500 research outputs found
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A Framework for Managing Complexity in Information Systems
No full textA particularly difficult, but important, challenge in the design and development of contemporary information systems is dealing with complexity. Although complexity has been richly discussed from various perspectives in the literature, there is limited guidance on how to address complexity in information systems design. This research analyzes different approaches to handling complexity and finds that there exists a plurality of ways in which to address complexity that are dependent upon the given situation. This analysis results in the derivation of a framework for addressing complexity in information systems. The framework explicitly recognizes implications and limitations of decomposition, inner-outer environments, abstractions, and decentralization, and the role of Ontology. Application of the framework is intended to enable information researchers to identify and adapt applicable strategies for managing complexity in any domain
Culture and Communication Online: The Inclusion of International and Non-Native Language Learners
No full textThis chapter discusses the challenges and opportunities encountered by international and non-native language learners participating in distance education. With the growth of online learning and the internationalization of education, it is necessary to provide literature regarding best practices for educating a diverse student population. Culture and communication play a significant role in how students engage in their learning. This diversity is less evident in the online classroom resulting in potential misinterpretations rather than the valuing of distinctive cultures, experiences, and uniqueness of every individual learner. An exploration of diversity, identity, community, engagement, and linguistics are discussed in relation to international and non-native language speaking online learners
Moving Toward a Diversity Plus Teacher Education: Approaches, Challenges, and Possibilities in Preparing Teachers for English Language Learners
No full textBuilding upon existing research on preparing teachers for English language learners (ELLs), this chapter examines current practices and challenges of integrating ELL education into teacher preparation programs in the U.S. The analyses reveal sporadic efforts of ELL integration into the American teacher training institutions. Most programs focus on cultural diversity rather than language and linguistic challenges that all teachers will also encounter in their future classrooms. Findings also reveal several challenges in integrating language and linguistic diversity into teacher education: a lack of faculty expertise in ELLs, programmatic constraints, and minimum policy support. The findings suggest that teacher education programs need to extend the current focus on cultural diversity to equip future teachers with teaching competencies to address the increasing sociolinguistic complexities in the classrooms
The SMAC Opportunity Contracts: Generating Value From Responsive Agile Risk-Oriented Techniques
No full textThe concept of Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) is increasingly asserted as the phenomena with the potential to change technology and business relationships. In this SMAC era plenty of Middle Circle Contractors (MCCs) are being introduced as principal suppliers, integrators or outsourced contractors. This is reducing the Client Enterprise (CE) controls over their technology assets. Because it is not mature yet, SMAC nature is very disruptive and agile, thus rapidly changing the landscape of contracting, and ultimately turning the long-held promise of utility based computing into a reality. Such changes necessitate contracting transformation with innovated approaches to get targeted benefits, reduce risks and enhance operational controls. The main objective of this chapter is to provide guidelines to generate SMAC Opportunity Contracts (OCs) that are responsive and agile to provide the maximum business value, enhance risk governance and re-invent the roles and obligations in an ever-changing environment
An ‘Amuse-Bouche at Best': 360° VR Storytelling in Full Perspective
No full textMuch has been written about the function of narrative in virtual reality (VR) productions (Aylett & Louchart, 2003; Aylett et al, 2005; Ryan, 2001; 2005; 2008; 2009), but the role of the audience, and the relative degree of control that they have over the content, has led some scholars to believe that there is an ontological problem with describing VR in narrative terms. This article investigates some of these assumptions, via an analysis of an undertheorised aspect of VR that has emerged in recent years – the 360° film. It argues that 360° film represents a much more important aspect of VR than has been previously recognised. In so doing, the article establishes this medium as an important field of study, and argues that ultimately, it will be the commercial infrastructure for this content which will define the parameters of immersive storytelling
Analysing Open Data in Virtual Research Environments: New Collaboration Opportunities to Improve Policy Making
No full textThis article describes how virtual research environments (VREs) offer new opportunities for researchers to analyse open data and to obtain new insights for policy making. Although various VRE-related initiatives are under development, there is a lack of insight into how VREs support collaborative open data analysis by researchers and how this might be improved, ultimately leading to input for policy making to solve societal issues. This article clarifies in which ways VREs support researchers in open data analysis. Seven cases presenting different modes of researcher support for open data analysis were investigated and compared. Four types of support were identified: 1) ‘Figure it out yourself', 2) ‘Leading users by the hand', 3) ‘Training to provide the basics' and 4) ‘Learning from peers'. The author provides recommendations to improve the support of researchers' open data analysis and to subsequently obtain new insights for policy making to solve societal challenges
Matching and Ranking Trustworthy Context-Dependent Universities: A Case Study of the King Abdullah Scholarship Program
No full textThe King Abdullah Scholarship Program was created in 2005 by sending Saudi students to study abroad. The program has a series of specific rules and it was found that due to the multitude of services the students can choose from, there is a great difficulty in finding the most suitable universities/programs/courses. Traditional manual selection requires students to visit every university website looking for their preferred courses. Some students prefer to talk to advisers and recruiters to get help. Students are not aware that those advisers and recruiters might have a financial interest to direct students to certain universities. Therefore, the risk of applying to the wrong institution is increased. Manually selecting what is best for each criterion is a tedious task, and, consequently, in this work the authors use an automated system to reach a plausible solution
An Energy-Aware and Under-SLA-Constraints VM Consolidation Strategy Based on the Optimal Matching Method
No full textGrowing demand of computational power brings increasing scale and complexity of cloud datacenters. However, such increase also generates growing energy consumption and related cost incurred for cooling and maintenance. With concerns of cost and energy saving by both industry and academy, the reduction of energy consumption of cloud datacenters becomes a hotspot issue. Recently, virtual-machine-consolidation-based strategies are proposed as promising methods for reduction of cloud energy consumption. Virtual machine (VM) consolidation effectively increases the resource utilization rate. However, it remains a great challenge how to reduce energy consumption while maintaining the quality of service (QoS) at a satisfactory level. In this work, a comprehensive framework is presented for the above-mentioned problem, which aims at maximizing the number of physical machines (PMs) to be turned off within a consolidation period following the constraints of QoS, in terms of Service-Level-Agreement (SLA) violation rate. In comparison with most existing related works which consider invariant utilization rate of PMs in computing energy reduction of candidate migration plans, propose framework considers time-varying utilization rate and employs the number of PMs to be turned off within a consolidation period (NPTCP for simple) as the optimization objective. The proposed framework consists of a resource selection algorithm taking the predicted migration overhead (derived by the Pareto distribution) as inputs and another algorithm generating optimal matching plans based on preference scores of candidate VMs. For the model validation purpose, a case study is conducted on the CloudSim simulation platform and it shows that the proposed method achieves better energy reduction and less SLA violation
E-Learning Systems Requirements Elicitation: Perspectives and Considerations
No full textTraining and education have evolved far beyond black boards and chalk boxes. The environment of knowledge exchange requires more than simple materials and assessments. This article is an attempt of parsing through the different aspects of e-learning, understanding the real needs, and conducting the right requirements to build the appropriate e-learning system. E-learning systems, unlike the normally developed systems, have variable customers and on-going demands. It is not the easiest task to elicit unambiguous functional and non-functional requirements for such systems. However, a brief exploration of some of the e-learning characteristics may tremendously decrease the difficulty of prioritizing the most important requirements
Improving Interferometry Instrumentation by Mixing Stereoscopy for 2π Ambiguity Solving
No full textPhase measurements obtained by high-coherence interferometry are restricted by the 2π ambiguity to height differences smaller than λ/2. A further restriction considers linear and nonlinear aberrations evolving in most interferometric systems due to the CCD-type array detectors. The authors present a new method to overcome the 2π ambiguity in interferometry when using a stereoscopic approach. In this method, a reconstructed wavefront reflected from an object was propagated into two different angles to obtain two different images of the object. These two different images were subsequently processed by stereo algorithms to resolve the 2π ambiguity. Such a method of wavefront propagation may enable several applications such as focusing and resolving the 2π ambiguity, as described in the article