A learning model for enhancing the student's control in educational process using Web 2.0 personal learning environments

In recent educational literature, it has been observed that improving student's control has the potential of increasing his or her feeling of ownership, personal agency and activeness as means to maximize his or her educational achievement. While the main conceived goal for personal learning environments (PLEs) is to increase student's control by taking advantage of Web 2.0 tools and technologies, there is not a robust learning model available to achieve it. This contribution focuses on proposing a learning model built upon self‐regulated learning and student's control theories and concepts, and supported by the learning affordances of Web 2.0 tools and technologies for enhancing student's control by developing and applying Web 2.0 PLEs.     

An empirical exploration of metacognitive assessment activities in a third-year civil engineering hydraulics course

Threshold concepts are transformative, integrative, and provocative; understanding these difficult concepts allows students to be capable of solving advanced problems. This investigation and evaluation of a metacognitive curricular approach explore variation in students' and teachers' discernment of structural complexity of concepts and its potential for enhancing students' learning and conceptual understanding of threshold concepts. Three trials of a metacognitive assessment activity administered to two cohorts of a civil engineering course (n?=?276 and n?=?264) were investigated. Students were presented with several answers (varying in structural complexity) to a question about a threshold concept and asked to mark each response. Quantitative analyses compared students' and teachers' marking schemes within and across trials, and qualitative analyses explored students' written reflections following the activity. Students' justifications for their marking schemes, their reflections on the activity's usefulness, and the convergence of students' and teachers' marking schemes suggest that the activity supported deep forms of student learning.     

A meeting place for policy-makers and researchers: the Transatlantic Forum on Inclusive Early Years

While policy-makers and researchers in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) often seem to speak different languages, overwhelming research evidence on how quality ECEC can play a key role in alleviating the effects of disadvantage can be extremely relevant for policy-makers. In this article, we focus on how philanthropic foundations can facilitate the dialogue and bring together researchers, policy-makers and stakeholders on (particularly quality) issues in ECEC. In this article, we present a comprehensive advocacy project, designed by 13 philanthropic foundations on both sides of the Atlantic, under the leadership of the King Baudouin Foundation (KBF) (Belgium). This group of foundations wants to clarify, discuss and document some of the most relevant issues in ECEC at this point, with a focus on children from low-income and migrant families. Meetings have already taken place on accessibility, professionalisation and curriculum, parent involvement and evaluation. With the fifth forum – on integrated systems in ECEC – on its way, it is time for a short recap. Can meeting opportunities of this kind, for a limited group of policy-makers, successfully influence policy?     

Three-dimensional printed millifluidic devices for zebrafish embryo tests

Implementations of Lab-on-a-Chip technologies for in-situ analysis of small model organisms and embryos (both invertebrate and vertebrate) are attracting an increasing interest. A significant hurdle to widespread applications of microfluidic and millifluidic devices for in-situ analysis of small model organisms is the access to expensive clean room facilities and complex microfabrication technologies. Furthermore, these resources require significant investments and engineering know-how. For example, poly(dimethylsiloxane) soft lithography is still largely unattainable to the gross majority of biomedical laboratories willing to pursue development of chip-based platforms. They often turn instead to readily available but inferior classical solutions. We refer to this phenomenon as workshop-to-bench gap of bioengineering science. To tackle the above issues, we examined the capabilities of commercially available Multi-Jet Modelling (MJM) and Stereolithography (SLA) systems for low volume fabrication of optical-grade millifluidic devices designed for culture and biotests performed on millimetre-sized specimens such as zebrafish embryos. The selected 3D printing technologies spanned a range from affordable personal desktop systems to high-end professional printers. The main motivation of our work was to pave the way for off-the-shelf and user-friendly 3D printing methods in order to rapidly and inexpensively build optical-grade millifluidic devices for customized studies on small model organisms. Compared with other rapid prototyping technologies such as soft lithography and infrared laser micromachining in poly(methyl methacrylate), we demonstrate that selected SLA technologies can achieve user-friendly and rapid production of prototypes, superior feature reproduction quality, and comparable levels of optical transparency. A caution need to be, however, exercised as majority of tested SLA and MJM resins were found toxic and caused significant developmental abnormalities in zebrafish embryos. Taken together, our data demonstrate that SLA technologies can be used for rapid and accurate production of devices for biomedical research. However, polymer biotoxicity needs to be carefully evaluated.     

Analyzing inter-organizational systems from a power and interest perspective

Inter-organizational systems (IOS) are Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based systems that enable organizations to share information and to electronically conduct business across organizational boundaries. Especially since the increasing availability of the Internet, there have been less technological barriers to implement IOS. However, that does not imply that IOS possibilities are implemented successfully in all occasions: other barriers may remain. Innovation is not only a technical process of ‘solving problems’; it also involves economic and political processes in which interests are articulated, alliances are built and outcomes are struggled over. To explore this observation, this paper presents a model that helps to describe and analyze IOS from a power and interest perspective of multiple parties. To illustrate this model, eight case studies of IOS are discussed, of which one is in more depth. After that, we will put the findings of the analysis in a broader perspective. The paper concludes with the assertion that the scope for the design of an effective IOS depends on a combination of technical, economic and social factors, which are intertwined. The model may help users to assess and discuss these factors.     

The Role of Intermediating Institutions in the Diffusion of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): How Industry Associations Intervened in Denmark, Finland, and Hong Kong

Electronic data interchange (EDI) provides means for interorganizational communication, creates network externalities, requires an advanced information technology (IT) infrastructure, and relies on standards. In the diffusion of such innovations, institutional involvement is imperative. Such institutions contain governmental agencies, national and global standardization organizations, local government, and nonprofit private organizations like industry associations. The last type of organizations we call intermediating institutions. They intermediate or coordinate ("inscribe") the activities of a group of would-be adopters. Unfortunately, little is known of how these organizations shape the EDI diffusion trajectory. In this article we examine one specific type of intermediating organizations?industry associations?and how they advanced the EDI diffusion process in the grocery sectors of Hong Kong, Denmark and Finland. We identify six institutional measures, placed into a matrix formed by the mode of involvement (influence vs. regulation) and the type of diffusion force (supply push vs. demand pull), that can be mobilized to further the EDI diffusion. Industry associations were found to be active users of all these measures to varying degrees. Their role was critical especially in knowledge building, knowledge deployment, and standard setting. Furthermore, institutional involvement varied due to policy and cultural contingencies and power dependencies.     

Triple Helix indicators of knowledge-based innovation systems: Introduction to the special issue

When two selection environments operate upon each other, mutual shaping in a co-evolution along a particular trajectory is one possible outcome. When three selection environments are involved, more complex dynamics can be expected as a result of interactions involving bi-lateral and tri-lateral relations. Three selection environments are specified in the Triple Helix model: (1) wealth generation (industry), (2) novelty production (academia), and (3) public control (government). Furthermore, this model somewhat reduces the complexity by using university-industry-government relations for the specification of the historical conditions of the non-linear dynamics. Whereas the historical analysis informs us about how institutions and institutional arrangements carry certain functions, the evolutionary analysis focuses on the functions of selection environments in terms of outputs. One can no longer expect a one-to-one correspondence between institutions and functions; a statistics is needed for the evaluation of how, for how long, and to what extent institutional arrangements enhance synergies among different selection environments. The empirical contributions to this Triple Helix issue point in the direction of “rich ecologies”: the construction of careful balances between differentiation and integration among the three functions.     

Are patenting scientists the better scholars?: An exploratory comparison of inventor-authors with their non-inventing peers in nano-science and technology

This paper explores the relationship between scientific publication and patenting activity. More specifically, it examines for the field of nano-science and nano-technology whether researchers who both publish and patent are more productive and more highly cited than their peers who concentrate on scholarly publication in communicating their research results. This study is based on an analysis of the nano-science publications and nano-technology patents of a small set of European countries. While only a very few nano-scientists appear to hold patents in nano-technology, many nano-inventors seem to be actively publishing nano-science research. Overall, the patenting scientists appear to outperform their solely publishing (non-inventing) peers in terms of publication counts and citation frequency. However, a closer examination of the highly active and highly cited nano-authors points to a slightly different situation. While still over-represented among the highly cited authors, inventor-authors appear not to be among the most highly cited authors in that category, with a single notable exception. One policy implication is that, generally speaking, patenting activity does not appear to have an adverse impact on the publication and citation performance of researchers.