Higher education institutions play a vital role in their surrounding communities. Besides providing a space for enhanced learning opportunities, universities can utilize their resources for social and economic interests. The "Handbook of Research on Science Education and University Outreach as a Tool for Regional Development" is a…

Information Technology (IT) employment shortages may be related to employee retirement or normal attrition. Within IT job shortages, tacit knowledge is lost when employees retire or leave organizations. Tacit knowledge is unwritten or unspoken knowledge that is not easily articulated, and exists only with the individuals who obtain the knowledge…

In response to the rapid growth of information in recent decades, knowledge-based systems have become an essential tool for organizational learning. The application of electronic performance-support systems in learning activities has attracted considerable attention from researchers. Nevertheless, the vast, ever-increasing amount of information is…

The advent of Web 2.0, also called the Social Web, has changed the way people interact with the Web. Assisted by the technologies associated with this new trend, users now play a much more active role as content providers. This Web paradigm shift has also changed how companies operate and interact with their employees, partners and customers. The…

Learning design is currently slanted to reflect a course-based approach to learning. This article explores whether the concept of learning design could be applied to support the informal aspects of work-based learning (WBL). It also discusses the characteristics of WBL and presents a WBL-specific learning design that highlights the key features…

Hybrid learning is now the single-greatest trend in education today due to the numerous educational advantages when both traditional classroom learning and e-learning are implemented collectively. This handbook collects emerging research and pedagogies related to the convergence of teaching and learning methods. This significant "Handbook of…

The main contribution of this paper is a proposal for a universal pedagogical pattern categorization based on teaching values and activities. This categorization would be more sustainable than the arbitrary categorization implied by pedagogical pattern language themes. Pedagogical patterns from two central patterns languages are analyzed and…

Coming from architecture, through computer science, pattern-based design spread into other disciplines and is nowadays recognized as a powerful way of capturing and reusing effective design practice. However, current pedagogical pattern approaches lack widespread adoption, both by users and authors, and are still limited to individual initiatives.…

Pedagogical patterns have been around since 1995, but several authors claim their impact is limited. However, these claims are based on authors' own observations and not on methodical evaluations of the use and dissemination of pedagogical patterns. This claim is in contrast to the vision of the creators of pedagogical patterns--they think…

The DIN Didactical Object Model extends the approaches of existing Educational Modeling Languages introducing specifications for contexts and experiences. In this paper, we show how the Didactical Object Model can be used for sharing didactical expertise. Educational Modeling Languages change the design paradigm from content orientation towards…

The challenge of the semantic web is the provision of distributed information with well-defined meaning, understandable for different parties. Particularly, applications should be able to provide individually optimized access to information by taking the individual needs and requirements of the users into account. In this paper we propose a…

Knowledge management in organizations, the learning objects paradigm, the advent of a new web generation, and the "Semantic Web" are major actual trends that reveal a potential for a renewed distance learning pedagogy. First and foremost is the use of educational modelling languages and instructional engineering methods to help decide…

The nature of collaborative learning involves intensive interactions among collaborators, such as articulating knowledge into written, verbal or symbolic forms, authoring articles or posting messages to this community's discussion forum, responding or adding comments to messages or articles posted by others, etc. Knowledge collaborators'…

E-learning leads to evolutions in the way of designing a course. Diffused through the web, the course content cannot be the direct transcription of a face to face course content. A course can be seen as an organization in which different actors are involved. These actors produce documents, information and knowledge that they often share. We…