Knowledge Management and Lifelong Learning in Archival Heritage

Archives have a key role to play in underpinning learning in its broadest sense, both as a formal activity within an institution and informally within the community. This is becoming especially important in an increasingly KM-based environment. This chapter provides an overview of technologies that can be applied to archival knowledge management. Furthermore, it assesses their actual or potential contribution to the basic processes of knowledge sharing within archival organizations, with a focus on lifelong learning. The scope of the first section (the screens) is to identify new developments that seem to be significant and to relate them to technology research in the archival field. The second section (the frames) discusses the concepts supporting digital collections by integrating collections of digitized archival resources to create new services and infrastructures. The third section (the agendas) analyses-from the educational perspective of lifelong learning-important social benefits, both quantitatively and qualitatively, of developing new infrastructures for accessing and using archival resources.

A Basis for the Semantic Web and E-Business

This chapter introduces how to effectively organize ontology languages and ontologies and how to efficiently process semantic information based on ontologies. In this chapter the authors propose the hierarchies to organize ontology languages and ontologies. Based on the hierarchy of ontology languages, the ontology designers need not bear in mind which ontology language the primitives exactly come from, also we can automatically and seamlessly use the ontologies defined with different ontology languages in an integrated environment. Based on the hierarchy of ontologies, the conflicts in different ontologies are resolved, thus the semantics in different ontologies are clear without ambiguities. Also, these semantic-clear ontologies can be used to efficiently process the semantic information in Semantic Web and E-Business.

Knowledge Producing Megamachines

This chapter addresses the control crisis of science whose resolution requires radical social innovation. The only possible way for achieving this is the partial fusion of certain portions of scientific activity with the system of public education, by means of organizing scientists, teachers, as well as middle and highschool students into hybrid, knowledge producing mega-machines. The authors of the chapter subsequently argue that doing so will at the same time bring about a pragmatic shift in public education, for which professionals in the field of pedagogy have long been ready in principle and in theory.

Building Virtual Learning Communities

This chapter introduces the concept of virtual learning communities and discusses and further enhances the theory and definitions presented in related literature. A model comprising four criteria essential to virtual learning communities is presented and discussed in detail. Theory and case studies relating to the impact of virtual learning communities on distance education and students from diverse cultural groups are also examined. In addition, this chapter investigates the enabling technologies and facilitation that is required to build virtual learning communities. Other case studies are used to illustrate the process of building virtual learning communities. Emerging technologies such as Wikis and video lectures are also analysed to determine the effects they have on building and sustaining effective virtual learning communities.

Building Virtual Communities through a De-Marginalized View of Knowledge Networking

The chapter investigates an actionable context of knowledge networking, from the perspective of sustainable development which should accommodate the building of communities in cyberspace so much exemplified in today’s Internet and World Wide Web. The premise of this exploration is that members, or participants, in any community are engaged in learning that is critical to the survival and reproduction of that community. Through community participation, learners find and acquire models and have the opportunity themselves to become models and apprentices of others. This investigation provides a basis for thinking about the possibilities of a virtual community and the dynamics of its construction across a variety of computer-based contexts. The design and refinement of technology as the conduit for extending and enhancing the possibilities of virtual community building is an essential issue, but the role of the individuals as participants in such a community is as important. The idea of sustainable knowledge networking is to bring about continual learning and change for the community in need. The emergent challenge of such a mission is to demarginalize many of the non-technical issues of building virtual communities for knowledge transfer and learning. The chapter concludes by reiterating the challenge of expositing what it means to create an appropriate context of knowledge networking through which purposeful actions can be supported with the elaboration of suitable information technologies.

Support Networks for Rural and Regional Communities

Using a case study approach, this chapter examines the role of organizational networks in the success and failure of information and communications technology projects. Within a framework informed by the literature of information systems failure, the diffusion of innovation and social network analysis; it argues that information systems projects must take into account the social context in which they are implemented. To be successful such networks require a mix of extended and locally based support networks, because they provide access to much needed resources, including innovations, strategic advice, training, and support at the appropriate level. It further argues that the people who are working in a regional setting felt themselves to be in an extremely disadvantageous situation because they typically lacked support from similar networks. The author hopes that highlighting the importance of such support networks will lead to a better understanding of systems failure and success, and will contribute to improved policy formulation and practice.

User-Centered Design Principles for Online Learning Communities

This chapter aims to introduce user-centered design and its basic concepts associated with online learning communities. Another aim is to search for guidelines to ensure quality in online learning. Human computer interaction for education provides the missing holistic approach for online learning. Functioning in a sociotechnical framework, online learning communities combine information and knowledge stores situated in shared social spaces using social learning software. In recent years, educational technologists linked theory and systems design in education. However, several disciplines combine in online learning. User-centered design provides the cross-disciplinary approach that appears to be essential for quality in online learning design and engineering. Thus, seven guidelines for experts’ evaluation are proposed as signposts: intention, information, interactivity, real-time evaluation, visibility, control, and support.

Designing Online Learning Communities to Encourage Cooperation

This chapter is concerned with how to design an online learning community in such a way as to encourage cooperation, and to discourage uncooperative or antisocial behavior. Rather than restricting design to visual and interface issues, the author takes a wide view, touching on aspects of the governance, social structure, moderation practices, and technical architecture of online learning communities. The first half of the chapter discusses why people behave antisocially in online learning communities, and ways to discourage this through design. The second half discusses why on the other hand people behave cooperatively in online learning communities, and ways to encourage this through user-centered design, applying some results of experiments in social psychology. The chapter is intended to be of practical use to designers of online learning communities.

Application of Semantic Web Based on the Domain-Specific Ontology for Global KM

This chapter introduces an application of the Semantic Web based on ontology to the tourism business. Tourism business is one promising area for Semantic Web applications. To realize the potential of the Semantic Web, we need to find a killer application of the Semantic Web in the knowledge management (KM) area. The ontology as a key enabler is designed and implemented under a framework of the Semantic- Web-driven KM system in a tourism domain. Finally, we discussed the relationship between the Semantic Web and KM processes.

Pattern Matching Techniques to Identify Syntactic Variations of Tags in Folksonomies

Folksonomies offer an easy method to organize information in the current Web. This fact and their collaborative features have derived in an extensive involvement in many Social Web projects. However they present important drawbacks regarding their limited exploring and searching capabilities, in contrast with other methods as taxonomies, thesauruses and ontologies. One of these drawbacks is an effect of its flexibility for tagging, producing frequently multiple syntactic variations of a same tag. In this chapter we study the application of two classical pattern matching techniques, Levenshtein distance for the imperfect string matching and Hamming distance for the perfect string matching, to identify syntactic variations of tags.