists of industry case studies, and there’s a strong need for further academically rigorous study. Extant rigorous research implicates the importance of the role of knowledge management to government innovative thinking that relies heavily on commercial suppliers. Research Limitations/Implications – Extant academically rigorous studies tend to depend on measures derived from work in information systems research, relying on user satisfaction as the outcome. Our findings indicate that user satisfaction has no relationship to COTS success; technically complex governmental purchases may be too distant from users or may have socio-economic goals that supersede user satisfaction. The knowledge acquisition and utilization framework worked well to explain the innovative process in COTS. Practical Implications – Where past research in the commercial context found technological knowledge to outweigh market knowledge in terms of importance, our research found the opposite. Managers either in government or marketing to government should be aware of the importance of market knowledge for defense COTS innovation, especially for commercial companies that work as system integrators. Originality/Value – From the literature emerged a framework of COTS product usage and a scale to measure COTS product appropriateness that should help to guide COTS product adoption decisions and to help manage COTS product implementations ex post

Big Data and the Internet of Things

Advances in sensing and computing capabilities are making it possible to embed increasing computing power in small devices. This has enabled the sensing devices not just to passively capture data at very high resolution but also to take sophisticated actions in response. Combined with advances in communication, this is resulting in an ecosystem of highly interconnected devices referred to as the Internet of Things - IoT. In conjunction, the advances in machine learning have allowed building models on this ever increasing amounts of data. Consequently, devices all the way from heavy assets such as aircraft engines to wearables such as health monitors can all now not only generate massive amounts of data but can draw back on aggregate analytics to "improve" their performance over time. Big data analytics has been identified as a key enabler for the IoT. In this chapter, we discuss various avenues of the IoT where big data analytics either is already making a significant impact or is on the cusp of doing so. We also discuss social implications and areas of concern.Comment: 33 pages. draft of upcoming book chapter in Japkowicz and Stefanowski (eds.) Big Data Analysis: New algorithms for a new society, Springer Series on Studies in Big Data, to appea

A Risk Management Model for Merger and Acquisitio

In this paper, a merger and acquisition risk management model is proposed for considering risk factors in the merger and acquisition activities. The proposed model aims to maximize the probability of success in merger and acquisition activities by managing and reducing the associated risks. The modeling of the proposed merger and acquisition risk management model is described and illustrated in this paper. The illustration result shows that the proposed model can help to screen the best target company with minimum associated risks in the merger and acquisition activity

Addressing the tacit knowledge of a digital library system

Recent surveys, about the Linked Data initiatives in library organizations, report the experimental nature of related projects and the difficulty in re-using data to provide improvements of library services. This paper presents an approach for managing data and its "tacit" organizational knowledge, as the originating data context, improving the interpretation of data meaning. By analyzing a Digital Libray system, we prototyped a method for turning data management into a "semantic data management", where local system knowledge is managed as a data, and natively foreseen as a Linked Data. Semantic data management aims to curates the correct consumers' understanding of Linked Datasets, driving to a proper re-use

Capability Matrix : A Framework for Analyzing Capabilities in Value Chains

This paper develops a Capability Matrix for analyzing capabilities of developing country firms that participate in global and national value chains. This is a generic framework to capture firm-level knowledge accumulation in the context of global and local industrial constellations, by integrating key elements of the global value chain (GVC) and technological capabilities (TC) approaches. The framework can visually portray characteristics of firms’ capabilities, and highlight a relatively overlooked factor in the GVC approach: local firms’ endogenous learning efforts in varieties of relationship with lead firms.Developing Countries, Industrial Management, Business Enterprises, Capability Matrix, Capabilities, Value Chains, Lead Firms, Local Firms