Consistency analysis in multi-language knowledge sharing system

Unprecedented growth in knowledge sharing among multi-language communities, both common and distinct languages, has raised the possibility of sharing inconsistent content. Though popular with traditional system, the approach to explicitly state consistency rules to avoid inconsistency is practically not suited for multi-language knowledge sharing system because of sheer complexity. Alternatively this chapter focuses on potential cause of inconsistency, cases such as content omitted, content updates not propagated and content conflicts. Ignoring such cases in knowledge sharing has undesirable consequences: community bias, global and local inconsistency and regional discrepancies. Consistency constraints from opposing knowledge sharing goals among communities is another issue. Due to which consistency policy ranges from rigid ‘one to one consistency’ to non-rigid ‘consistency where needed’. This chapter contributes with (a) process-based approach for multilingual content synchronization to leverage knowledge equally and (b) propagation-based approach to analyze community preferences when sharing specific content categories/geographic regions, to customize knowledge sharing; a value add-on to designing language services adhering to knowledge sharing goals. © 2018, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd

Transformative ICT education practices in rural secondary schools for developmental needs and realities: the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

The perceived social development significance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has dramatically expanded the domains in which this cluster of ICTs is being discussed and acted upon. The action to promote community development in rural areas in South Africa has made its way into the introduction of ICT education in secondary schools. Since rural secondary schools form part of the framework for rural communities, they are being challenged to provide ICT education that makes a difference in learners’ lives. This requires engaging education practices that inspire learners to construct knowledge of ICT that does not only respond to examination purposes but rather, to the needs and development aspirations of the community. This research examines the experience of engaging learners and communities in socially informed ICT education in rural secondary schools. Specifically, it seeks to develop a critique of current practices involved in ICT education in rural secondary schools, and explores plausible alternatives to such practices that would make ICT education more transformative and structured towards the developmental concerns of communities. The main empirical focus for the research was five rural secondary schools in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. The research involved 53 participants that participated in a socially informed ICT training process. The training was designed to inspire participants to share their self-defined ICT education and ICT knowledge experiences. Critical Action Learning and Philosophical Inquiry provided the methodological framework, whilst the theoretical framework draws on Foucault’s philosophical ideas on power-knowledge relations. Through this theoretical analysis, the research examines the dynamic interplay of practices in ICT education with the values, ideals, and knowledge that form the core-life experiences of learners and rural communities. The research findings of this study indicate that current ICT education practices in rural secondary schools are endowed with ideologies that are affecting learners’ identity, social experiences, power, and ownership of the reflective meaning of using ICTs in community development. The contribution of this thesis lies in demonstrating ways that reframe ICT education transformatively, and more specifically its practices in the light of the way power, identity, ownership and social experience construct and offer learners a transformative view of self and the world. This could enable ICT education to fulfil the potential of contributing to social development in rural communities. The thesis culminates by presenting a theoretical framework that articulates the structural and authoritative components of ICT education practices – these relate to learners’ conscious understandings and represented thoughts, sensations and meanings embedded in the context, and actions and locations of using their knowledge of ICT