Community indicators: a framework for observing and supporting community activity on Cloudworks

Cloudworks (Cloudworks.ac.uk) is a social networking site designed for sharing, finding and discussing learning and teaching ideas and experiences. Design and development of the site has been based on an iterative analysis, development and implementation approach, underpinned by ongoing research and evaluation. To this end, we have been seeking to establish strategies to enable us to systematically position transactions and emerging patterns of activity on the site so that we can more reliably use the empirical evidence we have gathered (Galley, 2009a, Galley 2009b, Alevizou et al., 2010a, Conole et al, 2010). In this paper we will introduce a framework we have developed for observing and supporting community development on the site. In building our framework we have used empirical evidence gathered from the site, then related it to the literature from a range of disciplines concerned with professional and learning communities. We link research relating to distance learning communities with studies into Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), self-organising communities on the web, and wider research about the nature of learning organisations and continuous professional development. We argue that this framework can be used to capture the development of productive communities in the space (i.e. how far cohesive, productive groups can be said to be emerging or not) and also help focus futur

Key Findings from recent literature on Computer-aided Assessment

A perusal of the literature on Computer-aided Assessment (CAA) yields a rich crop of case studies and ‘should-do’s. This paper gathers together the key findings and common themes found in a search of recent papers published on CAA implementation, including some projects under the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) and the Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL) projects. It is hoped that this review will provide a valuable snapshot of current practice in CAA across different subject disciplines and a distillation of some of the key commonalities. Initial findings indicate that barriers to embedding CAA in institutions include a lack of commitment at a strategic level, and as well as barriers in terms of cultural or pedagogical issues, rather more than any technical shortcomings in the CAA system. Furthermore, computer-assisted assessment in general is often still something of an add-on, and is not yet fully integrated into other learning and teaching practices. Technical and cultural barriers to the adoption of CAA were found to vary between subject boundaries (CAA Centre, 2001). The enablers to successful embedding of CAA in institutions include institutional commitment together with provision of adequate funds, time and personnel (Bull, 2002), frequent communication between the various stakeholders (Raine, 1999), interoperability and the existing availability of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) (Stevenson et al., 2001)

Learning and Collaboration Technologies. Technology-Rich Environments for Learning and Collaboration

In information and communication technology (ICT) trust has been considered as a crucial component of digital interactions. Trust has been dissected in a variety of potential meanings and dimensions and through the merging of trust in humans and trust in machines. In this paper, we investigate the role and the aggregation of trust in social networks and blogs and how it relates to knowledge production, and its connections to concepts such as reputation and sustainability in the European context. Moreover, we discuss knowledge production in information and communication technology and its relationship to user trust. We develop a view on the co-production of knowledge and trust and propose a policy management framework to support the users in their trusted use of social networks and blogs. This is presented based on an e-health use case analysis considering web based reputation and developing a new reputation scheme