Can electoral popularity be predicted using socially generated big data?

Today, our more-than-ever digital lives leave significant footprints in cyberspace. Large scale collections of these socially generated footprints, often known as big data, could help us to re-investigate different aspects of our social collective behaviour in a quantitative framework. In this contribution we discuss one such possibility: the monitoring and predicting of popularity dynamics of candidates and parties through the analysis of socially generated data on the web during electoral campaigns. Such data offer considerable possibility for improving our awareness of popularity dynamics. However they also suffer from significant drawbacks in terms of representativeness and generalisability. In this paper we discuss potential ways around such problems, suggesting the nature of different political systems and contexts might lend differing levels of predictive power to certain types of data source. We offer an initial exploratory test of these ideas, focussing on two data streams, Wikipedia page views and Google search queries. On the basis of this data, we present popularity dynamics from real case examples of recent elections in three different countries.Comment: To appear in Information Technolog

The STIN in the Tale: A Socio-technical Interaction Perspective on Networked Learning

In this paper, we go beyond what have been described as 'mechanistic' accounts of e-learning to explore the complexity of relationships between people and technology as encountered in cases of networked learning. We introduce from the social informatics literature the concept of sociotechnical interaction networks which focus on the interplay between participants, technology, learning artefacts and practices. We apply this concept to case material drawn from transnational trade union education to identify and to analyse three aspects of networked learning: the local sociotechnical networks of learners; the construction of an overarching, global sociotechnical network for learning; and the evolution of such networks over time. Finally we identify issues for further research highlighted by these models

Fluid learning: vision for lifelong learning in 2030

This paper provides a vision of what we term ‘fluid learning’ through which autonomous learners make choices about their own learning. This vision is critical because it equips European citizens to live in a global context where knowledge and work is changing so rapidly that people have to learn continually. Fluid learning is suited to a world that has seen a radical change in cultural perceptions of learner agency and learner-teacher roles, associated with changes in technology. After completing compulsory education, the focus of each learner moves from learning pre-defined knowledge to filling gaps between areas of knowledge, integrating different areas of expertise, as well as learning new knowledge. People do not turn automatically to formal institutions for large blocks of learning. Instead they consider it natural to make use of open learning resources and open courses, making their own decisions about what to learn, when and how. Learners naturally employ open learning practices, creating new knowledge for future learners to benefit from. They expect to contribute to the learning of others as well as learning themselves, viewing themselves as the experts in their own situation. In some cases they may elect to take a short formal course, but this is always for a specific reason rather than as a cultural norm. Rather than managing multiple identities in the different groups/communities to which they belong, they see their unique identity as a unifying factor that integrates their activities in various groups, including work and leisure groups that they move easily between. In doing so they accrue new knowledge, integrating it with their current understanding, such that their expertise changes dynamically to match their current needs. The vision requires significant cultural change in European society by 2030

Final report of work-with-IT: the JISC study into evolution of working practices

Technology is increasingly being used to underpin business processes across teaching and learning, research, knowledge exchange and business support activities in both HE and FE. The introduction of technology has a significant impact on the working practices of staff, often requiring them to work in a radically different way. Change in any situation can be unsettling and problematic and, where not effectively managed, can lead to poor service or functionality and disenfranchised staff. These issues can have a direct impact on institutional effectiveness, reputation and the resulting student experience. The Work-with-IT project, based at the University of Strathclyde, sought to examine changes to working practices across HE and FE, the impact on staff roles and relationships and the new skills sets that are required to meet these changes

Constructing experimental indicators for Open Access documents

The ongoing paradigm change in the scholarly publication system ('science is turning to e-science') makes it necessary to construct alternative evaluation criteria/metrics which appropriately take into account the unique characteristics of electronic publications and other research output in digital formats. Today, major parts of scholarly Open Access (OA) publications and the self-archiving area are not well covered in the traditional citation and indexing databases. The growing share and importance of freely accessible research output demands new approaches/metrics for measuring and for evaluating of these new types of scientific publications. In this paper we propose a simple quantitative method which establishes indicators by measuring the access/download pattern of OA documents and other web entities of a single web server. The experimental indicators (search engine, backlink and direct access indicator) are constructed based on standard local web usage data. This new type of web-based indicator is developed to model the specific demand for better study/evaluation of the accessibility, visibility and interlinking of open accessible documents. We conclude that e-science will need new stable e-indicators.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

HOW COMPETITIVE IS AGRIBUSINESS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN FOOD COMMODITY CHAIN?

The competitiveness of sixteen selected food commodity chains in South Africa was calculated using the Revealed Comparative Advantage method of Balassa. The majority of commodity chains are marginally competitive. Except for the maize, pineapple, and apple chains, the competitiveness index generally decreases when moving from primary to processed products. This implies that benification or "value adding" opportunities in South Africa are restricted. To compete in a global economy strategies should be followed that improve the competitiveness of the whole food supply chain. It is i.e. not good enough for farmers to be able to compete globally at farm gate level, whilst the locally processed commodities that is sold to the consumer is not competitive in the world market.Agribusiness,

Understanding the origins and pace of Africa’s urban transition

In this paper the author argues that urbanisation should be understood as a global historical process driven primarily by population dynamics stimulated by technological and institutional change. In particular, disease control and expanded access to surplus energy supplies are necessary and sufficient conditions for urbanisation to occur given historical evidence of an inherent human propensity to agglomerate. Economic development, which has traditionally been viewed as the primary driving force behind urbanisation, can accelerate the process but is not a necessary condition for it to occur. Informed by this historically-grounded theory of urbanisation, a range of qualitative and quantitative evidence is used to explain the stylised facts of sub-Saharan Africa's urban transition, namely the late onset of urbanisation in Africa vis-a-vis other major world regions, the widely noted but inadequately explained phenomenon of 'urbanisation without growth' observed in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, and the historically unprecedented rates of urban population growth seen in the region throughout the late twentieth century