Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) in the Semantic Web: A Multi-Dimensional Review

Since the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) specification and its SKOS eXtension for Labels (SKOS-XL) became formal W3C recommendations in 2009 a significant number of conventional knowledge organization systems (KOS) (including thesauri, classification schemes, name authorities, and lists of codes and terms, produced before the arrival of the ontology-wave) have made their journeys to join the Semantic Web mainstream. This paper uses "LOD KOS" as an umbrella term to refer to all of the value vocabularies and lightweight ontologies within the Semantic Web framework. The paper provides an overview of what the LOD KOS movement has brought to various communities and users. These are not limited to the colonies of the value vocabulary constructors and providers, nor the catalogers and indexers who have a long history of applying the vocabularies to their products. The LOD dataset producers and LOD service providers, the information architects and interface designers, and researchers in sciences and humanities, are also direct beneficiaries of LOD KOS. The paper examines a set of the collected cases (experimental or in real applications) and aims to find the usages of LOD KOS in order to share the practices and ideas among communities and users. Through the viewpoints of a number of different user groups, the functions of LOD KOS are examined from multiple dimensions. This paper focuses on the LOD dataset producers, vocabulary producers, and researchers (as end-users of KOS).Comment: 31 pages, 12 figures, accepted paper in International Journal on Digital Librarie

Comparative Study on Agile software development methodologies

Today-s business environment is very much dynamic, and organisations are constantly changing their software requirements to adjust with new environment. They also demand for fast delivery of software products as well as for accepting changing requirements. In this aspect, traditional plan-driven developments fail to meet up these requirements. Though traditional software development methodologies, such as life cycle-based structured and object oriented approaches, continue to dominate the systems development few decades and much research has done in traditional methodologies, Agile software development brings its own set of novel challenges that must be addressed to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of the valuable software. It is a set of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development process, where requirements and development evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams that allows rapid delivery of high quality software to meet customer needs and also accommodate changes in the requirements. In this paper, we significantly identify and describe the major factors, that Agile development approach improves software development process to meet the rapid changing business environments. We also provide a brief comparison of agile development methodologies with traditional systems development methodologies, and discuss current state of adopting agile methodologies. We speculate that from the need to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of the valuable software, Agile software development is emerged as an alternative to traditional plan-based software development methods. The purpose of this paper, is to provide an in-depth understanding, the major benefits of agile development approach to software development industry, as well as provide a comparison study report of ASDM over TSDM.Comment: 25 pages, 25 images, 86 references used, with authors biographie

Aligning a Service Provisioning Model of a Service-Oriented System with the ITIL v.3 Life Cycle

Bringing together the ICT and the business layer of a service-oriented system (SoS) remains a great challenge. Few papers tackle the management of SoS from the business and organizational point of view. One solution is to use the well-known ITIL v.3 framework. The latter enables to transform the organization into a service-oriented organizational which focuses on the value provided to the service customers. In this paper, we align the steps of the service provisioning model with the ITIL v.3 processes. The alignment proposed should help organizations and IT teams to integrate their ICT layer, represented by the SoS, and their business layer, represented by ITIL v.3. One main advantage of this combined use of ITIL and a SoS is the full service orientation of the company.Comment: This document is the technical work of a conference paper submitted to the International Conference on Exploring Service Science 1.5 (IESS 2015

Experiences of Education for Democratic Citizenship in Italian Schools in Recent Years: Research Lines. In: INVALSI–CIDREE. Building Democracy in Europe Through Citizenship: EducationEuropean Year of Citizenship Through Education: General Assembly 2005 CIDREE, Frascati 17th November 2005

The research assumes the definition of Education for Citizenship proposed by the Council of Europe: “is a set of practices and principles that aim to make young people and adults better equipped to participate actively in democratic life by assuming and exercising their rights and responsibilities in society” . The main questions of the research are borrowed from the area ‘Curriculum Teaching and Learning’ of the ‘Tool for quality assurance of EDC in schools’ : - Is there evidence of an adequate place for EDC in the school’s goals, policies and curriculum plans? - Is there evidence of students and teachers acquiring understanding of EDC and applying EDC principles to their everyday practice in schools and classrooms? - Are the design and practice of assessment within the school consonant with EDC? The information/data-base is –mainly- the on-line documentation of schools (good) practices, collected by National Institute for the Documentation of Innovation and Research in Education and by other organizations. Evidences. In italian schools, according to the examinated documents, EDC seems to be - an educational principle firmly sustained - a teaching content relevant in specific educational activities - carried on already from nursery schools; developed by the whole school within compulsory education; mainly an initiative of one or few teachers in secondary school, added to social studies classes - developed thanks to the “meeting and melting” of different interests: - from inside (specific problems or care) - from external institutions (ministerial or international, mainly european) - from external organizations and groups (local authorities, non-profit organizations, lobbies) - focused on the development of an active, participate, overnational citizenship that leads to a social and political status more than a legal one - crosscurricolar and interdisciplinary activity in nursery and primary schools; while in secondary schools it often moves from one specific subject to the others (pluridisciplinary approach) - carried on by active teachers working together and with experts and militants from outside the school too. - Developed through active teaching/learning strategies including discussions, teamworks, workshops, researchs and scientific, literary and artistic productions (monographs, exhibitions, shows, multimedia), simulations and fieldworks - aimed to the dissemination, implementation and sharing of values and awareness, information and knowledge of citizenship; the practice of skills and competences is focused on specific activities or on daily life - evaluated more by qualitative appreciations on the experience, its contents and values, than using structured and formal instruments - concluding, it’s more a teaching/learning topic than a daily school practice Suggestions. The report suggests that EDC is a complex, multilevel and integrated action strategy within the school and in interaction with society. So, starting from daily school practice and rules, EDC should be developed throught crosscurricolar activity and as social and civics studies subject and with specific projects, together. Concluding, the author proposes a plan of action-researches aimed to develop EDC practice in italian schools, using the strategy and methodology suggested by the Council of Europe in the quoted ‘Tool for quality assurance of EDC in schools’. That is a bottom-up approach and not only a top-down one

Object-oriented modelling with unified modelling language 2.0 for simple software application based on agile methodology

Unified modelling language (UML) 2.0 introduced in 2002 has been developing and influencing object-oriented software engineering and has become a standard and reference for information system analysis and design modelling. There are many concepts and theories to model the information system or software application with UML 2.0, which can make ambiguities and inconsistencies for a novice to learn to how to model the system with UML especially with UML 2.0. This article will discuss how to model the simple software application by using some of the diagrams of UML 2.0 and not by using the whole diagrams as suggested by agile methodology. Agile methodology is considered as convenient for novices because it can deliver the information technology environment to the end-user quickly and adaptively with minimal documentation. It also has the ability to deliver best performance software application according to the customer's needs. Agile methodology will make simple model with simple documentation, simple team and simple tools.Comment: 15 pages, 30 figure

Lines-of-inquiry and sources of evidence in work-based research

There is synergy between the investigative practices of police detectives and social scientists, including work-based researchers. They both develop lines-of-inquiry and draw on multiple sources of evidence in order to make inferences about people, trends and phenomena. However, the principles associated with lines-of-inquiry and sources of evidence have not so far been examined in relation to work-based research methods, which are often unexplored or ill-defined in the published literature. We explore this gap by examining the various direct and indirect lines-of-inquiry and the main sources of primary and secondary evidence used in work-based research, which is especially relevant because some work-based researchers are also police detectives. Clearer understanding of these intersections will be useful in emerging professional contexts where the work-based researcher, the detective, and the social scientist cohere in the one person and their research project. The case we examined was a Professional Studies programme at a university in Australia, which has many police detectives doing work-based research, and from their experience we conclude there is synergy between work-based research and lines of enquiry. Specifically, in the context of research methods, we identify seven sources of evidence: 1) creative, unstructured, and semi-structured interviews; 2) structured interviews; 3) consensus group methods; 4) surveys; 5) documentation and archives; 6) direct observations and participant observations; and 7) physical or cultural artefacts, and show their methodological features related to data and method type, reliability, validity, and types of analysis, along with their respective advantages and disadvantages. This study thereby unpacks and isolates those characteristics of work-based research which are relevant to a growing body of literature related to the messy, co-produced and wicked problems of private companies, government agencies, and non-government organisations and the research methods used to investigate them

Data DNA: The Next Generation of Statistical Metadata

Describes the components of a complete statistical metadata system and suggests ways to create and structure metadata for better access and understanding of data sets by diverse users

Principles in Patterns (PiP) : Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Institutional Story

The principal outputs of the PiP Project surround the Course and Class Approval (C-CAP) system. This web-based system built on Microsoft SharePoint addresses and resolves many of the issues identified by the project. Generally well received by both academic and support staff, the system provides personalised views, adaptive forms and contextualised support for all phases of the approval process. Although the system deliberately encapsulates and facilitates existing approval processes thus achieving buy-in, it is already achieving significant improvements over the previous processes, not only in reducing the administrative overheads but also in supporting curriculum design and academic quality. The system is now embedded across three faculties and is now considered by the University of Strathclyde to be a "core institutional service". Alongside the C-CAP system the PiP Project also cultivated a suite of approaches: an incremental systems development methodology; a structured and replicable evaluation approach, and; Strathclyde's Lean Approach to Efficiencies in Education Kit (SLEEK) business process improvement methodology Each is based on recognised formal techniques, providing the basis for a rigorous approach. This is contextualised within and adapted to the HE institutional context thus building the foundation not only for the project but ultimately for institution wide process improvement. This "institutional story" report summarises the principal outcomes of the Project