Researching ‘‘Grand Challenges’’ - A ‘‘Grand Challenge’’

Attempts have been made to identify the grand challenges (GC) in quite different disciplines including Computer Science. These major problems should be solved within one or two generations and the solution would have great societal and economic impact. GCs are to be distinguished from the improvement of methods where the basic problem has already been solved (“emerging fields”). Among other purposes, a common understanding of GCs within a community helps to focus efforts and resources and to create a climate of competition. With our study we try to gain an impression whether a certain consensus is within reach in Business and Information Systems Engineering (BISE; Wirtschaftsinformatik, WI) in the German speaking area. We used a multi-staged opinion survey among scientists and practitioners of WI and could establish an order of precedence concerning the most important GCs. At the top ranks the item “Control of systemic risks in global networks”, followed by “Humanlike Information Systems in business context”, “Determining the influences on the degree of automation und integration”, “Influence of WI on the solution of semantic data processing problems”, and “Overcoming of communication barriers in inter-company integration”. We discuss drawbacks of the GC concept as well as attempts to improve the method. One main problem is to distinguish the terms “grand challenges” (GC), “emerging fields” (EF), and “new research goals” (NR)

Grand Challenges of Researching Adolescent Online Safety: A Family Systems Approach

Protecting adolescents from online safety risks is a major contemporary concern, and researching adolescent online safety is equally as challenging. Relatively few researchers have studied adolescent online safety, but the studies that do exist have documented threats from privacy breaches, cyberbullying, sexual predation, and other types of risk exposure. The grand challenge, however, is how we can approach these problems in a way that will protect adolescents while allowing them to engage socially online. We discuss two key challenges: operationalizing online safety; and defining online risks. We propose that Information Systems (IS) researchers should leverage family systems theory, a methodological approach grounded in developmental psychology, in order to address adolescent online safety issues

Methods and models of next generation technology enhanced learning - White Paper

Our understanding of learning with technology is increasingly lagging behind technological advancements, such that it is no longer possible to fully understand learning with technologies without bringing together evidence from practice-based experiences and theoretical insight to inform research, design, policy and practice. Furthermore, whilst practical experiences and theoretical insights make significant contributions towards understanding learning with new technologies, the dynamic nature of learner practices and study contexts make it difficult to predict future requirements in terms of methods and models for next generation technology enhanced learning. We therefore require formal and comprehensive methods and models of learning with technology that accommodate theory and practice whilst allowing us to anticipate methodological innovations that capture future transitions and changes in learner practices and study contexts, in order to inform research, design, policy and practice. Workshop participants represented different communities of interest including research, design, evaluation and assessment. The overall objective was to anticipate methodological innovations in technology enhanced learning research and design over the next 5/10 years

Grand Tour – a film in-debt(ed): Exploring the possibilities of the essayistic filmmaking form.

This practice-as-research thesis concentrates on the field of essayistic filmmaking. Through my practice and the written thesis, I explore how the montage of interwoven layers of images, sound, interactivity and networking connectivity can potentially expand the conventions of essayistic filmmaking practice. At the heart of my research is the creative practice of researching and developing an online essay film, Grand Tour a film in-debt(ed). The film explores an alternative reading of the recent Greek financial crisis without explicitly addressing the crisis, but in the tradition of essayistic filmmaking, by exploring the disjunctive threads that make links with the past and open the present to new interpretations. The development of Grand Tour is grounded in multiple iterative prototypes. Based on this incremental research process, I explore the possibilities of multiple interwoven layers of montage and the new creative potentials this creates for essayistic filmmaking practice. I define the montage of multiple interwoven temporalities as metabatic, and through the practice of developing Grand Tour, I suggest an alternative way of thinking about the recent Greek financial crisis which challenges the dominant narratives. My inspiration for developing Grand Tour is drawn from the writings of European travellers who visited Greece in the 18th and 19th centuries. For more than eight years I immersed myself in extensive archival research and developed several online film prototypes. Through this research I understood the role that these travellers had in the formation of the emerging modern Greek identity and explored their links to subsequent political and financial interventions and the accumulation of debt in the modern Greek state. Following the essayistic filmmaking tradition, I dialectically associate the financial debt with the cultural debt of ancient Greece, suggesting modes of ambiguity and speculative thinking that describe Greece as a place in a constantly disjointed state, defined by a series of fragmented political, economic and cultural past and present encounters. The creative process of my practice is a montage of multiple disjunctive fragments where linearity is constantly disrupted. My iterative creative practice and the disjunctive nature of the film do not offer specific answers and fixed interpretations. Instead, they suggest and explore questions, and enable new essayistic threads, that challenge the current limited narratives about the Greek financial crisis

Reducing the burden of depression in youth: what are the implications of neuroscience and genetics on policies and programs?

Mood disorders are a leading cause of the burden of disease in youth. Three critical lessons emerge from the reviews in this issue that are relevant to our understanding of these common mental disorders: first, that the brain is in a highly dynamic stage of its development during youth; second, that environmental factors interact with genetic factors to influence the probability of risk behaviors and dysphoric states; and third, that shared developmental and genetic factors may account for the bulk of emotional and behavioral outcomes in youth, and that environmental influences may affect the specific expression of the phenotypes associated with these pathways. Although this evidence does not immediately indicate the potential for new interventions, it is consistent with current policy and practice recommendations. Interventions should focus on both improving the early detection and management of depressive disorders as well as preventive strategies that aim to train children and youth to improve cognitive control and manage stress more effectively. Limiting access to harmful risk-taking situations and providing opportunities to engage are less harmful, but equally exciting, alternatives in a pragmatic universal prevention policy option. Key research priorities and paradigms emerge from this evidence, particularly in the context of the grand challenges in global mental health

Integrated environmental modeling : the new DREAM for Geological Surveys

This paper summarises the British Geological Survey (BGS) plans for the development of integrated environmental models to address the grand challenges that face society. It describes a vision for an Environmental Modelling Platform (BGS 2009), that will allow integrated models to be built and describes case studies of emerging models in the United Kingdom. After an initial scoping phase (Giles et al. 2010), this activity is now being carried out under the DREAM (Data and Research for Environmental Applications and Modelling) cross-cutting project

The Grand Challenge of Carbon Sequestration

This paper won a third place writing flag award in the collaborative category. Clayton Lawrence, Thomas Nguyen, Mitchell Tomazin, and Norberto Martinez, writing for Brandi DeMont 's ASE 333T class, " Engineering Communication ".DeMont, BrandiUndergraduate Studie

Q & A with Dean Victoria McGillin

After 11 months on the job, Victoria McGillin, dean of faculty, discusses how success of a Linfield education can be measured