65,477 research outputs found

    The e-revolution and post-compulsory education: using e-business models to deliver quality education

    Get PDF
    The best practices of e-business are revolutionising not just technology itself but the whole process through which services are provided; and from which important lessons can be learnt by post-compulsory educational institutions. This book aims to move debates about ICT and higher education beyond a simple focus on e-learning by considering the provision of post-compulsory education as a whole. It considers what we mean by e-business, why e-business approaches are relevant to universities and colleges and the key issues this raises for post-secondary education

    An International Prospectus for Library & Information Professionals: Development, Leadership and Resources for Evolving Patron Needs

    Get PDF
    The roles of library and information professionals must change and evolve to: 1. accommodate needs of tech-savvy patrons; 2. thrive in the Commons & Library 2.0; 3. provide integrated, just-in-time services; 4. constantly update and enhance technology; 5. design appropriate library spaces for research and productivity; 6.adapt to new models of scholarly communication and publication, especially: the Open Archives Initiative and digital repositories; 7. remain abreast of national and interanational academic and legislative initiatives affecting the provision of information services and resources. Professionals will need to collaborate in: 1. Formal & informal networks – regional, national, and international; and; 2. Library staff development initiatives – regional, national, international Professionals will need to use libraries as laboratories for ongoing, lifelong training and education of patrons and of all library staff ( internal patrons ): the library is the framework in which Information Research Literacy is the curriculum . Professionals will need to remain aware of trends and challenges in their regions, the EU, the US and North America, of models which might provide inspiration and support: 1. Top Technology Trends; 2. New paradigms of professionalism; 3. Knowledge-creation and knowledge consumption; 4. The shifting balance of the physical library with the virtual-digital librar

    More than Just a Seat at the Table: Shared Governance for Graduate Student Mentorship

    Get PDF
    Since its inception, public education in the United States has billed itself to the masses as an “equalizer” that “prepares the citizenry.” Although there are varying institutional types in higher education, Americans believe the myth that higher education is an extension of the same K-12 educational values. Despite higher education teaching the components of civic engagement separately, the skills are seldom combined for students to practice. Students do not learn how to transfer or combine these skills into their “real lives” outside of higher education. Since graduate students are electing to further their education, higher education has an increased responsibility to ensure their graduates are equipped to participate and succeed in civic life. An international literature evaluation demonstrates that student disenfranchisement is not a uniquely American problem nor is the discontent that arises from institutional personnel governing higher education. This paper provides a detailed examination of my understanding of education, the structures in American history that leave students disenfranchised from their educations, and options to reengage students in controlling their education, before then pressing forward to propose using shared governance for graduate student mentorship. Graduate students have been found to be the most politically stable student population, making them ideal partners as community leaders to guide student participation in shared governance (Love, et. al. 2003). More than Just a Seat at the Table provides the mentoring teams a cohort model to engage in curriculum, problem solve their experiences, demonstrate their learning, and make lasting change in their institution

    Metadata enrichment for digital heritage: users as co-creators

    Get PDF
    This paper espouses the concept of metadata enrichment through an expert and user-focused approach to metadata creation and management. To this end, it is argued the Web 2.0 paradigm enables users to be proactive metadata creators. As Shirky (2008, p.47) argues Web 2.0’s social tools enable “action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive”. Lagoze (2010, p. 37) advises, “the participatory nature of Web 2.0 should not be dismissed as just a popular phenomenon [or fad]”. Carletti (2016) proposes a participatory digital cultural heritage approach where Web 2.0 approaches such as crowdsourcing can be sued to enrich digital cultural objects. It is argued that “heritage crowdsourcing, community-centred projects or other forms of public participation”. On the other hand, the new collaborative approaches of Web 2.0 neither negate nor replace contemporary standards-based metadata approaches. Hence, this paper proposes a mixed metadata approach where user created metadata augments expert-created metadata and vice versa. The metadata creation process no longer remains to be the sole prerogative of the metadata expert. The Web 2.0 collaborative environment would now allow users to participate in both adding and re-using metadata. The case of expert-created (standards-based, top-down) and user-generated metadata (socially-constructed, bottom-up) approach to metadata are complementary rather than mutually-exclusive. The two approaches are often mistakenly considered as dichotomies, albeit incorrectly (Gruber, 2007; Wright, 2007) . This paper espouses the importance of enriching digital information objects with descriptions pertaining the about-ness of information objects. Such richness and diversity of description, it is argued, could chiefly be achieved by involving users in the metadata creation process. This paper presents the importance of the paradigm of metadata enriching and metadata filtering for the cultural heritage domain. Metadata enriching states that a priori metadata that is instantiated and granularly structured by metadata experts is continually enriched through socially-constructed (post-hoc) metadata, whereby users are pro-actively engaged in co-creating metadata. The principle also states that metadata that is enriched is also contextually and semantically linked and openly accessible. In addition, metadata filtering states that metadata resulting from implementing the principle of enriching should be displayed for users in line with their needs and convenience. In both enriching and filtering, users should be considered as prosumers, resulting in what is called collective metadata intelligence

    Europeana communication bug: which intervention strategy for a better cooperation with creative industry?

    Get PDF
    Although Europeana as well as many GLAMs are very engaged - beside the main mission, i.e. spreading cultural heritage knowledge- in developing new strategies in order to make digital contents reusable for creative industry, these efforts have been successful just only in sporadic cases. A significant know how deficits in communication often compromises expected outcomes and impact. Indeed, what prevails is an idea of communication like an enhancement “instrument” intended on the one hand in purely economic (development) sense, on the other hand as a way for increasing and spreading knowledge. The main reference model is more or less as follows: digital objects are to be captured and/or transformed by digital technologies into sellable goods to put into circulation. Nevertheless, this approach risks neglecting the real nature of communication, and more in detail the one of digital heritage where it is strategic not so much producing objects and goods as taking part into sharing environments creation (media) by engaged communities, small or large they may be. The environments act as meeting and interchange point, and consequently as driving force of enhancing. Only in a complex context of network interaction on line accessible digital heritage contents become a strategic resource for creating environments in which their re/mediation can occur – provided that credible strategies exist, shared by stakeholders and users. This paper particularly describes a case study including proposals for an effective connection among Europeana, GLAMs and Creative Industry in the framework of Food and Drink digital heritage enhancement and promotion. Experimental experiences as the one described in this paper anyway confirm the relevance of up-to-date policies based on an adequate communication concept, on solid partnerships with enterprise and association networks, on collaborative on line environments, on effective availability at least for most of contents by increasing free licensing, and finally on grassroots content implementation involving prosumers audience, even if filtered by GLAMs

    Questions of quality in repositories of open educational resources: a literature review

    Get PDF
    Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials which are freely available and openly licensed. Repositories of OER (ROER) are platforms that host and facilitate access to these resources. ROER should not just be designed to store this content – in keeping with the aims of the OER movement, they should support educators in embracing open educational practices (OEP) such as searching for and retrieving content that they will reuse, adapt or modify as needed, without economic barriers or copyright restrictions. This paper reviews key literature on OER and ROER, in order to understand the roles ROER are said or supposed to fulfil in relation to furthering the aims of the OER movement. Four themes which should shape repository design are identified, and the following 10 quality indicators (QI) for ROER effectiveness are discussed: featured resources; user evaluation tools; peer review; authorship of the resources; keywords of the resources; use of standardised metadata; multilingualism of the repositories; inclusion of social media tools; specification of the creative commons license; availability of the source code or original files. These QI form the basis of a method for the evaluation of ROER initiatives which, in concert with considerations of achievability and long-term sustainability, should assist in enhancement and development. Keywords: open educational resources; open access; open educational practice; repositories; quality assuranc

    Research on ICT in K-12 schools e A review of experimental and survey-based studies in computers & education 2011 to 2015

    Get PDF
    International audienceWhat is the role of a journal? Is it to follow the research or lead it? For the former, it is to serve as an archival record of the scholarship in a field. It can serve to permit the research community to engage with each other via the written record. But, for the latter, it can serve the research community by pointing out gaps in the research based on the archival record. This review is intended to do just that

    African Researcher 2.0: Using New Technologies to Join Global Academic Conversations

    Get PDF
    Researchers in Africa have typically been regarded as consumers, not producers, of academic information. More recently, open access publishing has been advanced as a way of getting research from Africa more easily and widely available, but there needs to be more than just changes to the dissemination outlet. This article discusses how researchers in Africa can join global academic conversations through a rethinking of their research work flows, and how they can strategically position themselves and their research in knowledge streams for rippling impact

    Sustainability Assessment of indicators for integrated water resources management

    Get PDF
    The scientific community strongly recommends the adoption of indicators for the evaluation and monitoring of progress towards sustainable development. Furthermore, international organizations consider that indicators are powerful decision-making tools. Nevertheless, the quality and reliability of the indicators depends on the application of adequate and appropriate criteria to assess them. The general objective of this study was to evaluate how indicators related to water use and management perform against a set of sustainability criteria. Our research identified 170 indicators related to water use and management. These indicators were assessed by an international panel of experts that evaluated whether they fulfil the four sustainability criteria: social, economic, environmental, and institutional. We employed an evaluation matrix that classified all indicators according to the DPSIR (Driving Forces, Pressures, States, Impacts and Responses) framework. A pilot study served to test and approve the research methodology before carrying out the full implementation. The findings of the study show that 24 indicators comply with the majority of the sustainability criteria; 59 indicators are bi-dimensional (meaning that they comply with two sustainability criteria); 86 are one-dimensional indicators (fulfilling just one of the four sustainability criteria) and one indicator do not fulfil any of the sustainability criteria.Postprint (author's final draft

    Engaging TBR Faculty in Online Research Communities and Emerging Technologies

    Get PDF
    The growing impact of online research communities and emerging technologies is creating a significant paradigm shift and consequently changing the current research landscape of higher education. The rise of online research communities exemplifies a shift from traditional research engagements, to online research communities using “Web 2.0,” in which communities of researchers are the basic unit of research engagement. As institutional practices become increasingly digitized, the role of faculty, scholars, and professionals are constantly reshaped and re-negotiated. The rise and use of emerging technologies in the field of research, has the potential to significantly impact the individual researcher, their institutions and ultimately the State. The project Critical Conversations Research Network is a part of a broader initiative undertaken by the Tennessee Board of Regents Office of Academic Affairs. TBR’s Critical Conversations for Jobs and the Economy is designed to complement Gov. Bill Haslam’s “Drive to 55” initiative, which aims to bring the percentage of Tennesseans with college degrees to 55 percent by the year 2025. (Haslam, 2013). The initiative undertaken by TBR’S office of Academic Affairs consists of: (a) Conversational interviewing of selected scholars and researchers across TBR institutions through video recordings of important and critical research topics that affect policy implications in the state of Tennessee, (b) an interdisciplinary journal called Critical Conversations Interdisciplinary Journal (CCIJ) dedicated to promoting dialogue on topics of importance among scholars across disciplines at TBR institutions. The journal provides a platform for critical conversations through which all disciplines can inform practice and practice can inform all disciplines, providing guidance for future public policy decisions and (c) the proposed Critical Conversations Research Network which is the focus of this paper. The goal of the Tennessee Board of Regents Critical Conversations Research Network (“TBR’s-CCRN”) is to connect TBR’s faculty, researchers and scholars in collaboration, dialogue and engagement, about pertinent research initiatives undertaken by individuals and institutions across the state. A secondary purpose is to highlight the practical implications of research for economic and workforce development and to assist policymakers to engage in data-driven and informed decision-making
    • 

    corecore