We propose a crowdsourcing-based framework to iteratively and rapidly bootstrap a dialog system from scratch for a new domain. We leverage the open-source modular HALEF dialog system to deploy dialog applications. We illustrate the usefulness of this framework using four different prototype dialog items with applications in the educational domain…

"Rent or buy?" is a question people ask about everything from housing to textbooks. It is also a question universities must consider when it comes to high-performance computing (HPC). With the advent of Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Microsoft Windows HPC Server, Rackspace's OpenStack, and other cloud-based services, researchers now have…

Information technology (IT) is an essential part of modern education. The roles and contributions of technology to education have been thoroughly documented in academic and professional literature. Despite the benefits, the use of educational technology systems (ETS) also creates a significant impact on the environment, primarily due to energy…

Community colleges provide a wide range of educational services to very diverse groups of students. For that reason, the variety and flexibility of services provided can be critical. In addition, quickly changing needs result in quickly changing system requirements. In this chapter, community college CIOs speak to their roles, focusing on the…

At Aalborg University (AAU) we are known to work with problem-based learning (PBL) in a particular way designated "The Aalborg PBL model." In PBL the focus is on participant control, knowledge sharing, collaboration among participants, which makes it interesting to consider the integration of social media in the learning that takes…

Blogs, which began as a way to easily post one's thoughts online in print, have evolved to include multimedia capabilities. A blog is not limited to text--audio and video can be incorporated. A video blog (commonly called a vlog) is a blog that uses video in its posts. People who create vlogs are vloggers, and the worldwide community of vlogs and…

In 2001, Indiana officials at the Department of Education were taking stock. The schools had an excellent network infrastructure and had installed significant numbers of computers for 1 million public school enrollees. Yet students were spending less than an hour a week on the computer. It was then that state officials knew each student needed a…

Knowledge Management (KM) and knowledge sharing are important factors that support lifelong learning, and enable people to continue developing throughout their careers. The concept of a Community of Practice ( Wenger, 2000) is attractive in drawing together people whose work shares similar aspects, and consideration is given here to how technology…

The integration of concepts and contributions from learning theorists, media specialists, and teaching practitioners, optimized within a framework of selected system strategies derived from military management programs, can help resolve concerns for educational improvement and accountability and influence the utilization of technology enabling…

According to any accounting method, ERP investments are among the largest single concentrated investments in dollars and human resources ever made by higher education in any area.

While most K-12 technology leaders appreciate that technology refresh--the periodic replacement of an organization's technology--is more complex than shopping for appliances, they do not necessarily have the tools to create a sustainable and comprehensive plan to upgrade their assets. Having a solid tech refresh plan helps ensure that teachers and…

The history, administration, and current operations of the Administrative Data Processing department of the University of Iowa are described. Types of equipment, budgets, and service records are mentioned. (SF)

The International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) President (1999-2000) reports on the State of the Profession. Part I compares the profession of human performance technology (HPT) to other professions. Part II discusses the nature of HPT and examines critical classes of variables affecting the mission of HPT. Part III illustrates…

By employing a new system perspective, the uses of technology in three school districts are examined. Problems with lack of equipment, professional development, and funding in New York City and San Diego (CA) schools are discussed. The experiences of the Iowa City School District illustrate that growth of the human and work-process infrastructure…

Most electrical engineering and computer science undergraduate programs include at least one course on microcontrollers and assembly language programming. Some departments offer legacy courses in C programming, but few include C programming from an embedded systems perspective, where it is still regularly used. Distributed computing and parallel…