Emergence and Innovation in Digital Learning: Foundations and Applications

Educational systems worldwide are facing an enormous shift as a result of sociocultural, political, economic, and technological changes. The technologies and practices that have developed over the last decade have been heralded as opportunities to transform both online and traditional education systems. While proponents of these new ideas often postulate that they have the potential to address the educational problems facing both students and institutions and that they could provide an opportunity to rethink the ways that education is organized and enacted, there is little evidence of emerging technologies and practices in use in online education. Because researchers and practitioners interested in these possibilities often reside in various disciplines and academic departments the sharing and dissemination of their work across often rigid boundaries is a formidable task. Contributors to Emergence and Innovation in Digital Learning include individuals who are shaping the future of online learning with their innovative applications and investigations on the impact of issues such as openness, analytics, MOOCs, and social media. Building on work first published in Emerging Technologies in Distance Education, the contributors to this collection harness the dispersed knowledge in online education to provide a one-stop locale for work on emergent approaches in the field. Their conclusions will influence the adoption and success of these approaches to education and will enable researchers and practitioners to conceptualize, critique, and enhance their understanding of the foundations and applications of new technologies.

Fatores de longevidade do programa Central do Cidadão no Rio Grande do Norte

The public management reform in Brazil, since 1995, provoked new experiences in public administration. Among the new models of public service the one-stop shopping has distinguished and was adopted at Rio Grande do Norte with the Citizens Center Program. The one-stop shopping assembles in the same place many public services with appropriate structure, enabled human resources and citizens focus processes. The goal of this research was understand how citizens focus processes help to explain Citizens Center Program s longevity. It was made a case study and the research tools were applied with Citizen Center Programs workers and citizen-users at South Unit of Citizen Center Program placed at Via Direta Mall, Natal. The major contributions for Citizen Center Program s longevity were imputed to Basic Operation Processes. The most spoken features in Citizen Center Program mentioned were quality, efficiency, celerity e personal appearance, what demonstrate concern and care with citizen-users. Worker s personal appearance, accommodation, celerity, politeness and attending capacity planning were high evaluated by citizen-users revealing the wisely choice of use a large quality concept and citizenship concept in public administration. Citizen-users also pointed the necessity of refine and enlarge the communication ways that form an essential mechanism to public citizen focus administration. Not ignoring the policy aspect citizen focus processes were noticed like especial management actions that make easier citizen s activities and public service access, what generate satisfaction to citizen-users. It s possible to conclude that the high level approving evaluation of Citizen Center Program consolidates it an especial public policy that serves citizen s necessities e create appropriate legitimacy conditions of the public policy making harder the choice of ending the policy even in more fragile moments strongly contributing for its longevity

Monadic Parsing in Haskell

This paper is a tutorial on defining recursive descent parsers in Haskell. In the spirit of one-stop shopping, the paper combines material from three areas into a single source. The three areas are functional parsers, the use of monads to structure functional programs, and the use of special syntax for monadic programs in Haskell. More specifically, the paper shows how to define monadic parsers using do notation in Haskell. The paper is targeted at the level of a good undergraduate student who is familiar with Haskell, and has completed a grammars and parsing course. Some knowledge of functional parsers would be useful, but no experience with monads is assumed.

Fatores de longevidade do programa Central do Cidadão no Rio Grande do Norte

The public management reform in Brazil, since 1995, provoked new experiences in public administration. Among the new models of public service the one-stop shopping has distinguished and was adopted at Rio Grande do Norte with the Citizens Center Program. The one-stop shopping assembles in the same place many public services with appropriate structure, enabled human resources and citizens focus processes. The goal of this research was understand how citizens focus processes help to explain Citizens Center Program s longevity. It was made a case study and the research tools were applied with Citizen Center Programs workers and citizen-users at South Unit of Citizen Center Program placed at Via Direta Mall, Natal. The major contributions for Citizen Center Program s longevity were imputed to Basic Operation Processes. The most spoken features in Citizen Center Program mentioned were quality, efficiency, celerity e personal appearance, what demonstrate concern and care with citizen-users. Worker s personal appearance, accommodation, celerity, politeness and attending capacity planning were high evaluated by citizen-users revealing the wisely choice of use a large quality concept and citizenship concept in public administration. Citizen-users also pointed the necessity of refine and enlarge the communication ways that form an essential mechanism to public citizen focus administration. Not ignoring the policy aspect citizen focus processes were noticed like especial management actions that make easier citizen s activities and public service access, what generate satisfaction to citizen-users. It s possible to conclude that the high level approving evaluation of Citizen Center Program consolidates it an especial public policy that serves citizen s necessities e create appropriate legitimacy conditions of the public policy making harder the choice of ending the policy even in more fragile moments strongly contributing for its longevity

Introducing the National Library for Health Skin Conditions Specialist Library

Background: This paper introduces the new National Library for Health Skin Conditions Specialist Library http://www.library.nhs.uk/skin. Description: The aims, scope and audience of the new NLH Skin Conditions Specialist Library, and the composition and functions of its core Project Team, Editorial Team and Stakeholders Group are described. The Library's collection building strategy, resource and information types, editorial policies, quality checklist, taxonomy for content indexing, organisation and navigation, and user interface are all presented in detail. The paper also explores the expected impact and utility of the new Library, as well as some possible future directions for further development. Conclusion: The Skin Conditions Specialist Library is not just another new Web site that dermatologists might want to add to their Internet favourites then forget about it. It is intended to be a practical, "one-stop shop" dermatology information service for everyday practical use, offering high quality, up-to-date resources, and adopting robust evidence-based and knowledge management approaches.

Incidencia del proyecto “ASEAN community” en el desarrollo humano de Tailandia (2004-2014)

Esta investigación se interesa en evaluar los logros y retos que ha presentado el proyecto ASEAN Community en cada una de sus tres áreas de acción (Comunidad económica, comunidad de política y seguridad, y comunidad socio-cultural) ante su aplicación en Tailandia. De esta manera, se busca analizar la incidencia que ha tenido el proyecto en el Desarrollo Humano de Tailandia durante el periodo 2004-2014. A través del análisis del estatus actual a la luz del concepto de libertades instrumentales se realiza la evaluación de los resultados de los proyectos y su conveniencia o no para el desarrollo humano de la sociedad tailandesa.

Unloading or not unloading? Sheep welfare implication of rest stop at control post after a 29h transport

In Europe, maximum journey time for transported sheep is set at 29. h (EC Regulation 1/2005), after which animals must be unloaded, fed and watered in control posts stopping for 24. h, as all other species, before continuing their journey. The industry considers these resting times too general, not taking into account the peculiar differences between species or age classes. Also, loading and unloading have been reported to be detrimental for the animals. Therefore, the industry pushes to reduce the times at control post and avoid unloading the animals from the truck. Since there is little information concerning the effect of resting in a stationary truck after long journeys, the present study aims to evaluate the effect of an 8. h rest stop on the truck for transported ewes compared to being unloaded for resting in a control post for the same amount of time, considering physiological and behavioural measures. Two groups of ewes were transported for 29. h, after which one was unloaded and housed in a pen (P) at the control post while the other was left inside the truck (T). After 8. h stop, a further 6. h travel was headed to the farm of origin. A third group (C) stayed at the farm as control. During the stop, standing, resting, moving and eating behaviour of all groups was recorded. Blood parameters, salivary and faecal cortisol were assessed at different stages. The behaviour of P animals during the resting period was more similar to C than to T ones, where feeding and lying behaviours were restricted by the limited space allowance on the truck. After returning to the farm of origin, both T and P animals showed different parameters' levels as compared to C. P ewes showed a mean loss weight of 2. kg not recorded in group T and showed higher signs of muscular damage compared to C group. It was concluded that, with so short resting times as 8. h, there is no clear advantages in terms of animal welfare for avoiding the unloading and loading of the animals in the control post after long journeys.

One Approach to Knowledge Mapping for International Student Portal

* The work is partly supported by RFFI grant 08-07-00062-a

Accurately simulating the production of radiotherapy portal images using non-zero beam angles

In this study, the delivery and portal imaging of one square-field and one conformal radiotherapy treatment was simulated using the Monte Carlo codes BEAMnrc and DOSXYZnrc. The treatment fields were delivered to a humanoid phantom from different angles by a 6 MV photon beam linear accelerator, with an amorphous-silicon electronic portal imaging device (a-Si EPID) used to provide images of the phantom generated by each field. The virtual phantom preparation code CTCombine was used to combine a computed-tomography-derived model of the irradiated phantom with a simple, rectilinear model of the a-Si EPID, at each beam angle used in the treatment. Comparison of the resulting experimental and simulated a-Si EPID images showed good agreement, within \[gamma](3%, 3 mm), indicating that this method may be useful in providing accurate Monte Carlo predictions of clinical a-Si EPID images, for use in the verification of complex radiotherapy treatments.

Fixing the city one photo at a time : mobile logging of maintenance requests

We have designed a mobile application that takes advantage of the built-in features of smart phones such as camera and GPS that allow users to take geo-tagged photos while on the move. Urban residents can take pictures of broken street furniture and public property requiring repair, attach a brief description, and submit the information as a maintenance request to the local government organisation of their city. This paper discusses the design approach that led to the application, highlights a built-in mechanism to elicit user feedback, and evaluates the progress to date with user feedback and log statistics. It concludes with an outlook highlighting user requested features and our own design aspirations for moving from a reporting tool to a civic engagement tool.

Stop lecturing me, I want to learn

Re-evaluation of pedagogical practice is driving learning design at Queensland University of Technology. One objective is to support approaches to increase student engagement and attendance in physical and virtual learning spaces through opportunities for active and problem-based learning. This paper provides an overview and preliminary evaluation of the pilot of one of these initiatives, the Open Web Lecture (OWL), a new web-based student response application that seamlessly integrates a virtual learning environment within a physical learning space.

Stop and revive? : the effectiveness of nap and active rest breaks for reducing driver sleepiness

The incidence of sleep-related crashes has been estimated to account for approximately 20% of all fatal and severe crashes. The use of sleepiness countermeasures by drivers is an important component to reduce the incidence rates of sleep-related crashes. Taking a brief nap and stopping for a rest break are two highly publicised countermeasures for driver sleepiness and are also believed by drivers to be the most effective countermeasures. Despite this belief, there is scarce evidence to support the utility of these countermeasures for reducing driver sleepiness levels. Therefore, determining the effectiveness of these countermeasures is an important road safety concern. The current study utilised a young adult sample (N = 20) to investigate the effectiveness of a nap and an active rest break. The countermeasures effects were evaluated by physiological, behavioural (hazard perception skill), and subjective measures previously found sensitive to sleepiness. Participants initially completed two hours of a simulated driving task followed by a 15 minute nap opportunity or a 15 minute active rest break that included 10 minutes of brisk walking. After the break, participants completed one final hour of the simulated driving task. A within-subjects design was used so that each participant completed both the nap and the active rest break conditions on separate occasions. The analyses revealed that only the nap break provided any meaningful reduction in physiological sleepiness, reduced subjective sleepiness levels, and maintained hazard perception performance. In contrast, the active rest break had no effect for reducing physiological sleepiness and resulted in a decrement in hazard perception performance (i.e., an increase of reaction time latencies), with a transient reduction in subjective sleepiness levels. A number of theoretical, empirical and practical issues were identified by the current study.

Optimal eradication: When to stop looking for an invasive plant

The notion of being sure that you have completely eradicated an invasive species is fanciful because of imperfect detection and persistent seed banks. Eradication is commonly declared either on an ad hoc basis, on notions of seed bank longevity, or on setting arbitrary thresholds of 1% or 5% confidence that the species is not present. Rather than declaring eradication at some arbitrary level of confidence, we take an economic approach in which we stop looking when the expected costs outweigh the expected benefits. We develop theory that determines the number of years of absent surveys required to minimize the net expected cost. Given detection of a species is imperfect, the optimal stopping time is a trade-off between the cost of continued surveying and the cost of escape and damage if eradication is declared too soon. A simple rule of thumb compares well to the exact optimal solution using stochastic dynamic programming. Application of the approach to the eradication programme of Helenium amarum reveals that the actual stopping time was a precautionary one given the ranges for each parameter. © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/CNRS.

Media futures: A review essay on'The Future of Reputation','TV Futures', and'The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It'

In his 1987 book, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT, Stewart Brand provides an insight into the visions of the future of the media in the 1970s and 1980s. 1 He notes that Nicolas Negroponte made a compelling case for the foundation of a media laboratory at MIT with diagrams detailing the convergence of three sectors of the media—the broadcast and motion picture industry; the print and publishing industry; and the computer industry. Stewart Brand commented: ‘If Negroponte was right and communications technologies really are converging, you would look for signs that technological homogenisation was dissolving old boundaries out of existence, and you would expect an explosion of new media where those boundaries used to be’. Two decades later, technology developers, media analysts and lawyers have become excited about the latest phase of media convergence. In 2006, the faddish Time Magazine heralded the arrival of various Web 2.0 social networking services: You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy‐strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television. And we didn’t just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open‐source software. America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user‐created Linux. We’re looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it’s just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy. The magazine announced that Time’s Person of the Year was ‘You’, the everyman and everywoman consumer ‘for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game’. This review essay considers three recent books, which have explored the legal dimensions of new media. In contrast to the unbridled exuberance of Time Magazine, this series of legal works displays an anxious trepidation about the legal ramifications associated with the rise of social networking services. In his tour de force, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, Daniel Solove considers the implications of social networking services, such as Facebook and YouTube, for the legal protection of reputation under privacy law and defamation law. Andrew Kenyon’s edited collection, TV Futures: Digital Television Policy in Australia, explores the intersection between media law and copyright law in the regulation of digital television and Internet videos. In The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, Jonathan Zittrain explores the impact of ‘generative’ technologies and ‘tethered applications’—considering everything from the Apple Mac and the iPhone to the One Laptop per Child programme.

Optimal eradication: when to stop looking for an invasive plant

The notion of being sure that you have completely eradicated an invasive species is fanciful because of imperfect detection and persistent seed banks. Eradication is commonly declared either on an ad hoc basis, on notions of seed bank longevity, or on setting arbitrary thresholds of 1% or 5% confidence that the species is not present. Rather than declaring eradication at some arbitrary level of confidence, we take an economic approach in which we stop looking when the expected costs outweigh the expected benefits. We develop theory that determines the number of years of absent surveys required to minimize the net expected cost. Given detection of a species is imperfect, the optimal stopping time is a trade-off between the cost of continued surveying and the cost of escape and damage if eradication is declared too soon. A simple rule of thumb compares well to the exact optimal solution using stochastic dynamic programming. Application of the approach to the eradication programme of Helenium amarum reveals that the actual stopping time was a precautionary one given the ranges for each parameter.