lets research issue 1

Issue 1January 2013

www.letsresearch.eu

Europe’s Research brought together

Engineering • Environmental Sciences • Socail Sciences and Education • Pure and Applied Sciences • Human Computer Interaction

Editorial Note

We welcome you to the 1st issue of the Let’s Research e-magazine. This magazine is designed for bringing researchers throughout Europe together, in order to exchange and discuss ideas about future work, collaborations, proposals and ideas.

Our aim is to develop a cross discipline research magazine that will provide a high quality of European Academic and Research Environment. Our vision is to establish the Let’s Research magazine as a leading tool in the research information community.

We dedicate this e-magazine to all those who believe in the richness of learning and continue to learn and research as if they were to live forever.

Enjoy the reading and keep researching. As always, we welcome your comments.

You may reach us at [email protected]

Editorial Note

Let’s Research Team

Martha KatafygiotouEfi Nisiforou

Antigoni ParmaxiThomas PhotiadisPantelis Yiasemis

Contents

Table of Contents

Teenergy Schools 3

Document Triage in the Information Seeking Process 5

Internal Research Project: Mobile Learning Environment (MobiLER) 6

Developing Multiliteracies at the Museum: An investigation into pupils’ experiences at museums and galleries in Cyprus

7

An exploratory study into primary teachers’ professional identity and practice at a time of educational reform in Cyprus

9

Gender Identity and Social Media Technology 10

Enermap 11

Visual Complexity Rankings and Accessibility Metrics 13

Research News 15

3

Developing Multiliteracies at the Museum:An investigation into pupils’ experiences at museums and galleries in Cyprus

Project website: www.teenergy.eu

Engineering

TEENERGY SCHOOL, a programme co-financed by the Regional Development Fund of the European Union, targets the improvement of Energy Efficiency in Public School Buildings in the Mediterranean Area covering 5 different territories and 3 typical climate conditions referred to as coast, mountain and plain. The Partnership is composed by 8 partners from 4 following countries:Italy: Province of Lucca (Lead Partner), ABITA International Research Center Florence, Province of Trapani Regional Energy Agency of Sicily, Cyprus: Cyprus University of Technology, Greece: Prefecture of Athens, NKUA IASA University of Athens, Spain: Regional Council of Granada. The project promotes initiatives in order to choose the most adequate and energy efficient retrofitting methodology for existent school buildings, and indication for bio-climatically approach

of new buildings with high energy-efficiency and good indoor comfort conditions adapted to the specific Mediterranean climate context. The project aim at solving 2 common problems of the Mediterranean Area: The lack of energy saving benchmarks targeted specifically to South European climate conditions and the low energy efficiency of actual School Buildings. Teenergy Schools Project was set up an Action Plan and a Common Strategy aimed to reduce energy cost and consumptions in public secondary school buildings. With the evaluation of proposed solutions concluded at the International Campus in Athens, it was then possible to create a common Action Plan including Energy strategies for the improvement of energy efficiency in school buildings in the Mediterranean region. From this, Guidelines for the Mediterranean schools and educational buildings were

TEENERGY SCHOOL


4Project website: www.teenergy.eu

Engineering

Dr. Despina Serghides, Cyprus University of TechnologyMartha Katafygiotou , Cyprus University of Technology

[email protected], [email protected]

formulated. The guidelines are very useful as they include examples of potential strategies to reduce energy demand and suggest how to achieve energy saving, exploring financial issues, implementing the use of renewable technology elements and optimising comfort, daylighting design and air quality and ultimately achieving energy efficiency in public schools. In this article the “Teenergy Schools Concept Design Guidelines” are presented:* Planning criteria and Architectural Strategies to reduce energy consumptions

and environmental impact in Mediterranean Schools * Materials and construction technologies* Architectural Integration of Renewable energy source* Advanced technologies for energy efficiency in buildings* Advanced technologies for energy/water resource management* Direct Benefits of Sustainable Schools

Project website: n/a5

Pure and Applied Sciences

Document Triage in the Information Seeking Process

Document triage is the process we go through to make relevance decisions on documents. It occurs after a document set is presented to us, for example after a query is executed on a search engine, and ends when the documents are either all rejected or when relevant information is found. Anything from our physical actions to our cognitive workings are used to provide our own individual triage activities. Document triage takes place in physical as well as electronic environments. An information seeker can search for academic documents using a search engine, to be returned with suitable results in a list. Similarly, an information seeker can request for academic documents by using a physical library. The librarian can then present the individual with an appropriate shelf or section of the library, which might prove useful to the information need. Both of these scenarios have one thing in common; namely, that the information seeker is then liable to triage through the information in order to extract what he or she thinks is relevant.This common task is performed daily by academics and a large proportion of their time is dedicated to finding relevant research to their work. However, their decisions are often less than optimum, with relevant information being rejected or ignored and seemingly relevant documents are then rejected upon further reading. In this work we have uncovered key document elements that attract an information seeker’s visual attention and model the navigational patterns seekers take to make their decisions. We have also recorded a set of user requirements for on-line digital library design which would enhance the triage experience. Current work includes recording the cognitive workings of an information seeker during document triage and developing triage specific adaptable user

interfaces based on our findings.

Dr. George Buchanan, City University LondonDr. Fernando Loizides , Cyprus University of Technology

[email protected] ,[email protected]

6

Internal Research Project: Mobile Learning Environment (MobiLER)

Project website: www.ifel.ch

The internal research project “Mobile Learning Environment“ (MobiLER) of the Institute of Research in Distance-, Open- and eLearning (IFeL) aims at introducing multimedia-content enriched e-books in teaching at the Swiss Distance University for Applied Sciences (FFHS).The introduction of MobiLER is likely to support the learning process of students in the following aspects: higher degree of mobility, personalization of learning environments, personalization of learning materials (books and self-written handouts), integration of the learning managment system (Moodle) activities in the reading/learning process. This leads as well to a higher flexibility of students (individual time managment, simplified/accsessible distribution and communication, choices in the selection of learning materials) in order to support the learning process (Bergamin, Ziska, Werlen & Siegenthaler, 2011).In order to achieve this goal, we developed a didactical concept that integrates the three essential functions of a successful educational setting into a mobile learning environment: first, the „classical e-book“ (Nagler, 2011) which encompasses al the required learning materials in a documented form. Second, the „learning hub“ (Kukulska-Hulme, Sharples, Milrad, Arnedillo-Sánchez, & Vavoula, 2009) that describes the formal learning system provided by the learning institution. Finally, the „personal learning environment“ (Chen, Millard, & Wills, 2008), which describes the aspect of the personalization of education.On the basis of Bloom’s taxonomy of learning objectives (Bloom, 1956) and it’s revision by Anderson & Krathwohl (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), we defined twelve didactic functions, which must be supported by MobiLER in order to optimally support the

student’s learning activities.The technical solution has to support the following devices and systems which will most likely be deployed by the students to access the desired learning materials and activities: desktop PCs and laptops as well as Tablet computers. The access to the learning materials and the didactical functions as described in the paragraph before will be provided with an Application for tablet computers, the learning-management system Moodle and a browser-based solution for desktop PC’s.The enriched e-books and the didactical framework will be tested and evaluated in the coming spring semester 2013. The follow-up project will refine the deployed tablet- and browser-based applications and integrate the app solution of the learning managment system Moodle to a bigger extend (e.g. integration of communication and collaboration elements), since in this first phase it’s primarily used for distributional purposes. References:Bergamin, P., Ziska, S., Werlen, E., & Siegenthaler, E. (n.d.).

Relationship between Flexible and Self-Regulated Learning in Universities for Open and Distance Learning. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, submitted Septeber 2011.Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A

taxonomy for Learning, teaching, and assessing: Arevision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Addison-Wesley Longman.Bloom, B. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives the

classification of educational goals, (1st ed.). New York: Longmans Green.Chen, W.-P., Millard, D., & Wills, G. (2008). Mobile VLE vs.

Mobile PLE: How Informal is Mobile Learning? Retrieved from http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/16158/Kukulska-Hulme, A., Sharples, M., Milrad, M., Arnedillo-

Sánchez, I., & Vavoula, G. (2009). Innovation in Mobile Learning: A European Perspective. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 1(1), 13-35.Nagler, W. (2011). Vom Online-Skriptum zum E-Book. In M.

E., Sandra Schon (Ed.), Lehrbuch Fur Lernen und Lehren mit Technologien: Hrsg. von Martin Ebner und Sandra Schon. Berlin: epubli.

Social Sciences and Education

Ioana Porumb Yves Bochud

Per [email protected]

7


The following reports on a doctoral qualitative research investigating the nature of Cypriot pupils’ experiences of multiliteracies in museum educational programmes. The key objective of this research is to determine what kind of instructional development/design related to multiliteracies would be appropriate to implement in the museum in a way that would empower museum visiting as a meaningful cultural practice.To address these issues, the pedagogy of multiliteracies (New London Group 1996, Cope & Kalantzis 2000) and John Schwartz’s (2008) museum based pedagogy offer an interesting approach. However, minimal empirical research exists on multiliteracies theory and pedagogy for museum learning. Our research seeks to bridge this gap, capitalising on the opportunities for complex literacy practices afforded by the museum environment in an era where Cypriot education is going through an educational reform which introduced concepts such as critical literacy and multiliteracies (Hatzisavvides 2011) based on a discourse that no longer is a restricted view of literacy as reading and writing skills acceptable in an increasingly multimodal and digitally-mediated world (Fleming 2005).Methodology: The project involves investigation in two stages. The first stage of the research was structured to examine four components of learning: the individual (the young child), the setting (museum environment); the curriculum (the programme’s creator intentions); and the instructor (the museum and its program) (Kelly 2007:139-158). Methods of data collection for Stage One thus included documentary analysis, a preliminary questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with museum educators and schoolteachers, direct observations and collection of physical

artefact from educational visits in one museum and one gallery in Limassol town in Cyprus. Interactive digital protocol tools for group interviews with the pupil participants were designed and developed specifically for the purposes of identifying young children’s perspectives of museum environments. Stage Two of the research was an intervention (new program design) which was developed and piloted in 2012 in a museum in Limassol, Cyprus. The intervention planned was based on the findings from Stage One of the research as well as the development of a model called the Museum Multiliteracies- Dynamic Learning Approach (MMDLA). This model is a pedagogy-driven, research led and empirically based approach which integrates multiliteracies competences into museum learning. The intervention took the form of a single case study which was considered the appropriate methodology for investigating and presenting research on the development of collaborative museum-school programs and to test the feasibility of the model. A museum learning project was designed and delivered in a series of sessions in a school and a museum with a group of pupils aged 11-12 years old. Data was to be collected in the form of lesson plans, researcher field-notes, reflection journal, recordings and the final product of children’s work at the museum. Qualitative comparative analysis will be undertaken using Atlas Ti research software for both stages of the research. Addressing the particular demands and competences required for developing learning experiences in the museum setting through multiliteracies-focused pedagogy could enable for meaningful cultural participation and learning for 21st century (Mathewson-Mitchell 2007).



Project website: n/a

8


Stefania Savva, Cyprus University of [email protected] , [email protected]


9 Project website: n/a


An exploratory study into primary teachers’ professional identity and practice at a time of educational reform in Cyprus

The government of the Republic of Cyprus introduced an ambitious educational reform of the curriculum in all public primary schools from September 2011 aiming to meet pupils’ future needs and society’s challenges in the 21st century.This project focuses on the ways in which primary teachers in Cyprus experience changes in the educational context and the effects of these changes on their sense of professionalism and identity.Essentially, I investigate the way professional identity is developed and how it is affected by classroom experiences, collegial relationships, organisational structures, and external reforms, issues that are almost completely ignored in reform strategies and educational innovation policy. The research questions that shape this study are:• What is the nature of teachers’ work in primary schools in Cyprus?• How do primary school teachers understand their sense of professional identity and what

are the implications for their practices?• How have teachers responded to policy reform and what sorts of training and support have they received?The research is operating on three levels: the micro, the meso and the macro. At the micro level, I put the emphasis on a school which I visit four times over a year and conduct an ethnography and focus on four teachers’ real life in play; at the meso level I concentrate on the system and therefore conduct a survey in order to obtain the views and attitudes of 308 teachers before and after the implementation of the reform; and finally at the macro level I concentrate on the national policy by looking at documents and conducting interviews with two policy-makers.It is expected that this kind of study will enable the examination of how policy interplays with practice as well as how teachers in a highly centralised system, experience and respond to changes in their professional lives, thus, making a contribution to the evidence and theory base for the educational policy field.

Christiana Karousiou, The University of Manchester [email protected]

10



Gender Identity and Social Media Technology

The project investigated the Interactive Multimedia domain and more specifically the field of Internet Social Networks and Online Communities. In light of the popularity of social networks that play a vital role in university students’ lives, this research paper serves to examine the relationship between social media use between genders. Even though the learning purpose is not the main objective of this study, it seeks to understand whether students value social network sites for pedagogical purposes by assessing their perceptions towards educational networking.The research work provides real research evidence on online social technology use amongst males and females, in Cyprus. Online social services have affected today’s society positively, and peoples’ attitudes toward technology tend to change over time. In order to be able to introduce social media as an augmentative tool in teaching and learning procedures we need to be aware of their overall usage. The rapid growth and the popularity of SNSs’ are increasingly attracting

the attention of millions of students for many different purposes. The project presents university students’ online SN use at a public university in Cyprus during the year 2011. The survey was carried out using a semi-structured questionnaire administered to a number of male and female students. There is a subtle statistical difference in the use of the Moodle service between men and women. No significant gender-related differences are found regard to the actual usage on the social network services. Although the unequal gender base proportion strongly supported gender-inequality, it has however clearly emerged from the results that students’ SNS equal usage shifted into gender-equality. Additionally, the outcomes have also showed that the vast majority of the students present themselves less likely to rely on social media for educational purposes, while on the other hand their overall usage provided the reverse perspective. The findings of this study offer an insight into the understanding of the university students’ use of SNS.

Dr. Andrew Laghos, Cyprus University of TechnologyEfi Nisiforou, Cyprus University of Technology andrew.laghos@cut., [email protected]

11 Project website: enermap.eu

Environmental Scciences

ENERMAP

Dr. Alexandros Charalambides’ idea, ENERMAP, an online map that displays energy consumption of buildings in Europe and attempts to alter consumer behaviour by “putting energy in the ratings”, took the first prize of €95,000 and 18 months of incubation space in a European entrepreneurship contest open to ideas that boost energy awareness and ultimately save consumers money on energy bills through a behavioural change.The Cypriot born idea was voted first out of 55 others, ten of which were invited to Berlin for a weekend of intense workshops to improve their ideas, develop them into attractive business opportunities and prepare a pitch to a jury of academics and energy experts. The event, aptly called “Open Innovation Slam” was organised by Climate-KIC, a non-profit organization funded by academic and private sector partners, the European Commission and a grant from the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.The team from Cyprus consisted of Dr. Alexandros Charalambides, Lecturer at the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT), a Mechanical Engineer and also the originator of ENERMAP, Mr. Paris Thomas, Communication Consultant at Open Box Communication and CUT associate, who provided pitch coaching and guidance to the whole team, and Mr. Jânio Tjoe-Awie of Nieuwland Geo-Informatie, a mapping and Geographical Information Systems consultant

from Holland.“I am thrilled that after two years of working on prototypes and receiving letters of support from dozens of partners, ENERMAP has now obtained the necessary capital to give it wings to fly”, says Dr. Charalambides. “It is in our best interest to save energy, and I believe that ENERMAP is exactly the tool that we’ve been missing in order to take energy saving to a mainstream level”, he added.The idea of ENERMAP extends much beyond a simple to use map illustrating the energy rating and consumption statistics of buildings. “At its core, ENERMAP is a branding initiative that will revolutionize the way we all select which businesses to support and make our decisions in-part based on the willingness of these businesses to include the environment in their priorities by achieving an “A” energy rating for their buildings” says Thomas, who was instrumental at coaching the team for the presentation to the jury.The award winning idea was also presented last year at the inaugural gathering of TEDxNicosia, and was selected based on its innovativeness, creativity, and its ability to help consumers reduce their energy consumption. ENERMAP is supported by the Cyprus University of Technology that supports Dr. Charalambides’ efforts to place Cyprus on the forefront of environmental technological innovation.

12

Environmental Scciences

Project website: enermap.eu

Dr. Alexandros Charalambides, Cyprus University of Technology Paris Thomas, Open Box Communication

Mr. Jânio Tjoe-Awie, Nieuwland Geo-Informatie

13

Human Computer Interaction

Visual Complexity Rankings and Accessibility Metrics

The World Wide Web (Web) has become the major means of distribution and use of infor-mation by individuals around the world. Web page designers focus on good visual presen-tation to implicitly help users navigate, un-derstand, and interact with the content. The rapid and constant advancement of technol-ogy introduced new ways to present informa-tion that leads to visually complex Web pages. Problems arise, though, for people with dis-abilities, especially those who are visually im-paired, because implicit visual cues presented on a Web page cannot be accessed and used. During the ViCRAM project, we assert that, identifying the areas that are complex for sighted users will have direct benefits for blind and visually impaired users. We theo-rise that by understanding sighted users’ visual perception of Web page complexity we can understand the cognitive effort required for interaction with that page. This is an im-portant contribution to the Web accessibility area because by using visual complexity, an identifiable measure, as an implicit marker of cognitive load, Web pages can be designed

that are easier to interact with. Results from user evaluations provided sta-tistical models that, based on the density and diversity of Web page structural elements (such as text, tables, and images), can sig-nificantly predict sighted users’ perception of Web page visual complexity. The framework is then implemented into the ACTF Eclipse framework by extending the aDesigner acces-sibility tool to the ViCRAM tool. The tool au-tomatically analyses a Web page with respect to its visual complexity. For each Web page a complexity score, that determines the page’s level of visual complexity, and an overlay heatmap, that mimics a user’s visual com-plexity perception by noting the areas that are most visually complex, are generated.A user and technical evaluation support our assertions and show that the tool can signifi-cantly predict the level of visual complexity of a Web page. Therefore, users can have an initial perception of the visual layout of the page and designers can use this framework to balance Web page visual complexity with usability and accessibility.

simpleVisualizer GUI

Browser View (upper pane)

Visualization View(middle pane)

Summary Report(bottom pane)

Original HTMLPage

HTMLParser

DOM Structure

VisualizationAlgorithm

ComplexityAlgorithm

Original HTML Page

Screenshot


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Dr. Eleni Michailidou, Cyprus Univeristy of [email protected]

Research News

Upcoming Conferences

Technology Enhanced Learning

European Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning, EuroCALL, University of Évora, Portugal, 11-14 September, 2013. http://www.eurocall-languages.org/news/items/2013cfp.html

Sustainability and Computer Assisted Language Learning WORLDCALL, Glasgow, 10-13 July, 2013, http://www.worldcall2013.org/

Neuroscience

Learning & the Brain, Neuroscience and the Classroom: Strategies for Maximizing Students’ Engagement, Memory, and Potential, Santa Barbara CA, 23-26 July or 30 July – 2 August, 2013 http://www.learningandthebrain.com

Brain, Neurosciences and Education, Vancouver, CA, April 13-17, 2013. http://www.aera-brain-education.org/


Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI, Paris, 27 April-2 May,2013. http://chi2013.acm.org/

10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility, W4A, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 13-15th May, 2013. http://www.w4a.info/2013/

Social Networking Technology

21st European Social Services Conference-ESN, Dublin, 17 – 19 June, 2013, http://www.esn-conference.org

Renewable Energies, Energy Efficiency in Buildings and Sustainability Conferences

3rd International Exergy, Life Cycle Assessment, and Sustainability Workshop & Symposium (ELCAS-3) Nisyros Island, GREECE, 07-09 July,2013 , http://www.elcasnet.com/

4th International Conference on Renewable Energy Sources and Energy Efficiency, Nicosia, Cyprus, 6-7 June, 2013. www.mse.com.cy/energy

World Renewable Energy Congress – Australia International Conference on Renewable Energy for Sustainable Development & Decarbonisation, Murdoch University Western Australia, 14-18 July, 2013, http://www. world-renewable-energy-congress-australia-2013

European Nearly Zero Energy Buildings Conference, Wels, Upper Austria/Austria 28 February - 1 March, 2013, http://www.wsed.at/en/programme/

www.letsresearch.eu15

Issue 1January 2013

[email protected]

lets research issue 1

Documents

research environment

research news

internal research project

research information

energy cost

high energyefficiency

lack of energy

public school buildings