This chapter evaluates the potential of virtual worlds for intercultural collaborative learning. A case study of a global lecture series is presented that used a virtual world as a platform for intercultural student collaboration. Students’ subjective reports served as a basis for exploring cross-cultural differences in the perceived usefulness of virtual worlds for intercultural collaboration,...

This study reports on research carried out on 105 tutors working on distance graduate courses at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) to assess the relationship between the level of trust and the conflict management in tutors of distance learning based graduate courses at UFSC on the AVEA Virtual Environment of Learning. The research uses descriptive and quantitative methodology. It ...

The support vector machine (SVM) is a wellestablished and accurate supervised learning method for the classification of data in various application fields. The statistical learning task – the so-called training – can be formulated as a quadratic optimization problem. During the last years the decomposition algorithm for solving this optimization problem became the most frequently used method fo...

For academics to successfully make the transition to online teachers or learning facilitators, they must do more than develop new technical skills. Online development and delivery requires new pedagogical approaches, challenging previous practices with regards to assessment, group interaction and student/teacher dialogue. Furthermore, it necessitates attention to issues concerning academic work...

Learning about patient safety is an important aspect of undergraduate medical curricula but there are no clear priority areas. A recent consensus of international medical educators identified several priority areas and these recommendations include approaches to increase knowledge of patient safety, including the causes and frequency, to develop willingness to take responsibility, to develop se...

The process of acquiring knowledge cannot be separated from the process of applying it. Integrating working and learning is not a desirable luxury – it is a fundamental requirement for businesses to remain competitive. In this article we describe the ENRICH approach to supporting organisational learning. The enrichment of workproducts with context is aided by suite of web based tools which inte...

This study focuses on teamwork in Finnish working life. Through a wide cross-section of teams the study examines the causes to which team members attribute the outcomes of their teams. Qualitative data was collected from 314 respondents. They wrote 616 stories to describe memorable experiences of success and failure in teamwork. The stories revealed 1930 explanations. The findings indicate that...

Learning objects (LOs) were proposed as a way to build reusable chunks of educational content. But in spite of considerable effort by various groups, the approach has had relatively little impact on education. We argue that this is because of a fundamental weakness in the way LOs have been conceived of. We show how the problem can be addressed by borrowing key ideas from object-oriented (OO) pr...