bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Neogeography of Virtual Cities
Authors: Hudson-Smith Andrew , Milton Richard , Dearden Joel , Batty Michael
Published: May 2011

Digital cities are moving well beyond their original conceptions as entities representing the way computers and communications are hard wired into the fabric of the city itself or as being embodied in software so the real city might be manipulated in silico for professional purposes. As cities have become more “computable,” capable of manipulation through their digital content, large areas of social life are migrating to the web, becoming online so-to-speak. Here, we focus on the virtual city in software, presenting our speculations about how such cities are moving beyond the desktop to the point where they are rapidly becoming the desktop itself. But what emerges is a desktop with a difference, a desktop that is part of the web, characterized by a new generation of interactivity between users located at any time in any place. We first outline the state of the art in virtual city building drawing on the concept of mirror worlds and then comment on the emergence of Web 2.0 and the interactivity that it presumes. We characterize these developments in terms of virtual cities through the virtual world of Second Life, showing how such worlds are moving to the point where serious scientific content and dialogue is characterizing their use often through the metaphor of the city itself.
Urban Informatics in China
Authors: Shang Dan , Doulet Jean-François , Keane Michael
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in urban China, focusing mainly on their impact on social life. The key question raised by this study is how the Internet and mobile technologies are affecting the way people make use of urban space. The chapter begins with some background to China’s emergence as a connected nation. It then looks at common use of web-based and mobile phone technologies, particularly bulletin boards, SMS and instant messaging. The chapter then presents findings of recent research that illustrates communitarian relationships that are enabled by mobility and the use of technologies. Finally, these findings are contextualized in the idea of the City 2.0 in China.
Urban Informatics and Social Ontology
Authors: Burrows Roger J.
Published: May 2011

Is it still the case that one can symptomatically read the early work of the cyberpunk author William Gibson as a form of prefigurative urban theory (Burrows, 1997a; 1997b)? And why would one want to? Having read the various essays in this eclectic, engaging and exciting volume I turned to Gibson in the hope that I might again find buried in his stylistic prose some hint of an analytic insight that might provide a way of satisfactorily articulating the diverse concerns expressed within these pages. Gibson did not let me down. His most recent novel—Spook Country (Gibson, 2007)—is, as always, about many things, but at its core it is a novel of ideas about the social and cultural consequences of a whole assemblage of urban informatics technologies—locative technologies in particular. However, although the substantive concerns of this volume and his most recent novel are homologous, it was a passing exchange between two of the main characters about the changed nature of social ontology that made me realise why the study of urban informatics is as important as it is. The exchange occurs on page 103 of the novel
Strategic Elements for the Mobile Enablement of Business
Authors: Sherringham Keith , Unhelkar Bhuvan
Published: May 2011

The Internet wave that swept through business is likely to be seen as a ripple in a pond compared to the changes that are predicted from the adoption of mobility into business. Irrespective of industry sector, the mobile enablement (wrapping business around mobility) of business is expected to bring many opportunities and rewards; and like the Web enablement (wrapping business around the Internet) of business, a few challenges as well. Across all business areas, mobile business will need to support a mobile workforce, the operation of call (service) centres, and transaction processing and collaboration of virtual teams. Mobile business will also impact product offerings, the management of consumer choice and the focusing of communications with a sticky message. Mobile business will drive changes in management, revisions of business operations and the alignment of Information Communication Technology (ICT). This chapter discusses some of the common but important strategic elements to the successful mobile enablement of business.
Reliable Computing in Heterogeneous Networks
Authors: Patel R. B. , Athavale Vijay
Published: May 2011

Mobile computing extends the horizons of conventional computing model to a ubiquitous computing environment that serves users at anytime, anywhere. Most distributed applications and services were designed with the assumption that the terminals were powerful, stationary, and connected to fixed networks. One of the biggest challenges in future application development is device heterogeneity. In the future, users expect to see a rich variety of computing devices that can run applications. These devices have different capabilities in processors, memory, networking, screen sizes, input methods, and software libraries. We also expect that future users are likely to own many types of devices. Depending on users changing situations and environments, they may choose to switch from one type of device, to another that brings the best combination of application functionality and device mobility. Applications, middleware, and systems can be measured in a variety of dimensions, including usability, distributability, integration, conformance to standards, extensibility, internationalizability, manageability, performance, portability, scalability reliability-fault tolerance, and security. The authors call these pervasive attributes, since they can apply to the system as a whole, not just to the system’s components. Mobility brings additional uncertainties, as well as opportunities to provide new services and supplementary information to users in the locations where they find themselves. In general, most application software, operating systems, and network frameworks are intended for more conventional environments, and so the mobile, wireless user has great difficulty exploiting the computational framework as fully as he/she might. There is an emerging consensus among researchers that a new architecture and dynamic framework is an appropriate way to address above problems. This report presents a prototype for secure and reliable computing that will address above issues and can both assist developers to build multi-platform applications that can run on heterogeneous devices and allow a user to move/migrate a running application among heterogeneous devices might be among different networks.
Measurement of Cognitive Load During Multimedia Learning Activities
Authors: Cook Anne E.
Published: May 2011

This chapter focuses on issues dealing with the definition and measurement of cognitive load in multimedia and other complex learning activities. The chapter is broken into 3 main sections: defining multimedia learning and describing its effects on cognitive load; describing theoretical definitions of cognitive load; and mapping definitions of cognitive load onto commonly used measurement techniques. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how research on multimedia learning and cognitive load could be advanced by carefully considering issues of construct validity, and by including the use of convergent measurement techniques.
Emergence of Analogies in Collaboratively Conducted Computer Simulations
Authors: Roth Wolff-Michael
Published: May 2011

To learn by means of analogies, students have to see surface and deep structures in both source and target domains. Educators generally assume that students, presented with images, texts, video, or demonstrations, see what the curriculum designer intends them to see, that is, pick out and integrate information into their existing understanding. However, there is evidence that students do not see what they are supposed to see, which precisely inhibits them to learn what they are supposed to learn. In this extended case study, which exemplifies a successful multimedia application, 3 classroom episodes are used (a) to show how students in an advanced physics course do not see relevant information on the computer monitor; (b) to exemplify teaching strategies designed to allow relevant structures to become salient in students’ perception, allowing them to generate analogies and thereby learn; and (c) to exemplify how a teacher might assist students in bridging from the multimedia context to the real world.
Language, Logic, and the Brain
Authors: Jennings Ray E.
Published: May 2011

Although linguistics may treat languages as a syntactic and/or semantic entity that regulates both language production and comprehension, this article perceives that language is a physical and a biological phenomenon. The biological view of languages presents a new metaphor on an evolutionary time-scale the human brain and human language have co-evolved. Therefore, the brain is the instrument with a repository of syntactic and semantic constraints. The logical vocabulary of natural languages has been understood by many as a purified abstraction in formal sciences, where the internal transactions of reasonings are constrained by the logical laws of thought. Although no vocabulary can be entirely independent of semantic understanding, logical vocabulary has fixed minimal semantic content independent of context. Therefore, logic is centered in linguistic evolution by observing that all connective vocabulary descends from lexical vocabulary based on spatial relationship of sentences. Far from having fixed minimal semantic content, logical vocabulary is semantically rich and context-dependent. Many cases of mutations in logical vocabulary and their semantic changes have been observed as similar to that of biological mutations. These changes proliferate to yield a wide diversity in the evolved uses of natural language connectives.
Cognitive Modelling Applied to Aspects of Schizophrenia and Autonomic Computing
Authors: Flax Lee
Published: May 2011

We give an approach to cognitive modelling, which allows for richer expression than the one based simply on the firing of sets of neurons. The object language of the approach is first-order logic augmented by operations of an algebra, PSEN. Some operations useful for this kind of modelling are postulated: combination, comparison, and inhibition of sets of sentences. Inhibition is realised using an algebraic version of AGM belief contraction (Gärdenfors, 1988). It is shown how these operations can be realised using PSEN. Algebraic modelling using PSEN is used to give an account of an explanation of some signs and symptoms of schizophrenia due to Frith (1992) as well as a proposal for the cognitive basis of autonomic computing. A brief discussion of the computability of the operations of PSEN is also given.
Genetic Algorithms and Other Approaches in Image Feature Extraction and Representation
Authors: Avola Danilo , Ferri Fernando , Grifoni Patrizia
Published: May 2011

The novel technologies used in different application domains allow obtaining digital images with a high complex informative content, which can be exploited to interpret the semantic meaning of the images themselves. Furthermore, it has to be taken into account that the complex informative content extracted from the images, that is, the features, need of flexible, powerful, and suitable ways to be represented and managed. The metadata through which a set of images can be described are directly tied to the quality and quantity of the extracted features; besides the efficient management of the metadata depend on the practical and capable feature representation. The more used approaches to analyze the image content do not seem able to provide an effective support to obtain a whole image understanding and feature extraction process. For this reason, new classes of methodologies that involve computational intelligent approaches have been developed. In particular, genetic algorithms (GAs) and other artificial intelligent- (AI) based approaches seem to provide the best suitable solutions. The artificial intelligent technologies allow for the obtaining of a more semantically complex metadata image representation through which to develop advanced systems to retrieval and to handle the digital images. This new method to conceive a metadata description allows the user to make queries in a more natural, detailed, and semantically complete way. As a result it can overcome the always more sophisticated duties caused by the use of wide local and/or distributed databases with heterogeneous complex images.
Content Analysis from User's Relevance Feedback for Content-Based Image Retrieval
Authors: Wei Chia-Hung , Li Chang-Tsun
Published: May 2011

An image is a symbolic representation; people interpret an image and associate semantics with it based on their subjective perceptions, which involves the user’s knowledge, cultural background, personal feelings and so on. Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems must be able to interact with users and discover the current user’s information needs. An interactive search paradigm that has been developed for image retrieval is machine learning with a user-in-the-loop, guided by relevance feedback, which refers to the notion of relevance of the individual image based on the current user’s subjective judgment. Relevance feedback serves as an information carrier to convey the user’s information needs / preferences to the retrieval system. This chapter not only provides the fundamentals of CBIR systems and relevance feedback for understanding and incorporating relevance feedback into CBIR systems, but also discusses several approaches to analyzing and learning relevance feedback.
Preference Extraction in Image Retrieval
Authors: Rotter Pawel , Skulimowski Andrzej M.J.
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, we describe two new approaches to content-based image retrieval (CBIR) based on preference information provided by the user interacting with an image search system. First, we present the existing methods of image retrieval with relevance feedback, which serve then as a reference for the new approaches. The first extension of the distance function-based CBIR approach makes it possible to apply this approach to complex objects. The new algorithm is based on an approximation of user preferences by a neural network. Further, we propose another approach to image retrieval, which uses reference sets to facilitate image comparisons. The methods proposed have been implemented, and compared with each other, and with the earlier approaches. Computational experiments have proven that the new preference extraction and image retrieval procedures here proposed are numerically efficient. Finally, we provide a real-life illustration of the methods proposed: an image-based hotel selection procedure.
Are Research Universities Knowledge-Intensive Learning Organizations?
Authors: Greenwood Davydd J.
Published: May 2011

This chapter questions the clarity of the concepts of “knowledge society” and “knowledge-intensive organization”. In particular, the author asserts that the notion that postindustrial society is more knowledge intensive than industrial society is a self-serving proposition made by academics and organizational consultants to emphasize the importance of their own industries. Since all organizations are knowledgeintensive in major ways, the specific meanings of a newly emergent kind of knowledge-intensive organization need to be clarified. The author undertakes this by means of an analysis of research universities.
Exploring Organizational Learning and Knowledge Exchange through Poetry
Authors: Grisoni Louise
Published: May 2011

The central discussion in this chapter is that poetry can be used to provide a bridge between tangible, rational and explicit knowledge and tacit or implicit knowledge, providing opportunities to access new organizational knowledge, understandings and learning. A study based on 60 middle and senior United Kingdom public services managers is presented. In this study managers worked together to explore how creative inquiry into their organizational experience might help address some of the problematic issues facing their organizations and learn how to develop new ideas about best practice. The challenge was to generate new knowledge about the organization. Poetry in the form of ‘haiku’ was used as a creative research method to access tacit knowledge, which, when combined with explicit knowledge and understanding, led to new insights and organizational learning.
Knowledge Management Strategies Implementation in Innovation Intensive Firms
Authors: Guadamillas-Gomez Fatima , Donate-Manzanares Mario J.
Published: May 2011

This chapter analyses the implementation of knowledge management strategies (KMS) in technologyintensive firms. Firstly, a review of KMS in the knowledge management (KM) literature is carried out in order to conceptually establish the focus of the chapter. Next, some key factors for successful KM implementation, such as corporate culture, technological systems, ethical leadership, human resources management practices and organizational flexibility are identified and explained. After that, the case study of two firms which have successfully implemented a KMS in innovation-intensive industries, such as electronics and information technologies, is shown. Finally, and based on the results of the case study, some suggestions are extracted and recommendations are made from a managerial perspective in order to implement a KMS effectively.
Achieving Organizational Independence of Employees' Knowledge Using Knowledge Management, Organizational Learning, and the Learning Organization
Authors: Örtenblad Anders
Published: May 2011

The ambition of this chapter is to pay some attention to more obvious, as well as more subtle, methods for organizations to become independent of the individual’s subjective knowledge, from the employees’ point of view. Terms such as ‘knowledge sharing’, ‘knowledge transfer’, and ‘learning for all’ are almost always seen as being positive for both employers and employees. However, this chapter will critically examines those terms. Three popular management ideas relating to knowledge and/or learning have been analysed from a ‘knowledge control’ perspective: knowledge management, organizational learning, and the learning organization. The main conclusion of this conceptual and elaborating chapter is that the more current and less academic ideas of the learning organization and knowledge management contain the same tools as the idea of ‘old’ organizational learning as regards gaining control over knowledge, but that these two ideas additionally contain other knowledge control measures, which are more refined, in the sense that they are less obvious as knowledge control measures. The idea of ‘new’ organizational learning, however, is less suited to knowledge control, since it implies that knowledge is not storable. In other words, the chapter’s contribution is an analysis of some of the most popular management ideas that deal with knowledge and/or learning relating to the organizational/employer independence of subjective knowledge, from the employees’ point of view, something which is rarely seen.
A Qualitative Study of Knowledge Management
Authors: Zaragoza-Saez Patrocinio , Claver-Cortes Enrique , Quer-Ramon Diego
Published: May 2011

Knowledge is one of the basic production factors owned by enterprises, and knowledge management is one of the main dynamic capabilities on which enterprises can base their competitive advantages. The creation, transfer, and later use of knowledge have become increasingly important, and multinational corporations (MNCs), being scattered in various places, constitute the appropriate environment to implement knowledge management processes meant to maximize their intellectual assets. This chapter has as its aim to answer three questions: (a) what actions do MNCs undertake in order to set knowledge management processes in motion; (b) what main variables impact on their knowledge creation capability; and (c) what main variables impact on their knowledge transfer capability? A qualitative research work based on a multiple case study has served to achieve that aim, allowing us to carry out an exploratory study of six MNCs which have shown their proactivity in the knowledge management area. The results of the analysis have led to eight propositions which highlight the most relevant variables facilitating the processes for the creation and transfer of knowledge within a MNC.
Strategic Alliance Capability
Authors: Prange Christiane
Published: May 2011

Internationalization has accelerated the speed of knowledge generation and innovation. Thus, companies increasingly need to pool and create new resources by engaging in alliances with various partners. However, high failure rates of strategic alliances imply that the degree of a company’s collaboration success is related to the level of its alliance capability. While ”alliance capability” has largely been conceptualized from within the resource based and the dynamic capability view, one of the major drawbacks is the lack of micro-foundations, i.e. an explanation of individual knowledge and actions, which drive the development of alliance capability. A modified approach to the capability life-cycle is introduced, which aims at filling this gap. Finally, some implications for managerial practice and for future research are addressed.
The 'Value' of Knowledge
Authors: Boehm Steffen , Land Chris
Published: May 2011

Knowledge is implicitly assumed to form an increasingly important, or even the dominant source of values for today’s knowledge based organizations. It is rare, however, to encounter writings questioning what is ‘value’, enquiring into its provenance, or examining its distribution amongst organization’s stakeholders. This chapter asks these very questions, focusing on Marx’s (1976) formulation of value theory. Divided into four parts, it begins by giving a basic overview of the labour theory of value, as developed by Marx in mid 19th century, industrialised England. The second part examines Roy Jacques’ (2000) critique of Marx, his rejection of the adequacy of ‘labour’ as a concept for analysing contemporary value production, and his call for a ‘knowledge theory of value’. The third section focuses on labour process theorist Paul Thompson (2005) and his challenge to the idea that labour and knowledge are fundamentally different. The fourth part extends this concern with ‘other’ forms of contemporary labour to a more global level by examining De Angelis’ (2006) and Retort’s (2005) suggestion that the global economy today is driven by acts of enclosure and ‘primitive accumulation.’
Redefining Professional
Authors: D’Cruz Premilla , Noronha Ernesto
Published: May 2011

Scholars researching the area of the sociology of professions had earlier predicted that as occupations seek to improve their public image, professionalism would embrace all their incumbents. It is therefore no revelation that call centre agents in India identify themselves as professionals. Using van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenological approach, we explored this dimension with 59 call centre agents located in Mumbai and Bangalore, India. The findings demonstrate that neither the trait nor the power approaches drawn from the traditional literature on the sociology of professions explain call centre agents’ identification with professional work. Instead, agents’ experiences validate the contemporary explanation that emphasises the appeal of professionalism used by employer organisations as a means to convince, cajole, and persuade their employees to perform and behave in ways which the employer organisation deems appropriate, effective and efficient. It is in this context that agents accept stringent work systems and job design elements, techno-bureaucratic controls and the primacy of the customer in return for the privileges bestowed upon them by way of being professionals. While professional identity thus serves as a means of socio-ideological control facilitating the realisation of the organisation agenda, it is not all-encompassing as agents simultaneously show signs of resistance.
Knowledge Management
Authors: Jemielniak Dariusz , Kociatkiewicz Jerzy
Published: May 2011

Knowledge management and knowledge-intensive work are two of today’s hot buzzwords, though both already have a history of managerial usage. While some authors claim that knowledge is the most important organizational asset in contemporary society, others retort that much of knowledge management literature and practical solutions are just perfunctory and propagandist and many, if not most, managerial polices rely on manipulation of emotions and identity creation. This chapter aims to capitalize on this fascinating and timely research area. We want to present the current business fad of knowledge-management in terms of excess and forgetful repetition of ideas. We look at knowledge management as an idea of highly suspect utility, and search for explanations for and possible counterbalances to its ubiquity.
Quality of Service of Grid Computing
Authors: Wu Ming , Sun Xian-He
Published: May 2011

Rapid advancement of communication technology has changed the landscape of computing. New models of computing, such as business-on-demand, Web services, peer-to-peer networks, and Grid computing have emerged to harness distributed computing and network resources to provide powerful services. The non-deterministic characteristic of the resource availability in these new computing platforms raises an outstanding challenge: how to support Quality of Service (QoS) to meet a user’s demand? This chapter conducts a thorough study of QoS of distributed computing, especially on Grid computing where the requirement of distributed sharing and coordination goes to the extreme. The research starts at QoS policies, and then focuses on technical issues of the enforcement of the policies and performance optimization under each policy. This chapter provides a classification of QoS metrics and policies, a systematic understanding of QoS, and a framework for QoS of Grid computing.
An Architectural Overview of the GRelC Data Access Service
Authors: Fiore Sandro , Negro Alessandro , Vadacca Salvatore , Cafaro Massimo , Aloisio Giovanni , Barbera Roberto
Published: May 2011

Grid computing is an emerging and enabling technology allowing organizations to easily share, integrate and manage resources in a distributed environment. Computational Grid allows running millions of jobs in parallel, but the huge amount of generated data has caused another interesting problem: the management (classification, storage, discovery etc.) of distributed data, i.e., a Data Grid specific issue. In the last decade, many efforts concerning the management of data (grid-storage services, metadata services, grid-database access and integration services etc.) identify data management as a real challenge for the next generation petascale grid environments. This work provides an architectural overview of the GRelC DAS, a grid database access service developed in the context of the GRelC Project and currently used for production/tutorial activities both in gLite and Globus based grid environments.
Lip Modelling and Segmentation
Authors: Caplier A. , Stillittano S. , Bouvier C. , Coulon P. Y.
Published: May 2011

Lip segmentation is the first step of any audio-visual speech reading system. The accuracy of this segmentation has a major influence on the performances of the global system. But this is a very difficult task. First of all, lip shape can undergo strong deformations during a speech sequence. As many other image processing algorithms, the segmentation task is also influenced by the illumination conditions and by the orientation of the object to be segmented. In this chapter, we present an overview about lip modeling and lip segmentation (region-based and contour-based methods). We limit our study to the problem of lip segmentation in frontal faces. Section I gives an overview about the chrominance information that is used for lip segmentation and a comparison between different chrominance cues is proposed. Section II presents region-based approaches and training steps. Section III focuses on contour-based approaches and parametric lip models. Section IV inventories methods for lip segmentation accuracy evaluation. Some specific applications are briefly presented in section V.
Image Features from Morphological Scale-Spaces
Authors: Lefèvre Sébastien
Published: May 2011

Video processing and segmentation are important stages for multimedia data mining, especially with the advance and diversity of video data available. The aim of this chapter is to introduce researchers, especially new ones, to the “video representation, processing, and segmentation techniques”. This includes an easy and smooth introduction, followed by principles of video structure and representation, and then a state-of-the-art of the segmentation techniques focusing on the shot-detection. Performance evaluation and common issues are also discussed before concluding the chapter.
The Dawn of the Activity Domain Theory
Authors: Taxén Lars
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, the evolution of the domain construction strategy is recapitulated. This story is divided into a number of phases that can be seen as “life ages” of the strategy at Ericsson. It was born during particular circumstances in the late 1990s, it had its peak during the millennium shift and it died with the collapse of the telecom market around 2002-2003. Its remains still linger on at Ericsson, but in a completely transformed way where the essential elements of the strategy have evaporated into thin air.
The Impact of Government on the Evolving Market Structure of the U.S. Wireless Telephony Industry
Authors: McDonough Carol C.
Published: May 2011

The United States’ wireless telephone industry has evolved from a minor segment of the communications industry to a major provider of voice, and increasingly data and video communication. The industry uses radiowaves to transmit signals, and radiowave spectrum is regulated by the federal government. Moreover, local transmission requires unobstructed antennae, which in rural and suburban areas has led to the construction of wireless towers. States and municipalities have sought to regulate the construction of such towers, citing issues of aesthetics and health. The development of the wireless industry has been constrained by such government regulation. This chapter discusses the impact of government on the market structure of the wireless industry.
Spatiality and Political Economy of the Global Fiber Optics Industry
Authors: Warf Barney
Published: May 2011

Fiber optics forms the pivotal telecommunications technology of the contemporary global economy, offering greater speed and security than other modes. This chapter reviews the historical development of this communications technique. It then views its rapid growth within the context of contemporary globalization. Fiber’s role in contemporary urban restructuring is noted. The chapter then turns to the spatial distribution of the world’s fiber lines, noting major transatlantic and transpacific markets and newer systems. The enormous construction boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, however, led to severe overcapacity, with significant economic fallout.
Digital Cable TV Networks
Authors: Wei Ran , Zhao Zizhong
Published: May 2011

This chapter focuses on digital cable TV networks as a convergent network with telecommunications networks and the Internet that provides broadcasting TV and radio, telecommunications services, and IP-based publishing and e-commerce. The chapter first traces the technological evolution of cable TV, highlighting recent developments in digitalization and convergence. The transformation of cable TV networks from channel operators to unified platforms is discussed. In doing so, the key terms and concepts in cable TV technology are introduced. The technological, political, regulatory, and economic forces behind the convergence are also identified. Furthermore, this chapter examines the value chain and collaborative opportunities among the participants in the digital cable TV revolution. User-centered business models of managing digital cable TV networks are proposed.
The Administration of Online and Distance Education
Authors: Miller Gary E.
Published: May 2011

The advent of online learning has transformed dramatically the administration of distance education in higher education. As online learning becomes ubiquitous in both campus-based and distance education—and also becomes a tool to facilitate inter-institutional research collaboration and relations with industry—online distance education has moved closer to the mainstream of the academic community. This raises a variety of challenges for the institutions and for online and distance education administrative leaders.
Assessment of Complex Learning Outcomes in Online Learning Environments
Authors: Moallem Mahnaz
Published: May 2011

One of the most challenging issues facing educators in all levels of formal schooling, particularly higher education, is assessment of complex learning outcomes of what is called “21st century skills” (Bennett, Persky, Weissm, & Jenkins (NAEP), 2007). Faculty, administrators, students, parents, and the public at large are increasingly concerned about how assessment is conducted in higher education (Reeves, 2000). Scholars have also questioned current approaches to assessing institutional quality (Callan & Finney, 2002; Ewell, 2002), indicating assessing student learning should be the fundamental purpose of higher education. Over the years, various types of assessment models have been developed. The newer assessment models address complex learning outcomes and support measuring learning more authentically and providing alternatives to the conventional, test-based assessment models (Glaser & Silver, 1994; Resnick & Resnick, 1992; Sanders, 2001). Alternative assessment models and methods promise to promote authentic, real world learning, and to provide a diversity of learning opportunities so students are able to display critical thinking skills and greater depth of knowledge, connect learning to their daily lives, develop a deeper dialog over the course material, and foster both individual and group oriented learning activities (Muirhead, 2002).
Building an Interactive E-Lab
Authors: Chu Kin Cheong
Published: May 2011

There has been an increasing emphasis on enhancing students’ practical experience acquiring from the higher education, focusing not only on the development of academic and intellectual capabilities and subject knowledge, but also on the development of skills to equip students for employability. A practical training system that allows instruments to be monitored and controlled over the Internet leaves plenty of room to be studied. This training system can easily be turned into online experiment that allows students at remote locations to control and obtain real-time measurements or experimental data (Tan & Soh, 2001). Actually, some students like to read books to gain knowledge, while others prefer to understand theories deeper through experiment (Chu, 1999; Whelan, 1997). Both of these knowledge-based and investigative types of learning styles have profound and different effects on the delivery and acceptance of engineering education.
Communities of Inquiry in Online Learning
Authors: Garrison D. R.
Published: May 2011

The focus of this chapter is on a framework that has drawn considerable interest in creating collaborative communities of inquiry in online learning environments (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000). The goal is to provide an overview and update of the Community of Inquiry Framework with a particular focus on social, cognitive and teaching presence that constitute the framework. Creating and sustaining a community of inquiry requires an understanding of the progressive or developmental nature of each of the presences and how they interact. This chapter will explore what constitutes each of the presences and implications for practice.
Community in the Online Environment
Authors: Lear Janet
Published: May 2011

Students enrolled in a face-to-face classroom have the opportunity to interact with their peers and develop a sense of community, feelings of belonging, and connectedness. However, students taking courses accessed through the Internet, while they do have classmates, generally cannot see the other students and usually do not interact synchronously with these individuals because the flexibility of both time and location allow for differences in course access. This lack of face-to-face synchronous interaction with other students enrolled in online classes has led to concern about online education because of the social nature of learning. To facilitate the social nature of learning, instructors in the online environment may design classes that engage students and promote the building of community among the students enrolled in the course. Those instructors who perceive that social learning is important will, therefore, encourage students to build the connections that lead to a sense of community and a successful online learning experience.
Completion Rates and Distance Learners
Authors: Lindsay Nathan K. , Howell Scott L. , Laws R. Dwight
Published: May 2011

Critics of distance education frequently assert that completion rates are lower in distance education courses than in traditional courses. Such criticism comes despite sparse and inconclusive research on completion rates for distance and traditional education courses. This article reviews some of the existing research and then describes some of the caveats and complexities in comparing completion rates in traditional and distance education. Analysis reveals that numerous factors make comparison between these two formats difficult, if not impossible. Problems include limitations in the research design itself, differences in student demographics, and inconsistent methods of calculating and reporting completion. After exploring these issues, the article presents best practices for improving completion rates while emphasizing that distance education completion rates may be acceptable after considering distance learners’ characteristics.
A Computer's Teacher Power
Authors: Bigelow Donald N.
Published: May 2011

Just as steam displaced sails on ships; and the automobile, the horse; and just as TV has, to an unknown degree, replaced wholesale dependence on daily newspapers, among other things, so the computer will continue to change the nature of American life. Of more importance: it can help American education. Already, this technology is in many schools, here and there, even if somewhat haphazardly—too often dependent upon the influence of an individual or business company to one degree or another—whose “baby” it really is. Just as the first railroads built different width tracks so that other trains could not run on them, each computer-related program is moving at its own speed, on its own tracks. This prompts the question: How will today’s teachers— more ignorant about and fearful of the computer than is recognized—be prepared to use the computer’s various opportunities that are presently being dreamed of? Many entrepreneurs and investors, some of whom are true visionaries, are hard at work to make the technology the central part of tomorrow’s schools, where it will be viewed as basic equipment. It could be the dynamo that serves all teachers, everywhere. There is the possibility that computers, equipped with new and appropriate software, might be able to provide custommade, individualized instruction for students—so that each individual can learn at his or her own speed. After all, every student is different—in one or more countless ways. Each and every student has some kind of problem requiring special attention which ultimately only the computer can successfully handle since there will never be as many teachers as there are students.
Copyright with an International Perspective for Academics
Authors: Marshall Stephen
Published: May 2011

Copyright has emerged in the 21st century as one of the hot topics reported on regularly by media. Hardly a month goes by without discussion about the impact of the Internet, in particular, on the intellectual property rights of publishers and, by implication, the creators of content that they ostensibly represent. People who make digital copies of various types of media are cast as the new “pirates” of the digital frontier, often with quite extreme rhetoric: No black flags with skull and crossbones, no cutlasses, cannons, or daggers identify today’s pirates. You can’t see them coming; there’s no warning shot across your bow. Yet rest assured the pirates are out there because today there is plenty of gold (and platinum and diamonds) to be had. Today’s pirates operate not on the high seas but on the Internet, in illegal CD factories, distribution centers, and on the street. The pirate’s credo is still the same-why pay for it when it’s so easy to steal? The credo is as wrong as it ever was. Stealing is still illegal, unethical, and all too frequent in today’s digital age. (RIAA, 2003, p.1)
Designing Instruction for Successful Online Learning
Authors: Ally Mohamed
Published: May 2011

Teaching and training has been going on for decades; however, the design methods and delivery technology have changed over the years. The invention of the Internet and the computer, especially the microcomputer and the availability of computer software, has revolutionized the design and delivery of instruction using online methods. Studies and analyses (Kulik, Kulik, & Shwalb, 1986; Lawson, 1999; Wesley, Krockover, & Hicks, 1985) have concluded that online learning is as effective, and in some cases, more effective than traditional classroom instruction; however, some researchers claim that it is the extra amount of time spent on the design that makes online learning more effective than classroom instruction rather than the technology (Allen, 2003; Clark, 1983, 2001; Kozma, 2001). This claim supports the idea that good instructional design is important for online materials.
Disability, Chronic Illness, and Distance Education
Authors: Newell Christopher , Debenham Margaret
Published: May 2011

Distance education may be seen as both enabling and disabling in its application to, and relationship with, people with disability and chronic illness. Cutting edge work suggests that it can provide a suitable route to support the studies of students with disabilities and those with long-term health problems. However it is important that this should be regarded in terms of providing choice to students rather than requiring those who are identified as having impairment/chronic illness to undertake studies at a distance. Unless well designed and evaluated, as with any technology, DE can also become disabling in its impact (Goggin & Newell, 2003; Newell & Walker, 1992).
E-Learning Design Quality
Authors: Zaharias Panagiotis
Published: May 2011

A critical review of the literature was conducted which resulted in the formulation of an e-learning research agenda with a focus on quality and e-learning design issues. The e-learning research agenda summarizes the most commonly identifiable research dimensions regarding e-learning design that influence e-learning quality. It includes issues such as: • Implementation of learner-centered design paradigms (Hsi & Soloway, 1998; Norman & Spohrer, 1996; Soloway, Guzdial, & Hay, 1994). Humancomputer interaction and human factors researchers as well as cognitive scientists have been actively involved in this strand of research. • Implementation of effective pedagogy for the design of e-learning courses and the subsequent development of instructional design guidelines (Clark, 2002; Dimitrova & Sutcliffe, 1999; Govindasamy, 2002; Weston, Gandell, McApline, & Filkenstein,1999). Furthermore, effective pedagogy includes investigation and incorporation of cognitive methods (such as learning styles and strategies, problem solving, metacognition, etc.) and research in the development of new instructional design models (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Clark, 2002; Clark & Mayer, 2003). Researchers from Educational Psychology and Instructional Design have been researching such issues. • Guidelines and frameworks for quality assurance and evaluation (Barbera, 2004; Boud & Prosser, 2001; Johnson & Aragon, 2002; McGorry, 2003; Sonwalkar, 2002 ). This strand of research transects the aforementioned two dimensions and can be considered an umbrella for e-learning developments.
Electronic Portfolios in Teacher Education
Authors: Kitchenham Andrew
Published: May 2011

As a punishment from the Greek gods for his numerous trickeries, Sisyphus was condemned to roll an enormous rock up a hill for eternity. As he reached the top of the hill, the rock rolled back to the bottom of the hill and he had to start anew. For some pre-service teacher education students, the work involved in creating an electronic portfolio becomes a Sisyphean task. However, upon completion of the e-portfolio, the students realize that the task has become a labour of love as they spend much of their spare time fine-tuning the finished product. This chapter describes that task and the pride that they feel at the end of their time in the teacher education program. The University of Northern British Columbia Education Program’s teacher education program has relatively new but very innovative and creationary. The professors teach undergraduate and graduate courses, are actively involved in graduate student supervision, provide professional development workshops to surrounding school districts on a regular basis, and publish research articles and present research findings at learnèd conferences. Since its inception in 2002, the Education Program has submitted and had approved its Bachelor of Education program by the teacher governing agency, the British Columbia College of Teachers (BCCT). Its graduates are hired by the surrounding districts, throughout BC and Canada, and overseas. It is, without a doubt, a solid program.
Enhancing Student Productivity Using a Creativity Tutorial
Authors: McNair Monty , Howard Caroline , Watkins Paul , Guzman Indira
Published: May 2011

Survival in the 21st century marketplace often depends on the creativity of organizational employees (Beckett, 1992; Hermann, 1993; Johnson, 1992; Kanter, 1982). Many historians attribute the emergence of the United States (US) as a twentieth century superpower to the creativity of its population (Florida, 2005; Ehrlich, 2007). They warn that the United States may be losing its dominance due to declines in the ability to attract and sustain human capital including the creative talent critical for innovation (Florida, 2004; Florida, 2005; Ehrlich, 2007). In his Harvard Business Review article, America’s Looming Creativity Crisis, Richard Florida of Carnegie Mellon describes the importance of creativity to the wealth of a society: “Today, the terms of competition revolve around a central axis: a nation’s ability to mobilize, attract and retain human creative talent.“ In other words, nations and their citizens depend on the creativity of their residents to ensure their economic prosperity.