DSpace Helps Irish National Learning Repository To Change Its Focus

This paper describes how the Irish National Digital Learning Resource Repository (NDLR) has implemented a DSpace-based platform which enables it to more effectively utilise its limited resources to serve customer need. The implementation of a DSpace-based solution in partnership with two private-sector service providers has permitted a refocusing of the available resources from software licensing to research and development of the platform

DSpace Helps Irish National Learning Repository To Change Its Focus

This paper describes how the Irish National Digital Learning Resource Repository (NDLR) has implemented a DSpace-based platform which enables it to more effectively utilise its limited resources to serve customer need. The implementation of a DSpace-based solution in partnership with two private-sector service providers has permitted a refocusing of the available resources from software licensing to research and development of the platform

The Management and Creation of Knowledge: Do Wikis Help?

Wikis are frequently cited in Higher Education research as appropriate and powerful web spaces which provide opportunities to capture, discuss, and review individual, group, project or organisational activities. These activities, in turn, offer possibilities for knowledge development by utilising wiki collaborative active spaces. The chapter uses selected case studies examples to illustrate the use of wikis to support online community based tasks, project development/process, collaborative materials development and various student and peer supported activities. A key focus of the chapter centres on evaluating the effectiveness (or otherwise) of wikis to create online communities to support knowledge management (development, retention and transfer). See Choy & Ng (2007), Lamb (2004), Elgort (2008), Raman et al. (2005). By way of contextualising the studies, a variety of uses of wikis in higher education are reviewed as part of this chapter. See, for example, Lamb, (2004) Choy, & Ng, (2007), Doolan, (2006) Jones P. (2007) Raman, et al. (2005) Grierson, et al.,, (2004). Creation of knowledge sentence + refs? The chapter concludes with a review of the emergent themes arising and lessons learned from the case studies. This leads into a series of recommendations relating to the effective establishment, design, management and support and use of wikis to support knowledge creation and collaborative enterprise

Peak grain forecasts for the US High Plains amid withering waters

Irrigated agriculture contributes 40% of total global food production. In the US High Plains, which produces more than 50 million tons per year of grain, as much as 90% of irrigation originates from groundwater resources, including the Ogallala aquifer. In parts of the High Plains, groundwater resources are being depleted so rapidly that they are considered nonrenewable, compromising food security. When groundwater becomes scarce, groundwater withdrawals peak, causing a subsequent peak in crop production. Previous descriptions of finite natural resource depletion have utilized the Hubbert curve. By coupling the dynamics of groundwater pumping, recharge, and crop production, Hubbert-like curves emerge, responding to the linked variations in groundwater pumping and grain production. On a state level, this approach predicted when groundwater withdrawal and grain production peaked and the lag between them. The lags increased with the adoption of efficient irrigation practices and higher recharge rates. Results indicate that, in Texas, withdrawals peaked in 1966, followed by a peak in grain production 9 y later. After better irrigation technologies were adopted, the lag increased to 15 y from 1997 to 2012. In Kansas, where these technologies were employed concurrently with the rise of irrigated grain production, this lag was predicted to be 24 y starting in 1994. In Nebraska, grain production is projected to continue rising through 2050 because of high recharge rates. While Texas and Nebraska had equal irrigated output in 1975, by 2050, it is projected that Nebraska will have almost 10 times the groundwater-based production of Texas

Editors' Introduction

The AISHE-J Editor, Sylvia Huntley-Moore, and the ILTA Special Issue Editor, Catherine Bruen, provide a summary of this issue, and report briefly on the wider context for organisational collaboration to promote teaching and learning in higher education in Ireland

Multi-model, metadata driven approach to adaptive hypermedia services for personalized eLearning

peer-reviewedOne of the major obstacles in developing quality eLearning content is the substantial development costs involved and development time required [12]. Educational providers, such as those in the university sector and corporate learning, are under increasing pressure to enhance the pedagogical quality and technical richness of their course offerings while at the same time achieving improved return on investment. One means of enhancing the educational impact of eLearning courses, while still optimizing the return on investment, is to facilitate the personalization and repurposing of learning objects across multiple related courses. However, eLearning courses typically differ strongly in ethos, learning goals and pedagogical approach whilst learners, even within the same course, may have different personal learning goals, motivations, prior knowledge and learning style preferences. This paper proposes an innovative multi-model approach to the dynamic composition and delivery of personalized learning utilizing reusable learning objects. The paper describes an adaptive metadata driven engine that composes, at runtime, tailored educational experiences across a single content base. This paper presents the theoretical models, design and implementation of the adaptive hypermedia educational service. This service is currently being successfully used for the delivery of undergraduate degree courses in Trinity College, Dublin as well as being used as part of a major EU research trial

M.: Multi-Model, Metadata Driven Approach to Adaptive Hypermedia Services for Personalized eLearning

Abstract. One of the major obstacles in developing quality eLearning content is the substantial development costs involved and development time required [12]. Educational providers, such as those in the university sector and corporate learning, are under increasing pressure to enhance the pedagogical quality and technical richness of their course offerings while at the same time achieving improved return on investment. One means of enhancing the educational impact of eLearning courses, while still optimizing the return on investment, is to facilitate the personalization and repurposing of learning objects across multiple related courses. However, eLearning courses typically differ strongly in ethos, learning goals and pedagogical approach whilst learners, even within the same course, may have different personal learning goals, motivations, prior knowledge and learning style preferences. This paper proposes an innovative multi-model approach to the dynamic composition and delivery of personalized learning utilizing reusable learning objects. The paper describes an adaptive metadata driven engine that composes, at runtime, tailored educational experiences across a single content base. This paper presents the theoretical models, design and implementation of the adaptive hypermedia educational service. This service is currently being successfully used for the delivery of undergraduate degree courses in Trinity College, Dublin as well as being used as part of a major EU research trial.

A meta-analytic perspective on the valid use of subjective human judgement to make medical school admission decisions

While medical educators appear to believe that admission to the medical school should be governed, at least in part, by human judgement, there has been no systematic presentation of evidence suggesting it improves selection. From a fair testing perspective, legal, ethical, and psychometric considerations, all dictate that the scientific evidence regarding human judgement in selection should be given consideration. To investigate the validity of using human judgements in admissions, multi-disciplinary meta-analytic research evidence from the wider literature is combined with studies from within medical education to provide evidence regarding the fairness and validity of using interviews and holistic review in medical school admissions. Fourteen studies, 6 of which are meta-analytic studies that summarized 292 individual studies, were included in the final review. Within these studies, a total of 33 studies evaluated the reliability of the traditional interview. These studies reveal that the interview has low to moderate reliability (~.42) which significantly limits its validity. This is confirmed by over 100 studies examining interview validity which collectively show interview scores to be moderately correlated with important outcome variables (corrected value ~.29). Meta-analyses of over 150 studies demonstrate that mechanical/formula-based selection decisions produce better results than decisions made with holistic/clinical methods (human judgement). Three conclusions regarding the use of interviews and holistic review are provided by these meta-analyses. First, it is clear that the traditional interview has low reliability and that this significantly limits its validity. Second, the reliable variance from interview scores appears moderately predictive of outcomes that are relevant to consider in medical school admission. And third, the use of holistic review as a method of incorporating human judgement is not a valid alternative to mechanical/statistical approaches as the evidence clearly indicates that mechanistic methods are more predictive, reliable, cost efficient, and transparent