Supporting emerging researchers in data management and curation

While scholarly publishing remains the key means for determining researchers’ impact, international funding body requirements and government recommendations relating to research data management (RDM), sharing and preservation mean that the underlying research data are becoming increasingly valuable in their own right. This is true not only for researchers in the sciences but also in the humanities and creative arts as well. The ability to exploit their own - and others’ - data is emerging as a crucial skill for researchers across all disciplines. However, despite Generation Y researchers being ‘highly competent and ubiquitous users of information technologies generally’ they appears to be a widespread lack of understanding and uncertainty about open access and self-archived resources (Jisc study, 2012). This chapter will consider the potential support that academic librarians might provide to support Generation Y researchers in this shifting research data landscape and examine the role of the library as part of institutional infrastructure. The changing landscape will impact research libraries most keenly over the next few years as they work to develop infrastructure and support systems to identify and maintain access to a diverse array of research data outputs. However, the data that are being produced through research are no different to those being produced by artists, politicians and the general public. In this respect, all libraries - whether they be academic, national, or local - will need to be gearing up to ensure they are able to accept and provide access to an ever increasing range of complex digital objects

Collaborative knowledge management - A construction case study

Due to the new threats and challenges faced by the construction industry today, construction companies must seek new solutions in order to remain ahead of the competition. Knowledge has been identified to be a significant organisational resource, which if used effectively can provide competitive advantage. A lot of emphasis is being put on how to identify, capture and share knowledge in today's organisations. It has been argued over the years that due to the fragmented nature of the construction industry and ad-hoc nature of the construction projects, capture and reuse of valuable knowledge gathered during a construction project pose a challenge. As a result critical mistakes are repeated on projects and construction professionals have to kee

ICOPER Project - Deliverable 4.3 ISURE: Recommendations for extending effective reuse, embodied in the ICOPER CD&R

The purpose of this document is to capture the ideas and recommendations, within and beyond the ICOPER community, concerning the reuse of learning content, including appropriate methodologies as well as established strategies for remixing and repurposing reusable resources. The overall remit of this work focuses on describing the key issues that are related to extending effective reuse embodied in such materials. The objective of this investigation, is to support the reuse of learning content whilst considering how it could be originally created and then adapted with that ‘reuse’ in mind. In these circumstances a survey on effective reuse best practices can often provide an insight into the main challenges and benefits involved in the process of creating, remixing and repurposing what we are now designating as Reusable Learning Content (RLC). Several key issues are analysed in this report: Recommendations for extending effective reuse, building upon those described in the previous related deliverables 4.1 Content Development Methodologies and 4.2 Quality Control and Web 2.0 technologies. The findings of this current survey, however, provide further recommendations and strategies for using and developing this reusable learning content. In the spirit of ‘reuse’, this work also aims to serve as a foundation for the many different stakeholders and users within, and beyond, the ICOPER community who are interested in reusing learning resources. This report analyses a variety of information. Evidence has been gathered from a qualitative survey that has focused on the technical and pedagogical recommendations suggested by a Special Interest Group (SIG) on the most innovative practices with respect to new media content authors (for content authoring or modification) and course designers (for unit creation). This extended community includes a wider collection of OER specialists. This collected evidence, in the form of video and audio interviews, has also been represented as multimedia assets potentially helpful for learning and useful as learning content in the New Media Space (See section 4 for further details). Section 2 of this report introduces the concept of reusable learning content and reusability. Section 3 discusses an application created by the ICOPER community to enhance the opportunities for developing reusable content. Section 4 of this report provides an overview of the methodology used for the qualitative survey. Section 5 presents a summary of thematic findings. Section 6 highlights a list of recommendations for effective reuse of educational content, which were derived from thematic analysis described in Appendix A. Finally, section 7 summarises the key outcomes of this work

Benefits and drawbacks of software reference architectures: A case study

Context: Software Reference Architectures (SRAs) play a fundamental role for organizations whose business greatly depends on the efficient development and maintenance of complex software applications. However, little is known about the real value and risks associated with SRAs in industrial practice. Objective: To investigate the current industrial practice of SRAs in a single company from the perspective of different stakeholders. Method An exploratory case study that investigates the benefits and drawbacks perceived by relevant stakeholders in nine SRAs designed by a multinational software consulting company. Results: The study shows the perceptions of different stakeholders regarding the benefits and drawbacks of SRAs (e.g., both SRA designers and users agree that they benefit from reduced development costs; on the contrary, only application builders strongly highlighted the extra learning curve as a drawback associated with mastering SRAs). Furthermore, some of the SRA benefits and drawbacks commonly highlighted in the literature were remarkably not mentioned as a benefit of SRAs (e.g., the use of best practices). Likewise, other aspects arose that are not usually discussed in the literature, such as higher time-to-market for applications when their dependencies on the SRA are managed inappropriately. Conclusions: This study aims to help practitioners and researchers to better understand real SRAs projects and the contexts where these benefits and drawbacks appeared, as well as some SRA improvement strategies. This would contribute to strengthening the evidence regarding SRAs and support practitioners in making better informed decisions about the expected SRA benefits and drawbacks. Furthermore, we make available the instruments used in this study and the anonymized data gathered to motivate others to provide similar evidence to help mature SRA research and practice.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes

Open educational practices in Australia: a first-phase national audit of higher education

For fifteen years, Australian Higher Education has engaged with the openness agenda primarily through the lens of open-access research. Open educational practice (OEP), by contrast, has not been explicitly supported by federal government initiatives, funding, or policy. This has led to an environment that is disconnected, with isolated examples of good practice that have not been transferred beyond local contexts. This paper represents first-phase research in identifying the current state of OEP in Australian Higher Education. A structured desktop audit of all Australian universities was conducted, based on a range of indicators and criteria established by a review of the literature. The audit collected evidence of engagement with OEP using publicly accessible information via institutional websites. The criteria investigated were strategies and policies, open educational resources (OER), infrastructure tools/platforms, professional development and support, collaboration/partnerships, and funding. Initial findings suggest that the experience of OEP across the sector is diverse, but the underlying infrastructure to support the creation, (re)use, and dissemination of resources is present. Many Australian universities have experimented with, and continue to refine, massive open online course (MOOC) offerings, and there is increasing evidence that institutions now employ specialist positions to support OEP, and MOOCs. Professional development and staff initiatives require further work to build staff capacity sector-wide. This paper provides a contemporary view of sector-wide OEP engagement in Australia—a macro-view that is not well-represented in open research to date. It identifies core areas of capacity that could be further leveraged by a national OEP initiative or by national policy on OEP.</p