Identification and classification of shareable tacit knowledge associated with experience in the Chinese software industry sector

The study reported in this thesis aimed to provide an ontology of professional activities in the software industry that require and enable the acquisition of experience and that, in turn, is the basis for tacit knowledge creation. The rationale behind the creation of such an ontology was based on the need to externalise this tacit knowledge and then record such externalisations so that these can be shared and disseminated across organisations through electronic records management. The research problem here is to conciliate highly theoretical principles associated with tacit knowledge and the ill-defined and quasi-colloquial concept of experience into a tool that can be used by more technical and explicit knowledge minded practitioners of electronic records management. The ontology produced and proposed here provides exactly such a bridge, by identifying what aspects of professional and personal experience should be captured and organising these aspects into an explicit classification that can be used to capture the tacit knowledge and codify it into explicit knowledge. Since such ontologies are always closely related to actual contexts of practice, the researcher decided to choose her own national context of China, where she had worked before and had good guarantees of industrial access. This study used a multiple case-study Straussian Grounded Theory inductive approach. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews in order to get direct interaction with practitioners in the field and capture individuals opinions and perceptions, as well as interpret individuals understandings associated with these processes. The interviews were conducted in three different and representative types of company (SMEs, State Owned and Large Private) in an attempt to capture a rich variety of possible contexts in the SW sector in a Chinese context. Data analysis was conducted according to coding the procedures advocated by Grounded Theory, namely: open, axial and selective coding. Data collection and analysis was conducted until the emergent theory reached theoretical saturation. The theory generated identified 218 different codes out of 797 representative quotations. These codes were grouped and organised into a category hierarchy that includes 6 main categories and 31 sub-categories, which are, in turn, represented in the ontology proposed. This emergent theory indicates in a very concise manner that experienced SW development practitioners in China should be able to understand the nature and value of experience in the SW industry, effectively communicate with other stake holders in the SW development process, be able and motivated to actively engage with continuous professional development, be able to share knowledge with peers and the profession at large, effectively work on projects and exhibit a sound professional attitude both internally to their own company and externally to customers, partners and even competitors. This basic theory was then further analysed by applying selective coding. This resulted in a main theory centred on Working in Projects, which was clearly identified as the core activity in the SW Industry reflecting its design and development nature. Directly related with the core category, three other significant categories were identified as enablers: Communication, Knowledge Sharing and Individual Development. Additionally, Understanding the Nature of Experience in the SW Industry and Professional Attitude were identified as drivers for the entire process of reflection, experience acquisition and tacit knowledge construction by the individual practitioners. Finally, as an integral part of any inductive process of research, the final stage in this study was to position the emerged theory in the body of knowledge. This resulted in the understanding that the theory presented in this study bridges two extremely large bodies of literature: employability skills and competencies. Both of these bodies of literature put their emphasis in explicit knowledge concerning skills and competencies that are defined so that they can be measured and assessed. The focus of the theory proposed in this thesis on experience and resulting acquisition of tacit knowledge allows a natural link between the employability skills and competencies in the SW industry that was hitherto lacking in the body of knowledge. The ontology proposed is of interest to academics in the areas of knowledge management, electronic records management and information systems. The same ontology may be of interest to human resources practitioners to select and develop experienced personnel as well as knowledge and information professionals in organisations

Supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in the educational technology sector to become more research-minded: Introduction to a small collection

The EDUCAtional Technology Exchange programme (EDUCATE) at UCL Institute of Education provides the context for this paper, which describes the programme’s vision, objectives and key activities, and sets the context for the collection of articles that follow. This university-led programme was underpinned by Luckin’s (2016) golden triangle of evidence-informed educational technology (edtech) as it sought to support 252 small and medium-sized enterprises to become more research-informed through a six-month research training and mentoring programme. The evaluation of the programme’s design-based research cycles revealed the importance of the careful choice and evolution of its boundary objects. These boundary objects, namely each enterprise’s ‘logic model’ and research proposal, facilitated meaningful conversations between the programme’s research mentors and the enterprises. These boundary objects involved several iterations, during which the language of the two communities became more aligned, helping to bridge the academic knowledge and practices with those of the enterprises

Models for Learning (Mod4L) Final Report: Representing Learning Designs

The Mod4L Models of Practice project is part of the JISC-funded Design for Learning Programme. It ran from 1 May – 31 December 2006. The philosophy underlying the project was that a general split is evident in the e-learning community between development of e-learning tools, services and standards, and research into how teachers can use these most effectively, and is impeding uptake of new tools and methods by teachers. To help overcome this barrier and bridge the gap, a need is felt for practitioner-focused resources which describe a range of learning designs and offer guidance on how these may be chosen and applied, how they can support effective practice in design for learning, and how they can support the development of effective tools, standards and systems with a learning design capability (see, for example, Griffiths and Blat 2005, JISC 2006). Practice models, it was suggested, were such a resource. The aim of the project was to: develop a range of practice models that could be used by practitioners in real life contexts and have a high impact on improving teaching and learning practice. We worked with two definitions of practice models. Practice models are: 1. generic approaches to the structuring and orchestration of learning activities. They express elements of pedagogic principle and allow practitioners to make informed choices (JISC 2006) However, however effective a learning design may be, it can only be shared with others through a representation. The issue of representation of learning designs is, then, central to the concept of sharing and reuse at the heart of JISC’s Design for Learning programme. Thus practice models should be both representations of effective practice, and effective representations of practice. Hence we arrived at the project working definition of practice models as: 2. Common, but decontextualised, learning designs that are represented in a way that is usable by practitioners (teachers, managers, etc).(Mod4L working definition, Falconer & Littlejohn 2006). A learning design is defined as the outcome of the process of designing, planning and orchestrating learning activities as part of a learning session or programme (JISC 2006). Practice models have many potential uses: they describe a range of learning designs that are found to be effective, and offer guidance on their use; they support sharing, reuse and adaptation of learning designs by teachers, and also the development of tools, standards and systems for planning, editing and running the designs. The project took a practitioner-centred approach, working in close collaboration with a focus group of 12 teachers recruited across a range of disciplines and from both FE and HE. Focus group members are listed in Appendix 1. Information was gathered from the focus group through two face to face workshops, and through their contributions to discussions on the project wiki. This was supplemented by an activity at a JISC pedagogy experts meeting in October 2006, and a part workshop at ALT-C in September 2006. The project interim report of August 2006 contained the outcomes of the first workshop (Falconer and Littlejohn, 2006). The current report refines the discussion of issues of representing learning designs for sharing and reuse evidenced in the interim report and highlights problems with the concept of practice models (section 2), characterises the requirements teachers have of effective representations (section 3), evaluates a number of types of representation against these requirements (section 4), explores the more technically focused role of sequencing representations and controlled vocabularies (sections 5 & 6), documents some generic learning designs (section 8.2) and suggests ways forward for bridging the gap between teachers and developers (section 2.6). All quotations are taken from the Mod4L wiki unless otherwise stated

Description of six scenarios and of the results of six validated trials

Description of six scenarios and of the results of six validated trialsThis deliverable aims at presenting and analysing the processes of elaboration and validation of the PALETTE scenarios. After having defined these two processes and situated them into the PALETTE methodology, the scenarios are presented. For each scenario, the specific methodology of elaboration and validation is described with a special focus on the participation of the concerned Communities of Pratcice (CoPs). Then the results of the validation are presented as well as the reports of their technical feasability and the usability of PALETTE services from a user perspective. Finally we reflect on and we discuss about the whole process of validation of the scenarios and we describe the next steps towards the development of the scenarios and their trilas with the CoPs

The Digital Architectures of Social Media: Comparing Political Campaigning on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat in the 2016 U.S. Election

The present study argues that political communication on social media is mediated by a platform's digital architecture, defined as the technical protocols that enable, constrain, and shape user behavior in a virtual space. A framework for understanding digital architectures is introduced, and four platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat) are compared along the typology. Using the 2016 US election as a case, interviews with three Republican digital strategists are combined with social media data to qualify the studyies theoretical claim that a platform's network structure, functionality, algorithmic filtering, and datafication model affect political campaign strategy on social media

ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.

The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected, augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge

Eight Observations and 24 Research Questions About Open Source Projects: Illuminating New Realities

The rapid acceleration of corporate engagement with open source projects is drawing out new ways for CSCW researchers to consider the dynamics of these projects. Research must now consider the complex ecosystems within which open source projects are situated, including issues of for-profit motivations, brokering foundations, and corporate collaboration. Localized project considerations cannot reveal broader workings of an open source ecosystem, yet much empirical work is constrained to a local context. In response, we present eight observations from our eight-year engaged field study about the changing nature of open source projects. We ground these observations through 24 research questions that serve as primers to spark research ideas in this new reality of open source projects. This paper contributes to CSCW in social and crowd computing by delivering a rich and fresh look at corporately-engaged open source projects with a call for renewed focus and research into newly emergent areas of interest

Interactive situation modelling in knowledge intensive domains

Interactive Situation Modelling (ISM) method, a semi-methodological approach, is proposed to tackle issues associated with modelling complex knowledge intensive domains, which cannot be easily modelled using traditional approaches. This paper presents the background and implementation of ISM within a complex domain, where synthesizing knowledge from various sources is critical, and is based on the principles of ethnography within a constructivist framework. Although the motivation for the reported work comes from the application presented in the paper, the actual scope of the paper covers a wide range of issues related to modelling complex systems. The author firstly reviews approaches used for modelling knowledge intensive domains, preceded by a brief discussion about two main issues: symmetry of ignorance and system behaviour, which are often confronted when applying modelling approaches to business domains. The ISM process is then characterized and critiqued with lessons from an exemplar presented to illustrate its effectiveness