Towards a learning analytics approach for supporting discovery and reuse of OER: an approach based on Social Networks Analysis and Linked Open Data

The OER movement poses challenges inherent to discovering and reuse digital educational materials from highly heterogeneous and distributed digital repositories. Search engines on today?s Web of documents are based on keyword queries. Search engines don?t provide a sufficiently comprehensive solution to answer a query that permits personalization of open educational materials. To find OER on the Web today, users must first be well informed of which OER repositories potentially contain the data they want and what data model describes these datasets, before using this information to create structured queries. Learning analytics requires not only to retrieve the useful information and knowledge about educational resources, learning processes and relations among learning agents, but also to transform the data gathered in actionable e interoperable information. Linked Data is considered as one of the most effective alternatives for creating global shared information spaces, it has become an interesting approach for discovering and enriching open educational resources data, as well as achieving semantic interoperability and re-use between multiple OER repositories. In this work, an approach based on Semantic Web technologies, the Linked Data guidelines, and Social Network Analysis methods are proposed as a fundamental way to describing, analyzing and visualizing knowledge sharing on OER initiatives

Beyond South Seas: Making History in Networked Digital Technologies

In this paper, I discuss some of the more salient intellectual and technological dimensions of work over the past year, focused on developing an open source knowledge creation, management and publication system. In key respects, our work seeks to anticipate developments in national collaborative e-research infrastructure over the next five or so years. Especially in view of recent statements on innovation policy by the Australian government, we can expect the next five or so years will see significant advances in the development of online knowledge repositories for not only more complex kinds of quantitative research data, but also for qualitative data in rich and diverse media forms that will offer new possibilities for humanities research. We will also see improved or new middleware, allowing Australian research communities in the humanities collaboratively to create, share and interrogate new knowledge of cultural and social phenomena. However, if humanities researchers are to exploit these and other possible advances in digital research infrastructure, then what they will also need are ‘tools’ enabling the creation, reception and use of knowledge that these infrastructural advances can put into intellectual circulation. They will need the means of using networked digital technologies as primary media for research, and to publish their findings as complex multimedia artifacts

Augmented EHR: Enrichment of EHR with Contents from Semantic Web Sources

This work presents methods to combine data from the Semantic Web into existing EHRs, leading to an augmented EHR. An existing EHR extract is augmented by combining it with additional information from external sources, typically linked data sources. The starting point is a standardized EHR extract described by an archetype. The method consists of combining specific data from the original EHR with contents from the external information source by building a semantic representation, which is used to query the external source. The results are converted into a standardized EHR extract according to an archetype. This work sets the foundations to transform Semantic Web contents into normalized EHR extracts. Finally, to exemplify the approach, the work includes a practical use case in which the summarized EHR is augmented with drug–drug interactions and disease-related treatment information

Simple identification tools in FishBase

Simple identification tools for fish species were included in the FishBase information system from its inception. Early tools made use of the relational model and characters like fin ray meristics. Soon pictures and drawings were added as a further help, similar to a field guide. Later came the computerization of existing dichotomous keys, again in combination with pictures and other information, and the ability to restrict possible species by country, area, or taxonomic group. Today, www.FishBase.org offers four different ways to identify species. This paper describes these tools with their advantages and disadvantages, and suggests various options for further development. It explores the possibility of a holistic and integrated computeraided strategy

From IT service management to IT service governance: An ontological approach for integrated use of ITIL and COBIT frameworks

Some companies have achieved better performance as a result of their IT investments, while others have not, as organizations are interested in calculating the value added by their IT. There is a wide range of literature that agrees that the best practices used by organizations promote continuous improvement in service delivery. Nevertheless, overuse of these practices can have undesirable effects and unquantified investments. This paper proposed a practical tool formally developed according to the DSR design science approach, it addresses a domain relevant to both practitioners and academics by providing IT service governance (ITSG) domain model ontology, concerned with maximizing the clarity and veracity of the concepts within it. The results revealed that the proposed ontology resolved key barriers to ITSG process adoption in organizations, and that combining COBIT and ITIL practices would help organizations better manage their IT services and achieve better business-IT alignment

Constructivism in online learning : a literature review

The purpose of this paper is to look at the interaction of constructivist-based approaches, adult learning characteristics and six online learning issues. Constructivist learning environments allow learners to build their own meaning and understanding from learning resources and circumstances. Constructivists claim that learners accumulate new knowledge by themselves and use this to pile up previous knowledge and experiences. The learner is the learning focus, and the instructors act as facilitators or guides, which provide appropriate and enriching supplies. This theory supports well the adult style of learning. Based on constructivism, the online instructor is a facilitator to monitor and provide a safe, positive, and motivating online learning environment, and a tutor to provide the supporting skills and knowledge to each individual. Compared to traditional education, online learning has some outstanding features, such as the setting overcomes geographic problems and the learners could go to the virtual classroom anytime and anywhere if they have the accesses to the Internet. This paper focuses on the adult learning group, along with the online learning benefits and some issues that occur among the technologies and human subjects

Open Data Diffusion for Service Innovation: An Inductive Case Study on Cultural Open Data Services

Information Systems research on Open Data has been primarily focused on its contribution to e-government inquiries, government transparency, and open government. Recently, Open Data has been explored as a catalyser for service innovation as a consequence of big claims around the potential of such initiatives in terms of additional value that can be injected into the worldwide economy. Subsequently, the Open Data Services academic conversation was structured (Lindman et al. 2013a). The research project presented in this paper is an interpretive case study that was carried out to explore the factors that influence the diffusion of Open Data for new service development. This paper contributes to this debate by providing an interpretive inductive case study (Walsham 1995) of a tourism company that successfully turned several city authorities’ raw open datasets into a set of valuable services. Results demonstrate that 16 factors and 68 related variables are the most relevant in the process of diffusion of open data for new service development. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates the suitability of Social Constructionism and interpretive case study research to inductively generate knowledge in this field

Research Libraries and Research Data Management within the Humanities and Social Sciences

Research Data Management (RDM) is a process that is designed to deliver high quality datasets, which comply with scholarly, legal and ethical requirements. There are two outputs of the RDM process: 1. Long term preservation of datasets through archiving 2. Sharing and reuse of datasets for further research and other purposes in society at large. This proposal outlines the creation of a coherent Research Data Management organization at Lund University that utilizes existing resources both within and outside the university and establishes new organizational units and information systems, specific to this new task. We propose the establishment of a new unit for Research Data Management and Coordination at the University Library whose responsibility would be to coordinate the network of existing agents who support research activities such as faculty libraries and ethical, legal, archival and data management experts. We further propose the creation of a new information system, the Lund University Dataset Directory, which will facilitate management of datasets and information retrieval throughout the data lifecycle. We expect that research datasets could be deposited for sharing at national or disciplinary repositories and eventually archived when a solution is in place at the University Archive. Advanced RDM - like semantic web technologies - will require online data services not currently provided by national agents. We therefor propose a Data Laboratory within the RDM network at Lund University. Finally, it's important to recognize that Research Data Management is a new way of organizing information with its own set of tasks for the library organization. Our efforts in RDM will require us to invest significant effort in learning new systems, ways of working and collaboration