Marking machinima : a case study in assessing student use of a Web 2.0 technology

The model of learning best suited to the future may be one which sees learning as the process of managing the different kinds of participation an individual might have in complex social systems. Learning capability and engagement is thus dependent on the relationship between an individual identity and social systems. We report on the incorporation of machinima, a Web 2.0 technology, as part of an interdisciplinary and collaborative project where the focus is not on the mastery of the tools or the acquisition of predetermined knowledge, but on the development of learning engagement. We provide the case study of a pilot project involving students across two Arts disciplines collaborating via the game, World of Warcraft, to produce an animated adaptation of one of Geoffrey Chaucer\u27s Canterbury Tales. Their contributions were differently assessed according to the pre-existing requirements of their home disciplines. We argue that the assessment in such projects, in conjunction with innovations and experimentation with Web 2.0 technologies, should shift from an emphasis on product to process. We believe that this has a sound pedagogical and theoretical foundation, and also fits better with the increasingly digitalised, unfixed and interdisciplinary world that students will face on graduation. <br /

Situational Enterprise Services

The ability to rapidly find potential business partners as well as rapidly set up a collaborative business process is desirable in the face of market turbulence. Collaborative business processes are increasingly dependent on the integration of business information systems. Traditional linking of business processes has a large ad hoc character. Implementing situational enterprise services in an appropriate way will deliver the business more flexibility, adaptability and agility. Service-oriented architectures (SOA) are rapidly becoming the dominant computing paradigm. It is now being embraced by organizations everywhere as the key to business agility. Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX on the other hand provide good user interactions for successful service discovery, selection, adaptation, invocation and service construction. They also balance automatic integration of services and human interactions, disconnecting content from presentation in the delivery of the service. Another Web technology, such as semantic Web, makes automatic service discovery, mediation and composition possible. Integrating SOA, Web 2.0 Technologies and Semantic Web into a service-oriented virtual enterprise connects business processes in a much more horizontal fashion. To be able run these services consistently across the enterprise, an enterprise infrastructure that provides enterprise architecture and security foundation is necessary. The world is constantly changing. So does the business environment. An agile enterprise needs to be able to quickly and cost-effectively change how it does business and who it does business with. Knowing, adapting to diffident situations is an important aspect of today’s business environment. The changes in an operating environment can happen implicitly and explicitly. The changes can be caused by different factors in the application domain. Changes can also happen for the purpose of organizing information in a better way. Changes can be further made according to the users' needs such as incorporating additional functionalities. Handling and managing diffident situations of service-oriented enterprises are important aspects of business environment. In the chapter, we will investigate how to apply new Web technologies to develop, deploy and executing enterprise services

Investigating the enabling role of Web 2.0 technology for interactive e-learning in Australian and Sri Lankan higher education

Interactions are at the heart of e-learning as they enable learners to actively develop knowledge, acquire skills and develop the sense of belonging and satisfaction. Much attention is paid on developing interactive e-learning systems for facilitating active interactions between learners and learning resources, instructors and peer learners. Numerous technologies such as simulation technology and Web 2.0 technology are used to facilitate interactive e-learning to date. Those technologies support learners to interact with learning resources, instructors and peer learners to different extents. To facilitate interactive e-learning, it is important for educators and e-learning developers to understand how well technologies as above support interactions in e-learning. Web 2.0 technology has become popular around the world recently due to their ease of use, portability and high availability. Much research has been done on how Web 2.0 technology could be used for interactive e-learning. Existing research, however, has several limitations. For example, a majority of research has investigated how a specific Web 2.0 tool supports a specific kind of interactions in e-learning such as learner-learner interaction. Furthermore, much of existing research on Web 2.0 based interactive e-learning is conducted in developed countries. Whether Web 2.0 technology supports interactive e-learning in developing countries in a similar manner to developed countries, or whether developing countries could learn lessons from developed countries on using Web 2.0 technology for interactive e-learning are, therefore, not clear. This research aims to investigate the enabling role of Web 2.0 technology for interactive e-learning in higher education in Australia, a developed country and Sri Lanka, a developing country. To meet this aim, a quantitative research approach is adopted. Following this research approach, a conceptual framework on Web 2.0 based interactive e-learning developed based on a comprehensive review of the relevant literature, is validated using the survey data collected from learners in universities in Australia and Sri Lanka. The validation of the conceptual framework reveals that Web 2.0 technology supports the three major types of interactions in learning, namely, learner-learning resources, learner-instructor and learner-learner interactions in both Australia and Sri Lanka to a great extent. Furthermore, no significant differences are found on how Web 2.0 technology supports interactive e-learning in the above countries. The implication of these findings is that Web 2.0 tools could be used to improve the interactivity of e-learning. Another implication of this research is that new and more interactive e-learning systems can be developed by using Web 2.0 technology, in particular, for the purposes of managing learning resources, managing personal knowledge, delivering instructional support and collaborating in order to improve the effectiveness of e-learning. From a practical perspective, this study presents an in-depth investigation of how Web 2.0 technology can be used for improving the interactivity of e-learning in Australia and Sri Lanka. It also provides specific guidelines for developing interactive e-learning environments using Web 2.0 technology. From a theoretical perspective, this research finds that Web 2.0 technology could be used in developing countries and developed countries to improve the three major interactions in e-learning

Framework of Social Customer Relationship Management in E-Health Services

Healthcare organization is implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as a strategy for managing interactions with patients involving technology to organize, automate, and coordinate business processes. Web-based CRM provides healthcare organization with the ability to broaden service beyond its usual practices in achieving a complex patient care goal, and this paper discusses and demonstrates how a new approach in CRM based on Web 2.0 or Social CRM helps healthcare organizations to improve their customer support, and at the same time avoiding possible conflicts, and promoting better healthcare to patients. A conceptual framework of the new approach will be proposed and highlighted. The framework includes some important features of Social CRM such as customer's empowerment, social interactivity between healthcare organization-patients, and patients-patients. The framework offers new perspective in building relationships between healthcare organizations and customers and among customers in e-health scenario. It is developed based on the latest development of CRM literatures and case studies analysis. In addition, customer service paradigm in social network's era, the important of online health education, and empowerment in healthcare organization will be taken into consideration.Comment: 15 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1204.3689, arXiv:1203.3919, arXiv:1204.3685, arXiv:1203.4309, arXiv:1204.3691, arXiv:1203.392

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

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

Exploiting tacit knowledge through knowledge management technologies

The purpose of this paper is to examine the contributions and suitability of the available knowledge management (KM) technologies, including the Web 2.0 for exploiting tacit knowledge. It proposes an integrated framework for extracting tacit knowledge in organisations, which includes Web 2.0 technologies, KM tools, organisational learning (OL) and Community of Practice (CoP). It reviews a comprehensive literature covering overview of KM theories, KM technologies and OL and identifies the current state of knowledge relating to tacit knowledge exploitation. The outcomes of the paper indicate that Internet and Web 2.0 technologies have stunning prospects for creating learning communities where tacit knowledge can be extracted from people. The author recommends that organisations should design procedures and embed them in their Web 2.0 collaborative platforms persuading employees to record their ideas and share them with other members. It is also recommended that no idea should be taken for granted in a learning community where tacit knowledge exploitation is pursued. It is envisaged that future research should adopt empirical approach involving Complex Adaptive Model for Tacit Knowledge Exploitation (CAMTaKE) and the Theory of Deferred Action in examining the effectiveness of KM technologies including Web 2.0 tools for tacit knowledge exploitation

The Management and Use of Social Network Sites in a Government Department

In this paper we report findings from a study of social network site use in a UK Government department. We have investigated this from a managerial, organisational perspective. We found at the study site that there are already several social network technologies in use, and that these: misalign with and problematize organisational boundaries; blur boundaries between working and social lives; present differing opportunities for control; have different visibilities; have overlapping functionality with each other and with other information technologies; that they evolve and change over time; and that their uptake is conditioned by existing infrastructure and availability. We find the organisational complexity that social technologies are often hoped to cut across is, in reality, something that shapes their uptake and use. We argue the idea of a single, central social network site for supporting cooperative work within an organisation will hit the same problems as any effort of centralisation in organisations. We argue that while there is still plenty of scope for design and innovation in this area, an important challenge now is in supporting organisations in managing what can best be referred to as a social network site 'ecosystem'.Comment: Accepted for publication in JCSCW (The Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work