Legal crowdsourcing and relational law : what the semantic web can do for legal education

Crowdsourcing and Relational Law are interrelated concepts that can be successfully applied to the legal domain and, more specifically, to the field of legal education. 'Crowdsourcing' means 'participation of people (crowds)' and refers theoretically to the aggregated production of a common knowledge in a global data space. 'Relational law' refers to the regulatory link between Web 2.0 and 3.0, based on trust and dialogue, which emerges from the intertwining of top-down existing legal systems and bottom-up participation (the Web of People). Legal education today has a major role to play in the broad space opened up in terms of future potential of the Semantic Web. The following paper places a lens on the educational value of crowdsourcing and the relational approach to governance and law

Crowdsourcing Cognitive Presence: A Quantitative Content Analysis of a K12 Educator MOOC Discussion Forum

Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer participants opportunities to engage with content and discussion forums similar to other online courses. Pedagogical components of MOOCs and the nature of learning are worth of examining due to issues involving scale, interaction and the role of the instructor (Ross, Sinclair, Know, Bayne & McLeod, 2014). The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework provides a basis for measuring cognitive presence in online discussion forums. As voluntary point of entry to a community of learners, it is important to consider the nature of participant contributions in terms of cognitive presence. This study focused on an educator MOOC because MOOCs have been proposed as an efficient vehicle for providing professional development due to the significant self-identification of participants as educators (Ho et al. 2014). Participant attributes have been categorized, however the discussion forum is difficult to study on a massive scale (Kizilcec, Piech, & Schulz, 2013). Automated measures of cognitive presence may not provide the full view of learning behaviors implicit in messages posted to the forums (Wong, Pursel, Divinsky & Jansen, 2015). To address this gap, the forum messages were hand-coded and analyzed using quantitative content analysis (Neuendorf, 2002). The study found that the measure of exploration increased over the duration of the course. Viewing cognitive presence over time provided a new metaphor for explaining the proportions of cognitive presence in the discussion forum of an educator MOOC. This finding suggests that increased instructor presence during the later stages of the course may increase cognitive presence over time (Akyol & Garrison, 2007; Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005)

MOOCS: What The Open University research tells us

This quality enhancement report recommends priority areas for university activity in relation to massive open online courses (MOOCs). It does this by bringing together all The Open University’s published research work in this area from the launch of the first MOOC in 2008 until February 2016. This includes work by 56 OU authors based in 11 units and regions

MOOCKnowledge: Establishing a large-scale data-collection about participants of European Open Online Courses

While MOOCS have emerged as a new form of open online education around the world,there are still no cross- provider and large-scale data collections that provides reliable information about demographic details of the population of MOOC participants on the one hand, and their motivation, intentions, social context, lifelong learning profile and impact on study success and career development on the other hand. The MOOCKnowledge project is an initiative to establish a large-scale data-collection about participants of European MOOCs. In this paper we describe the motivation behind the project and discuss the research focus. We explain the structure of the survey instrument, report about the data collection process and provide an outlook on potential future developments of the project.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Advancing Namibian Higher Education: Promoting the Debut of MOOCs in Namibia

This project aided the Teaching and Learning Unit at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), in Windhoek, Namibia, in promoting the launch of two Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) at the university–the first such initiative in Namibia. The team collaborated with student volunteers and NUST staff to develop a promotional strategy consisting of videos, posters, emails, radio advertisements, and face-to-face promotion. This promotional strategy supported the MOOC launch, contributing to a 160% increase in enrolled students. The results indicated that email, digital posters and videos distributed through Facebook were the most effective methods. These methods formed the basis of a refined promotional strategy for future MOOC promotion at NUST

Overview and Analysis of Practices with Open Educational Resources in Adult Education in Europe

OER4Adults aimed to provide an overview of Open Educational Practices in adult learning in Europe, identifying enablers and barriers to successful implementation of practices with OER. The project was conducted in 2012-2013 by a team from the Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University, funded by The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS). The project drew on data from four main sources: • OER4Adults inventory of over 150 OER initiatives relevant to adult learning in Europe • Responses from the leaders of 36 OER initiatives to a detailed SWOT survey • Responses from 89 lifelong learners and adult educators to a short poll • The Vision Papers on Open Education 2030: Lifelong Learning published by IPTS Interpretation was informed by interviews with OER and adult education experts, discussion at the IPTS Foresight Workshop on Open Education and Lifelong Learning 2030, and evaluation of the UKOER programme. Analysis revealed 6 tensions that drive developing practices around OER in adult learning as well 6 summary recommendations for the further development of such practices

The Art and Science of Data-Driven Journalism

Journalists have been using data in their stories for as long as the profession has existed. A revolution in computing in the 20th century created opportunities for data integration into investigations, as journalists began to bring technology into their work. In the 21st century, a revolution in connectivity is leading the media toward new horizons. The Internet, cloud computing, agile development, mobile devices, and open source software have transformed the practice of journalism, leading to the emergence of a new term: data journalism. Although journalists have been using data in their stories for as long as they have been engaged in reporting, data journalism is more than traditional journalism with more data. Decades after early pioneers successfully applied computer-assisted reporting and social science to investigative journalism, journalists are creating news apps and interactive features that help people understand data, explore it, and act upon the insights derived from it. New business models are emerging in which data is a raw material for profit, impact, and insight, co-created with an audience that was formerly reduced to passive consumption. Journalists around the world are grappling with the excitement and the challenge of telling compelling stories by harnessing the vast quantity of data that our increasingly networked lives, devices, businesses, and governments produce every day. While the potential of data journalism is immense, the pitfalls and challenges to its adoption throughout the media are similarly significant, from digital literacy to competition for scarce resources in newsrooms. Global threats to press freedom, digital security, and limited access to data create difficult working conditions for journalists in many countries. A combination of peer-to-peer learning, mentorship, online training, open data initiatives, and new programs at journalism schools rising to the challenge, however, offer reasons to be optimistic about more journalists learning to treat data as a source

Delivering together for inclusive development : digital access to Information and knowledge for persons with disabilities

This report focuses on digital inclusion as it relates to four of the 17 Goals for the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda: SDG 9 - Innovation, Industry, and Infrastructure, SDG 16 - Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals, SDG 4 - Quality Education. For each of the goals, a number of major challenges and key recommendations are defined. Finally, general recommendations are given for improving global digital inclusion overall