A survey on cost-effective context-aware distribution of social data streams over energy-efficient data centres

Social media have emerged in the last decade as a viable and ubiquitous means of communication. The ease of user content generation within these platforms, e.g. check-in information, multimedia data, etc., along with the proliferation of Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled, always-connected capture devices lead to data streams of unprecedented amount and a radical change in information sharing. Social data streams raise a variety of practical challenges, including derivation of real-time meaningful insights from effectively gathered social information, as well as a paradigm shift for content distribution with the leverage of contextual data associated with user preferences, geographical characteristics and devices in general. In this article we present a comprehensive survey that outlines the state-of-the-art situation and organizes challenges concerning social media streams and the infrastructure of the data centres supporting the efficient access to data streams in terms of content distribution, data diffusion, data replication, energy efficiency and network infrastructure. We systematize the existing literature and proceed to identify and analyse the main research points and industrial efforts in the area as far as modelling, simulation and performance evaluation are concerned

CoPe_it! - Supporting collaboration, enhancing learning

CoPe_it! is an innovative web-based tool that complies with collaborative practices to provide members of communities with the appropriate means to manage individual and collective knowledge, and collaborate towards the solution of diverse issues. In this article, we demonstrate its applicability in tackling data-intensive collaboration settings, which are characterized by big volumes of complex and interrelated data obtained from diverse sources, and knowledge expressed by diverse participants. We focus on issues related to the representation of such settings and the proposed approach towards making it easier for participants to follow the evolution of a collaboration, comprehend it in its entirety, and meaningfully aggregate data in order to resolve the issue under consideration

European Union digital education framework : a quality standard to guide the design of healthcare apps

Digital Education Initiatives and Timely Solutions (DIG-IT) is an Erasmus+ project collaboration between university academics, clinical educators, industry partners, healthcare professionals, and technology experts over 5 European Union (EU) states. The objectives are to create digital educational capacity for academic faculty and mobile learning opportunities for continuing professional healthcare education. The first deliverable of this project was the innovative European Union Digital Education Quality Standards Framework and Toolkit or EU-DEF. This framework can be used to consider all principle and secondary aspects when designing, delivering, and evaluating digital education resources. In this article we explore the framework efficacy in collaboratively developing two open access, mobile healthcare apps, ECG Interpretation for Nurses and Nurse Leadership and Management. We describe the teamwork needed and steps taken during this process, and demonstrate the adaptability, usability, and value of this tool for other online development projects. The EU-DEF is an evidence-based, comprehensive framework that can be used as a starting point for individuals or teams when developing digital educational projects. Considering all variables helps focus the expertise required to produce robust end-products.peer-reviewe

VALS: Virtual Alliances for Learning Society

[EN] VALS has the aims of establishing sustainable methods and processes to build knowledge partnerships between Higher Education and companies to collaborate on resolving authentic business problems through open innovation mediated by the use of Open Source Software. Open Source solutions provide the means whereby educational institutions, students, businesses and foundations can all collaborate to resolve authentic business problems. Not only Open Software provides the necessary shared infrastructure and collaborative practice, the foundations that manage the software are also hubs, which channel the operational challenges of their users through to the people who can solve them. This has great potential for enabling students and supervisors to collaborate in resolving the problems of businesses, but is constrained by the lack of support for managing and promoting collaboration across the two sectors. VALS should 1) provide the methods, practice, documentation and infrastructure to unlock this potential through virtual placements in businesses and other public and private bodies; and 2) pilot and promote these as the “Semester of Code”. To achieve its goals the project develops guidance for educational institutions, and for businesses and foundations, detailing the opportunities and the benefits to be gained from the Semester of Code, and the changes to organisation and practice required. A Virtual Placement System is going to be developed, adapting Apache Melange, and extending it where necessary. In piloting, the necessary adaptations to practice will be carried out, particularly in universities, and commitments will be established between problem owners and applicants for virtual placements

A Context Aware Recommender System for Creativity Support Tools

The development of methods that can enhance the creativity process is becoming a continuous necessity. Through the years several researchers modelled and defined creativity focusing to the psychological aspect of the topic. More recent researchers approach creativity as a computerized process by simulating it within creativity support tools (CST). This article supports that usage of context aware recommender system, in creativity support tools and more specifically, collaborative creativity support tools (CCST) can enhance creativity process. In this work we focus on the development of a context awareness recommender system and look into how such a system can be useful for the creativity process, through preliminary evaluation results in regards to its usefulness and usability

Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Building Technology Enhanced Learning solutions for Communities of Practice From ‘Collecting ’ to ‘Deciding’: Facilitating the Emergence of Decisions in Argumentative Collaboration

Abstract. Current tools aiming at supporting argumentative collaboration either provide means to successfully tame wicked problems or offer advanced reasoning mechanisms to support decision making. When CoPs need both kinds of functionalities for addressing issues this gap perplexes the process. We argue that a key factor in enabling the bridging of this gap is viewing argumentative collaboration as an emergent phenomenon. Addressing emergent aspects of argumentative collaboration would benefit the respective systems as that would permit them to support the evolution of the entire collaboration. We outline this approach by presenting CoPe_it! a prototype argumentative collaboration system. In CoPe_it!, an incremental formalization approach facilitates the emergence of individual and loosely coupled resources into coherent knowledge structures and finally decisions

From ‘Collecting ’ to ‘Deciding’: Facilitating the Emergence of Decisions in Argumentative Collaboration

Abstract. Current tools aiming at supporting argumentative collaboration either provide means to successfully tame wicked problems or offer advanced reasoning mechanisms to support decision making. When CoPs need both kinds of functionalities for addressing issues this gap perplexes the process. We argue that a key factor in enabling the bridging of this gap is viewing argumentative collaboration as an emergent phenomenon. Addressing emergent aspects of argumentative collaboration would benefit the respective systems as that would permit them to support the evolution of the entire collaboration. We outline this approach by presenting CoPe_it! a prototype argumentative collaboration system. In CoPe_it!, an incremental formalization approach facilitates the emergence of individual and loosely coupled resources into coherent knowledge structures and finally decisions

SciChallenge : Using Student-Generated Content and Contests to Enhance the Interest for Science Education and Careers

Science education will play a vital role in shaping the present and future of modern societies. Thus, Europe needs all its talents to increase creativity and competitiveness. Young boys and girls especially have to be engaged to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). However, statistics still show that enrolment rates in STEM-based degree programs are decreasing. This will lead to a workforce problem in the industrial sector as well as in research and development, especially in many of the new member countries. This paper highlights a recently funded EU-research project SciChallenge (www.scichallenge.eu), which focuses on the development of novel concepts to get young people excited about science education. It uses a contest-based approach towards self-produced digital education materials from young people for young people. In cooperation with partner schools, teachers, and other youth-oriented institutions, the contest participants (individuals or groups) between the ages of 10 and 20 years generate creative digital materials (videos, slides, or infographics). The participants upload their content in social media channels and the submissions are aggregated on the SciChallenge Web Platform. The winners receive prizes funded by science-oriented industry and other stakeholders. Intelligent cross-sectoral positioning of various awareness modules on the SciChallenge Open Information Hub is expected to increase awareness on science careers. Through a strong involvement of related organizations and industries, we expect to open new opportunities for young people in regards to internships or taster days in STEM disciplines. Additionally, aggregated information on science events (such as, slams, nights, festivals) is shared. With this multi-level approach, SciChallenge may boost the attractiveness of science education and careers among young people. It is expected to improve the public engagement in science, economic prosperity and global competitiveness on a pan- European level.SciChalleng