A new approach to collaborative creativity support of new product designers

Bitter-Rijpkema, M., Sloep, P. B., Sie, R., Van Rosmalen, P., Retalis, S., & Katsamani, M. (2011). A new approach to collaborative creativity support of new product designers. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 7(4), 478-492. DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2011.042992Effective collaborative creativity is crucial to contemporary professionals who have to continuously produce innovative products and services. The technological nature and complexity of the innovations require team work, among specialists from different disciplines. Often these teams work in a distributed fashion, across boundaries of time and place. Therefore they need electronic “spaces” that support (‘afford’) their creative collaboration. Co-creativity support is not only a matter of making appropriate groupware spaces available but also of providing concurrent support in all these dimensions. These considerations inspired the development of the idSpace platform. idSpace is a collaboration platform integrating a variety of creativity tools with pedagogy-based guidance. It aims to optimize both the use of creativity techniques themselves and of the supporting processes of team collaboration and knowledge creation. In this paper we zoom in on Knowledge-sharing Strategies for Collaborative Creativity (KS4CC). We show how collaborative creativity can be enhanced via integration of pattern-based pedagogical flow support, including suggestions of optimal use of creativity techniques. The KS4CC strategies consist of a merger of learning and collaboration flow patterns with support for the application of creative techniques

Educational Innovation with Learning Networks: Tools and Developments

Professional Development is ill served by traditional ways of learning. It can profit from a Learning Networks approach, which emphasizes logistic, content and didactic flexibility. Learning Networks are online, social networks that have been de- signed and tooled to foster informal learning. Three European projects are discussed – idSpace, LTfLL, Handover - which have developed tools befitting networked learning. Each in its own way, the projects illustrate the benefits of a networked learning ap- proach. This goes for all three flexibilities but in particular for the need to be didactical- ly flexible. Finally, it is argued that formal education could profit from the tools dis- cussed

Educational Innovation with Learning Networks: some pertinent tools and developments

Sloep, P. B., Berlanga, A. J., Greller, W., Stoyanov, S., Retalis, S., Van der Klink, M. et al. (2011). Educational Innovation with Learning Networks: some pertinent tools and developments. Paper presented at the 2nd International Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, Quality of Teaching and Reforming Education: Learning Technologies, Quality of Education, Educational Systems, Evaluation, Pedagogies (TECH-EDUCATION 2011). May, 18-20, 2011, Corfu, Greece.Professional Development is ill served by traditional ways of learn- ing. It can profit from a Learning Networks approach, which emphasizes lo- gistic, content and didactic flexibility. Three European projects are discussed – idSpace, LTfLL, Handover - which have developed tools befitting networked learning. Each in its own way, the projects illustrate the benefits of a networked learning approach.The works described in this paper have been partially supported by the European Commission within 7th Framework Programme, through the projects idSpace (2008- 216199), LTfLL (2007-212578), and Handover (FP7-HEALTH-F2-2008-223409)

Managing Identity Management Systems

Although many identity management systems have been proposed, in- tended to improve the security and usability of user authentication, major adoption problems remain. In this thesis we propose a range of novel schemes to address issues acting as barriers to adoption, namely the lack of interoper- ation between systems, simple adoption strategies, and user security within such systems. To enable interoperation, a client-based model is proposed supporting in- terworking between identity management systems. Information Card systems (e.g. CardSpace) are enhanced to enable a user to obtain a security token from an identity provider not supporting Information Cards; such a token, after en- capsulation at the client, can be processed by an Information Card-enabled relying party. The approach involves supporting interoperation at the client, while maximising transparency to identity providers, relying parties and iden- tity selectors. Four specific schemes conforming to the model are described, each of which has been prototyped. These schemes enable interoperation be- tween an Information Card-enabled relying party and an identity provider supporting one of Liberty, Shibboleth, OpenID, or OAuth. To facilitate adoption, novel schemes are proposed that enable Informa- tion Card systems to support password management and single sign on. The schemes do not require any changes to websites, and provide a simple, intu- itive user experience through use of the identity selector interface. They fa- miliarise users with Information Card systems, thereby potentially facilitating their future adoption. To improve user security, an enhancement to Information Card system user authentication is proposed. During user authentication, a one-time pass- word is sent to the user's mobile device which is then entered into the com- puter by the user. Finally, a universal identity management tool is proposed, designed to support a wide range of systems using a single user interface. It provides a consistent user experience, addresses a range of security issues (e.g. phishing), and provides greater user control during authentication.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Deliverable D.2.1 Designing NIL-MRT Networks for innovation and learning on Micro Reactor Technology

This deliverable describes the conceptual framework for the Network for Innovation and Learning on Micro Reactor Technology (NIL-MRT). It provides, based on the elicited design requirements, insight on how the NIL-MRT environment will facilitate innovation, education and knowledge sharing across the network. The NIL-MRT network will be composed of Communities for Development (CfD) where MRT problem solving, learning and expertise sharing takes place between industry, SME’s and university experts, coaches, students and working professionals. The NIL-MRT network design proposition described is based on existing scientific findings from a state of art study, prior experiences (ZuydLab) and elicitation activities to surface (user) requirements with the stakeholders of the project.Part of this work is funded by the EU Lifelong learning programme under nr 52327-LLP-1-2012-1-NL-ERASMUS-FEX

COalitions in COOperation Networks (COCOON):Social Network Analysis and Game Theory to Enhance Cooperation Networks

Sie, R. L. L. (2012). COalitions in COOperation Networks (COCOON): Social Network Analysis and Game Theory to Enhance Cooperation Networks (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). September, 28, 2012, Open Universiteit in the Netherlands (CELSTEC), Heerlen, The Netherlands.IdSpace, SIK

Ontologies for increasing the FAIRness of plant research data

The importance of improving the FAIRness (findability, accessibility, interoperability, reusability) of research data is undeniable, especially in the face of large, complex datasets currently being produced by omics technologies. Facilitating the integration of a dataset with other types of data increases the likelihood of reuse, and the potential of answering novel research questions. Ontologies are a useful tool for semantically tagging datasets as adding relevant metadata increases the understanding of how data was produced and increases its interoperability. Ontologies provide concepts for a particular domain as well as the relationships between concepts. By tagging data with ontology terms, data becomes both human and machine interpretable, allowing for increased reuse and interoperability. However, the task of identifying ontologies relevant to a particular research domain or technology is challenging, especially within the diverse realm of fundamental plant research. In this review, we outline the ontologies most relevant to the fundamental plant sciences and how they can be used to annotate data related to plant-specific experiments within metadata frameworks, such as Investigation-Study-Assay (ISA). We also outline repositories and platforms most useful for identifying applicable ontologies or finding ontology terms.Comment: 34 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, 1 supplementary tabl

The design and evaluation of a QuA implementation broker based on peer-to-peer technology

Abstract In the QuA component based middleware architecture, the implementation broker assists the service planner in service planning by performing resource discovery. Pluggable core services is a key feature in QuA, and the implementation broker role is one of those. However, at the start of this thesis, there was only one component available for this role; the Basic Implementation Broker. The Basic implementation broker is designed to perform resource discovery of local resources. A second implementation should not only be able to share offer space for resources among instances of QuA, for its ability to scale well, self organize and provide robustness to data loss from node failure would allow for a larger field of use for the component. Peer-to-peer technology has evolved greatly since the rise and fall of Napster, and the scalability, robustness and self-organization properties make peer-to-peer technology a good basis for an architectural model for distributed systems. This thesis aims to investigate the feasibility of using peer-to-peer technology in QuA resource discovery by designing and implementing an implementation broker component based on peer-to-peer technology. The component is also tested and evaluated in terms of scalability, robustness and ability to self organize a network of peer-to-peer broker components without any centralized control. The design of the component is only technology generation specific, but the implementation described uses the FreePastry implementation of the Pastry technology. The component is fully operational as an implementation broker component in QuA. The evaluation of the component show that the component is able to distribute responsibility for query resolution on resources as evenly as the underlying technology permits on participating nodes in a network of peer-to-peer broker components. Further, it is able to re-organize responsibility for resources among participating nodes both in the event of nodes joining and departing from the network. The replication scheme is also proven to be working, and through that robustness to data loss from node failure is also acheived

Scaling the development of large ontologies : identitas and hypernormalization

PhD ThesisDuring the last decade ontologies have become a fundamental part of the life sciences to build organised computational knowledge. Currently, there are more than 800 biomedical ontologies hosted by the NCBO BioPortal repository. However, the proliferation of ontologies in the biomedical and biological domains has highlighted a number of problems. As ontologies become large, their development and maintenance becomes more challenging and time-consuming. Therefore, the scalability of ontology development has become problematic. In this thesis, we examine two new approaches that can help address this challenge. First, we consider a new approach to identi ers that could signi cantly facilitate the scalability of ontologies and overcome some related issues with monotonic, numeric identi ers while remaining semantics-free. Our solutions are described, along with the Identitas library, which allows concurrent development, pronounceability and error checking. The library integrated into two ontology development environments, Prot eg e and Tawny-OWL. This thesis also discusses the ways in which current ontological practices could be migrated towards the use of this scheme. Second, we investigate the usage of the hypernormalisation, patternisation and programatic approaches by asking how we could use this approach to rebuild the Gene Ontology (GO). The aim of the hypernormalisation and patternisation techniques is to allow the ontology developer to manage its maintainability and evolution. To apply this approach we had to analyse the ontology structure, starting with the Molecular Function Ontology (MFO). The MFO is formed from several large and tangled hierarchies of classes, each of which describe a broad molecular activity. The exploitation of the hypernormalisation approach resulted in the creation of a hypernormalised form of the Transporter Activity (TA) and Catalytic Activity (CA) hierarchies, together they constitute 78% of all classes in MFO. The hypernormalised structure of the TA and CA are generated based on developed higher-level patterns and novel content-speci c patterns, and exploit ontology logical reasoners. The gen- erated ontologies are robust, easy to maintain and can be developed and extended freely. Although, there are a variety of ontologies development tools, Tawny-OWL is a programmatic interactive tool for ontology creation and management and provides a set of patterns that explicitly support the creation of a hypernormalised ontology. Finally, the investigation of the hypernormalisation highlighted inconsistent classi- cations and identi cation of signi cant semantic mismatch between GO and the Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI). Although both ontologies describe the same real entities, GO often refers to the form most common in biology, while ChEBI is more speci c and precise. The use of hypernormalisation forces us to deal with this mismatch, we used the equivalence axioms created by the GO-Plus ontology. To sum up, to address the scalability and ease development of ontologies we propose a new identi er scheme and investigate the use of the hypernormalisation methodology. Together, the Identitas and the hypernormalisation technique should enable the construction of large-scale ontologies in the future.Northern Borders University, Saudi Arabia