Implementation and design of a service-based framework to integrate personal and institutional learning environments

The landscape of teaching and learning has changed in recent years because of the application of Information and Communications technology. Among the most representative innovations in this regard are Learning Management Systems. Despite of their popularity in institutional contexts and the wide set of tools and services that they provide to learners and teachers, they present several issues. Learning Management Systems are linked to an institution and a period of time, and are not adapted to learners' needs. In order to address these problems Personal Learning Environments are defined, but it is clear that these will not replace Learning Management Systems and other institutional contexts. Both types of environment should therefore coexist and interact. This paper presents a service-based framework to facilitate such interoperability. It supports the export of functionalities from the institutional to the personal environment and also the integration within the institution of learning outcomes from personal activities. In order to achieve this in a flexible, extensible and open way, web services and interoperability specifications are used. In addition some interoperability scenarios are posed. The framework has been tested in real learning contexts and the results show that interoperability is possible, and that it benefits learners, teachers and institutions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Social service and disability in immigrant families: professionals views and strategies

Immigrant families with a member with disability represent a social group particularly at risk: their vulnerability, in fact, depends on both the disability and the migration experience. The paper presents a research work starting from a scoping study (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005), realized by analysing 94 scientific works collected through Scopus with the aim of highlighting the specific problems which immigrant families with disabilities have to deal with, what to do and the culturally sensitive intervention strategies effectively used by the services. Often, they lack informal support networks, they have social and/or economic disadvantages, they do not know how the educational, social and health institutions work. Therefore, they live in a multi-problem situation that requires health and social services to activate personalized assistance that takes into account cultural difference. Results from a quanti-qualitative research study conducted in the context of the Adult Disability Service in Padova will be also presented

Cohesion, commonality and creativity: youth work across borders

No abstract available

Managing ubiquitous eco cities: the role of urban telecommunication infrastructure networks and convergence technologies

A successful urban management system for a Ubiquitous Eco City requires an integrated approach. This integration includes bringing together economic, socio-cultural and urban development with a well orchestrated, transparent and open decision making mechanism and necessary infrastructure and technologies. Rapidly developing information and telecommunication technologies and their platforms in the late 20th Century improves urban management and enhances the quality of life and place. Telecommunication technologies provide an important base for monitoring and managing activities over wired, wireless or fibre-optic networks. Particularly technology convergence creates new ways in which the information and telecommunication technologies are used. The 21st Century is an era where information has converged, in which people are able to access a variety of services, including internet and location based services, through multi-functional devices such as mobile phones and provides opportunities in the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities. This paper discusses the recent developments in telecommunication networks and trends in convergence technologies and their implications on the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities and how this technological shift is likely to be beneficial in improving the quality of life and place. The paper also introduces recent approaches on urban management systems, such as intelligent urban management systems, that are suitable for Ubiquitous Eco Cities

An introduction to learning technology in tertiary education in the UK.

Contents: 1. The Learning Technology Arena 2. The Learning Technology Community 3. Learning Technology Tools 4. Key issues and developments in the Learning Technology Field 5. Implementing Learning Technologies 6. Further Resource

People Make the Difference: An Explorative Study on the Relationship between Organizational Practices, Employees’ Resources, and Organizational Behavior Enhancing the Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development

The most recent developments in the field of sustainability science and the emergence of a psychologyofsustainabilityandsustainabledevelopmenthavecontributedtocollectevidencesabout the fact that modern organizations need healthy and motivated employees to survive and to prosper within this fast-moving scenario. In this vein, a confirmation to these evidences came from the abundant research on HEalthy and Resilient Organizations (HERO), showing that when organizations make systematic, planned, and proactive efforts to improve employees’ subjective resources then organizational processes and outcomes benefit in turn. Moving forward from these premises, the presentstudyaimedtoexploretheseassumptionswithinthecontextofsmallandmediumenterprises (SMEs), investigating the relationships among the organizational practices, employees’ subjective resources, and organizational behaviors. Two hundred and thirty-six participants working in SMEs located in the south of Italy took part. They were invited to fill in a questionnaire investigating their perception of organizational resources and practices (autonomy, leadership, communication, organizational mindfulness, and commitment to resilience), of their individual resources (work engagement and psychological capital), and finally, of some organizational outcomes (extra-role behavior). Results showed that psychological capital was a significant mediator of the relationship betweenemployees’perceptionoftheorganizationalresourcesandpracticesandextra-rolebehaviors. Concrete implications of these conclusions in terms of human resource management (HRM) are discussed together with limitations of the study and future developments

Exploiting Social Annotation for Automatic Resource Discovery

Information integration applications, such as mediators or mashups, that require access to information resources currently rely on users manually discovering and integrating them in the application. Manual resource discovery is a slow process, requiring the user to sift through results obtained via keyword-based search. Although search methods have advanced to include evidence from document contents, its metadata and the contents and link structure of the referring pages, they still do not adequately cover information sources -- often called ``the hidden Web''-- that dynamically generate documents in response to a query. The recently popular social bookmarking sites, which allow users to annotate and share metadata about various information sources, provide rich evidence for resource discovery. In this paper, we describe a probabilistic model of the user annotation process in a social bookmarking system del.icio.us. We then use the model to automatically find resources relevant to a particular information domain. Our experimental results on data obtained from \emph{del.icio.us} show this approach as a promising method for helping automate the resource discovery task.Comment: 6 pages, submitted to AAAI07 workshop on Information Integration on the We

Conceptualising the research–practice–professional development nexus: mobilising schools as ‘research-engaged’ professional learning communities

This paper argues the need for coherent, holistic frameworks offering insightful understandings as well as viable, connected and synergistic solutions to schools in addressing pressing problems arising from the acknowledged gaps between research, practice and professional development. There is a need to conceptualise a comprehensive conceptual framework that rationalises, constructs and connects salient professional development concepts and practices fit for purpose in twenty-first-century schools. Specifically, three themes conceptualise existing problems faced by schools and their possible solutions: first, bridging the research–policy–practice gap by mobilising knowledge more effectively through knowledge producers and consumers working collaboratively; second, valuing and integrating both tacit knowledge and academic coded knowledge; and third, raising the professionalism and reflectivity of teachers and leaders. However, a new organisational and human infrastructure is needed to enable these solutions to be realised in school practice. Arguably, three responses are critical to this challenge of knowledge mobilisation; all are achievable through the powerful unifying concept of the ‘research-engaged school’. The three responses are: research engagement on the part of all teachers and leaders; creating schools and school networks as professional learning communities; and adopting a workable methodology (namely, research–design–development) for teachers and leaders to put research into practice and tailor innovations to specific school contexts