bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Educational Technology in the Medical Industry
Authors: Hopper Keith B. , Johns Carol L.
Published: October 2011

The enormous U.S. medical industry is a rich laboratory and think tank for technology integration. Higher education in the medical industry is comprised of a large number of professional training programs as well as formidable continuing medical education. Continuing education for medical professionals is inconsistent and flawed. Technology integration in medical fields has mirrored the false starts and frustrations seen generally in higher education. There are promising areas of investigation such as high-fidelity patient simulators and incorporation of wireless handheld devices for point-of-care reference information and best practices. Widespread adoption of electronic medical records may allow medical education researchers to link instructional practices to eventual patient outcomes, with implications for higher education.
Mobile Interactive Learning in Large Classes
Authors: Yow Kin-Choong , Seet Boon-Chong
Published: October 2011

This chapter aims at describing a new platform for mobile and interactive learning targeted as an effective communication medium between the professor and students during lectures. In this system, students and professors will be equipped with a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) capable device (which may be PDAs, Laptops, or Tablet PCs) that is connected on the campus-wide Wireless LAN. During lectures, students can ask questions, response to questions or give immediate feedback on the lecture simply by composing a MMS message and sending it to the professor. The main advantage of this learning system is that MMS messaging is easily extensible to the mobile GSM networks, so students are not restricted to use it only on campus. In addition to enabling better interaction between students and instructor, an approach to facilitate student-to-student interaction during a lecture for peer-to-peer learning is proposed, which can be easily integrated into our existing system.
Security Across Disparate Management Domains in Coalition MANETs
Authors: Srivatsa Mudhakar , Agrawal Dakshi , McDonald Andrew D.
Published: October 2011

Designing a coalition network for chaotic environments (e.g., responding to a large catastrophe) is challenging because such systems cannot rely on availability of a fixed communication or a security infrastructure. In such situations, a coalition may use Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs) to communicate and to extend its operational reach and tempo. In this scenario, bootstrapping security and networking protocols requires that networking protocols cannot assume full existence of operational security protocols and vice-versa. In this chapter, the authors outline a realistic bounded resource adversary model and examine bootstrapping problems in the physical & link layer and the routing layer with the goal of identifying new research challenges and novel solution methodologies. In particular, (i) the authors examine secure link key set up protocols at the physical & link layer that neither use computationally intensive PKI mechanisms nor assume pre-configured shared keys between nodes that belong to different coalition partners, (ii) identify new security issues owing to power saving intra-domain routing protocols that use sophisticated packet matching and forwarding mechanisms; in a coalition setting they also examine inter-domain routing protocols that preserve domain autonomy and yet permits scalable network monitoring and misbehavior detection, (iii) examine identity management issues in MANETs and outline a wireless fingerprinting approach to condone a malicious node from spoofing and forging one or more identities on the network.
Impact of Wireless Sensor Network Technology on Service Innovation in Supply Chain Management
Authors: Li Gong , Shi Jing
Published: October 2011

Driven by the rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT) as well as today’s globally competitive environment for enterprises, service innovation has drawn considerable attention in such fields as supply chain management (SCM). Wireless sensor network (WSN) technology, which can provide a mobile, scalable, and reliable monitoring solution, has gone through rapid development in recent years. The objective of this chapter is to provide an overview about wireless sensor network technology and a discussion on how this technology can be applied to modern industries and especially bring service innovation to supply chain management. An overview of the history and potential applications of WSN is provided for the necessary background. The architecture, topology, standards, and protocols of WSN are fundamentally important and thus introduced in details. In a general sense, the impact of information technologies on supply chain management and service innovation is then briefly discussed. After that, much emphasis is placed on the possibility, procedures, and critical challenges of implementing WSN in supply chain management. In the end, two case studies are provided to illustrate the application of WSN for service innovation in both cold chain management and healthcare settings.
Case “Mobile-INTEGRAL”
Authors: Pau L-F
Published: October 2011

The case “Integral” is about how a multinational company specializing in machinery goods uses high technology in its field support and mandated safety solutions to migrate its customer relationships into partnerships of growing scope and with new revenue streams. The key technologies are in-situ equipment monitoring and wireless communications. The key management ingredients are top management’s understanding and respect for operational issues. The history of the case also illustrates the importance of the strategic choice of the in-house vs. in-sourced nature of the needed technical expertise, and of a gradual deployment compatible with the fast technology evolution.
M-Government
Authors: Almutairi Mubarak S.
Published: October 2011

In developing countries like the Saudi Arabia, due to high mobile phone penetration rates, any electronic government initiatives that don’t take mobile technology into account will eventually fail. While the number of landline phones and internet subscribers are growing steadily over the past few years, the number of mobile phone users and its penetration rates are skyrocketing. In the near future and with the many mobile phone features, mobile phones will remain the main media of communication and a main source for providing information to citizens and customers.
Factors Influencing Satisfaction with Mobile Portals
Authors: Seng Daisy , Wilkin Carla , Sugianto Ly-Fie
Published: October 2011

Smart phones are increasingly used in commercial sectors to facilitate mobile transactions. Herein the advancements of mobile technology and network engineering have been instrumental in the proliferation of pervasive computing using mobile devices. As a result portal technology has emerged to provide users in both Web and mobile contexts with a single point of access and personalization to Information Systems. The shortcomings of existing instruments in capturing the diversity in user opinions about satisfaction with mobile portals mean that the development of a new instrument for measuring user satisfaction in this context is invaluable. This chapter documents the first stage in this journey, namely the content validation process. Drawing upon related theoretical and empirical research, the authors identify an initial pool of factors that affect user satisfaction with mobile portals. Then, using multiple focus groups, the authors refine these factors in preparation for the next stage, which involves development of the items.
Security and Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Al Murat , Yoshigoe Kenji
Published: October 2011

Understanding data security is crucial to the daily operation of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) as well as to the further advancement of security solutions in the research community. Unlike many surveys in literature that handle the topic in close relationship to a particular communication protocol, we provide a general view of vulnerabilities, attacks, and countermeasures in WSNs, enabling a broader audience to benefit from the presented material. We compare salient characteristics and applications of common wireless technologies to those of WSNs. As the main focus of the chapter, we thoroughly describe the characteristics of attacks and their countermeasures in WSNs. In addition, we qualitatively illustrate the multi-dimensional relationship among various properties including the effectiveness of these attacks (i.e., caused damage), the resources needed by adversaries to accomplish their intended attacks (i.e., consumed energy and time), and the resources required to defend against these attacks (i.e., energy overhead).
Broadband Optical Access using Centralized Carrier Distribution
Authors: Chow Chi-Wai
Published: October 2011

Passive optical network (PON) is considered as an attractive fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) technology. Wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) PON improves the utilization of fiber bandwidth through the use of wavelength domain. A cost-effective solution in WDM PON would use the same components in each optical networking unit (ONU), which should thus be independent of the wavelength assigned by the network. Optical carriers are distributed from the head-end office to different ONUs to produce the upstream signals. Various solutions of colorless ONUs will be discussed. Although the carrier distributed WDM PONs have many attractive features, a key issue that needs to be addressed is how best to control the impairments that arise from optical beat noise induced by Rayleigh backscattering (RB). Different RB components will be analyzed and RB mitigation schemes will be presented. Finally, some novel PONs including signal remodulation PONs, long reach PONs and wireless/wired PONs will be highlighted.
Infrastructures in Vehicular Communications
Authors: Rawat Danda B. , Yan Gongjun
Published: October 2011

Vehicular communication is regarded as a backbone for the development of intelligent transportation system (ITS). Recently vehicular communication has attracted researchers from both academia and industry all over the world, notably, in the United States of America, Japan and European Union. The rapid advances in wireless technologies provide opportunities to utilize them in vehicular communication in advanced road safety applications. The most important feature of vehicular communication is to improve the road traffic safety, efficiency, comfort and quality of everyday road travel. Networking in particular and communication in general are important rudiments in the development of ITS. Generally, in vehicular communication, the information exchange occurs among vehicles not only in an ad-hoc based vehicle-to-vehicle networking but also in a vehicle-to-infrastructure with possible intermediate infrastructure-to-infrastructure networking. Therefore, the infrastructure plays major role in order to realize the full potential of vehicular communications. This chapter provides an in-depth survey of the infrastructures and technologies that are recently proposed as part of future ITS developments as well as tested for vehicular communications in mobile environment. Specifically, we provide an in-depth analysis of wireless technology-applications such as ad-hoc networking and wireless local area network (WLAN), dedicated short-range communication (DSRC), cellular technology and NOTICE Architecture, and compare their characteristics in terms of their abilities to support vehicular communications for development of ITS.
An Agent-Based Approach to Adapt Multimedia Web Content in Ubiquitous Environment
Authors: Rosaci Domenico , Sarnè Giuseppe M.L.
Published: October 2011

Nowadays, Ubiquitous Computing allows a high number of multimedia contents to be accessible anywhere and anytime by using several devices, also characterized from limited computational and storage resources. To support users in multimedia choices, different recommender systems have been proposed in the past, but any of them considers the effects of the exploited devices, even though users show different behaviours in presence of different devices. This chaptertries to give a contribution in this setting, proposing a new agent-based recommender system in which each device is provided with a client agent able to monitor the user’s behaviour performed on that device. A unique server agent associated with that user collects from his/her devices this information to build a global profile, periodically returned to the client agents. Finally, recommendations of multimedia resources are generated from the collaboration among a recommender agent, associated with a Web site, and the client agent running on the device currently exploited by the user. Some experiments confirm the high quality of the recommendations generated by the proposed approach.
Mobile Agent-Based Collaborative Computing Framework for Handling Constraint Resources
Authors: Kakarla Anil , Agarwal Sanjeev , Madria Sanjay Kumar
Published: October 2011

Information processing and collaborative computing using agents over a distributed network of heterogeneous platforms are important for many defense and civil applications. In this chapter, a mobile agent based collaborative and distributed computing framework for network centric information processing is presented using a military application. In this environment, the challenge is to continue processing efficiently while satisfying multiple constraints like computational cost, communication bandwidth, and energy in a distributed network. The authors use mobile agent technology for distributed computing to speed up data processing using the available systems resources in the network. The proposed framework provides a mechanism to bridge the gap between computation resources and dispersed data sources under variable bandwidth constraints. For every computation task raised in the network, a viable system that has resources and data to compute the task is identified and sent to the viable system for completion. Experimental evaluation under the real platform is reported. It shows that in spite of an increase of the communication load in comparison with other solutions the proposed framework leads to a decrease of the computation time.
Workflow Management and Mobile Agents
Authors: Corradi Antonio , Landini Alex , Monti Stefano
Published: October 2011

Service composition is an extremely powerful and versatile way to aggregate and reuse distributed services and software components into richer and complex scenarios. Workflow Management Systems have emerged as one of the leading technologies to execute service compositions but typically fail to support distributed scenarios, where distributed services should be invoked in a scalable and effective way. Mobile Agent platforms propose a suitable framework to distribute the execution of complex service compositions, and therefore to enable scalability and improve performance. However, current proposals for MA-based WFMSs still target rather static and poorly distributed scenarios and exploit agent migration benefits only in a partial and insufficient way. The authors’ model proposes to overcome these problems via a richer and more effective agent delegation strategy that can also cope with dynamic scenarios where services can move and replicate, in order to achieve a better integration by taking advantage of both technologies.
MINTCar
Authors: Bobelin Laurent
Published: October 2011

Discovering a network topology and inferring its performances for the client/server case is a well known field of study. However, client/server model is no longer accurate when dealing with Grids, as those platforms involve coordinated transfers from multiple sources to multiple destinations. In this chapter, we first review existing work, introduce a representation of the inferred knowledge from multiple sources and multiple destinations measurements that allows to obtain a well-posed problem, algorithms in order to reconstruct such a representation, a method to probe network, and give some experimental results.
Grid Scheduling
Authors: Pop Florin
Published: October 2011

This chapter will present the scheduling mechanism in distributed systems with direct application in grids. The resource heterogeneity, the size and number of tasks, the variety of policies, and the high number of constraints are some of the main characteristics that contribute to this complexity. The necessity of scheduling in grid is sustained by the increasing of number of users and applications. The design of scheduling algorithms for a heterogeneous computing system interconnected with an arbitrary communication network is one of the actual concerns in distributed system research. The main concerns presented in the chapter refers to general presentation of scheduling for grid systems, specific requirements of scheduling in grids, critical analysis of existing methods and algorithms for grid schedulers, scheduling policies, fault tolerance in scheduling process in grid environments, scheduling models and algorithms and optimization techniques for grid scheduling.
E-Infrastructures for International Cooperation
Authors: Andronico Giuseppe , Balaž Antun , Banda Tiwonge Msulira , Barbera Roberto , Becker Bruce , Chattopadhyay Subrata , Chen Gang , Ciuffo Leandro N. , Dhekne P. S. , Gavillet Philippe , Jalife Salma , Kondoro John Wajanga Aron , Lin Simon C. , Marechal Bernard Marie , Masoni Alberto , Matyska Ludek , Merrouch Redouane , Mitsos Yannis , Nan Kai , Napis Suhaimi , Nassar Salwa , Paganoni Marco , Prnjat Ognjen , Qian Depei , Qian Sijin , Reale Mario , Ruggieri Federico , Sener Cevat , Singh Dipak , Torman Yousef , Voss Alex , West David , Wright Colin
Published: October 2011

E-infrastructures are becoming in Europe and in other regions of the world standard platforms to support e-Science and foster virtual research communities. This chapter provides the reader with a comprehensive view of the developments of e-Infrastructures in China, India, Asia-Pacific, Mediterranean, Middle-East, Sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Europe and Latin America and with an outlook on the very important issue of their long term sustainability.
Application of Grid Computing for Meteorological Assessment of Wind and Solar Resources in Sub-Saharan African Countries
Authors: Ochieng Francis Xavier
Published: October 2011

Developing countries especially those in sub-Saharan Africa face a major challenge in meteorological prediction and numerical assessment of wind and solar resources. This is mainly attributed to lack of expertise and requisite equipment. A proven approach is the utilization of remote grid computing essentially undertaking grid computing remotely by accessing the grid computers in host countries with more advanced Information Technology infrastructure. This chapter details the utilisation of a Numerical Mesoscale model with a horizontal resolution of 1 km in assessing wind resources in Kenya. The presented country in Sub-Saharan Africa uses a large-scale High-Performance Computer (HPC) that combines heterogeneous computing resources in Germany. The same model can be used for assessment of solar resources.
Adaptive Grid Services
Authors: Anderson Mark , Ahmed Laeeq , Joshi Mandeep , Kansakar Sujan
Published: October 2011

The chapter aims to explore the implementation of grid services and defines a theoretical approach to a development framework which would enable the creation of agile services. At present, services are written with specific goals in mind which may support the majority of users of the service. However if the requirements of the users change, or there exist users who require a slightly alternative form of the service, then either multiple services must be orchestrated to provide the required functionality to the users, or a new service must be implemented to address any gaps in functionality. An alternative solution is presented in the chapter which adopts aspect-oriented programming as a core component in the framework. By utilizing this paradigm, it becomes possible to develop services that are agile; capable of combining the capabilities required to support requests being submitted to the grid node dependent upon individual needs. To facilitate this mechanism, a pool of service components must be created from which the weaving component of the framework can select, via semantic discovery, the most appropriate.
Continuous Authentication in Computers
Authors: Jagadeesan Harini , Hsiao Michael S.
Published: October 2011

In the Internet age, identity theft is a major security issue because contemporary authentication systems lack adequate mechanisms to detect and prevent masquerading. This chapter discusses the current authentication systems and identifies their limitations in combating masquerading attacks. Analysis of existing authentication systems reveals the factors to be considered and the steps necessary in building a good continuous authentication system. As an example, we present a continual, non-intrusive, fast and easily deployable user re-authentication system based on behavioral biometrics. It employs a novel heuristic based on keyboard and mouse attributes to decipher the behavioral pattern of each individual user on the system. In the re-authentication process, the current behavior of user is compared with stored “expected” behavior. If user behavior deviates from expected behavior beyond an allowed threshold, system logs the user out of the current session, thereby preventing imposters from misusing the system. Experimental results show that the proposed methodology improves the accuracy of application-based and application independent systems to 96.4% and 82.2% respectively. At the end of this chapter, the reader is expected to understand the dimensions involved in creating a computer based continuous authentication system and is able to frame a robust continual re-authentication system with a high degree of accuracy.
Multimodal Biometric Hand-Off for Robust Unobtrusive Continuous Biometric Authentication
Authors: Tsatsoulis P. Daphne , Jaech Aaron , Batie Robert , Savvides Marios
Published: October 2011

Conventional access control solutions rely on a single authentication to verify a user’s identity but do nothing to ensure the authenticated user is indeed the same person using the system afterwards. Without continuous monitoring, unauthorized individuals have an opportunity to “hijack” or “tailgate” the original user’s session. Continuous authentication attempts to remedy this security loophole. Biometrics is an attractive solution for continuous authentication as it is unobtrusive yet still highly accurate. This allows the authorized user to continue about his routine but quickly detects and blocks intruders. This chapter outlines the components of a multi-biometric based continuous authentication system. Our application employs a biometric hand-off strategy where in the first authentication step a strong biometric robustly identifies the user and then hands control to a less computationally intensive face recognition and tracking system that continuously monitors the presence of the user. Using multiple biometrics allows the system to benefit from the strengths of each modality. Since face verification accuracy degrades as more time elapses between the training stage and operation time, our proposed hand-off strategy permits continuous robust face verification with relatively simple and computationally efficient classifiers. We provide a detailed evaluation of verification performance using different pattern classification algorithms and show that the final multi-modal biometric hand-off scheme yields high verification performance.
Sitting Postures and Electrocardiograms
Authors: Riener Andreas
Published: October 2011

This approach is novel in terms of “participation” – the driver has neither to operate something nor to attach a device. Furthermore he/she must not be aware of the continuous collection of his/her personal profile at all.
Personal Identification and Authentication Based on Keystroke Dynamics in Japanese Long-Text Input
Authors: Samura Toshiharu , Nishimura Haruhiko
Published: October 2011

We have investigated several characteristics of keystroke dynamics in Japanese long-text input. We performed experiments with 189 participants, classified into three groups according to the number of letters they could type in five minutes. In this experimental study, we extracted feature indices from the keystroke timing for each alphabet letter and for each two-letter combination composed of a consonant and vowel in Japanese text. Taking into account two identification methods using Weighted Euclidean Distance (WED) and Array Disorder (AD), we proposed a hybrid model for identifying individuals on the basis of keystroke data in Japanese long-text input. By evaluating the identification performance of individuals in the three groups, the effectiveness of the method was found to correspond to the typing skill level of the group.
Coordinated Intelligent Operation and Emergency Control of Electric Power Systems
Authors: Voropai Nicolay , Kolosok Irina , Korkina Elena , Paltsev Alexey , Glazunova Anna , Kurbatsky Victor , Tomin Nikita , Gamm Alexander , Golub Irina , Bershansky Roman , Panasetsky Daniil , Efimov Dmitry , Popov Dmitry , Rehtanz Christian , Häger Ulf
Published: October 2011

This chapter presents the following approaches and developments: (1) the approach to power system state estimation based on structural and functional decomposition. PMU measurements are used to coordinate the solutions obtained in individual areas; (2) a non-iterative method to calculate voltage magnitude and phase at all the buses, allowing the state parameters of EPS to be obtained fast enough; (3) the approach to the super short-term forecasting of state variables on the basis of neural network technologies and algorithms of nonlinear optimization that is realized in the ANAPRO software; (4) an analysis of the possibility of determining weak ties and cut sets in EPS; (5) a control system based on the multi-agent technique; (6) the development of selective automatic systems intended to prevent and eliminate out-of-step operation on the basis of synchronized voltage phase measurements obtained from Phasor Measurement Units.
Many-to-Many Assignment Problems
Authors: Litvinchev Igor , Rangel Socorro
Published: October 2011

Modified Lagrangian bounds and a greedy heuristic are proposed for many-to-many assignment problems taking into account capacity limits for tasks and agents. A feasible solution recovered by the heuristic is used to speed up the subgradient technique to solve the modified Lagrangian dual. A numerical study is presented to compare the quality of the bounds and to demonstrate the efficiency of the overall approach.
High-Performance Solutions for Adaptive and Customizable Streaming of Interactive Content to Mobile Devices
Authors: Paravati Gianluca , Lamberti Fabrizio , Sanna Andrea , Celozzi Cesare
Published: October 2011

Recent improvements in technology have opened new, intriguing, and challenging scenarios for the latest generation of mobile devices, and users are asking for an ever larger spectrum of applications. In particular, implementation of interactive applications is an exciting task. In spite of the continuous improvements in the hardware components of mobile devices, several applications are still based on the remote visualization paradigm that adopts streaming based solutions. Nevertheless, some interactive applications introduce hard constraints to be met when low-delay systems have to be designed. Moreover, these systems have to cope with unstable network bandwidth and limited device capabilities. This Chapter first reviews classic strategies to design and implement remote visualization architectures and then presents recent developments regarding high-performance solutions for streaming interactive and customizable contents to mobile devices. In particular, the newest techniques that are specifically able to efficiently cope with bandwidth fluctuations are discussed, and a comparison between optimization based and control based approaches is addressed.
Recent Advances and Challenges in Wireless QoE-Aware Multimedia Streaming Systems
Authors: Oliveira Rosinei , Santana Ádamo L. , Costa João C. W. A. , Frances Carlos R. L. , Aguiar Elisangela , Bezerra Paulo , Costa Allan , Cerqueira Eduardo , Abelém Antônio J. G.
Published: October 2011

It is expected that multimedia applications will be the most abundant application in the Internet and thousands of new wireless and mobile users will produce and share multimedia streaming content ubiquitously. In this multimedia-aware system, it is important to assure the end-to-end quality level support for video and voice applications in wireless systems. Traditional Quality of Service techniques assure the delivery of those services with packet differentiation assurance and indicate the impact of multimedia traffic only on the network performance; however, they do not reflect the user’s perception. Recent advances in multimedia are exploring new Quality of Experience approaches and including metrics and control schemes in wireless networking systems in order to increase the user´s satisfaction and optimize network resources. Operations based on Quality of Experience can be used as an indicator of how a networking environment meets the end-user’s needs and new assessment and packet control approaches are still important challenges. This chapter presents an overview of the most recent advances and challenges in assessment and traffic conditioner procedures for wireless multimedia streaming systems. In addition, an intelligent packet dropper mechanism for IEEE 802.11e systems is proposed and evaluated by using the Network Simulator 2, real video sequences and Evalvid tool. The benefit and the impact of the proposed solution is evaluated by using well-know objective and subjective Quality of Experience metrics, namely, Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio, Video Quality Metric, Structural Similarity Index and Mean Option Score.
Transition to Low-Carbon Hydrogen Economy in America
Authors: Lam Jacqueline C.K. , Hills Peter
Published: October 2011

This chapter describes the process of transitioning to a low-carbon hydrogen economy in the United States and the role of transition management (TM) in this process. Focusing on the transition process for hydrogen-based energy and transport systems in the United States, especially California, this study outlines the key characteristics of TM that have been employed in managing the transition. Several characteristics of TM have been noted in the United States’ hydrogen transition, including: (a) the complementarity of the long-term vision with incremental targets, (b) the integration of top-down and bottom-up planning, (c) system innovations and gradualism, (d) multi-level approaches and interconnectedness, and (e) reflexivity by learning and experimenting. These characteristics are instrumental in bringing about the development and initial commercialization of HFCVs and related energy infrastructure in the United States.
Bike Transportation System Design
Authors: Gill Avninder
Published: October 2011

The main objective of this chapter is to address the facility design and location issues in a public bike transportation system. The major decisions in introducing a public bike transportation system include determining the number of bike facilities and their locations. The present chapter considers a case study from city of Vancouver bike transportation system to demonstrate the importance of these decisions through a real world application. The city intends to decide the number and location of bike terminals. Addressing these two decisions is the main focus of the present chapter and the chapter employs linear programming and center of gravity approaches to arrive at the solutions. The chapter also provides a basic introduction to bike facilities and discusses the sustainability benefits of bike transportation mode.
Students’ Views about Learning with Technologies
Authors: Moyle Kathryn , Wijngaards Guus , Owen Susanne
Published: October 2011

There is a paucity of recent, formal education research that listens directly to students’ views of learning with technologies. Much of the research that has been conducted has tended to focus on evaluating students’ current experiences within a specific course, or concerned with tangible issues such as frequency of computer use, access to computers and the Internet, and evaluations of technical skill levels. Available research has tended to use quantitative or mixed method approaches, with data collected through surveys using convenience samples, Likert scales and free response questions. These methods are sometimes supplemented with interviews and observations. To establish an understanding of existing research, and to provide a foundation for the chapters that follow, this chapter reviews a selection of studies published since 2005 that collected data directly from students. It is apparent from this chapter that there is room for more formal research that listens to students’ views of learning with technologies.
New Technologies, New Horizons
Authors: Spires Hiller A. , Zheng Meixun , Pruden Manning
Published: October 2011

The purpose of this chapter is to present graduate students’ views of their Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) development. These graduate students are also teachers. Data was collected using a mixed method approach founded on the TPACK Framework and social network analysis. Koehler and Mishra (2006) claim that effective teaching with technology requires TPACK, or an ability to integrate content, pedagogy and technology flexibly during the act of teaching. As part of a graduate course on new literacies and media, participants were required to design and implement lessons that incorporated a range of technologies, produce written reflections about their experiences, and engage in online interactions with participants in the class. Qualitative results from participants’ written reflections revealed four themes relative to TPACK. Additionally, a social network analysis demonstrated a positive relationship between participants’ views on their TPACK development and their interaction patterns within the online learning environment. This study shows that the TPACK framework can be a useful tool, giving educators a productive way to think about technology integration as they navigate the rapid changes prompted by emerging technologies.
What are Alberta’s K-12 Students Saying about Learning with Technologies?
Authors: Gray Bette , Andrews Karen , Schroeder Susan
Published: October 2011

Students in Alberta, Canada expect rich opportunities to learn with technologies—opportunities that allow them to use technologies to improve their productivity when learning; to facilitate more complex, collaborative and authentic learning experiences; and to personalize their learning with respect to location, time and pace. While students in schools in Alberta share common expectations for learning with technologies, they do not report common experiences, citing individual preferences and/or contexts as their reasons. These findings derive from an analysis of student voice data collected through research projects and student engagement activities conducted in the province’s K-12 community from 2006 to 2010. In this chapter the authors summarize the collected data and discuss themes common to students’ expectations for learning with technologies as well as reasons why students’ experiences using technologies for learning differ. The authors also outline ways in which Alberta’s K-12 community is evolving to meet students’ expectations for learning with technologies. In closing, the authors challenge the reader to consider what can be done to ensure that students have a voice in designing relevant, technology-rich learning environments that meet their expectations.
Student Voices and Digital Technologies in Australian School Education
Authors: Brown Bernard
Published: October 2011

As digital technologies become more widespread and integrated into Australian school education there is a challenge to better understand the policies that are designed to guide their use. There is little education research however, which explores how school students understand and respond to policy regulations; their voices are largely absent from the landscape in this field. Drawing on an interpretative and critical inquiry, this chapter examines the intersections between policy trajectories and ethical concerns related to teaching and learning with digital technologies, from the perspective of Australian school students. The students in this study demonstrated an understanding of the importance of policy interpretation and language particularly in their discussion of ethical considerations, and indicated they want more consultative and participatory approaches to digital technologies policy developments. This study also shows that students would like to see policies gradually move from a less restrictive and generic approach based on blocking and filtering, to ones that provide them with opportunities to maximise their educational opportunities and become ethically responsible users of digital technologies.
LoTour
Authors: Ruano-Mayoral Marcos , Colomo-Palacios Ricardo , Soto-Acosta Pedro , García-Crespo Ángel
Published: October 2011

The Internet has brought a radical change in the way tourism services are conceived. In this new scenario, not only has attracting tourists been modified over the Internet, but the provision of tourism services have been altered. Thus, the different factors of tourist services are in a new environment and they should operate in a coordinated manner to increase the value of tourism, to keep current tourists and attract new ones. With this aim, LoTour, the architecture presented in this chapter provides a platform for the integration of different services, provides comprehensive information on the tourist destination from the context (location, time of day, season, weather, etc) and the profile of the tourist.
Emergent Technologies and Social Connectedness in Learning
Authors: Laxman Kumar , Chin Yap Kueh
Published: October 2011

The judicious embedment of technologies in educational contexts can foster learning environments that encourage thoughtful reflections and support deeper learning to occur. Emergent technologies has the capacity to foster effective online learning environments where social processes of learning involving collaboration can be facilitated. Social construction of knowledge facilitated by virtual collaborative platforms can generate a community of learners where the more knowledgeable members share their expertise with their peers. In this chapter, the authors explore the affordances of emergent technologies such as asynchronous discussion forums, synchronous computer mediated communications and 3-D virtual realities in educational contexts. Such technologies can be harnessed to support the paradigmatic shift in instruction to foster more socially-mediated collaborative learning environments.
Improving Cognitive Load on Students with Disabilities Through Software Aids
Authors: Crespo Rubén González , Martíne Oscar Sanjuán , Lovelle Juan Manuel Cueva , García-Bustelo B. Cristina Pelayo , Díaz Vicente García , Ordóñez de Pablos Patricia
Published: October 2011

This chapter proposes a new way to improve the cognitive load and construction of e-learning environments making them more usable and accessible using emerging design. This causes a significant improvement in cognitive load. Accessibility within the area of Web applications, is actually present in different laws of many countries, trying that information could be used for everyone. This objective is limited when you are dealing with severe disabilities. An example of this is people with hearing disabilities who have never hear or speak. To solve these problems the authors propose a platform that brings a complete solution to accessibility.
City Structure in Transition
Authors: Nahiduzzaman Kh. Md. , Aldosary Adel S.
Published: October 2011

With the technological advancement of ICT, the cities of the world are becoming so dependent that ICT is challenging the conventional ideas and classic theories of city structure. The cities of the world are undergoing a transition that is caused by the shift of principle from ‘physical movement’ to ‘virtual movement’. The state-of-the-art ICT featured by internet and e-commerce (Business-to-Commerce - B2C) is facilitating such shift which influences in changing the conventional ideas and structure of CBD, core business areas, city center, etc. Though the magnitude of influence on the transition process is yet to be known, there is an obvious transition that almost all cities of the world are experiencing. This book chapter conceptually discusses and portrays the potential changes in the conventional city structure by analyzing three classic city models (i.e., multi-nuclei, concentric and sector models), exploring the technological advancement in ICT and increasing dependencies on it and by drawing evidence from a pilot case study. This chapter argues that ICT induced change in the city structure, which we may call ‘future city’ or ‘transitional city’, would bring positive impacts on the physical and social environment, competitive land and transportation system in the city.
European Learning Resource Exchange
Authors: Kurilovas Eugenijus
Published: October 2011

The chapter presents European Learning Resource Exchange (LRE) system and scientific research results used for its development. LRE is a platform for collaboration of researchers, policy- and decision-makers, content providers (publishers), and practitioners (teachers) to share digital learning resources/ objects – LOs and new e-learning practices. The chapter presents research on LRE architecture, interoperability, reusability and quality of LOs, and new e-Learning practices using LOs. Importance of pan-European collaboration of scientists, policy makers, publishers and practitioners is shown using examples of several LRE best practice networks. Scientific models and methods to evaluate quality and reusability of LOs are presented in more detail. The chapter also presents the results of several large scale R&D projects co-funded by EU programmes that were and are implemented currently to support LRE. The author believes that research results and best practices presented in the chapter will be useful for all aforementioned educational stakeholders groups.
Hooligans in the Archives
Authors: Gemmill Laurie , Wildermuth Jane
Published: October 2011

Archival reference has changed dramatically with the advent of the Web, which challenged archivists to rethink their role as gatekeepers of archival materials. Traditionally, archival reference tools and materials were difficult to gain access to or required meditation by archivists. Archivists moved from gatekeepers to innovators, by putting reference tools and digital surrogates of collections online. But as with any new step, there are challenges. The traditional archival tension in trying to balance access and preservation has morphed. As access has changed, preservation concerns have given way to control concerns. Archivists are now poised to take the next step by engaging the users, sharing control over collections, and potentially empowering the users to become true partners in the reference and research experience.
Making an Impact
Authors: Rosen Roger , Gilbert Miriam
Published: October 2011

In this case study, Roger Rosen and Miriam Gilbert describe the creation of Rosen Publishing’s award-winning, critically acclaimed Teen Health & Wellness: Real Life, Real Answers database. They focus on how Rosen was able to offer a unique value proposition both to teens and librarians, craft age-appropriate and credible content, and build an interactive site that offers an engaging, dynamic user experience. They review the process of creating a resource that had no barrier to finding information, made the discovery process fast and easy, and supported different styles of learning and information-seeking behavior. They discuss the challenges of ensuring that Teen Health & Wellness remains relevant and current in today’s crowded digital landscape, and share the successes in building a unique health and wellness resource that is indispensable to teens and librarians alike.
Exploring the Knowledge Management Landscape
Authors: Ponis Stavros T. , Vagenas George , Koronis Epaminondas
Published: October 2011

Relevant literature suggests that the field of knowledge management (KM) at the service of contemporary organizations is characterized by a plethora of diverse frameworks. However, none of these frameworks has achieved such a wide acceptance so as to be conceived as a standard. In fact, practice proves that each research or consultant group follows its own approach while many initiatives are based on custom approaches, developed each time from scratch, or even worse do not follow a structured method at all. In this chapter the authors attempt to go deeper by proposing a classification of knowledge management frameworks based on their macroscopic characteristics followed by their evaluation against a set of predetermined content elements that a complete approach should possess. The main result propagated from their critique is a common understanding of current theoretical and practical shortcomings of the field and the specification of a consistent set of course of actions and guidelines for researchers and practitioners engaged in knowledge management and its applications.
Conditions and Key Success Factors for the Management of Communities of Practice
Authors: Loyarte Edurne , Rivera Olga
Published: October 2011

Communities of practice (CoPs) have been taken into account by both practitioners and academics during the last ten years. From a strategic point of view, CoPs have shown their importance for the management of organizational knowledge by offering repositories of knowledge, improved capacity of making knowledge actionable and operational (Brown & Duguid, 1998) and by facilitating maintenance, reproduction, and extension of knowledge (Brown and Durguid, 2001). CoPs are also reported to achieve value creation and competitive advantages (Davenport and Prusak, 1998), learning at work (Swan et alt., 2002) that promotes organizational competitiveness (Furlong and Johnson, 2003), innovation, even a radical type (Swan et alt., 2002), responsiveness, improved staff skills and reduced duplication (du Plessis, 2008). This impressive list of achievements is not for free; some authors have pointed out the limits of CoP’s (Duguid, 2005; Roberts, 2006; Amin & Roberts, 2008) from diverse points of view, including diversity of working environments, size, spatial or relational proximity, but mainly emphasizing the specificity of CoPs as a social practice paradigm, as it was defined by Wenger (1999, 2000) credited as the “inventor” of the term “CoP” (Lave and Wenger, 1991). This chapter focuses on the consideration of CoPs as an organizational reality than can be managed (Thompson, 2005), the contradictions that the idea of managing them generates, and how these controversial points can be overcome in a sound and honest way. To do so, we review different cases of CoP’s within organizations intended for the managerial team to achieve important organizational goals. Our analysis provides: (a) a reflection regarding the Key Success Factors in the process of integrating communities of practice, (b) insight to the structure of a model of cultivation, intended as a guideline for new experiences in this area, and (c) an informative account of this model’s adaptation to the studied organizations.