A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education

This review focuses on the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. It provides a synthesis of the research literature in the field and a series of illustrative examples of how these tools are being used in learning and teaching. It draws out the perceived benefits that these new technologies appear to offer, and highlights some of the challenges and issues surrounding their use. The review forms the basis for a HE Academy funded project, ‘Peals in the Cloud’, which is exploring how Web 2.0 tools can be used to support evidence-based practices in learning and teaching. The project has also produced two in-depth case studies, which are reported elsewhere (Galley et al., 2010, Alevizou et al., 2010). The case studies focus on evaluation of a recently developed site for learning and teaching, Cloudworks, which harnesses Web 2.0 functionality to facilitate the sharing and discussion of educational practice. The case studies aim to explore to what extent the Web 2.0 affordances of the site are successfully promoting the sharing of ideas, as well as scholarly reflections, on learning and teaching

Learning Resource Referencing, Search and Aggregation at the eLearning System Level

TELOS is a new eLearning system being built within the Canadian LORNET project. TELOS aims to provide an open operating system in which users can develop and use eLearning and knowledge management resources and environments within a service-oriented and ontology-driven framework. A special emphasis is put on the aggregation of resources through a graphic scenario editor and the referencing of the resources using a knowledge and competency representation. We advocate that this approach is necessary for federated search or harvesting tools to be well integrated and find meaningful learning resources that need to be repurposed and aggregated, taking in account the diversity of technologies, pedagogical intent and referencing schemas

Мультиагентая Система для Интеллектуального Анализа Документов

В статье представлены промежуточные результаты реализации комплексного подхода к разработке подсистемы управления электронными документами в CASE-системе METAS, предназначенной для создания распределенных информационных систем, допускающих динамическую настройку на меняющиеся условия эксплуатации и потребности пользователей. Предлагается значительно увеличить эффективность работы с электронными документами за счет их автоматизированного интеллектуального анализа. В предлагаемом решении для анализа документов используются агентный и онтологический подходы. Онтологии позволяют в явном виде представить семантику и структуру документа. Использование агентов позволяет упростить процесс анализа, сделать его расширяемым и масштабируемым. Результаты интеллектуального поиска и обработки документов, получаемых из гетерогенных источников, могут быть использованы не только для автоматической классификации и каталогизации документов в информационной системе в удобной для пользователя форме, но и для снижения трудоемкости выполнения этапа анализа предметной области информационной системы, ее проектирования, а также для интеллектуализации процессов создания отчетных документов на основе информации, размещенной в базе данных системы

How Implementing a Digital Competency Management System Reduced Nurse Training Cost and Improved NPD Practitioner Satisfaction in a Pediatric Hospital

Healthcare organizations must have high-quality nursing staff to deliver optimal patient care. Educators and managers evaluate nurses by their performance through nursing competencies, or “knowledge, skills, [and] abilities” (KSA) (American Nurses Association, 2015, p. 86). Traditional competency evaluations and manual tracking posed a problem within one pediatric hospital. Leaders did not have a transparent way to see the knowledge and skills of their nursing staff. This resulted in increased organizational costs due to retraining and increased workload and job dissatisfaction among educators. The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) project was to evaluate how implementing a digital competency management system (CMS) affected nurse training costs and assess nursing professional development (NPD) practitioners’ satisfaction after the digital CMS conversion. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to guide the QI project. The student conducted a cost analysis and measured nurse training cost prior to and after implementing a digital competency management system. The student also administered pre- and post-survey evaluations to determine NPD practitioners’ satisfaction before and after digital implementation. Retrospective data of training costs were collected prior to implementing the CMS. A Wilcoxon signed rank test compared the medians to examine the pre and post survey results of NPD practitioners’ satisfaction scores. The quality improvement project demonstrated that a digital CMS reduced nurse training costs by more than a half a million dollars and increased NPD practitioners’ satisfaction

Inside-Out Pedagogies: Transformative Innovations for Environmental and Sustainability Education

abstract: Institutions of higher learning can be centers of meaning-making and learning and are expected to play a pivotal role in a global shift toward sustainability. Despite recent innovations, much sustainability education today is still delivered using traditional pedagogies common across higher education. Therefore, students and facilitators should continue innovating along pedagogical themes consistent with the goals of sustainability: transformation and emancipation. Yet, more clarity is needed about pedagogical approaches that will transform and emancipate students, allowing them to become innovators that change existing structures and systems. My dissertation attempts to address this need using three approaches. First, I present a framework combining four interacting (i.e., complementary) pedagogies (transmissive, transformative, instrumental, and emancipatory) for sustainability education, helping to reify pedagogical concepts, rebel against outdated curricula, and orient facilitators/learners on their journey toward transformative and emancipatory learning. Second, I use a descriptive case study of a sustainability education course set outside of the traditional higher education context to highlight pedagogical techniques that led to transformative and emancipatory outcomes for learners partaking in the course. Third, I employ the method of autoethnography to explore my own phenomenological experience as a sustainability student and classroom facilitator, helping others to identify the disenchanting paradoxes of sustainability education and integrate the lessons they hold. All three approaches of the dissertation maintain a vision of sustainability education that incorporates contemplative practices as essential methods in a field in need of cultivating hope, resilience, and emergence.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Sustainability 201

Landscape Analysis for the Specimen Data Refinery

This report reviews the current state-of-the-art applied approaches on automated tools, services and workflows for extracting information from images of natural history specimens and their labels. We consider the potential for repurposing existing tools, including workflow management systems; and areas where more development is required. This paper was written as part of the SYNTHESYS+ project for software development teams and informatics teams working on new software-based approaches to improve mass digitisation of natural history specimens