Characteristics of pedagogical change in integrating digital collaborative learning and their sustainability in a school culture: e-CSAMR framework

Collaborative learning is perceived as an important component of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) integration in schools. The purpose of this study was to examine an initiative of the Ministry of Education that promoted intra-school and inter-school digital collaborative learning projects. The participants were 159 district ICT leaders, who designed 37 digital collaborative projects containing 73 learning activities to promote inter-school student interactions. The study was conducted within the qualitative research paradigm through analysis of digital collaborative learning activities. Additionally, the participants were required to share their experiences regarding digital collaboration through an open-ended online questionnaire. The thematic analysis revealed all four levels of the SAMR model, rating pedagogical changes during technological integration; the most common were the model's two middle levels: Augmentation and Modification. Moreover, we explored the degree of teamwork (information sharing, cooperation, or collaboration), complexity of collaboration (intra-school vs. inter-school) and sustainability of collaborative learning within the school culture. Most of the activities reflected the cooperation level of teamwork, while in the highest level—collaboration was less common. Surprisingly, complexity of collaboration and its sustainability in school culture were negatively interconnected. Regarding the extent of collaboration, some activities were categorized as “Islands of innovation,” the majority were comprehensive and conducted on the organizational level, while only few involved the wider community-parents or other stakeholders. Based on the bottom-up analysis of pedagogical changes in digital collaboration activities, we suggested a comprehensive e-CSAMR framework. The implications for educational theory and practice are discussed.     

DMS2015-26: Pupils׳ collaboration around a large display

Collaboration is acknowledged as a key element of learning. Thus, it is valuable to develop Information and Communication Technology applications that, implemented on proper devices, can support collaborative learning. Large multi-touch displays appear to encourage collaboration by offering users a shared environment to act upon. However, little knowledge is available on the actual influence of this technology on human behavior and more empirical evidence is needed to better understand its capability to foster collaboration. This paper provides a contribution in this direction by presenting a field study that helps understand collaborative practices of pupils playing an educational game that runs on a multi-touch large display. This study involved 98 fifth-graders at a primary school (average age 10 years old). Results confirmed the potential of large displays as useful devices for collaborative learning.     

Collaborative object-oriented visualization environment

In this paper, we present a Collaborative Object-oriented Visualization Environment (COVE) which provides a flexible and extensible framework for collaborative visualization. COVE integrates collaborative and parallel computing environments based on a distributed object model. It is built as a collection of concurrent objects: collaborative and application objects which interact with one another to construct collaborative parallel computing environments. The former enables COVE to execute various collaborative functions, while the latter allows it to execute fast parallel visualization in various modes. Also, flexibility and extensibility are provided by plugging the proper application objects into COVE at run-time, and making them interact with one another through collaboration objects. For our experiment, three visualization modes for volume rendering are designed and implemented to support the fast and flexible analysis of volume data in a collaborative environment. This work has been supported by KIPA-Information Technology Research Center, University research program by Ministry of Information & Communication, and Brain Korea 21 projects in 2005.     

Experimental zones: two cases of exploring frames of participation in a dialogic museum

Abstract

A matter of concern for dialogic institutions such as museums is the struggle to find appropriate ways of integrating social media and digital technologies into dialogues with visitors. This paper addresses how co-creation and experimental methods may be applied in a situated, natural environment, exploring how these technologies may be shaped to support museum visitor relations. The concept ‘experimental zone’ is suggested as a format for a collaborative design space where digital media-based dialogues are explored in line with professional practices. This concept is discussed in relation to two design experiments undertaken in collaboration with the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology.     

Activity-based computing: support for mobility and collaboration in ubiquitous computing

This paper presents the design philosophy of activity-based computing (ABC), which addresses mobility and cooperation in human work activities. Furthermore, it presents the ABC framework, which is a ubiquitous computing infrastructure supporting ABC. The idea of ABC and the aim of the ABC framework is to: (1) support human activity by managing its collection of work tasks on a computer, (2) support mobility by distributing activities across heterogeneous computing environments, (3) support asynchronous collaboration by allowing several people to participate in an activity, and (4) support synchronous, real-time collaboration by enabling desktop conferencing by sharing the activity across several clients. During a period of two years, the ABC framework has been co-designed and evaluated in close cooperation with a range of clinicians in a hospital.

The role of ICT as a promoter of students' cooperation

Abstract The Second Information Technology in Education Study — Module 2 (SITES-M2) in Germany investigated 12 cases of innovative pedagogical practice using technology (IPPUT) in primary, lower and upper secondary schools. One theme that emerged from the analysis of these cases was students' cooperation. It seems that the co-occurrence of ICT-use and students' cooperation and collaboration is not accidental. The focus of this paper is an analysis and classification of the students' cooperation identified in the IPPUTs.     

The impact of enterprise risk management on competitive advantage by moderating role of information technology

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) on Competitive Advantage (CA) by moderating role of information technology dimensions including Information Technology (IT) strategy and Information Technology (IT) structure. A total of 84 valid questionnaires were obtained through self-administered survey conducted at Iranian financial institutions. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was conducted for the analysis of data and hypotheses testing. The findings of this study showed that ERM had a positive relationship with the firms’ competitive advantage. The results also showed that IT strategy and IT structure had a direct effect on the competitive advantage as a well as moderating effect on ERM-competitive advantage relationship. This study extends on previous ERM studies by considering Iran as a developing country which is neglected among previous empirical researches. It also extends previous ERM works by empirically evaluating ERM, IT, competitive advantage and relationships among them. This paper provides insights into the value of implementation of ERM among organizations which could lead to improve competitive advantage. In addition, this study provides implication in terms of manager's planning and decision making to consider IT as one of the critical success factors of ERM practices.     

Examining effectiveness of communities of practice in online English for academic purposes (EAP) assessment in virtual classes

The literature on English for academic purposes (EAP) methodology highlights the significance of learners' engagement in learning language (Hyland, 2006) in mainstream general and online contexts. Blogs have been recommended in many studies as having the potential to bring the sense of community and collaboration in online classes. Therefore, this study sought to investigate whether blogs in large classes would help students enhance their perceptions of learning. To this end, Forty-two undergraduate students of Information Technology (IT) at an Iranian university participated in a weblog writing course in order to promote collaboration and reflective learning. Instrumentation included a questionnaire of perceived learning and sense of community, semi-structured interviews, and participant observations. The findings revealed a significant difference in perceived learning between the students with low sense of community and those with a high sense of community. Based on the qualitative findings of the study, we suggest an assessment framework incorporating constructivist and social-interactionist theories of learning in order to treat students as members of a community of learning. The findings may promise implications for gearing EAP assessment to more collaborative modes in online courses and suggest a model framework for the assessment of students in EAP online classes.     

Understanding Dynamic Collaboration in Teleconsultation

Information and communication technology has been widely deployed in the provision of healthcare for decades. Teleconsultation, one of the new means of providing healthcare solutions, has been prevalently implemented in numerous countries. In principle, it is expected with great potential to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare service through wide accessibility and cost control. However, many teleconsultation systems have been installed but abandoned rapidly or used at a disappointing low level. This paper explores the antecedents of low usage in post-adoption of teleconsultation service in clinical practice. We identify specific theoretical attributes targeted on the research problem and extend the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework into a multi-dimensional analytical framework. We design a comparative case study and conduct deductive analysis to test our propositions using data from multiple sources. The proposed analytical framework and empirical findings not only provide theoretical contribution by articulating the TOE framework to reflect the specific and distinguished characteristics in teleconsultation services, but also provide implications for practitioners to develop better strategies for teleconsultation collaboration.     

CoBTx-Net: A model for business collaboration reliability verification

Collaborative business process can become unreliable when business partners collaborate in a peer- based fashion without central control. Therefore, reliability checking becomes an important issue that needs to be dealt with for any generic solution in managing business collaboration. In this paper, we propose a novel Choreographical Business Transaction Net (CoBTx-Net) to model collaborative business process and to manage the collaboration by individual participants. Furthermore three reliability properties named Time-embedded dead marking freeness, Inter-organizational dead marking freeness, and Collaborative soundness are defined based on CoBTx-Net to verify (1) the violation of time constraint, (2) collaborative logic conflicts, and (3) the improper termination from individual organizations.

A social network analysis of ICTD conferences (2006–2017)

ABSTRACT

Information and Communication Technologies for Development is an interdisciplinary area of research associated with engineering, application, and adoption of ICTs in developing regions and/or for development. The International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD) was started in 2006 with the objective to build a community of scholars and practitioners from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. In this paper, we examine the social dimension of ICTD as manifest in co-authorship ties in the papers published in conference proceedings. This research community has 1053 unique authors from 302 institutions in 55 countries. Almost 85% of 456 papers are co-authored by two or more people. Initially, the research community displayed small-world characteristics but the social network subsequently displays a distinct core-periphery structure. Further, collaborative ties among academic institutions in developing countries are comparatively less. A key implication is that institutional support is imperative to initiate and maintain collaborative research ties.     

Building intelligent collaborative interface agents with the ICAGENT development framework

This paper describes the implementation of intelligent collaborative interface agents using the intelligent collaborative agent (ICagent) development framework. In particular, the paper presents the implementation of a collaborative interface agent that acts as a tutor in the context of an educational software application. The agent deliberates socially with users following the SharedPlans model of collaborative activity. Social deliberation requires interface agents to make their desires and intentions clear to the application users, being in constant communication with them, to understand the context of their activity and to reconcile their own and users’ desires in the overall context of action. Reconciliation of users’ desires allows agents to recognize the situations where users need help. The paper briefly presents the ICagent development framework, describes the implementation of the interface agent, and discusses an example of the behavior of the agent during a collaboration session.     

一种基于SOA架构和网格计算的协同商务平台框架研究

首先提出了网络环境下协同商务的模型,采用面向服务体系(SOA)的思想,基于网格服务构建了一种协同商务平台的框架,用网格服务封装企业内部和企业之间的业务系统接口.通过网格服务的发现、集成、调用实现协同电子商务.其目的是实现企业内部、供应链企业之间以及企业外部各层次(客户、政府和其他机构)之间的协同.最后给出了这种框架的实...     

An economic incentive model for encouraging peer collaboration in mobile-P2P networks with support for constraint queries

In mobile ad hoc peer-to-peer (M-P2P) networks, economic models become a necessity for enticing non-cooperative mobile peers to provide service. M-P2P users may issue queries with varying constraints on query response time, data quality of results and trustworthiness of the data source. Hence, we propose ConQuer, which is an economic incentive model for the efficient processing of constraint queries in M-P2P networks. ConQuer also provides incentives for peer collaboration in order to improve data availability. The main contributions of ConQuer are three-fold. First, it uses a broker-based economic M-P2P model for processing constraint queries via a Vickrey auction mechanism. Second, it proposes the CR*-tree, a dynamic multidimensional R-tree-based index for constraints of data quality, trust and price of data to determine target peers efficiently. The CR*-tree is hosted by brokers, who can sell it to other peers, thereby encouraging the creation of multiple copies of the index for facilitating routing. Third, it provides incentives for peers to form collaborative peer groups for maximizing data availability and revenues by mutually allocating and deallocating data items using royalty-based revenue-sharing. Such reallocations facilitate better data quality, thereby further increasing peer revenues. Our performance study shows that ConQuer is indeed effective in answering constraint queries with improved response time, success rate and data quality, and querying hop-counts.

Access Grid technology in classroom and research environments

Global communication is essential to industry, research and education. The Access Grid (AG) is a suite of hardware, software, and tools to facilitate communication and collaboration over the Internet. These resources are used at over 500 institutions worldwide to support group-to-group interactions across the Grid including collaborative research work sessions, tutorials, lectures, large-scale distributed meetings and training. This paper will provide an overview of the technology to encourage professionals to integrate benefits and tools of the Grid into their instruction and research. Furthermore, this paper will compare this new technology to more traditional videoconferencing and distributed collaborative working environments. Lastly, it will present issues and challenges that must be addressed to incorporate this momentous technology within the classroom and for collaboration throughout the world.

Factors affecting the performance of knowledge collaboration in virtual team based on capital appreciation

Knowledge collaboration (KC) is an important strategy measure to improve knowledge management, focusing on not only efficiency of knowledge cooperation, but also adding value of intellectual capital and social capital. In virtual teams, many factors, such as team’s network characteristics, collaborative culture, and individual collaborative intention, affect the performance of KC. By discussing the nature of KC, this paper presents that the performance of can be measured from two aspects: effectiveness of collaboration and efficiency of cooperation. Among them, effectiveness of collaboration is measured through value added and efficiency of cooperation is measured through accuracy and timeliness. Then the paper discusses the factors affecting the performance of KC from network characteristics, individual attributes and team attributes. The results show that network characteristics, individual attributes and team attributes in virtual team have significant impacts on the performance of KC.     

Leveraging Coordinative Conventions to Promote Collaboration Awareness

The paper discusses the conventions used by medical practitioners to improve their collaboration mediated by Clinical Records. The case study focuses on the coordinative conventions identified in two wards of an Italian hospital and highlights their role and importance in the definition of the requirements of any system supportive of collaborative work practices. These requirements are expressed in terms of the provision of artifact-mediated information that promotes collaboration awareness. The study identified several kinds of Awareness Promoting Information (API): the paper discusses how they can be conveyed both in the web of documental artifacts constituting a Clinical Record and in its computer-based counterpart, the Electronic Patient Record (EPR). The paper ends with the implications for the design of EPRs and for their integration with Hospital Information Systems in light of the findings.

How Barriers to Collaboration Prevent Progress in Demand for Knowledge: A Dyadic Study of Small and Medium‐Sized Firms,Research and Technology Organizations and Universities

This article analyses the challenging collaboration between small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and knowledge institutions. The aim of the article is to shed light on the barriers, which hinder collaboration, and to investigate the particular role of research and technology organizations (RTOs) as potential mediators of collaboration between SMEs and universities. On the basis of a unique sample consisting of 151 SMEs, RTOs and universities from seven countries, the differences across dyads of potential collaborations are identified. In particular, the article finds that both firms and universities with collaboration experience with the other partner in general perceive higher barriers than inexperienced firms or universities. In terms of the mediating role of RTOs, the article illustrates that universities perceive lower barriers when collaborating with RTOs than with SMEs. A similar tendency to a mediating role of RTOs can be found among the SMEs' perception of university collaboration. Finally, the analysis shows that the knowledge institutions perceive the SMEs as very important collaboration partners, but the same sense of importance is not shared by the SMEs regarding collaboration with the knowledge institutions. Hence, there seems to be a quite unbalanced view on the potential of the collaborative ties, which is further discussed in the conclusion.