The future of technology enhanced active learning – a roadmap

The notion of active learning refers to the active involvement of learner in the learning process, capturing ideas of learning-by-doing and the fact that active participation and knowledge construction leads to deeper and more sustained learning. Interactivity, in particular learnercontent interaction, is a central aspect of technology-enhanced active learning. In this roadmap, the pedagogical background is discussed, the essential dimensions of technology-enhanced active learning systems are outlined and the factors that are expected to influence these systems currently and in the future are identified. A central aim is to address this promising field from a best practices perspective, clarifying central issues and formulating an agenda for future developments in the form of a roadmap

Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

Practitioner requirements for integrated Knowledge-Based Engineering in Product Lifecycle Management.

The effective management of knowledge as capital is considered essential to the success of engineering product/service systems. As Knowledge Management (KM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) practice gain industrial adoption, the question of functional overlaps between both the approaches becomes evident. This article explores the interoperability between PLM and Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) as a strategy for engineering KM. The opinion of key KBE/PLM practitioners are systematically captured and analysed. A set of ranked business functionalities to be fulfiled by the KBE/PLM systems integration is elicited. The article provides insights for the researchers and the practitioners playing both the user and development roles on the future needs for knowledge systems based on PLM

Review of the environmental and organisational implications of cloud computing: final report.

Cloud computing – where elastic computing resources are delivered over the Internet by external service providers – is generating significant interest within HE and FE. In the cloud computing business model, organisations or individuals contract with a cloud computing service provider on a pay-per-use basis to access data centres, application software or web services from any location. This provides an elasticity of provision which the customer can scale up or down to meet demand. This form of utility computing potentially opens up a new paradigm in the provision of IT to support administrative and educational functions within HE and FE. Further, the economies of scale and increasingly energy efficient data centre technologies which underpin cloud services means that cloud solutions may also have a positive impact on carbon footprints. In response to the growing interest in cloud computing within UK HE and FE, JISC commissioned the University of Strathclyde to undertake a Review of the Environmental and Organisational Implications of Cloud Computing in Higher and Further Education [19]

HaIRST: Harvesting Institutional Resources in Scotland Testbed. Final Project Report

The HaIRST project conducted research into the design, implementation and deployment of a pilot service for UK-wide access of autonomously created institutional resources in Scotland, the aim being to investigate and advise on some of the technical, cultural, and organisational requirements associated with the deposit, disclosure, and discovery of institutional resources in the JISC Information Environment. The project involved a consortium of Scottish higher and further education institutions, with significant assistance from the Scottish Library and Information Council. The project investigated the use of technologies based on the Open Archives Initiative (OAI), including the implementation of OAI-compatible repositories for metadata which describe and link to institutional digital resources, the use of the OAI protocol for metadata harvesting (OAI-PMH) to automatically copy the metadata from multiple repositories to a central repository, and the creation of a service to search and identify resources described in the central repository. An important aim of the project was to identify issues of metadata interoperability arising from the requirements of individual institutional repositories and their impact on services based on the aggregation of metadata through harvesting. The project also sought to investigate issues in using these technologies for a wide range of resources including learning, teaching and administrative materials as well as the research and scholarly communication materials considered by many of the other projects in the JISC Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) Programme, of which HaIRST was a part. The project tested and implemented a number of open source software packages supporting OAI, and was successful in creating a pilot service which provides effective information retrieval of a range of resources created by the project consortium institutions. The pilot service has been extended to cover research and scholarly communication materials produced by other Scottish universities, and administrative materials produced by a non-educational institution in Scotland. It is an effective testbed for further research and development in these areas. The project has worked extensively with a new OAI standard for 'static repositories' which offers a low-barrier, low-cost mechanism for participation in OAI-based consortia by smaller institutions with a low volume of resources. The project identified and successfully tested tools for transforming pre-existing metadata into a format compliant with OAI standards. The project identified and assessed OAI-related documentation in English from around the world, and has produced metadata for retrieving and accessing it. The project created a Web-based advisory service for institutions and consortia. The OAI Scotland Information Service (OAISIS) provides links to related standards, guidance and documentation, and discusses the findings of HaIRST relating to interoperability and the pilot harvesting service. The project found that open source packages relating to OAI can be installed and made to interoperate to create a viable method of sharing institutional resources within a consortium. HaIRST identified issues affecting the interoperability of shared metadata and suggested ways of resolving them to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of shared information retrieval environments based on OAI. The project demonstrated that application of OAI technologies to administrative materials is an effective way for institutions to meet obligations under Freedom of Information legislation

System Transition Concepts and Framework for Analysing Energy System Research and Governance

System transitions are complex societal co-evolutionary processes that are typically led by gradual adaptation rather than visionary management or coordination. Still, visionary coordination of policies, regulation, corporate strategies and social learning may overcome some barriers and foster new innovation efforts providing sufficient impetus towards system transition. This paper addresses ´system transition´ as a valuable perspective and develops a framework for analysing Nordic energy system research and governance. The framework integrates different transitions phases, levels and dimensions and combines them with the governance functions to provide overarching frames for understandingInnovación , Techno-institutional lock-in, Administración en un ambiente global, energy

Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes