Biology of Applied Digital Ecosystems

A primary motivation for our research in Digital Ecosystems is the desire to exploit the self-organising properties of biological ecosystems. Ecosystems are thought to be robust, scalable architectures that can automatically solve complex, dynamic problems. However, the biological processes that contribute to these properties have not been made explicit in Digital Ecosystems research. Here, we discuss how biological properties contribute to the self-organising features of biological ecosystems, including population dynamics, evolution, a complex dynamic environment, and spatial distributions for generating local interactions. The potential for exploiting these properties in artificial systems is then considered. We suggest that several key features of biological ecosystems have not been fully explored in existing digital ecosystems, and discuss how mimicking these features may assist in developing robust, scalable self-organising architectures. An example architecture, the Digital Ecosystem, is considered in detail. The Digital Ecosystem is then measured experimentally through simulations, with measures originating from theoretical ecology, to confirm its likeness to a biological ecosystem. Including the responsiveness to requests for applications from the user base, as a measure of the 'ecological succession' (development).Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure, conferenc

Digital Ecosystems: Ecosystem-Oriented Architectures

We view Digital Ecosystems to be the digital counterparts of biological ecosystems. Here, we are concerned with the creation of these Digital Ecosystems, exploiting the self-organising properties of biological ecosystems to evolve high-level software applications. Therefore, we created the Digital Ecosystem, a novel optimisation technique inspired by biological ecosystems, where the optimisation works at two levels: a first optimisation, migration of agents which are distributed in a decentralised peer-to-peer network, operating continuously in time; this process feeds a second optimisation based on evolutionary computing that operates locally on single peers and is aimed at finding solutions to satisfy locally relevant constraints. The Digital Ecosystem was then measured experimentally through simulations, with measures originating from theoretical ecology, evaluating its likeness to biological ecosystems. This included its responsiveness to requests for applications from the user base, as a measure of the ecological succession (ecosystem maturity). Overall, we have advanced the understanding of Digital Ecosystems, creating Ecosystem-Oriented Architectures where the word ecosystem is more than just a metaphor.Comment: 39 pages, 26 figures, journa

Collaborative Development of Open Educational Resources for Open and Distance Learning

Open and distance learning (ODL) is mostly characterised by the up front development of self study educational resources that have to be paid for over time through use with larger student cohorts (typically in the hundreds per annum) than for conventional face to face classes. This different level of up front investment in educational resources, and increasing pressures to utilise more expensive formats such as rich media, means that collaborative development is necessary to firstly make use of diverse professional skills and secondly to defray these costs across institutions. The Open University (OU) has over 40 years of experience of using multi professional course teams to develop courses; of working with a wide range of other institutions to develop educational resources; and of licensing use of its educational resources to other HEIs. Many of these arrangements require formal contracts to work properly and clearly identify IPR and partner responsibilities. With the emergence of open educational resources (OER) through the use of open licences, the OU and other institutions has now been able to experiment with new ways of collaborating on the development of educational resources that are not so dependent on tight legal contracts because each partner is effectively granting rights to the others to use the educational resources they supply through the open licensing (Lane, 2011; Van Dorp and Lane, 2011). This set of case studies examines the many different collaborative models used for developing and using educational resources and explain how open licensing is making it easier to share the effort involved in developing educational resources between institutions as well as how it may enable new institutions to be able to start up open and distance learning programmes more easily and at less initial cost. Thus it looks at three initiatives involving people from the OU (namely TESSA, LECH-e, openED2.0) and contrasts these with the Peer-2-Peer University and the OER University as exemplars of how OER may change some of the fundamental features of open and distance learning in a Web 2.0 world. It concludes that while there may be multiple reasons and models for collaborating on the development of educational resources the very openness provided by the open licensing aligns both with general academic values and practice but also with well established principles of open innovation in businesses

Influence of social networks on communication and culture

Má bakalářská práce je zaměřena na problematiku sociálních sítí a jejich vliv na dnešní společnost. Zabývá se jejich historií od prvotních pokusů až po nejnovější globální sociání sítě. Poté práce vysvětluje základní myšlenku vedoucí k vytvoření sociálních sítí i jejich charakteristické znaky. Dále nastiňuje problémy související se snadnou dostupností a nadměrným využíváním sociálních sítí, které následně ovlivňuje lidskou společnost. Práce se věnuje vlivu sociálních sítí na jazyk, mezilidskou komunikaci a kulturní adaptaci.My bachelor thesis is focused on issues with social networking services and their influence on modern society. It addresses their history from the very first attempts to create a social networking service to the modern global ones. Later the thesis provides an explanation of the creation of a social networking service and its characteristic traits. Furthermore it outlines problems connected with the availability and overuse of social networking services that are subsequently influencing the human society. The thesis also analyzes the influence of social networks on language, interpersonal communication and cultural adaptation.

Social network market: Storytelling on a web 2.0 original literature site

This article looks at a Chinese Web 2.0 original literature site, Qidian, in order to show the coevolution of market and non-market initiatives. The analytic framework of social network markets (Potts et al., 2008) is employed to analyse the motivations of publishing original literature works online and to understand the support mechanisms of the site, which encourage readers’ willingness to pay for user-generated content. The co-existence of socio-cultural and commercial economies and their impact on the successful business model of the site are illustrated in this case. This article extends the concept of social network markets by proposing the existence of a ripple effect of social network markets through convergence between PC and mobile internet, traditional and internet publishing, and between publishing and other cultural industries. It also examines the side effects of social network markets, and the role of market and non-market strategies in addressing the issues

Impact in networks and ecosystems: building case studies that make a difference

open accessThis toolkit aims to support the building up of case studies that show the impact of project activities aiming to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. The case studies respond to the challenge of understanding what kinds of interventions work in the Southern African region, where, and why. The toolkit has a specific focus on entrepreneurial ecosystems and proposes a method of mapping out the actors and their relationships over time. The aim is to understand the changes that take place in the ecosystems. These changes are seen to be indicators of impact as increased connectivity and activity in ecosystems are key enablers of innovation. Innovations usually happen together with matching social and institutional adjustments, facilitating the translation of inventions into new or improved products and services. Similarly, the processes supporting entrepreneurship are guided by policies implemented in the common framework provided by innovation systems. Overall, policies related to systems of innovation are by nature networking policies applied throughout the socioeconomic framework of society to pool scarce resources and make various sectors work in coordination with each other. Most participating SAIS countries already have some kinds of identifiable systems of innovation in place both on national and regional levels, but the lack of appropriate institutions, policies, financial instruments, human resources, and support systems, together with underdeveloped markets, create inefficiencies and gaps in systemic cooperation and collaboration. In other words, we do not always know what works and what does not. On another level, engaging users and intermediaries at the local level and driving the development of local innovation ecosystems within which local culture, especially in urban settings, has evident impact on how collaboration and competition is both seen and done. In this complex environment, organisations supporting entrepreneurship and innovation often find it difficult to create or apply relevant knowledge and appropriate networking tools, approaches, and methods needed to put their processes to work for broader developmental goals. To further enable these organisations’ work, it is necessary to understand what works and why in a given environment. Enhanced local and regional cooperation promoted by SAIS Innovation Fund projects can generate new data on this little-explored area in Southern Africa. Data-driven knowledge on entrepreneurship and innovation support best practices as well as effective and efficient management of entrepreneurial ecosystems can support replication and inform policymaking, leading thus to a wider impact than just that of the immediate reported projects and initiatives

EGI: anOpen e-Infrastructure Ecosystem for the Digital European Research Area

Bringing the digital European Research Area (ERA) online means modernising Europe’s research infrastructure by promoting open science through the availability, accessibility and reuse of scientific data and results, the use of web- based tools that facilitate scientific collaboration and ensuring public access to research. As the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) is the largest European distributed computing infrastructure providing 24/7 access to large scale computing, storage and data resources through a federation of national resource providers, it allows scientists from all disciplines to make the most out of the latest computing technologies for the benefit of their research. This paper describes the methodology and approach for defining EGI’s role in bringing this digital ERA online. The work presented defines the roles and functions of EGI as an open ICT ecosystem, required service redesign, the added value of EGI for the European research communities and demonstrates the role that EGI plays in contributing to the Europe 2020 strategy for social-economic impact