Marlies Bitter-Rijpkema

Social network analysis for technology-enhanced learning: review and future directions

By nature, learning is social. The interactions by which we learn from others inherently form a network of relationships among people, but also between people and resources. This paper gives an overview of the potential social network analysis (SNA) may have for social learning. It starts with an overview of the history of social learning and how SNA may be of value. The core of the paper outlines the state-of-art of SNA for technology-enhanced learning (TEL), by means of four possible types of SNA applications: visualisation, analysis, simulation, and interventions. In an outlook, future directions of SNA research for TEL are provided.

Personal profiles: enhancing social interaction in learning networks

A film information communication apparatus comprising a picture reading mechanism for reading information recorded in a photosensitive emulsion layer, in a photographic film including a photosensitive emulsion layer and a magnetic recording layer, a magnetic recording and reading mechanism for reading information recorded in the magnetic recording layer, a film information reading mechanism for reading information recorded in other portion of the film than the photosensitive emulsion layer and magnetic recording layer, and a cornmuniction control mechanism for outputting the information for printing read out by each reading mechanism. According to the communication apparatus of the present invention, the case of the existing printing apparatus incapable of reading the magnetic information on the film, photographic printing can be executed by communication of the printing information output from the communication apparatus, only by modifying the control beard of the memory control device in the printing apparatus.

Guidelines to Foster Interaction in Online Communities

This chapter focuses on the communities that arise within the confines of a Learning Network. As they are not preconfigured, members and all, but are thought to emerge spontaneously, out of their own volition as it were, the question arises how their continued existence may be safe-guarded. What measures and tools, or Learning Network Services, may foster the well-being of communities once they have emerged? How can one make sure that a community, which its members consider valuable, does not disappear because the costs of maintaining it become prohibitive? As Learning Networks predominantly support non-formal learning in which mainly professional and lifelong learners will participate, the Learning Network Services should take into account their specific characteristics (Koper and Tattersall 2004), in particular in should ensure that learners:

A new approach to collaborative creativity support of new product designers

Effective collaborative creativity is crucial to contemporary professionals who have to continuously produce innovative products and services. The technological nature and complexity of the innovations require team work, among specialists from different disciplines. Often these teams work in a distributed fashion, across boundaries of time and place. Therefore, they need electronic |spaces| that support (|afford|) their creative collaboration. Co-creativity support is not only a matter of making appropriate groupware spaces available but also of providing concurrent support in all these dimensions. These considerations inspired the development of the idSpace platform. idSpace is a collaboration platform integrating a variety of creativity tools with pedagogy-based guidance. It aims to optimise both the use of creativity techniques themselves and of the supporting processes of team collaboration and knowledge creation. In this paper, we zoom in on knowledge-sharing strategies for collaborative creativity (KS4CC). We show how collaborative creativity can be enhanced via integration of pattern-based pedagogical flow support, including suggestions of optimal use of creativity techniques. The KS4CC strategies consist of a merger of learning and collaboration flow patterns with support for the application of creative techniques.

The Influence of Coalition Formation on Idea Selection in Dispersed Teams: A Game Theoretic Approach

In an open innovation environment, organizational learning takes place by means of dispersed teams which expand their knowledge through collaborative idea generation. Research is often focused on finding ways to extend the set of ideas, while the main problem in our opinion is not the number of ideas that is generated, but a non-optimal set of ideas accepted during idea selection. When selecting ideas, coalitions form and their composition may influence the resulting set of accepted ideas. We expect that computing coalitional strength during idea selection will help in forming the right teams to have a grand coalition, or having a better allocation of accepted ideas, or neutralising factors that adversely influence the decision making process. Based on a literature survey, this paper proposes the application of the Shapley value and the nucleolus to compute coalitional strength in order to enhance the group decision making process during collaborative idea selection.

The Library School: empowering the sustainable innovation capacity of new librarians

Bitter-Rijpkema, M. E., Verjans, S., & Bruijnzeels, R. (2012). The Library School: empowering the sustainable innovation capacity of new librarians. Library Management, 33(1/2), 36-49. doi:10.1108/01435121211203301

A survey on social network sites to determine requirements for learning networks for professional development of university staff

Learning networks – online social networks where the learner is put central – are well suited for the non-formal professional development of academic staff. Our assumption is that learning networks can build on social network sites. Social network sites are becoming very popular and are very effective in connecting people, allowing exchange and sharing of all kinds of information and resources. Therefore, we designed a survey to explore the use and perception of social network sites among academic staff and to relate this to the functionalities required for learning networks for professional development. The survey results indicate that a learning network should cater for the desired social aspects along with facilities to organise and maintain resources and contacts.

A Simulation for Content-based and Utility-based Recommendation of Candidate Coalitions in Virtual Creativity Teams

Psychological literature shows that people do not always make rational choices with respect to whom to collaborate with. Providing the value of candidate connections may help them choosing the right people to connect with in a network. This paper presents a model about coalitions in creativity that will be used to generate content-based and knowledge-based recommendations of candidate coalitions.

COCOON CORE: CO-author REcommendations Based on Betweenness Centrality and Interest Similarity

When researchers are to write a new article, they often seek co-authors who are knowledgeable on the article’s subject. However, they also strive for acceptance of their article. Based on this otherwise intuitive process, the current article presents the COCOON CORE tool that recommends candidate co-authors based on like-mindedness and power. Like-mindedness ensures that co-authors share a common ground, which is necessary for seamless cooperation. Powerful co-authors foster adoption of an article’s research idea by the community. Two experiments were conducted, one focusing on the perceived quality of the recommendations that COCOON CORE generates and one focusing on the usability of COCOON CORE. Results indicate that participants perceive the recommendations moderately positively. Particularly, they value the recommendations that focus fully on finding influential peers and the recommendation in which they themselves can adjust the balance between finding influential peers and like-minded peers. Also, the usability of COCOON CORE is perceived to be moderately good.

Supporting co-creation with software, the idSpace platform

The idSpace platform provides support for collaborating innovators.Support for innovators affects learning, choice of creativity technique and context awareness.Evaluation using a realistic usage scenario revealed platform weaknesses and strengths. Innovation, in general, requires teamwork among specialist of different disciplines. The idSpace project developed ideas on how teams of collaborating innovators could best be supported. These ideas were embodied in a platform that the project developed. This idSpace platform allows its users to choose between various creativity techniques, pedagogical approaches and context-aware uses of stored information on projects, people and techniques. The platform follows a general process metaphor with specialised modules for specific parts, i.e. it starts with defining the problem to be addressed and through a sequence of steps concludes with a proposed solution. The platform was designed and developed by a multi-disciplinary team. It was evaluated through a realistic usage scenario which focused on the integral platform, from both an end-user and expert user perspective embodying a combination of qualitative and quantitative measurements on usability, general functionality and creativity aspects. This combination, as will be explained, proved to be a powerful way to prioritise and steer the further development of the platform.