This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a massive open online course (MOOC) as a professional development tool in higher education. The transition from the MOOCs initial intended use as a low cost way for students to access education and aid their studies has evolved, from facilitating the Higher Education sector to the commercial sector. Findings indicate there is an increase in participatio...

There is a professional responsibility placed upon archaeologists to record all possible information about a given excavated site of which soil analysis is one important but frequently marginalised aspect. This paper introduces SASSA (Soil Analysis Support System for Archaeologists), whose primary goal is to promote the wider use of soil analysis techniques through a selection of ‘web based’ so...

This paper reports on the prototype design of DisCo, a computer-based design tool that facilitates distributed co-design through Layered Elaboration. Layered Elaboration is a co-design technique that, until now, has relied on paper and clear transparencies to generate ideas through an iterative process in which each version leaves prior ideas intact. The new computer-based system allows co-desi...

We present a new multidimensional model with textual dimensions based on a knowledge structure extracted from the texts, where any textual attribute in a database can be processed, and not only XML texts. This dimension allows to treat the textual data in the same way as the non-textual one in an automatic way, without user’s intervention, so all the classical operations in the multidimensional...

This paper describes a study into the drawing of diagrams in an online examination. The diagrams were produced by students during an on-line examination using a simple drawing tool. The students’ examination answers, which included a diagram, were submitted over the Internet to an automatic marking tool for grading and feedback. This paper describes the diagram drawing tool and discusses the st...

Recommender systems are new types of internetbased software tools, designed to help users find their way through today’s complex on-line shops and entertainment websites. This paper describes a new recommender system, which employs a genetic algorithm to learn personal preferences of users and provide tailored suggestions.

In the paper we introduce the on-line captioning system developed by our teams and used by the Czech Television (CTV), the public service broadcaster in the Czech Republic. The research project is targeted at incorporation of speech technologies into the CTV environment. One of the key missions is the development of captioning system supporting captioning of a “live” acoustic track. It can be e...

This paper looks at a variety of on-line help systems and at guidelines for their design; and indentifies general problem-solving strategies which are important for the effectiveness and usability of on-line help. The lack of a suitable evaluation instrument is identified and a questionnaire to address this need is developed: the On-line Help Evaluation Checklist. The new instrument is to assis...

Civil Engineering is a discipline providing one of the most challenging environments for integration and interoperability. Great hopes are wired and wireless networking technology that is redefining the role of information technology in civil engineering. It used to provide software tools for the design and analysis and access to common design information. Today, technology is providing the med...

Recommender systems are new types of internet-based software tools, designed to help users find their way through today’s complex on-line shops and entertainment websites. Here we provide an overview of current recommender systems, and then outline a new Lifestyle Recommender System, which employs techniques such as evolutionary search and a 3D avatar to provide tailored and friendly suggestion...