Vicarious learning through capturing task‐directed discussions

The vicarious learner group has been developing a multimedia database system to promote and enhance the role of dialogue in learning. A specific interest, and the origin of the projects' collective name, is in the question of whether and how dialogue can be helpfully ‘reused’. What benefits can students gain from dialogue as observers, not just as participants? We describe our initial attempts to generate and capture educationally effective discourse exchanges amongst and between students and tutors. Problems encountered with available CMC discourse formats led to our development of a set of Task Directed Discussions (TDDs). A medium‐sized corpus of discourse exchanges was collected using the TDDs. A selection of nearly two hundred of these TDD exchanges formed the multimedia discourse database to the implemented prototype system, Dissemination. Initial results from a controlled experiment and evaluation of Dissemination are outline

Digital libraries in a clinical setting: Friend or foe?

Clinical requirements for quick accessibility to reputable, up-to-date information have increased the importance of web accessible digital libraries for this user community. To understand the social and organisational impacts of ward-accessible digital libraries (DLs) for clinicians, we conducted a study of clinicians. perceptions of electronic information resources within a large London based hospital. The results highlight that although these resources appear to be a relatively innocuous means of information provision (i.e. no sensitive data) social and organisational issues can impede effective technology deployment. Clinical social structures, which produce information. and technology. hoarding behaviours can result from poor training, support and DL usability

Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Abstracts 2005

Proceedings of the Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Regional Conference held at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 2005

A schema-based P2P network to enable publish-subscribe for multimedia content in open hypermedia systems

Open Hypermedia Systems (OHS) aim to provide efficient dissemination, adaptation and integration of hyperlinked multimedia resources. Content available in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks could add significant value to OHS provided that challenges for efficient discovery and prompt delivery of rich and up-to-date content are successfully addressed. This paper proposes an architecture that enables the operation of OHS over a P2P overlay network of OHS servers based on semantic annotation of (a) peer OHS servers and of (b) multimedia resources that can be obtained through the link services of the OHS. The architecture provides efficient resource discovery. Semantic query-based subscriptions over this P2P network can enable access to up-to-date content, while caching at certain peers enables prompt delivery of multimedia content. Advanced query resolution techniques are employed to match different parts of subscription queries (subqueries). These subscriptions can be shared among different interested peers, thus increasing the efficiency of multimedia content dissemination

Federated and autonomic management of multimedia services

Over the years, the Internet has significantly evolved in size and complexity. Additionally, the modern multimedia services it offers have considerably more stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements than traditional static services. These factors contribute to the ever-increasing complexity and cost to manage the Internet and its services. In the dissertation, a novel network management architecture is proposed to overcome these problems. It supports QoS-guarantees of multimedia services across the Internet, by setting up end-to-end network federations. A network federation is defined as a persistent cross-organizational agreement that enables the cooperating networks to share capabilities. Additionally, the architecture incorporates aspects from autonomic network management to tackle the ever-growing management complexity of modern communications networks. Specifically, a hierarchical approach is presented, which guarantees scalable collaboration of huge amounts of self-governing autonomic management components

Acceptability of medical digital libraries

Evidenced-based medicine has increased the importance of quick accessibility to reputable, upto-date information. Web-accessible digital libraries (DLs) on the wards can address the demand for such information. The use and acceptability of these resources has, however, been lower than expected due to a poor understanding of the context of use. To appreciate the social and organizational impacts of ward-accessible DLs for clinicians, results of a study within a large London-based hospital are presented. In-depth interviews and focus groups with 73 clinicians (from pre-registration nurses to surgeons) were conducted, and the data analysed using the grounded theory method. It was found that clinical social structures interact with inadequate training provision (for senior clinicians), technical support and DL usability to produce a knowledge gap between junior and senior staff, resulting in information – and technology – hoarding behaviours. Findings also detail the perceived effectiveness of traditional and digital libraries and the impact of clinician status on information control and access. One important conclusion is that increased DL usability and adequate support and training for senior clinicians would increase perceptions of DLs as support for, rather than replacement of, their clinical expertise. © 2002, The Continuum Publishing Group Ltd. All rights reserved

Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality

Building upon a process-and context-oriented information quality framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities. A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media, youth, and information quality -- primarily works from library and information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic studies -- reveals patterns in youth's information-seeking behavior, but also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors both for search and evaluation. Looking at the phenomenon from an information-learning and educational perspective, the literature shows that youth develop competencies for personal goals that sometimes do not transfer to school, and are sometimes not appropriate for school. Thus far, educational initiatives to educate youth about search, evaluation, or creation have depended greatly on the local circumstances for their success or failure

Museum Experience Design: A Modern Storytelling Methodology

In this paper we propose a new direction for design, in the context of the theme “Next Digital Technologies in Arts and Culture”, by employing modern methods based on Interaction Design, Interactive Storytelling and Artificial Intelligence. Focusing on Cultural Heritage, we propose a new paradigm for Museum Experience Design, facilitating on the one hand traditional visual and multimedia communication and, on the other, a new type of interaction with artefacts, in the form of a Storytelling Experience. Museums are increasingly being transformed into hybrid spaces, where virtual (digital) information coexists with tangible artefacts. In this context, “Next Digital Technologies” play a new role, providing methods to increase cultural accessibility and enhance experience. Not only is the goal to convey stories hidden inside artefacts, as well as items or objects connected to them, but it is also to pave the way for the creation of new ones through an interactive museum experience that continues after the museum visit ends. Social sharing, in particular, can greatly increase the value of dissemination