Literatura académica sobre el tema "Internet collaborative portals"

Abstract. Remote sensing is increasingly used to assess disaster damage, traditionally by professional image analysts. A recent alternative is crowdsourcing by volunteers experienced in remote sensing, using internet-based mapping portals. We identify a range of problems in current approaches, including how volunteers can best be instructed for the task, ensuring that instructions are accurately understood and translate into valid results, or how the mapping scheme must be adapted for different map user needs. The volunteers, the mapping organizers, and the map users all perform complex cognitive tasks, yet little is known about the actual information needs of the users. We also identify problematic assumptions about the capabilities of the volunteers, principally related to the ability to perform the mapping, and to understand mapping instructions unambiguously. We propose that any robust scheme for collaborative damage mapping must rely on Cognitive Systems Engineering and its principal method, Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA), to understand the information and decision requirements of the map and image users, and how the volunteers can be optimally instructed and their mapping contributions merged into suitable map products. We recommend an iterative approach involving map users, remote sensing specialists, cognitive systems engineers and instructional designers, as well as experimental psychologists.

Research portals have been proposed as a means of managing knowledge and fostering collaboration in research communities. However, implementing and maintaining a research portal is costly and involves a lot of technical knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a research portal generator designed to automatically create such portals. The generator provides a configurable set of knowledge management and collaboration features. The purpose of the generator is to ease the process of setting up and using a research portal. The paper contributes to promoting research portals as a means of sharing knowledge and facilitating collaboration in research communities. Following a design science research process, the authors derive objectives for a research portal generator, iteratively implement these objectives, and evaluate the functionality of the created portals against the current state of the art of 813 research portals. They demonstrate that portals created by the generator exhibit a consistently higher level of maturity than research portals currently present on the Internet.

Around the world, legacy news publishers are suffering from the deep decline of revenues and face the challenge of survival. As the situation continues, conflicts between online portal and news producers are also intensifying. Under these circumstances, Naver, the biggest internet portal in Korea, and several Korean news publishers have begun to seek a new breakthrough—media joint ventures. The joint venture between online portals and news publishers is a unique collaboration model that has not been found in other countries. This study investigates the motivation of the media joint ventures and evaluates the performance. To do this, the study suggests the sustainability of media joint ventures. This model consists of five major categories of media joint ventures’ performances, based on their strategic, financial, learning, managerial, and social influence aspects. After conducting an in-depth interview of media joint ventures and a focus group interview with nine experts from the media industry and business scholarships, the study shows that the media joint ventures could be a new alternative for both portals and news publishers. However, there were some differences in the sustainability evaluation of the operating body of the joint venture and outside experts.

To gain and sustain competitive advantage, health-care providers have to continuously review and renovate their operational and information technology (IT) strategies through collaborative and cooperative endeavour with their supply chain channel members. This paper explores new ways of enhancing a health-care organization's responsiveness to changes and increasing its competitiveness through implementing strategic information technology alliances among channel members in a health-care supply chain network. An overview of issues and problems (e.g. bullwhip effect, negative externalities and free-riding phenomenon in multichannel supply chains) presented in the health-care supply chains is first delineated. This paper further goes over the issues of health-care supply chain coordination and integration for strategic IT alliances, followed by the discussion of the spillover effect of IT investments. A number of viable IT practices (such as information sharing and Internet-enabled supply chain portal) for effective health-care supply chain collaboration and coordination are then examined in this research. Finally, the paper discusses how strategic IT alliances can help improve the effectiveness of health-care supply chain management.

Background The quality of working relationships between service users and health providers is fundamental in the processes of recovery in mental health. How Internet-based interventions will influence these relationships for persons with long-term care needs, and the measures that can be taken to maintain and enhance working relationships through Internet, is still not well understood. Objective The aim of this study was to gain insights into how service users and health providers experience their working relationships when they are offered the option of supplementing ongoing collaboration with an e-recovery portal. Methods In this exploratory and descriptive study, an e-recovery portal was used by service users and their health providers in 2 mental health communities in Norway for at least 6 months and at most 12 months (2015-2016). The portal consists of secure messaging, a peer support forum, and a toolbox of resources for working with life domains including status, goals and activities, network map, crisis plan, and exercises. The portal was owned and managed by the service user while health providers could remotely access parts of the service user–generated content. The participants could use the portal in whatever way they wished, to suit their collaboration. Data from 6 focus groups, 17 individual interviews, and an interview with 1 dyad about their experiences of use of the portal over the study period were inductively coded and thematically analyzed. Results The thematic analysis resulted in 2 main themes: (1) new relational avenues and (2) out of alignment, illustrated by 8 subthemes. The first main theme is about dyads who reported new and enriching ways of working together through the portal, particularly related to written communication and use of the goal module. Illustrative subthemes are ownership, common ground, goals and direction, and sense of presence and availability. The second main theme illuminates the difficulties that arose when service users’ and health providers’ expectations for portal use were not aligned, and the consequences of not addressing these difficulties. Illustrative subthemes are initiative and responsibility, waiting for the other, feeling overwhelmed, and clarifications and agreements. Conclusions The degree to which dyads benefited from using the e-recovery portal appeared to be mainly associated with the degree to which the dyads’ relations were open and flexible before the portal was introduced. For those who experienced frustrations, the portal may have both exposed and added to suboptimal working relationships. Use of the goal module appeared to strengthen the person-centered nature of collaboration. A key question is how health providers balance between enabling service users’ greater control over their care, without relinquishing responsibility for the quality of the working relationship, also when using an e-recovery portal. Implications for implementation are discussed.

OpenStreetMap is a collaborative web-mapping project that collects geospatial data to create and distribute online maps, freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. Once accessed, OpenStreetMap allows Internet users to contribute and edit geospatial data, effectively making it the mapping equivalent of Wikipedia. OpenStreetMap is maintained by volunteer cartographers from around the world who use GPS devices, portable cameras, and laptops for field mapping. Collected data are complemented with digitised open source aerial photography and free maps from the governmental and commercial sources. This report provides a summary of OpenStreetMap as a remarkable example of participatory geographic information systems (GIS).

The Internet, as a global, universal communication network, has become an important channel of information distribution. Currently, it has a very social character, thanks to the dissemination of Web 2.0 sites, which allow users to create and publish their own multimedia content. Web 2.0 technologies make it easier for users to communicate, create, collaborate and share information. They are widely available and are characterized by low costs of use. The article presents the results of research on the most popular Polish health websites. It was examined whether health services meet the requirements of Web 2.0 sites. The analysis is focused on the technological and social aspects. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in March and April 2020 in Poland was observed as having an influence on users and views of heath websites. The obtained results confirm the use of elements (both technological and social) by health services selected for research. However the usage of Web 2.0 technologies among websites varies.

SummaryThe purpose of this paper is to describe the needs and the process of establishing an online Arabic health encyclopedia to empower patients and health professionals with trustworthy information.A study was conducted by King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in collaboration with Health on the Net (HON) Foundation to review the quality of Arabic health information on the internet. A review of health portals in other languages was performed. Meetings were conducted to investigate areas of collaboration with different stakeholders including: WHO, HON, the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and the NHS.The results of the assessment of Arabic health sites showed that a very small percentage (almost 4%) meets international standards. The study results call for immediate action to improve the trustworthiness of Arabic health information on the net. This will be achieved by establishing a reliable Arabic health encyclopedia and by encouraging health professionals from all Arab countries to contribute to its creation. It is important for the 300 million Arabic citizens around the world to be able to access valuable health information on the internet.More than 300 million Arab citizens around the world have missed the opportunity to use the internet to provide them with quality health information. Hence, to bridge this gap, a new project was launched to develop an online Arabic health encyclopedia. Moreover, this study proposes an Arabic health information foundation be established to govern and accredit the Arabic health websites, and to work in collaboration with HON, to regulate and promote the quality of health information on the internet in Arab countries.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T14:32:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pedro Maleronka Ferron.pdf: 1288268 bytes, checksum: 9a96017ecca51a53a7bf1dc9ac8eab92 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-12-19<br>The author is proposed at this dissertation, to present an assessment of attributes and characteristics of collaborative portals, used for Mathematics Education, with content targeted to high school. To achieve the proposed work, we tried to select a set of portals, which were chosen, primarily, for their purpose in the field of Mathematics Education. After found examination, was chosen by the choice of nineteen Portals offered by the Internet and used by institutions of public and private education in Brazil and abroad, and foreigners and nine Brazilians in December: four private and five public. The assessment of the portals has been developed from a single methodology for prospecting observed data. In this context, there was a uniformity of information that was deemed necessary to evaluate each portal, aiming, to such a procedure, preventing the addition or deletion of data from them. Based on the theoretical references, it was used as a criterion for assessing the interaction analysis of two categories: the technological and educational, but also of its dimensions most relevant and consistent with the proposal of work. It is important to remember that the two categories, as well as its dimensions do not correspond to areas isolated and separated. They are interlinked and they do this integration allows the portal achieve the purpose for which they are proposing. The aim of the dissertation is to provide indicators on the potential and limitations of various portals evaluated so that help teachers of mathematics, and users, to decide on the appropriateness and their integration into school practices<br>O autor se propõe, na presente dissertação, a apresentar uma avaliação de atributos e características de Portais Colaborativos, utilizados para a Educação Matemática, com conteúdo direcionado ao Ensino Médio. Para realizar o trabalho proposto, buscou-se selecionar um conjunto de Portais, que foram escolhidos, principalmente, por sua finalidade no campo da Educação Matemática. Após apurado exame, optou-se pela escolha de dezenove Portais disponibilizados pela Internet e utilizados por Instituições de Ensino Público e Privado, no Brasil e no mundo, sendo dez estrangeiros e nove brasileiros: quatro privados e cinco públicos. A avaliação dos Portais foi desenvolvida a partir de uma mesma metodologia de prospecção dos dados observados. Nesta direção, ocorreu uma uniformização das informações que foram consideradas necessárias para avaliar cada Portal, visando-se, com tal procedimento, impedir a supressão de dados ou acréscimo dos mesmos. Embasado em referenciais teóricos, utilizou-se como critério de avaliação dos Portais a análise de duas categorias: a tecnológica e a pedagógica, e, também, de suas dimensões mais relevantes e compatíveis com a proposta do trabalho. É importante lembrar que as duas categorias, bem como suas dimensões, não correspondem a aspectos isolados e dissociados. Encontram-se elas interligadas e essa integração é que permite ao Portal atingir a finalidade a que se propõe. O objetivo da dissertação é fornecer indicadores sobre as potencialidades e limitações dos diferentes Portais avaliados, a fim de que auxiliem professores de Matemática, e usuários, a decidir sobre a adequação e a integração em suas práticas escolares

O jornalismo colaborativo ganhou seus primeiros reflexos no Brasil durante a primeira década dos anos 2000. O fenômeno parte do princípio que qualquer cidadão é um jornalista em potencial, e pode contribuir para a construção do noticiário. Para avaliar se a prática foi adotada com o mesmo grau de abrangência que em iniciativas internacionais, empreendemos análise do conteúdo colaborativo publicado nos grandes portais brasileiros, concentradores de tráfego da Internet no país, e entrevistamos jornalistas e publishers destes veículos. Os dados obtidos pelo estudo indicam que o internauta brasileiro que participa dos serviços colaborativos dos grandes portais ainda se concentra na atividade do registro flagrante, primeiro degrau de colaboração. A checagem dos fatos, a apuração e o trabalho de edição verificado no noticiário participativo ainda são objetivos a atingir.<br>Collaborative journalism emerged in Brazil during 2000\'s first decade. It implies considering every citizen a potential reporter, capable of participate in the news process. In order to evaluate if the practice was adopted in major Brazilian Internet portal\'s - top Web traffic drivers - with the same depth and extent as adopted by international initiatives like OhMyNews, Digg or Slashdot, a series of content analysis were processed in their collaborative content, alongside with interviews with top online journalists and publishers. The collected data revealed the Brazilian Internet user still concentrates in register reality as a mere blatant, considered one of the earlier steps of online collaboration. Fact checking, source research and editing material are still goals to achieve.

Les entreprises collaborent pour saisir des opportunités, échanger des documents et ressources, cela en suivant des processus métier pouvant évoluer. Les portails collaboratifs sont une solution orientée web à ce besoin de collaboration. Cependant, la conception et la maintenance d'un portail collaboratif métier n'est pas trivial et reste peu accessible aux acteurs de l'entreprise. Cela a comme conséquence la difficulté de maintenir et faire évoluer le portail collaboratif sans que cela ne soit trop coûteux en temps et financièrement. Afin de répondre à cette problématique, une solution consiste à capter les besoins métier de la collaboration dans un modèle, puis générer automatiquement le portail collaboratif correspondant. Le modèle, dans ce cas, doit être accessible aux acteurs métier et expressif décrivant ainsi les aspects les plus complexes d'une collaboration. C'est dans ce contexte que se situent nos travaux. À défaut d'avoir une solution toute faite, nous avons mis en place une approche de conception de portail collaboratif fondée sur l'Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles. Pour la description de nos portails, nous avons choisi de privilégier la modélisation des entreprises centrée sur les processus métier comme point de départ. Notre solution repose sur notre métamodèle MACoP (Modeling and Analysis of Collaborative Portal). Dans ce métamodèle nous avons fait cohabiter l'accessibilité et l'expressivité. Cela en proposant de nouveaux concepts permettant ainsi la génération complète des portails collaboratifs. Le métamodèle MACoP est accompagné d'une chaîne de transformations permettant de passer directement d'un modèle MACoP au code Python du portail collaboratif.

These Guidelines are one of the results of the four-year research project “Open Online Learning for Digital and Networked Society” (2017-2021). The project objective was to enable university teachers to design open and online learning through open and online learning curriculum and environment applying learning analytics as a metacognitive tool and creating open and online learning assessment and recognition practices, responding to the needs of digital and networked society. The research of the project resulted in 10 scientific publications and 2 studies prepared by Vytautas Magnus university Institute of Innovative Studies research team in collaboration with their international research partners from Germany, Spain and Portugal. The final stage of the research attempted creating open and online learning assessment and recognition practices, responding to the learner needs in contemporary digital and networked society. The need for open learning recognition has been increasing during the recent decade while the developments of open learning related to the Covid 19 pandemics have dramatically increased the need for systematic and high-quality assessment and recognition of learning acquired online. The given time also relates to the increased need to offer micro-credentials to learners, as well as a rising need for universities to prepare for micro-credentialization and issue new digital credentials to learners who are regular students, as well as adult learners joining for single courses. The increased need of all labour - market participants for frequent and fast renewal of competences requires a well working and easy to use system of open learning assessment and recognition. For learners, it is critical that the micro-credentials are well linked to national and European qualification frameworks, as well as European digital credential infrastructures (e.g., Europass and similar). For employers, it is important to receive requested quality information that is encrypted in the metadata of the credential. While for universities, there is the need to properly prepare institutional digital infrastructure, organizational procedures, descriptions of open learning opportunities and virtual learning environments to share, import and export the meta-data easily and seamlessly through European Digital Hub service infrastructures, as well as ensure that academic and administrative staff has digital competencies to design, issue and recognise open learning through digital and micro-credentials. The first chapter of the Guidelines provides a background view of the European Qualification Framework and National Qualification frameworks for the further system of gaining, stacking and modelling further qualifications through open online learning. The second chapter suggests the review of current European policy papers and consultations on the establishment of micro-credentials in European higher education. The findings of the report of micro-credentials higher education consultation group “European Approach to Micro-credentials” is shortly introduced, as well as important policy discussions taking place. Responding to the Rome Bologna Comunique 2020, where the ministers responsible for higher education agreed to support lifelong learning through issuing micro-credentials, a joint endeavour of DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and DG Research and Innovation resulted in one of the most important political documents highlighting the potential of micro-credentials towards economic, social and education innovations. The consultation group of experts from the Member States defined the approach to micro-credentials to facilitate their validation, recognition and portability, as well as to foster a larger uptake to support individual learning in any subject area and at any stage of life or career. The Consultation Group also suggested further urgent topics to be discussed, including the storage, data exchange, portability, and data standards of micro-credentials and proposed EU Standard of constitutive elements of micro-credentials. The third chapter is devoted to the institutional readiness to issue and to recognize digital and micro-credentials. Universities need strategic decisions and procedures ready to be enacted for assessment of open learning and issuing micro-credentials. The administrative and academic staff needs to be aware and confident to follow these procedures while keeping the quality assurance procedures in place, as well. The process needs to include increasing teacher awareness in the processes of open learning assessment and the role of micro-credentials for the competitiveness of lifelong learners in general. When the strategic documents and procedures to assess open learning are in place and the staff is ready and well aware of the processes, the description of the courses and the virtual learning environment needs to be prepared to provide the necessary metadata for the assessment of open learning and issuing of micro-credentials. Different innovation-driven projects offer solutions: OEPass developed a pilot Learning Passport, based on European Diploma Supplement, MicroHE developed a portal Credentify for displaying, verifying and sharing micro-credential data. Credentify platform is using Blockchain technology and is developed to comply with European Qualifications Framework. Institutions, willing to join Credentify platform, should make strategic discussions to apply micro-credential metadata standards. The ECCOE project building on outcomes of OEPass and MicroHE offers an all-encompassing set of quality descriptors for credentials and the descriptions of learning opportunities in higher education. The third chapter also describes the requirements for university structures to interact with the Europass digital credentials infrastructure. In 2020, European Commission launched a new Europass platform with Digital Credential Infrastructure in place. Higher education institutions issuing micro-credentials linked to Europass digital credentials infrastructure may offer added value for the learners and can increase reliability and fraud-resistant information for the employers. However, before using Europass Digital Credentials, universities should fulfil the necessary preconditions that include obtaining a qualified electronic seal, installing additional software and preparing the necessary data templates. Moreover, the virtual learning environment needs to be prepared to export learning outcomes to a digital credential, maintaining and securing learner authentication. Open learning opportunity descriptions also need to be adjusted to transfer and match information for the credential meta-data. The Fourth chapter illustrates how digital badges as a type of micro-credentials in open online learning assessment may be used in higher education to create added value for the learners and employers. An adequately provided metadata allows using digital badges as a valuable tool for recognition in all learning settings, including formal, non-formal and informal.

The increased use of online services in the commercial world has produced considerable impact on traditional technologies. Traditional information technologies were developed in an era where use of Internet technologies was not widespread. They have a long history and are often based on mature and stable technologies, or practices such as user interface design, artifi- cial intelligence techniques, and so forth. In the era of e-business, business operations are often conducted in conjunction with business alliances and partners through networked activities. Internet (or Web-based) technologies are fulfilling an enabling role to meet the communication and collaboration requirements of e-business. In this article, we share our experiences in how traditional information technologies are coupled with Webbased technologies to gain much-needed leverage in offering e-business solutions. Portals, as the major communication media for Web users, offer opportunities for collaboration using multiple technologies. They also serve as mechanisms for integrating a variety of online services supported by traditional applications. In this article we will discuss the role of portals in application integration for online collaborative service delivery. Particular emphasis will be given to the marrying of the modern roles of portals in e-business with those roles where portals fulfil the traditional roles of front-end technologies. The article demonstrates its vision through a portal-based application integration solution framework associated with a typical application scenario. We demonstrate the effectiveness of using portals in application integration by employing an experimental framework implemented in the PHOENIX research project at Victoria University (http://www.staff.vu.edu. au/PHOENIX/phoenix/index1.htm).

E-collaboration, defined as “collaboration among individuals engaged in a common task using electronic technologies” (Kock, Davison, Ocker, &amp; Wazlawick, 2001), is increasingly gaining relevance at the interorganizational level because of the growing practice of working with dispersed project teams across the globe. E-collaboration links together partners on projects and business processes that cross legal boundaries, as is the case, for example, in supply chains and in product lifecycle management (PLM) teams. General purpose computer-based collaboration tools like the Internet, e-mails, instant messaging, discussion boards, groupware, portals, blogs, and wikis are commonly used for e-collaboration (Fichter, 2005), while task-specific tools exist for many interorganizational activities such as PLM or collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR).

Portals are information systems that support the user in his or her individual process with information production and communication. The term portal, in information technology terms, appeared in late 1990s at a time of the widespread use of the Internet by individuals and organizations (Finkelstein &amp; Aiken, 1999; Dias, 2001; Bristow, Dickinson, Duke, Henry, &amp; Makey, 2001; Collins, 2001, 2003). There are many types of portals on the Internet: portals for general consumer use and entertainment (my.yahoo.com), for specialized information (www.brint.com), for specific communities (Austrian Academic Portal at www.portal.ac.at/), for business enterprises (NEC global portal at www.nec.com, NEC US portal at www.necus. com/, NEC European portal at www.neceurope. com). In general, portals can be divided into two categories: public and enterprise (Goodman &amp; Kleinschmidt, 2003; Forrester, 2003). Public portals started as Internet directories (Yahoo!) or search engines (Excite, Lycos, Alta- Vista, and InfoSeek). Services that require user registration such as free e-mail, customization features, and chat rooms were added to allow repeated use, and to make users stay longer at the site. Enterprise portals started as intranets and extranets, the “enterprise webs” that were intended to provide easy-to-use, secure, and personalized sites that may extend to an organization’s employees as well as to its customers and business partners. Enterprise portals evolved to include collaboration tools so that customers, business partners, and employees are empowered to maximize their value to the organization. Portals that combine Web communications and thinking inside large enterprises are considered as both a labor-saving and a cost-saving technology. Enterprise portals are also referred to as corporate portals. Some corporate analysts predict that portals spending will be one of the top five areas for growth in the Internet technologies sector.

Organizations are increasingly turning to enterprise portals to support knowledge work. Portal deployment can be intradepartmental across several business units in one organization or even inter-organizational. Currently in the industry, most of these portals are purchased solutions (e.g., collaboration and smart enterprise suites) and many of these purchasing and selection decisions are primarily driven by the interest of a small group of stakeholders with strong influence from IT vendors. The true requirements for the portal as well as the strategy for its medium- to long-term phased deployment are, in general, poorly addressed. This, together with other reasons, has lead to many failures or to a low adoption rate of the enterprise portal by staff at various levels of an organization. Common problems that hinder portal adoption include lack of an overall governance model, mis-alignment with business processes, poor or non-existent content management (process, tools, and governance), and technical problems associated with the development and configuration of portlets. This article focuses on one critical issue that directly influences the success of an enterprise portal deployment, namely the correct elicitation of user requirements (which in turn lead to the chosen portal’s features and to the style of the portal interface). Taking into consideration the advancement and landscape of commercial portal vendors in the market, this article discusses a bottom-up approach to the identification of high-level drivers for portal usages for its users.

This chapter discusses the roles of electronic business solutions (EBSs) in supporting collaborative product development (CPD). Two fundamental questions are of primary interest. One is when and where EBSs should be applied for what CPD decision activities. The other is how EBSs should be designed and developed to maximize their usefulness and usability in supporting CPD decision activities. The author advocates an approach based on decision activities. By this approach, CPD is considered as an extended enterprise business process, which is in turn decomposed into relatively simpler business decision processes (e.g., design specification, design review and release, design change management, etc.). Such decomposition takes place towards the level where appropriate EBSs can be most cost-effectively designed, developed, and applied. The logics and data requirements of these business decision processes form the natural basis for designing the navigations and user interfaces as well as the back-end databases and middleware for the corresponding EBSs. Individual EBSs related to product design and development decisions are then collated and deployed to form what is described in this chapter as a collaborative product commerce (CPC) portal — a special enterprise portal. The proposed approach is demonstrated with several examples as has been followed by many researchers and practitioners.

The library catalogue has represented stagnant technology for close to two decades. An ideal Library catalogue should enable the end users to search and find material/resources without the help of a librarian. The introduction of Web 2.0 has helped to improve the basic functionality of the library catalogue and help it to adapt to the new trends. Web 2.0 has opened the climate for collaboration and participation where users no longer only receive but also create and share content. In the Internet age today the Library Catalogue can function like a portal and this function can be exploited by redirecting the users to other useful information. System designers are continuously trying to adopt new trends in OPACs. In the 21st century such a shift from the simple catalogue to the web enriched advanced catalogue is anticipated and welcomed.

Education is one of the key sectors that has benefited from the continuous developments and innovations in information and communication technology (ICT). Web-based facilities now provide a medium for learning and a vehicle for information dissemination and knowledge creation (Khine, 2003). Accordingly, developments in ICTs provide opportunities for educators to expand and refine frameworks for delivering courses in innovative and interactive ways that assist students achieve learning outcomes (Kamel &amp; Wahba, 2003). However, the adoption of ICTs has also created tensions between traditional control and directiveness in teaching and student- centred learning, which relies on flexibility, connectivity, and interactivity of technology-rich environments. This chapter examines the introduction of Web-based technologies within a media studies course. The objective was to establish a community of learning, which provides students with a portal or entranceway into a common work area and out to networks of media related organizations. So doing, a pilot study was conducted within the Department of Communication at Texas A&amp;M University to blend Weblog facilities with a classroom setting to enhance students’ interpersonal and content interaction, and build citizenship through participation and collaborative processes. Four key aims frame this study: 1. provide an accessible, interactive online environment in which students can participate with peers and engage with new media technologies within a learning community setting; 2. develop an instructional technology framework that enhances the learning experience and outcomes within online educative environments; 3. establish a portal or gateway for students to access media advocacy and special interest groups and enhance and diversify perspectives on global media; and 4. evaluate student-learning experiences facilitated through innovative online instructional technologies.

Nowadays, Industry 4.0 is becoming a strategic issue for software companies. Because of fast digital conversion, they should review their visions and strategies. In this study, a project management framework is proposed for software companies considering Industry 4.0 as a future strategy. Global ERP firms try to find a good integration of ERP and Industry 4.0 applications. A global ERP firm's solution partner is used as a case study in this chapter. The study includes: the development of an internet-based portal application that integrates all their business partners (customers, suppliers); a collaborative project management software; and an industry 4.0 portal. The benefits of this study after applying in the software house are explained.

Nowadays, Industry 4.0 is becoming a strategic issue for software companies. Because of fast digital conversion, they should review their visions and strategies. In this study, a project management framework is proposed for software companies considering Industry 4.0 as a future strategy. Global ERP firms try to find a good integration of ERP and Industry 4.0 applications. A global ERP firm's solution partner is used as a case study in this chapter. The study includes: the development of an internet-based portal application that integrates all their business partners (customers, suppliers); a collaborative project management software; and an industry 4.0 portal. The benefits of this study after applying in the software house are explained.

The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies (Câmara dos Deputados) conducts an e-democracy initiative that enables people to participate in political decisions regarding legislation. “Portal E-Democracia” is the name of this website in which people can participate in several different ways to speak their minds regarding legislative activities. This chapter analyses the effectiveness of citizens' engagement in the e-democracy initiative through the case study of the discussion of the Internet Civilian Landmark – a bill to regulate Internet use in Brazil. The authors analyse two types of participation: comments to the draft bill and suggestions. To measure the effectiveness of user-participation in such a case of collaborative lawmaking, the authors compare the content of the first draft, the final draft, and the suggestions made through the wikilegis in order to assess whether the discussions maintained within the e-democracy platform were or were not taken into account. This procedure also reveals to what extent online discussion was able to reach political decision-makers and effectively change the Internet's Bill of Rights.

The product development processes nowadays are featured with ever-increasing complexity of product configurations, diverse data resources, and multi-disciplinary, geographical dispersed engineering teams, and intensive use of various software tools for managing the data associated with the product and its life cycle. These characteristics result in the need of a collaborative product development (CPD) environment for today’s industries. This paper describes the methodology which enables the engineering collaboration within a compressed product development cycle, and presents our results with the development of a CPD environment. A four-tiered client/server collaboration architecture, which allows system integration, data sharing, and collaboration among team members in an internet platform, is described. By integrating the distributed application servers, such as product specification server, CAD/CAE server, project management, collaborative visualization workspace, and product data management module, using web technologies, an engineering CPD portal is proposed and implemented. This portal environment could bring entire engineering team together in one place in real-time, irrespective of geography, enterprise boundaries, or native systems, to share product information throughout the product development processes, which include product definition, design, engineering analysis, and manufacturing, etc. Manufacturing companies could therefore collaborate closely with their suppliers/collaborators global widely. A case study is carried out for collaborative development of a typical component used in data storage industry, the spindle motor, to illustrate the proposed approach and to validate the developed systems.

Canspec’s Pipeline Integrity Group typically collects data on more than 500 dig sites annually, which includes analyzing and maintaining thousands of records for each major client. Additionally, Canspec also provides time sensitive information and guidance to its clientele related to repairs, pipe replacement, and collaborative pipeline integrity research. In order to improve data management and decrease reporting time on this large volume of data, Canspec initiated a short-term pilot project in collaboration with Bridge Solutions to develop an internet-based portal program called EKP3.0. The web portal is a fast and efficient way to create a secure customized search engine and web directory for complete data management, which is also accessible to the large number of field crews performing this work. Since implementation in April 2003, the EKP3.0 software has reduced overall reporting time by more than 35%. Due to the overwhelming success of the short-term pilot project, Canspec has adopted this software as a long-term solution for ongoing data management. This paper will compare previous data collection, delivery, and reporting practices with the current internet-based EKP3.0 software process. It will also elaborate on future plans to design an XML (Extensible Markup Language) data transfer format, which will reduce the labour-intensive peer review process, automate the customization of final reports delivered to the client, and create a rules-based field data collection application.

Large industrial internal combustion engines employ a wide range of analytical techniques in order to improve their availability and fuel efficiency, and to decrease their maintenance expense. When viewed in context of reliability centered maintenance programs, most industrial engines rely on one of the following systems: • Time-based preventive maintenance analyses, • Continuous monitoring systems that have first-principles deterministic models, or • Run until failure operating philosophy. Predictive analytics using empirically-derived pattern recognition algorithms can enhance problem detection and increase the effectiveness of an organization’s monitoring program. With robust early detection that has few false alarms, equipment operators can remove time-dependent randomness from their ability to discover problems. Skilled equipment analysts and technicians will no longer spend time devoted to analyzing healthy equipment. When a company has numerous engine installations, scalability and cost-effectiveness becomes increasingly more important. Empirically-derived pattern recognition speeds fleet deployment across a wide range of equipment types and models. This reduces the dependence on the expertise that is required to establish and maintain a first-principles based system. Predictive analytics enables a bridge between the depth of coverage of a permanently installed full analytical system and the versatility of portable analyzers and preventive maintenance analyses. Equipment operators can use early detection from predictive analytics to focus their technicians on analyzing the right equipment at the right time. This paper will describe the predictive analytics modeling philosophy around frame mechanics, combustion, and emissions. One or more case studies will show the processes of even detection, diagnostics, collaboration, and information consolidation. The extension of predictive analytics is predictive diagnostics which combines detection with the context of how equipment operates. Equipment operators can extend run times and maintenance intervals by using predictive analytics as a foundation. The observations, diagnoses, and feedback will then roll up into a total asset management system and bridge major gaps that occur in many reliability programs. Predictive diagnostic methodologies enable equipment owners to extend run times and to decrease maintenance effort with confidence.