This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2009, held in Nice, France in September/October 2009. The 35 revised full papers, 17 short papers, and 35 posters presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 136 paper submissions and 22 poster submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on adaptation and personalization, interoperability, semantic Web, Web 2.0., data mining and social networks, collaboration and social knowledge construction, learning communities and communities of practice, learning contexts, problem and project-based learning, inquiry, learning, learning design, motivation, engagement, learning games, and human factors and evaluation.

Multimedia services are now commonly used in various activities in the daily lives of humans. Related application areas include services that allow access to large depositories of information, digital libraries, e-learning and e-education, e-government and e-governance, e-commerce and e-auctions, e-entertainment, e-health and e-medicine, and e-legal services, as well as their mobile counterparts (i.e., m-services). Despite the tremendous growth of multimedia services over the recent years, there is an increasing demand for their further development. This demand is driven by the ever-increasing desire of society for easy accessibility to information in friendly, personalized and adaptive environments. In this book at hand, we examine recent Recommendation Services. Recommendation services appear in the mobile environment, medicine/biology, tourism, education, and so on. The book includes ten chapters, which present various recently developed recommendation services. This research book is directed to professors, researchers, application engineers and students of all disciplines who are interested in learning more about recommendation services, advancing the corresponding state of the art and developing innovative recommendation services.

The capability to innovate in an on-going manner is emerging as a decisive key factor in today's world of business and work. The ability to stay competitive is becoming identical with the ability to innovate. This book originated from the research and development project “International Monitoring” and outlines the topic of innovative capability from a practice-oriented angle. Contributions of German and international experts offer an enlightening glimpse behind the scenes of innovations. The central issue is not the description of features of successful innovation processes or how innovations can be efficiently controlled and managed, but under which conditions they can emerge in the first place. In what way can individuals, organizations, networks and societies be enabled to continuously induce innovations?

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems, ARCS 2014, held in Lübeck, Germany, in February 2014. The 20 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 44 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: parallelization: applications and methods; self-organization and trust; system design; system design and sensor systems; and virtualization: I/O, memory, cloud; dependability: safety, security, and reliability aspects.

Strategy management has always been a crucial business aspect that a company must understand to remain successful in the business world. However, there are a number of different approaches that a company can employ in order to differentiate themselves from the competition. Knowledge Management for Competitive Advantage During Economic Crisis brings together the various approaches that affect the superiority of a company’s organizational performance and the gains they can make over their competitors. By focusing on concepts such as organizational learning and intellectual capital, this book is an indispensable reference source for researchers, practitioners, graduate students, and business managers interested in understanding what approaches are necessary to ensure superior organizational performance.

"This Handbook is sure to become a key resource for any researcher or professional looking for the latest and most innovative thinking from around the world on the full range of topics related to training, development, and performance management." Bradford S. Bell, PhD, Cornell University, USA. Editor, Personnel Psychology "I wish I could have accessed this book many years ago. Comprehensive and scholarly, the four sections training, e-learning, personal and professional development and performance management fit well together and address a gap in the literature that has been apparent for some time. The psychological perspective speaks to growing interest in the micro-foundations of strategic success, and the blending together of both formal and informal perspectives on learning in organizations ensures a holistic rather than piecemeal approach to the question of how to build individual knowledge, skills, and competences in organizations. I believe that this book will make a significant impact on its target audience in this critical area." Helen Shipton, Professor of International Human Resource Management, Nottingham Trent University, UK The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Training, Development, and Performance Improvement provides up-to-date, contemporary information for researchers and professionals by reviewing the latest literature and research in the interconnected fields of training, development, and performance appraisal. It brings a psychological perspective to bear on a multidisciplinary field that links to management, human resources, and education. Unique to reference works in this area, it maintains a truly global focus on the field with top international contributors looking at research and practice from around the world, including South America, Europe, Canada, and Australia, as well as the United States and the United Kingdom. The chapters cover a diverse range of important contemporary topics, such as needs analysis, job design, active learning, self-regulation, simulation approaches, 360-degree feedback, and virtual learning environments. Together, they offer researchers and professionals essential information for building a talented organization, a critical and challenging task for organizational success in the twenty-first century.

The interdisciplinary field of the learning sciences encompasses educational psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and anthropology, among other disciplines. The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences is the definitive introduction to this innovative approach to teaching, learning, and educational technology. This dramatically revised second edition incorporates the latest research in the field, includes twenty new chapters on emerging areas of interest, and features contributors who reflect the increasingly international nature of the learning sciences. The authors address the best ways to design educational software, prepare effective teachers, organize classrooms, and use the internet to enhance student learning. They illustrate the importance of creating productive learning environments both inside and outside school, including after-school clubs, libraries, museums, and online learning environments. Accessible and engaging, the Handbook has proven to be an essential resource for graduate students, researchers, teachers, administrators, consultants, educational technology designers, and policy makers on a global scale.

"This book provides insights to better enhance the understanding of technology's widespread intertwinement with human identity within an advancing technological society"--Provided by publisher.

Over the last five years there has been an increasing use of immersive virtual worlds, in particular Second Life, in Higher Education. A Practical Guide to Using Second Life in Higher Education is a pedagogically-informed text that guides staff in the use of Second Life for Higher Education. Although there are currently a growing number of books about Second Life available, much of the focus has been on designing the environment, ways of building and the general ease and use-value of the environment. This book is aimed at those who want to use Second Life for teaching in further and higher education. It provides both an overview and an in-depth stance about aspects of the immersive world for teaching, learning and assessment, as well as suggestions about researching (in) Second Life.