Linking information and people in a social system for academic conferences

This paper investigates the feasibility of maintaining a social information system to support attendees at an academic conference. The main challenge of this work was to create an infrastructure where users’ social activities, such as bookmarking, tagging, and social linking could be used to enhance user navigation and maximize the users’ ability to locate two important types of information in conference settings: presentations to attend and attendees to meet. We developed Conference Navigator 3, a social conference support system that integrates a conference schedule planner with a social linking service. We examined its potential and functions in the context of a medium-scale academic conference. In this paper, we present the design of the system’s socially enabled features and report the results of a conference-based study. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of social information systems for supporting academic conferences. Despite the low number of potential users and the short timeframe in which conferences took place, the usage of the system was high enough to provide sufficient data for social mechanisms. The study shows that most critical social features were highly appreciated and used, and provides direction for further research

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

Classifying Web 2.0 Supported Applications By Pattern Of Usage: Functional & Technical ISSUES

The rapid evolution of Internet technologies have witnessed new Web elements, such as blogs, wikis, social networking, social bookmarking, and other related applications referred to as Web 2.0. Web 1.0 paradigm was related with passive, just receptive users, whereas Web 2.0 paradigm relies mainly on user participation and user-generated content. In Web 2.0 applications users are invited to comment, share, edit, classify, as well as remix data from multiple sources. Although there are several Web 2.0 applications in the market there is still lack of a profound approach guiding the analysis, design and development of such applications. This paper suggests classifying Web 2.0 tools by “Pattern of Usage” or in other words the functionalities that characterize their specific features. By reviewing several literatures we extracted multiple attributes related to functionalities of Web 2.0 tools. These have been crystallised into 7 patterns of usage that include; Inter-connectivity, Content authoring, Content tagging & rating, Content aggregation & syndication, Content remixing, Content streaming and File sharing. By interlinking functionality/ usage with underlying technologies, techniques and architecture we provided insight into design and technical requirements for Web 2.0 supported applications. Furthermore we broke down the patterns into basic, elementary to include Inter-connectivity, File sharing and Content remixing, and secondary, supportive to include the other four patterns. This would provide the technical core for any development methodology targeted at Web 2.0 applications

A social personalized adaptive e-learning environment : a case study in Topolor

Adaptive e-Learning is a process where learning contents are delivered to learners adaptively, namely, the appropriate contents are delivered to the learners in an appropriate way at an appropriate time based on the learners’ needs, knowledge, preferences and other characteristics. Social e-Learning is a process where connections are made among like-minded learners, so they can achieve learning goals via communication and interaction with each other by sharing knowledge, skills, abilities and materials. This paper reports an extended case study that investigated the influence of social interactions in an adaptive e-Learning environment, by analyzing the usage of social interaction features of a Social Personalized Adaptive E-Learning Environment (SPAEE), named Topolor, which strives to combine the advantages from both social e-Learning and adaptive e-Learning. We present the results of a quantitative case study that evaluates the perceived usefulness and ease of use. The results indicated high satisfaction from the students who were using Topolor for their study and helped us with the evaluation processes. Based on the results, we discuss the follow-up work plan for the further improvements for Topolor

Web 2.0 technologies for learning: the current landscape – opportunities, challenges and tensions

This is the first report from research commissioned by Becta into Web 2.0 technologies for learning at Key Stages 3 and 4. This report describes findings from an additional literature review of the then current landscape concerning learner use of Web 2.0 technologies and the implications for teachers, schools, local authorities and policy makers