Alicia García-Holgado

The evolution of the technological ecosystems: an architectural proposal to enhancing learning processes

Currently, there exist very powerful Open Source software applications that cover most of the ICT needs of any institution, both for its operation and internal processes management. In this context, the technological effort of companies and institutions is not in the development of new software tools but to create their own technological ecosystem using available software components. This paper presents an architectural pattern to implement learning technological ecosystems with the ability to adapt to the changing requirements of the organizations.

Architectural pattern for the definition of eLearning ecosystems based on Open Source developments

The huge penetration of technological ecosystems based on Open Source software, as a technological solution to support the knowledge management of entities and institutions, presents new problems in the development and integration of new software components. The aim of this paper has been to define an architectural pattern that lays the foundations to define and implement eLearning ecosystems. The pattern definition has been realized from a comparative analysis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a number of real case studies developed in different contexts. As a result, we have obtained an architectural pattern composed by several layers and a set of external elements that provides a solution to the main problems identified in the development of technological ecosystems. The pattern has been tested in a real context, concretely in the Public Administration, its which has demonstrated that works properly.

Analysis and Improvement of Knowledge Management Processes in Organizations Using the Business Process Model Notation

Successful knowledge management is one of the main challenges for any kind of organization. This paper aims to enhance knowledge management processes within companies and institutions, by analyzing different processes that are part of common stages along all knowledge management lifecycles described in the literature. The processes have been modeled using the Business Process Model and Notation with a high abstraction level, in order to cover a wide range of organizations. The paper also presents a possible evolution and enhancement of knowledge management processes using the Business Process Model and Notation diagrams, including the use of superior and better performing technological solutions to support knowledge management processes. As a result, we propose a set of improvements that can be extrapolated to other knowledge management-related business processes.

Analysis of knowledge management experiences in spanish public administration

Under the development of the Digital Society and with the aim of achieving a true transition from the Information Society to the Knowledge Society, ICTs play a capital role in educational and knowledge management processes in any kind of entity, from Small and Medium-sized Enterprises to the Public Administration. The Spanish Public Administration is composed by a huge amount of the heterogeneous public organisms that range from research centres to public companies. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis about the knowledge management in the Spanish Public Administration through several real study cases developed in different public organisms. The analysis shows how the case studies follow the Suricata Architecture in order to identify success factors to replicate them in other public contexts.

Knowledge management ecosystem based on drupal platform for promoting the collaboration between public administrations

The Spanish Public Administration has a decentralized structure organized in different levels: local government, regional government and central government. There is a huge amount of public institutions and organizations in each level and some of them share similar functions. Thus far there not existed a simple way to connect all the institutions in order to share their expertise and collaborate to improve the whole Administration. The knowledge management ecosystem for the Public Administration aims to address this problem by providing to the public employees a set of tools and information flows in order to promote the informal learning between them. This paper describes the technological ecosystem defined and implemented by the Research Group in InterAction and eLearning of the University of Salamanca in collaboration with the National Institute of Public Administration.

Definition of a technological ecosystem for scientific knowledge management in a PhD programme

Successful knowledge management is one of the main challenges that any company or institution has to address if it wants to be part of the Knowledge Society in which we live. In the scientific scope, there is a clear commitment to the Open Knowledge, the use of Open Source technologies and the Open Access to Science, which have a directly impact in the scientific institutions. In this context, the PhD Programmes are scientific communities where early-stage and veteran researchers collaborate in the knowledge creation and in its visibility and dissemination. The aim of this paper is describe the architecture of the technological ecosystem that supports the scientific knowledge management processes in the PhD Programme on Education in the Knowledge Society at the University of Salamanca.

Formal and informal learning experiences in multicultural scopes

The development of intercultural and multicultural competences and skills on lifelong learning processes has yet to be achieved, this means that main changes of paradigm still need to take place. Particularly in the field of education, it is necessary to move from traditional canons to open processes of creative interaction and build bridges by developing intercultural skills and competencies through educational and media programmes. This track is devoted to identify, share and valorize best practices and experiences (including technological and methodological issues) that focused on the development of intercultural skills and competencies in education, including both formal and informal approaches.

Preliminary validation of the metamodel for developing learning ecosystems

Learning ecosystems are positioned as a technological solution able to provide learning environments that evolve over time to cover the changing needs of users or include new tools for knowledge management. The definition, development and deployment of this type of software solutions is complex and involves several problems identified and analyzed in previous works. In order to solve these problems, an architectural pattern based on Buschmanns Layers pattern has been defined. The accumulated experience developing learning ecosystems along with the problems analysis using Business Process Model and Notation and the architectural pattern, have provided a knowledge base to define an ecosystems metamodel. The proposed metamodel provides a framework for Model-Driven Development of learning ecosystems. The main objective of the present work is to validate the ecosystems metamodel from modeling a learning ecosystem.

A Metamodel Proposal for Developing Learning Ecosystems

The definition and development of learning ecosystems is a complex process with a wide range of requirements. Although two different institutions or companies share the same problems and goals regarding their learning and training processes, the learning ecosystems to support them are different. The components of the ecosystem, including the human factor as a key element, and the relationships between them, change over time. In other words, learning ecosystems evolve as natural ecosystems; there are many factors, both internal and external, that influence an entity. The authors have defined and developed different learning ecosystems. Moreover, they have transferred the same learning ecosystem, specifically a learning ecosystem for knowledge management in a PhD Program, to different domains. These experiences have provided the required information to define the ecosystems metamodel following the Model Driven Architecture proposed by the Object Management Group. The aim of this metamodel is define a Domain Specification Language to develop learning ecosystems.

Learning Ecosystem Metamodel Quality Assurance

The learning ecosystem metamodel is a framework to support Model-Driven Development of learning ecosystems based on Open Source software. The metamodel must be validated in order to provide a robust solution for the development of this type of technological solutions. The first phase of the validation process has done manually, but to ensure the quality of the metamodel, the last phase should be made using a tool. The first version of the metamodel is an instance of MOF, the standard defined by the Object Management Group. There are not stable tools to support the definition and mapping of metamodels and models using the standards. For this reason, is necessary to transform the metamodel from MOF to Ecore in order to use the tools provided by Eclipse. This work describes the transformation process and the measures to ensure the quality of the learning ecosystem metamodel in Ecore.