Open Collaborative Environment Research Articles

OSSCAR, an open platform for collaborative development of computational tools for education in science

In this paper we present the Open Software Services for Classrooms and Research (OSSCAR) platform. OSSCAR provides an open collaborative environment to develop and access educational resources in the form of web applications, for which various deployment methods are discussed and compared. To minimize efforts in the creation and use of new educational material, OSSCAR combines software tools that have emerged as standards with custom domain-specific ones. The technical solutions adopted to create and distribute content are described and motivated on the basis of reliability, sustainability, ease of uptake and use. Examples from courses in the domains of physics, chemistry, and materials science are shown to demonstrate the style and level of interactivity of typical applications. The tools presented are easy to use, and create a uniform and open environment exploitable by a large community of teachers, students, and researchers with the goal of facilitating learning and avoiding, when possible, duplication of efforts in creating teaching material. Contributions to expand the educational content of the OSSCAR project are welcome. Program summaryProgram Title: OSSCAR Interactive Notebooks for Quantum Mechanics and Computational Materials ScienceCPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/26py5zz9f8.1Developer's repository link:https://github.com/osscar-org/quantum-mechanicsLicensing provisions: MITProgramming language: PythonNature of problem: Among others, computational courses (e.g. on quantum mechanics) can benefit from advanced interactive visualizations of the content. However, on the one hand it might be complicated for teachers to develop such interactive content; on the other hand, students need to be able to access very quickly and efficiently the content, reducing the time needed to install libraries and dependencies that might differ between courses.Solution method: Here, we developed interactive web applications to complement teaching and encourage computational thinking for courses in computational physics, chemistry and materials science, using Jupyter notebooks and their rendering as interactive web applications. The latter is powered by a combination of Voila, to hide code and convert notebooks into live web applications, and (existing or custom) Jupyter widgets to enable interactiveness. The code is ready to be deployed via a number of open approaches.

THE USE OF THE CLOUD-BASED OPEN LEARNING AND RESEARCH PLATFORM FOR COLLABORATION IN VIRTUAL TEAMS

The article highlights the promising ways of providing access to cloud-based platforms and tools to support collaborative learning and research processes. It is emphasized that the implementation of cloud computing services is a promising trend in the development of modern ICT pedagogical systems. The concept of cloud-based open learning and research platform is considered. The benchmarking studies of using ICT tools for learning and research within the pedagogical systems of higher education are fulfilled. The analysis and evaluation of the existing experience of using different types of software packages to support learning and research processes within the cloud-based environment are proposed. The issues of integration of knowledge-based services, language technologies and database network services within the open systems of learning and research are covered. A model of the cloud-based open learning and research collaborative environment involving the use of cloud-based components based on AWS virtual desktop, IBM Box, WPadV4 and other tools is substantiated. The reasonable ways of tools selection are considered and the prospects for their use within the cloud-based open learning and research platform in pedagogical systems of higher education are described. The research methods are the analysis of official international documents, publications on the subject of the research, observation, comparison, the analysis of the experience of using educational and scientific network packages, application of cloud technologies, benchmarking studies and experimental studies. Conclusions and recommendations encompass the application of cloud-based open learning and research technologies covering research platforms, scientific and educational network packages, and also cloud services for collecting, submitting and processing data as a promising trend in the development and modernization of the educational environment of higher education institutions and collaborative research.

Continuous monitoring and feedback of quality of recovery indicators for anaesthetists: a qualitative investigation of reported effects on professional behaviour

BackgroundResearch suggests that providing clinicians with feedback on their performance can result in professional behaviour change and improved clinical outcomes. Departments would benefit from understanding which characteristics of feedback support effective quality monitoring, professional behaviour change and service improvement. This study aimed to report the experience of anaesthetists participating in a long-term initiative to provide comprehensive personalized feedback to consultants on patient-reported quality of recovery indicators in a large London teaching hospital. MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 consultant anaesthetists, six surgical nursing leads, the theatre manager and the clinical coordinator for recovery. Transcripts were qualitatively analysed for themes linked to the perceived value of the initiative, its acceptability and its effects upon professional practice. ResultsAnalysis of qualitative data from participant interviews suggested that effective quality indicators must address areas that are within the control of the anaesthetist. Graphical data presentation, both longitudinal (personal variation over time) and comparative (peer-group distributions), was found to be preferable to summary statistics and provided useful and complementary perspectives for improvement. Developing trust in the reliability and credibility of the data through co-development of data reports with clinical input into areas such as case-mix adjustment was important for engagement. Making feedback specifically relevant to the recipient supported professional learning within a supportive and open collaborative environment. ConclusionsThis study investigated the requirements for effective feedback on quality of anaesthetic care for anaesthetists, highlighting the mechanisms by which feedback may translate into improvements in practice at the individual and peer-group level.

By(wa)ć mentorem czyli o dylematach i pułapkach mentoringu

Mentoring is regarded as a method of comprehensive development of a protégé’s potential, which required a steady approach, regular contact and collaboration with the mentor. A non-directive interaction between the master and protégé, mentoring is a relation that involves inspiration, stimulation and leadership. At its foundation lies a belief that it is possible to have impact on other individuals in their zones of proximal development (Vygotsky) based on the skill (art) of bringing out protégé’s strong assets (Seligman) within joint involvement episodes (Schaffer). A mentor is expected to motivate and encourage her protégé to be active as well as to develop an honest, open and friendly collaboration environment that is based on mutual respect. As a work and joint involvement method, mentoring is endorsed in education, labour market institutions, learning organisations (Senge). The concept of a mentor is linked to those of a master, authority, important person, example to follow, leader, and to some extent those of a teacher. To what extent this mentor - protégé relation can be formalised? Is it, as claimed by critical pedagogy, a component of pastoral power where the protégé is required to give herself up and surrender her development to the hands of the leader, i.e. a pastor, mentor (Foucault)? Is a teacher (occasionally) a mentor? These selected dilemmas, questions and doubts about the mentoring concept are raised in this text.

Personal reflection (RNA journal 20th anniversary).

Personal reflection (RNA journal 20th anniversary).

Factors that influence the teaching use of Wikipedia in higher education

A key impact the Internet is having on university teaching involves the new choices being provided because of open educational content. Wikipedia is a clear example of these new options. It is a gigantic open repository of knowledge, and it can also be considered a platform that facilitates collaboration in knowledge creation and dissemination. Our research objective is to understand what the main factors are that influence the teaching uses of Wikipedia among university faculty. Based on a technology acceptance model, and using data from a survey sent to all faculty members of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, we analyze the relationships within the internal and external constructs of the model. We found that both the perception of colleagues' opinions about Wikipedia and the perceived quality of the information in Wikipedia play a central role. These two constructs have a significant direct impact on the perceived usefulness of Wikipedia. This perceived usefulness affects, mediated by the behavioral intention of using Wikipedia, the effective use behavior of the encyclopedia. The degree to which an individual considers it is important to participate in open collaborative environments and the Web 2.0 profile of the faculty members also play an important role in our model.

Processes of Enhancing the Intelligence of Learning Organizations on the Basis of Competence Centers

The process of organizational learning and proper knowledge management became today one of the major challenges for the organization acting in the knowledge-based economy. According to the observations of the authors of this paper the demand for formalization of knowledge management processes and organizational learning is particularly evident in research institutions, established either by the universities, or the companies. The goal of this article is to present the best practices related to the management of an exemplary learning organization. The authors describe the research and development competence center established by the Gdansk University of Technology and IBM (called CAS, Centre of Advanced Studies). Such type of unit is supposed to improve the knowledge of all cooperating entities and improve the quality and efficiency of the existing processes (projects). This leads to an overall enhancement of intelligence throughout the organization – for both CAS and cooperating entities as well. The authors’ experience gathered during the number of R&D projects allows claiming that building an open collaboration environment for scientists and business representatives within the framework of joint projects can be simply an effective solution. The authors try to show the mechanisms, procedures and decisions taken in the creation of such a center, which lead to an overall strengthening of learning organization’s intelligence. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ss.85.3.8415

A Comparison of 3D Collaborative Virtual Learning Environments

This paper focuses on 3D Collaborative Virtual Learning Environments, examining the state of the art in both open source and proprietary software. Issues pertaining to the use of open source Collaborative Virtual Learning Environments are discussed, rationalizing the choice of executing a collaborative learning scenario in Second Life. The scenario is then presented and evaluation results assess the appropriateness of the chosen platform with regards to its technical and pedagogical affordances. Finally, students’ suggestions and reactions towards such a novel didactical approach are discussed.

Trusted collaborative services for the IT security management of SMEs/mEs

Although small, medium and micro enterprises (SMEs, mEs) play a decisive role in the European digital economy, they have been identified as one of the weakest links in information security. Identifying these security weaknesses and needs, we parameterise our open collaborative environment STORM in order to offer trusted services for SMEs/mEs to self-manage the security of their information and telecommunication (IT) systems.

Research on PLM System Interoperability with a Feature-Object-Based Approach

Interoperability can be described as the interpretability of data types and related information by different computer systems. Standards for data format and communication protocols have been developed and adopted by different industries. So far, interoperability has only been investigated at the data level. This paper addresses a research approach proposing a system design and a set of generic methods so that to embed engineering knowledge and to achieve interoperability at the feature level in an open collaborative engineering environment. Ideally, the proposed new approach would allow knowledge rules to be embedded into the constraints of features supported by the complex associations of a multi-application engineering repository. Potentially, the system proposed offers user-defined feature types that support flexibility in feature-based information definition, sharing and mapping.

Product modeling within the framework of the World Wide Web

This paper presents an approach to the development of an open collaborative design environment in the Computer Aided Design (CAD) setting of a networked enterprise. Demand for high quality and variety of low to medium quality of products or 'mass customization' has led to the concept of'virtual organizations'. The de-centralized design teams of such an organization require a framework to manage the CAD product information. By integrating the emerging standard for 3D geometry on the World Wide Web with conventional CAD packages, we describe a framework for the development of a product model with various levels of abstractions. The syntactic content of the product model, accessible through any Internet interface such as Netscape Navigator associates itself with a centralized database for embedding technological information at the face and feature levels. The semanlic and syntactic content of the product model can then be accessed and manipulated through the single Internet interface. The system is deployed on a test-bed utilizing both a UNIX box and a machine operating under the Windows NT system, to demonstrate it's open architecture and interoperability.

Product modeling within the framework of the World Wide Web

This paper presents an approach to the development of an open collaborative design environment in the Computer Aided Design (CAD) setting of a networked enterprise. Demand for high quality and variety of low to medium quality of products or 'mass customization’ has led to the concept of 'virtual organizations’. The de-centralized design teams of such an organization require a framework to manage the CAD product information. By integrating the emerging standard for 3D geometry on the World Wide Web with conventional CAD packages, we describe a framework for the development of a product model with various levels of abstractions. The syntactic content of the product model, accessible through any Internet interface such as Netscape Navigator associates itself with a centralized database for embedding technological information at the face and feature levels. The semantic and syntactic content of the product model can then be accessed and manipulated through the single Internet interface. The system is deployed on a test-bed utilizing both a UNIX box and a machine operating under the Windows NT system, to demonstrate it's open architecture and interoperability.