Elearning Technologies

When blogging tools first arrived in 1998, people asked “What’s a blog?” The word “blog” is a contraction of “Web log” and is used both as a noun as well as a verb. To blog is to write content to a blog. By design, blogs are best suited for the spontaneous thoughts and observations of an individual or team. They are not designed to facilitate rapid-fire back-and-forth discussion on a particular issue. Blogging tools are available as free or moderately priced services and as products you purchase and install on your own server. You may have noticed recently that many of websites now contain little graphical buttons with the word XML on them. When you click on the button, all you see is some jumbled text and computer code [ed: unless you have a newer web browser or an aggregator]. What's this all about? It's an RSS feed, and it's changing the way people access the Internet.Weblog, RSS, e-learning, RSS, blogging tools

Building a semantic blog support system for gene Learning Objects on Web 2.0 environment / by Wei Yuan.

Blogging has become a popular practice on Internet in recent years, and it has been used as information publishing and participate platforms. In recent years, a style of blog called 'semantic blogs' have been introduced into the field. Semantic blogs are blogs enriched with machine-understandable metadata (Mller, Breslin, & Decker, 2005). They are an extension of regular blogs. Recently, a new web technology theory was proposed called Web 2.0. Unlike traditional web technology which only allows web users to accept information passively, Web 2.0 provides web users the option to actively modify web information. Learning Objects are digital entities deliverable over the Internet. Any number of people can access and use them simultaneously. Moreover, users can collaborate on learning objects and benefit immediately from adding their information or appending others' work to Learning Objects and share with other users over the Internet. This thesis is dedicated to the development of a semantic blog prototype for Gene Ontology annotation and navigation as a Web 2.0 support system. We are developing this semantic blog specifically because we did not find an effective system already in place that can provide support for biomedical researchers. The existing Gene Ontology systems can be classified into various categories: offline applications, client-server applications, web search engines, portals, and FTP servers. Researchers face a number of bottlenecks within the current system; all of them are based on traditional web technology with no collaboration among individual gene ontology researchers, and annotation can only be published by certain organizations. This thesis seeks the possibility to use Learning Object with Gene Ontology along with the semantic of how researchers collaborate as represented by FOAF. We have therefore introduced a new Gene ontology Annotation and navigation System. Colloquially referred to as GAS, it is based on Web 2.0 technologies with extended semantic capabilities that include Gene Ontology semantics, SCORM semantics, FOAF semantics, RSS syndication, aggregation semantics, as well as a useful and important gene ontology and annotation navigation system - Gene Ontology Navigation (GON). Our evaluation of the GAS prototype has proven to be extremely effective

BlogForever D2.6: Data Extraction Methodology

This report outlines an inquiry into the area of web data extraction, conducted within the context of blog preservation. The report reviews theoretical advances and practical developments for implementing data extraction. The inquiry is extended through an experiment that demonstrates the effectiveness and feasibility of implementing some of the suggested approaches. More specifically, the report discusses an approach based on unsupervised machine learning that employs the RSS feeds and HTML representations of blogs. It outlines the possibilities of extracting semantics available in blogs and demonstrates the benefits of exploiting available standards such as microformats and microdata. The report proceeds to propose a methodology for extracting and processing blog data to further inform the design and development of the BlogForever platform

A knowledge services roadmay for online learning

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-78).In today's society, there is a need for organizations to have a robust knowledge infrastructure in place, so that they can create or acquire knowledge; store knowledge; disseminate knowledge, and protect and manage their knowledge assets. However, with advances in the publishing media, our ability to generate information has far exceeded our abilities to find, review and understand it, thus leading to "Information Overload". Information overload refers to the inability to extract needed knowledge from existing information due to the volume of information, or lack of understanding of information and its whereabouts, or efficient ways to locate relevant information. These issues could be addressed by having efficient Knowledge Management Systems/Knowledge Services, so that people can create and understand available information, and have services to help them learn effectively and make better decisions. To tackle the new information needs, the use of technologies such as Weblog Services (weblog-enabled knowledge services) offer opportunities for decentralized knowledge creation and dissemination; as such tools put the authors in charge of knowledge creation process without any administration-enforced policies. Learning environments are also typically characterized by challenges such as barriers to use, quality control and relevance issues, or issues of credibility of information. These issues are effectively tackled by weblog services since weblogs are often open source and need no training for authoring. In addition, favorite blogs act as information filters or "bird dogs" and point at useful information. Feedback incorporated in weblog services makes people react and learn "interactively" and also enhances credibility and trust in information.(cont.) Weblog services can also share published content through the process of Content Syndication, and thus offer an insight into knowledge assets in the timeliest of ways. This thesis report describes certain weblog services implementations carried out at MIT. Results of such implementations have emphasized the applications of such weblog (knowledge) services in knowledge sharing and online learning. However, there are certain issues to be addressed in weblog services such as privacy and intellectual property issues, as well as resolution of organizational tussles in the domain of content syndication standards.by Anand Rajagopal.S.M

Farm 2.0 Using Wordpress to Manage Geocontent and Promote Regional Food Products

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Recent innovations in geospatial technology have dramatically increased the utility and ubiquity of cartographic interfaces and spatially-referenced content on the web. Capitalizing on these developments, the Farm2.0 system demonstrates an approach to manage user-generated geocontent pertaining to European protected designation of origin (PDO) food products.Wordpress, a popular open-source publishing platform, supplies the framework for a geographic content management system, or GeoCMS, to promote PDO products in the Spanish province of Valencia. The Wordpress platform is modified through a suite of plug-ins and customizations to create an extensible application that could be easily deployed in other regions and administrated cooperatively by distributed regulatory councils. Content, either regional recipes or map locations for vendors and farms, is available for syndication as a GeoRSS feed and aggregated with outside feeds in a dynamic web map

Web 2.0 technologies for learning: the current landscape – opportunities, challenges and tensions: supplementary materials

These supplementary materials accompany the report ‘Web 2.0 technologies for learning: the current landscape – opportunities, challenges and tensions’, which is the first report from research commissioned by Becta into Web 2.0 technologies for learning at Key Stages 3 and 4. This report describes findings from the commissioned literature review of the then current landscape concerning learner use of Web 2.0 technologies and the implications for teachers, schools, local authorities and policy makers

Using Control Frameworks to Map Risks in Web 2.0 Applications

Web 2.0 applications are continuously moving into the corporate mainstream. Each new development brings its own threats or new ways to deliver old attacks. The objective of this study is to develop a framework to identify the security issues an organisation is exposed to through Web 2.0 applications, with specific focus on unauthorised access. An extensive literature review was performed to obtain an understanding of the technologies driving Web 2.0 applications. Thereafter, the technologies were mapped against Control Objectives for Information and related Technology and Trust Service Principles and Criteria and associated control objectives relating to security risks. These objectives were used to develop a framework which can be used to identify risks and formulate appropriate internal control measures in any organisation using Web 2.0 applications. Every organisation, technology and application is unique and the safeguards depend on the nature of the organisation, information at stake, degree of vulnerability and risks. A comprehensive security program should include a multi-layer approach comprising of a control framework, combined with a control model considering the control processes in order to identify the appropriate control techniques.Web 2.0, Security risks, Control framework, Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (CobiT), Trust Service Principles and Criteria

Web 2.0 as syndication

There is considerable excitement about the notion of 'Web 2.0', particularly among Internet businesspeople. In contrast, there is an almost complete lack of formal literature on the topic. It is important that movements with such energy and potential be subjected to critical attention, and that industry and social commentators have the opportunity to draw on the eCommerce research literature in formulating their views

Library 2.0 Theory: Web 2.0 and Its Implications for Libraries

This article posits a definition and theory for Library 2.0 . It suggests that recent thinking describing the changing Web as Web 2.0 will have substantial implications for libraries, and recognizes that while these implications keep very close to the history and mission of libraries, they still necessitate a new paradigm for librarianship. The paper applies the theory and definition to the practice of librarianship, specifically addressing how Web 2.0 technologies such as synchronous messaging and streaming media, blogs, wikis, social networks, tagging, RSS feeds, and mashups might intimate changes in how libraries provide access to their collections and user support for that access

The Web 2.0 as Marketing Tool: Opportunities for SMEs

The new generation of Internet applications widely known as Social Media or Web 2.0 offers corporations a whole range of opportunities for improving their marketing efficiency and internal operations. Web 2.0 applications have already become part of the daily life of an increasing number of consumers who regard them as prime channels of communication, information exchange, sharing of expertise, dissemination of individual creativity and entertainment. Web logs, podcasts, online forums and social networks are rapidly becoming major sources of customer information and influence while the effectiveness of traditional mass media is rapidly decreasing. Using the social media as a marketing tool is an issue attracting increasing attention. The hitherto experience is that large public corporations are more likely to make use of such instruments as part of their marketing and internal operations (McKinsey, 2007).The paper defines the Web 2.0 phenomenon and based on the experience of large corporations examines how SMEs could engage the various Web 2.0 instruments in order to efficiently market their products, improve customer relations, increase customer retention and enhance internal operations