Open Access Journals at Aalborg University
Not a member yet
6616 research outputs found
Sort by
New components provide easier access to reuse of Danish GIS data
No full textDanmarks Miljøportal har lanceret en række GIS-komponenter, som vakte stor interesse ved seneste fremvisning. Her kan du læse mere om komponenterne, deres anvendelse, hvorfor de blev udviklet og deres fremtid.
Baggrunden er, at Danmarks Miljøportals brugere længe har efterspurgt mulighed for at få vist flere data i Miljøportalens systemer samtidig med, at metadata nemt kan opdateres.
I Danmark har vi en ambition om at demokratisere adgang til viden om miljøet, og det har drevet vores udbygning af den digitale infrastruktur omkring miljødata og GIS i over et årti. I dag er den indsats mere vigtig end nogensinde før. Det skyldes, at planerne for Danmark kræver meget mere areal, end vi har adgang til – samtidig med, at vi skal finde placeringer til projekter, der bidrager til den grønne omstilling. Her spiller GIS en afgørende rolle, og derfor fokuserer Danmarks Miljøportal på at bane vejen for forbedringer i Geodatabranchen.Danmarks Miljøportal (The Danish Environmental Internetportal) has launched a number of GIS components, which attracted great interest at the latest presentation. Here you can read more about the components, their use, why they were developed, and their future.
The background is that Danmarks Miljøportal's users during long time have requested the option to display more data in the Miljøportalen's systems at the same time that metadata can be easily updated.
In Denmark, we have an ambition to democratize access to knowledge about the environment, and this has driven our expansion of the digital infrastructure around environmental data and GIS for over a decade. Today, that effort is more important than ever before. This is because the plans for Denmark require much more land than we have access to - at the same time that we have to find locations for projects that contribute to the green transition. Here, GIS plays a decisive role, and therefore Danmarks Miljøportal focuses on paving the way for improvements in the geodata industry
Editorial: Somaesthetic Self-Care and the Politics of Taste and Transformation/Methodologies for Exploring Embodiment and Aesthetics
Get PDFVolume 9 (2023) takes the form of a double issue. Its first part is titled: “Somaesthetic Self-Care and the Politics of Taste and Transformation.” The thematic focus of the second issue is “Methodologies for Exploring Embodiment and Aesthetics.
Identities and Methodologies of Doctoral Candidates Undertaking Audiovisual Research-by-Practice
Get PDF“Identities and Methodologies of Doctoral Candidates Undertaking Audiovisual Research-by-Practice” comprises a triptych of video essays, crafted by the co-organisers of the inaugural B-Film Creative Practice Colloquium at the University of Birmingham. In each video, the creators reflect upon data collected during this event (including a videographic exercise, digital questionnaires, and filmed interviews). Through analysing how attendees described and executed their practice and methods, the three videos jointly and separately interrogate:
• relationships of process and product in audiovisual research-by-practice;
• the place of experimental filmmaking in academia;
• opportunities for, and impediments to, the adoption and development of filmmaking in the academy.
These works have a specific focus on postgraduate researchers and thus may provide guidance for both supervisors and future students working in creative practice research
“This Is Not What I Normally Do” : An Insignificant Step in the Downfall of the Humanities
Get PDFThis video essay, a product of the “Videographic Methods and Practices: Embodying the Video Essay” workshop (Bowdoin College, July 2023), is comprised of two sections, exploring constraint-based approaches to videographic scholarship. Part 1, “The Incredible Machine,” documents an attempt at recreating a 1990s Rube Goldberg-inspired computer game interface through the handling of various film clips arranged on a computer desktop. The deliberate avoidance of digital shortcuts highlights the value of playful experimentation within scholarly and artistic practices. Part 2, “The Five Obstructions,” presents five interviews conducted under randomly-assigned constraints, fostering unforeseen responses and creative insights. These ludic experiments demonstrate the potential of constraints to stimulate creativity and to provoke unconventional outputs. Emphasizing process over outcome, the video showcases the laborious yet rewarding nature of scholarly experimentation, echoing a broader shift towards embracing the creative-academic journey in videographic scholarship
From script to screen: An emergent view of AI-generated avatars
Get PDFIn an age of ‘deepfakes’, designing learning media and video intentionally and ethically becomes more important than ever. Emerging educational research focuses on generative large language models, which use neural networks to produce human-like text based on prompts. Yet the educational design of synthetic media, particularly AI-generated avatars, which are also currently produced from text prompts, remains less explored. This paper share insights from an ongoing evaluation of realistic, AI-generated avatars as educational presenters at a large Australian metropolitan university. Using commercially available software, we created a suite of AI-generated avatars and accompanying interactives to explore the topic of ethics in business intelligence which was delivered to approximately 1200 students across two semesters in 2022 and 2023. The aim was to provoke critical discussion around ethical decision-making with AI by immersing students in text-to-video technology as part of their learning experience. To better understand students’ perceptions of synthetic media as a stimulus for learning, we conducted four focus groups over two iterations of the course. Our multidisciplinary team also documented the design, development, and implementation challenges of AI-generated avatars. Preliminary findings suggest that clarifying design intentions is key to the effective and ethical application of AI-generated avatars. Automating video content with synthetic media to simplify certain types of educational content could be a catalyst for increased sharing and collaboration. While traditional video formats may prove a simpler choice in the short-term, this study indicates the potential of more hybrid human and nonhuman representation in certain contexts. Students were comfortable with synthetic media use and blending humans and nonhuman elements, expressing a desire for greater interaction with both. We propose a posthuman perspective on AI-generated avatars, one which acknowledges the messy and entangled nature of learning and teaching with technology, that often surfaces issues of ethics and power. To assist educators, ‘VIEW’ is outlined, a brief educational design guide for AI-generated avatars that considers aspects such as the intentions or purpose of the video, the suitability of video as a medium, implementation, and ethical questions. Finally, we suggest more critical and ethical studies on the emergence of synthetic media applications in higher education are needed
Co-Constructing A Praxis for Critical Pedagogies of Care in Postdigital Tertiary Education
Get PDFLike others in 2020, we found ourselves grappling with the sudden shift to fully online teaching and learning during COVID19 and the very pronounced negative impact of the sudden shift on students and faculty alike (Authors and colleague, 2022). In Aotearoa New Zealand emerging research revealed how tertiary students’ experiences of online learning during COVID19 were characterized by stress and anxiety, compounded by difficulties in communication between students, instructors, and support staff as well as by loss of income and limited access to campus resources. These challenges were even more pronounced among already marginalized students, such as Māori tertiary students. Simultaneously, messaging from ‘managers’ in our neoliberal university context was increasingly about ‘pastoral care for students,’ a message which we struggled to make sense of given the nature of the very real socio-political challenges our students faced. Confronting the uncertainties of COVID and related future crises we set out to explore how we could better plan for and accommodate increased flexibility and adaptability in instruction that is responsive to both students and current social contexts–given that, a) throughout the COVID19 pandemic, students and instructors were frequently absent due to illness even when on campus instruction resumed in New Zealand, and b) periodic lockdowns were part of the COVID19 management strategy in NZ, which meant sudden shifts to fully online instruction throughout the 2020-2022 academic years. Our premise was that the crisis required thoughtful deliberation on how we, as tertiary educators, might collectively address such a significant global challenge in our local context. We (authors) applied for and were awarded a 2-year leadership in teaching fellowship, a new fellowship program that aimed to support faculty innovation in teaching. The fellowship allowed us time to slow down and interrogate our approach to postdigital education during the period of Covid19, as well as beyond it. We sought out to ask critical questions of ourselves, such as those related to the form/manner in which we were using digital tools, what was meant by ‘pastoral care’ for students and what that should/could look like in postdigital pandemic times, questioning the discourses and aspirations around a post-pandemic ‘return to normal’
Chinese University Students’ Digital Engagement in Post-COVID: A Sociomaterial Approach
Get PDFMany scholars internationally conducted research on teaching and learning during the pandemic. Some scholars identified positive changes in student academic performance and student satisfaction while others found negative impacts on students’ mental health. My observation is that Covid-19 and technology (non-human actors) have shaped students’ cognition (way of thinking), behavior (digital practices), and affection (mental health). In fact, in China, digital engagement has become an important part of the lives of university students even in the post-Covid era. This qualitative study aims to investigate two Chinese universities with focus on their students’ digital engagement from a sociomaterial perspective. This research focuses on three questions: 1) What are Chinese university students’ perceptions and practices of their digital study (2022-2023)? 2) What dilemmas or conflicts did they confront when they configured a digitally mediated learning space that constitutes messy assemblages of material and social practices? 3) How did they respond to new challenges (human actors and nonhuman actors)? In order to answer these questions, the study adopts interviews and visual analysis of individual digital learning environment (including imaging and texts). It offers insights on reframing student digital engagement as constantly shifting sociomaterial assemblages from which different forms of agency emerge as effects of connections and activity. These assemblages can be closely read and interpreted from the students’ dynamic study practices, which are not only social but also at times private and unobservable. The study will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the human-material-digital practice and enactments for the Chinese academic community and beyond
Fostering Digital Communities: A Case Study of a University’s Digital Master Plan Designed for Networked Learning Among Online Learners
Get PDFAs online education expands, fostering digital communities that support networked learning becomes imperative. However, many universities lack comprehensive digital strategies to facilitate engagement and connections in distributed environments. This research examines the development of an inaugural digital master plan at a university where half of the student population is online. Guided by Moore's theory of interactions (1989) and Garrison's Community of Inquiry framework (2017), the plan aimed to enable meaningful student-to-content, student-to-instructor, and student-to-student interactions.
The digital master plan was designed to provide high-level guidance on the intentional and purposeful use of the educational technologies, tools, platforms, and systems necessary for a robust online learning experience. It creates a cohesive vision and strategy for the digital learning experience, just as a campus master plan aligns the physical learning spaces. The digital master plan leverages the Community of Inquiry framework as a key reference point in its comprehensive gap analysis. The collaborative process involved multiple methods to assess gaps in the university’s infrastructure including: National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) data, three internal surveys, an external diagnostic analysis and plan, and audits of the learning management system's tools and usage. Quantitative data provided insights into student perceptions, while qualitative findings explored the depth of social relationships and learning networks enabled through digital platforms. Throughout the process, the research team aimed to understand the social learning processes that support how learners develop and utilize technology to learn and foster a sense of belonging (Garrison, 2017). The process harnesses the natural motivations underpinning social network formation - namely information sharing, support seeking, and sense of belonging. Further, it operationalizes these motivations to achieve CoI's high-order learning community goals.
Analysis revealed key gaps related to: clearly defining and measuring online student success, expanding engagement opportunities in courses, leveraging technologies to facilitate connections, building a collaborative faculty culture, and improving communication. In response, the final digital master plan put forth five recommendations focused on these priority areas. Implementation and evaluation of digital platforms aligned to the recommendations indicate positive impacts on online students' sense of connectedness, learning experience, and academic performance.
This research makes important theoretical and practical contributions by developing a replicable institutional process for assessing and strategically enhancing a digital ecosystem to foster networked learning. The digital master plan provides guidance for the adoption of social technologies and pedagogies to increase community, connectivity, and collaboration. As online education continues to expand, insights from this case study can inform strategic digital planning efforts at other universities striving to overcome transactional distance and cultivate impactful virtual learning communities
Facilitating networked learning with AI
Get PDFThe breakthrough of generative AI is disrupting education in many ways and universities and other educational institutions are tasked with navigating a host of new challenges. But in the classroom we might be seeing a familiar pattern: As with most new technologies in the classroom, there is a tendency to design exercises as individual tasks: AI as your personal tutor, AI as a Study Buddy, AI as your editor / idea generator / etc. However, if we believe that learners construct knowledge rather than just passively receive information, it is crucial that we discuss questions like these:
How can we design good cooperative and collaborative learning environments for students?
How can we design good exercises for with AI – considering that learning is not just transfer (or cramming) of information?
How can we maintain a balance between AI assistance and human interaction in the learning environment?
How can we encourage peer-to-peer learning and social engagement?
How generative AI can enhance group discussions, facilitate idea generation, and support collaborative problem-solving?
What are the best strategies to prevent the over-individualization of the learning process when incorporating generative AI?
And not least:
How can we best prepare teachers to use AI in their teaching?
How can institutions best support teachers and students in this
Emerging Networks : A study on learning networks during the Covid-19 lockdown
Get PDFThis paper discusses findings from an investigation of students’ experiences from and participation in different learning networks during the Covid19-lockdown. The investigation is based on empirical data in the form of 32 interviews with students from a variety of University College Programmes (business-, administration-, construction-, technology-, health-, pedagogy- and teacher education). The interviews were collected as part of a larger study, where data also consisted of responses to surveys from, potentially, 84000 students. In the interviews, the students shared their experiences regarding learning and teaching online, respectively. Three cases were singled out aiming to maintain a high degree of complexity and maximum variation. Through the contemporary theories within the field of Networked Learning, we aim to show examples of how the students were networked during the Covid-19 shutdown and the implications that emerging networks had on their participation in online educational activities. Furthermore, we wish to make a suggestion for the use of the applied categorisation of networks for analyzing how students are networked. These categories, presented in this paper, are proposed by researchers within the field. The main findings suggest that online teaching during the lockdown required students to establish new patterns of participation, thus, establishing new structures and ways to collaborate. This led to emerging networks supporting different aspects of their life setting as students and creating opportunities for engaging in new social configurations and learning