Empowering Doctoral Candidates in Finding Relevant Concepts in a Literature Set

Research activity connects prior findings with new and emerging ideas in the hope of attracting attention of those in the community who are able to make some sort of profit from the application of those ideas. Finding relevant concepts from among the vast repository of already published ideas is an important challenge for all researchers. Nowadays, there is ample opportunity to take advantage of the empowering aspects of developments in information technology. In this study, we share some ideas to efficiently and effectively find relevant concepts in a given literature set. Our need was to find and tag predetermined concepts from among the scores of research articles that our literature search had delivered – necessarily this was a large enough task to warrant the development of some automated support to find and tag the relevant concepts. We had prior exposure to Adobe® Acrobat® Pro and noted that it provides superior ‘search and find’ facilities; we decided to trial this use for our purposes in the ‘Tribes and Cultures’ research project. We have devised and trialled a seven step, semi-automated method to assist in finding relevant concepts from within collections of research articles, retrieved as Portable Document Format (PDF) files, from bibliographic databases and digital libraries

Tribes & Cultures – Cross-disciplinary Communication: Pinpointing the Issues for eLearning

Effective communication and co-operation across disciplines is needed to create and deploy eLearning systems so that they contribute to enhanced outcomes for students and teachers. Using a Grounded Theory methodology we probed the cultures of the participating tribes: the Educationalists; the Instructional Designers; and the Information Technology Specialists. Six salient themes emerged from the semi-structured interview data of respondents selected from the three tribes, each of which is described in detail in this article. These themes give rise to Six Rules of Thumb to help promote fruitful communication and interaction among the tribes and cultures of eLearning system stakeholders, and thus result in improved eLearning systems

Using machinima documentary and virtual environments to reinvigorate students' learning in systems development

Inspired by the success of the Students @ Work project (Reiners et al., 2008) run at Hamburg University, Curtin University (Perth, Western Australia) has recently concluded the running of a pilot course in Second Life with their Information Systems Project (ISP) management students. The need for a change was evident as student motivation and engagement in the Final Year Project Management course was strikingly low. Left with such a tall order for improvement, the ISP teaching staff looked to find suitable options for change. Staff combined a number of new and interesting tools in an effort to boost and maintain student interest: these tools include the Second Life virtual environment and a new filmmaking technique known as Machinima

Interactive on-line formative evaluation of student assignments

Automated Essay Grading (AEG) technology has been maturing over the final decades of the last century to the point where it is now poised to permit a transition in ?assessment-thinking?. The administrative convenience of using objective testing to attempt to assess deep learning, learning at the conceptual level, has now been obviated by efficient and effective automated means to assess student learning. Further, the new generation AEG systems such as MarkIT deliver an unprecedented interactive formative assessment feedback capability, which is set to transform individualized learning and instruction as implemented in existing Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Anonymous feedback in e-learning systems

Prima facie it is accepted that anonymity is an important feature of E-Learning systems. It is easy to implement. But this simplicity belies its more serious implications, especially regarding the worth which can be attached to results derived from the interpretation and analysis of anonymously collected data. We review a sample of E-Learning implementation cases from the point of view of anonymously collected data for evaluation of educational quality. A reiteration of an earlier analysis of levels of anonymity then leads us to argue that the use of our Anonymity levels/Purpose/Worth matrix will benefit practitioners and researchers in the E-Learning field

3D Spaces in Software Engineering: From K-12 to Life Long Learning

Despite continuing debate regarding the utility of virtual worlds, their use has continued to pervade the worldwide marketplace. An important consideration is that the current K-12 student cohort comprises digital natives who are clearly the major group of users represented in virtual worlds, either in games or social online communities (Prensky 2001). Increasingly this cohort of students will expect to use virtual worlds to learn, and educators are wise to prepare. Indeed 3D Spaces will likely become one of the major platforms for distant learning as well as for virtual teams of software engineers to both work and socialize. In the context of software engineering, this paper discusses the benefits for early movers to integrate 3D Spaces in the classroom, project meetings and vocational training. The focus is set on life-long learning and the specific methodology of 3D Space integration is demonstrated over all stages - from childhood to the workplace

Virtual worlds as a context suited for information systems education: discussion of pedagogical experience and curriculum design with reference to second life

The context of Information Communication Technology (ICT) is changing dramatically. Today, Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and MySpace are used ubiquitously in the general population, and Virtual Worlds are becoming increasingly popular in business, for example via simulations in Second Life. However the capacity of Virtual Worlds is underutilised in educational contexts. Educational institutions in general, but especially those offering Information Systems (IS) courses, must keep pace with emerging ICT and social trends or risk becoming irrelevant. Furthermore, there are particular pedagogical advantages in utilising emerging technologies such as Virtual Worlds in IS education. For instance, Second Life offers an intrinsically motivating, safe, and low cost environment in which to learn IS-related skills such as programming, requirements analysis, systems development, project management, and business process modelling. Drawn from the experience of the authors and current innovations in pedagogical research and practice, suggestions are made for curriculum design and implementation of Second Life in IS Education, including: the benefits of blending the real and Virtual Worlds; enhancement of students? intrinsic motivation; industry-relevant skill transfer; and innovative education that transcends traditional pedagogical practices. These points are illustrated with reference to case studies of IS student projects in Second Life from the University of Hamburg and Curtin Business School. Attention is given to current limitations of this emerging technology, regarding hardware, software, and connectivity. Future developments in both the technology and how it is implemented in educational contexts, integrating the real and virtual worlds via emerging technologies, are mentioned

3D virtual worlds as collaborative communities enriching human endeavours: Innovative applications in e-learning

3D virtual worlds are potent digital ecosystems because the 3D interface simulates real-world environments and the community of users creates a dynamic, real-to-life economy and in-world culture. Some virtual worlds such as Second Life empower users to generate in-world content through object building tools and programming languages; indeed the content in Second Life is entirely user-generated. This promotes a rich culture of innovation surrounding this emerging technology that continually develops the capabilities of the 3D digital ecosystem. The collaborative culture spans both the 3D in-world environment and 2D ecosystems: for example, Web 2.0 applications such as wikis and blogs facilitate support, discussion, and documentation for user-generated innovations. Innovation in 3D digital ecosystems such as Second Life are applied to all domains of human endeavour that exist in the real-world, including recreation, socialisation, commerce, and education. This paper shares the authors professional experience using Second Life in tertiary information systems/science education. Case studies describe the specific applications. They are followed by discussion of the benefits of 3D digital ecosystems for education and suggestions for future research, development, and practice

Design and integration of an automated assessment laboratory experiences and guide

The aim of the Automated Assessment Laboratory (AAL) being established at the Curtin BusinessSchool (CBS) is to provide lecturers with the opportunity to have essays automatically assessed using MarkIT. This automated essay grading tool is most suited to those units that have large numbers of students. In this contribution, we describe our approach to design and integrate the AAL in the curriculum, report our experiences and provide a guide for other institutions