Communicating, learning and the in-between: a study of the impact of open-access, informal online learning environments

1. The broad aim of this project has been to contribute understandings of the uses of computer-mediated communication in 'informal' (not leading to certification) yet institutionally-hosted online spaces. The project consisted of an investigation into engagement with communication and discussion tools provided by OpenLearn, the Open University's Open Content Initiative (http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn). 2. The research focused on a selection of examples of asynchronous and synchronous communication situations within OpenLearn, including a selection of forums from the LearningSpace (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk) and various instances of synchronous communication using FM (FlashMeeting) that took place within the context of two pilot studies organised by the researcher in coordination with discipline-based colleagues. 3. Whilst the research was based on an action research orientation, the approach was predominantly exploratory and ethnographic methods (observation and participant observation) were used, complemented with semi-structured interviews, as appropriate. Thematic analysis was used within a grounded theory approach. 4. The study suggests 5 themes as core elements of engagement in CMC within an OER context: 'validation�; 'privacy�; 'trust�; 'purposefulness�; 'leadership'. The themes are mutually-dependent and each warrants more detailed investigation, and relevant topics are discussed. 5. In short, the study provides a contribution to enquiries on the impact of OERs in that it brings to light, from within a sample of learning situations across the 'informal�/�formal' space, a number of boundary issues concerning curriculum and, in particular, pedagogy. It suggests that a major aspect of the impact of OERs is that their availability is not only creating new challenges but also uncovering previously veiled tensions and questions regarding identity and boundaries. 6. A number of outputs have been generated, including two new projects that capitalise on understandings facilitated during the pilots carried out within the remit of this study

The Wall: A mobile app to identify and store social events from a digital image using computer vision

Social events, promoted in print media using posters, flyers and banners often fail to attract an audience because we frequently forget the details of the event when we pass-by the promotion on the street. Smaller venues or artists often rely on low-cost, street-level marketing campaigns in areas of high foot traffic areas to develop interest in an event. These venues or artist are often without a budget for online marketing or have a target demographic outside the typical Social Media consumer which makes attracting an audience difficult. This project aimed to solve the problem of storing and reminding the user of upcoming events, advertised in print media, by developing a mobile app to automatically identify and event information from an image taken by the user. The project is an N-tier system comprising: a front-end using AngularJS, Ionic and Cordova; a cloud Firebase database to store the user\u27s registration and logon credentials; Google Vision API to automatically segment and identify event information and the Google Calendar API to store and remind the user of upcoming events. The project was managed using the Agile Development methodology Scrum. The challenge of this project was in developing a solution to automatically and reliably identify event information from print media which often contains a wide variety of layouts, orientations, font types, colours and contrast variations between the information and any graphics present. In addition, the solution needed to understand the semantics of the text relating to the event name and location. The development frameworks and APIs chosen were unfamiliar to the team but were used because of their technical suitability and their ongoing and increasing popularity in the industry. Functional testing was based on a set of over 50 test images. Testing concluded that the solution retrieves date and time information consistently, however, more work is required to successfully segment and recognise event location and title. User Experience (UX) was measured in a cross-sectional survey of 75 participants. The results were positive and are discussed here

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 2 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 5 Chemistry Division 8 Engineering Division 9 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 12 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 14 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 16 Advertisements IEEE

Using 3D Immersive Technologies for Organizational Development and Collaboration

Over the course of the Spring 2011 semester, a team of three student researchers, led by Dr. Ana Reyes of the University of Pennsylvania set out to explore the 3D immersive technologies currently in use by corporations, non-profit, government and academic organizations for organizational development and collaboration. During this first phase of the project, our team endeavored to identify organizations who are leading the way in the use of these technologies. Our hope was to tour the identified immersive workspaces, observe individuals or groups as they use these spaces and to interview key stakeholders such as the participants, the immersive project champions and organizational leaders and the vendors providing the solutions in order to identify best practices and key learnings from these early adopters. Our key objectives were as follows: Identify corporate, academic, non-profit and government workplaces that are presently utilizing 3D immersive environments to meet organization development needs; Understand why immersive technologies were chosen and how these organizations are using the 3D environments to accomplish their goals, and Derive lessons and insights from this research for the purposes of designing 3D Learning Conferences and a potential 3D Organizational Dynamics Laboratory at Penn. This paper provides a high-level business and technology summary of each platform reviewed, along with team observations about their capabilities and the challenges that we faced in our own use of each one. Later, it describes in varying detail several organizational use cases provided by vendors and key stakeholders, the benefits they realized from using 3D tools and the key learnings they acquired through their use of the immersive workspaces for organizational development and collaboration purposes. The conclusion highlights several best practices gathered from our research with both user organizations and technology vendors and proposes additional areas for further exploration

PICES Press, Vol. 11, No. 2, July 2003

Cover [pdf, 1.2 Mb] PICES Science Board and Governing Council hold their first joint meeting [pp. 1-3] [pdf, 0.2 Mb] 3rd International Zooplankton Production Symposium [pp. 4-7] [pdf, 0.6 Mb] The state of the eastern North Pacific entering spring 2003 [pp. 8-9] [pdf, 0.4 Mb] The state of the western North Pacific in 2002 [pp. 10-13] [pdf, 0.6 Mb] The Bering Sea: Current status and recent events [pp. 14-15] [pdf. 0.7 Mb] Patricia Livingston [pp. 16-19] [pdf. 0.5 Mb] Recent changes in the abundance of northern anchovy (Engraulis mordax) off the Pacific Northwest, tracking a regime shift? [pp. 20-21] [pdf. 0.6 Mb] Developing new scientific programs in PICES [pp. 22-26] [pdf. 0.2 Mb] Report of the Yokohama 2003 MODEL Task Team Workshop to develop a marine ecosystem model of the North Pacific Ocean including pelagic fishes [pp. 27-29] [pdf. 0.5 Mb] 3rd PICES Workshop on the Okhotsk Sea and adjacent Areas [pp.30-31] [pdf. 0.4 Mb] Recent oceanographic and marine environmental studies at FERHRI [pp.32-34] [pdf. 0.4 Mb] Symposium Announcement [p. 35] [pdf. 0.3 Mb] PICES announcements [p. 36] [pdf. 0.3 Mb

Incremental scoping study and implementation plan

This report is one of the first deliverables from the Incremental project, which seeks to investigate and improve the research data management infrastructure at the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge and to learn lessons and develop resources of value to other institutions. Coming at the end of the project’s scoping study, this report identifies the key themes and issues that emerged and proposes a set of activities to address those needs. As its name suggests, Incremental deliberately adopts a stepped, pragmatic approach to supporting research data management. It recognises that solutions will vary across different departmental and institutional contexts; and that top-down, policy-driven or centralised solutions are unlikely to prove as effective as practical support delivered in a clear and timely manner where the benefits can be clearly understood and will justify any effort or resources required. The findings of the scoping study have confirmed the value of this approach and the main recommendations of this report are concerned with the development and delivery of suitable resources. Although some differences were observed between disciplines, these seemed to be as much a feature of different organisational cultures as the nature of the research being undertaken. Our study found that there were many common issues across the groups and that the responses to these issues need not be highly technical or expensive to implement. What is required is that these resources employ jargon-free language and use examples of relevance to researchers and that they can be accessed easily at the point of need. There are resources already available (institutionally and externally) that can address researchers’ data management needs but these are not being fully exploited. So in many cases Incremental will be enabling efficient and contextualised access, or tailoring resources to specific environments, rather than developing resources from scratch. While Incremental will concentrate on developing, repurposing and leveraging practical resources to support researchers in their management of data, it recognises that this will be best achieved within a supportive institutional context (both in terms of policy and provision). The need for institutional support is especially evident when long-term preservation and data sharing are considered – these activities are clearly more effective and sustainable if addressed at more aggregated levels (e.g. repositories) rather than left to individual researchers or groups. So in addition to its work in developing resources, the Incremental project will seek to inform the development of a more comprehensive data management infrastructure at each institution. In Cambridge, this will be connected with the library’s CUPID project (Cambridge University Preservation Development) and at Glasgow in conjunction with the Digital Preservation Advisory Board

Evaluation of Security Availability of Data Components for A Renewable Energy Micro Smart Grid System

In this thesis, we study the development and security testing of photovoltaic data collection system. With the introduction of the smart grid concept, a lot of research has been done on the communication aspect of energy production and distribution throughout the power network. For Smart Grid, Internet is used as the communication medium for specific required services and for data collection. Despite all the advantages of the Smart Grid infrastructure, there is also some security concern regarding the vulnerabilities associated with internet access. In this thesis, we consider security testing of the two most popular and globally deployed web server platforms Apache running on Red Had Linux 5 and IIS on Windows Server 2008, and their performance under Distributed Denial of Service Attacks. Furthermore we stress test the data collection services provided by MySQL running on both Windows and Linux Servers when it is also under DDoS attacks

HSLIC Annual Report FY2007-08

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hslic-annual-reports/1002/thumbnail.jp