Attention: see below for changed schedule!

Dear colleagues,

we kindly invite contributions to a focused special issue in the International Journal for Technology-Enhanced Learning (IJTEL) on Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments.
All MUPPLErs around the world: please contribute to make this a meeting place for words of excellence about this fascinating new concept!

Thanks for spreading the news,
Fridolin (also on behalf of Marco and Matthias)

Call for articles of the IJTEL for a special issue on
“Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments”

The International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL) seeks original manuscripts for a Special Issue on Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments to appear in 2010.
A change in perspective can be certified in the recent years to technology-enhanced learning research and development: More and more learning applications on the web are putting the learner centre stage, not the organisation. They empower learners with capabilities to customize and even construct their own personal learning environments (PLEs). These PLEs typically consist of distributed web-applications and services that support system-spanning collaborative and individual learning activities in formal as well as informal settings.

Technologically speaking, this shift manifests in a learning web where information is distributed across sites and activities can easily encompass the use of a greater number of pages and services offered through web-based learning applications. Mash-ups, the ‘frankensteining’ of software artefacts and data, have emerged to be the software development approach for these long-tail and perpetual-beta niche markets. Core technologies facilitating this paradigm shift are Ajax, javascript-based widget-collections, and microformats that help to glue together public web APIs in individual applications.
The International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL) dedicates a focused issue on collecting the research on understanding and engineering mash-up personal learning environments.

TOPICS

• Visions: architectures, frameworks, strategies, models
• (Collaborative) authoring tools
• Data interoperability: with e.g. microformats, streaming data, mixed media data
• User interfaces: concepts, metaphors, workflows
• Development methodologies
• Innovative widgets and services: e.g. for instruction, reflection, personal information
• Interoperability standards for e.g. content recombination or PLE configuration
• User studies & evaluation methods: evaluating e.g. performance,
• Usability, specific design features, training methods

IJTEL fosters multidisciplinary discussion and research on technology enhanced learning (TEL) approaches at the individual, organisational, national and global levels. Its key objective is to be the leading scholarly scientific journal for all those interested in, researching and contributing to the technology enhanced learning episteme. For this reason, IJTEL delivers research articles, position papers, surveys and case studies aiming:

• Provide a holistic and multidisciplinary discussion on technology enhanced learning research issues
• Promote international collaboration and exchange of ideas and know how on technology enhanced learning
• Investigate strategies on how technology enhanced learning can promote sustainable development

Papers submitted to this special issue must follow the criteria used by IJTEL and defined by the nature of this special issue, namely by covering the following mandatory items:

• Presenting original research;
• Offering a critical review of the state of the art in the field;
• Providing methodologically sound and innovative technological insights;
• Illustrating the application in real-world cases;
• Performing the evaluation of the proposed ideas.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published or be currently submitted for journal publication elsewhere. As an author, you are responsible for understanding and adhering to our submission guidelines. You can access them at http://www.inderscience.com/mapper.php?id=31.

The journal is now accepting submissions for this special issue through its Online Submissions and Peer-Review System at http://www.inderscience.com/papers, which provides instructions about formatting and length. If you have any questions, please contact submissions@inderscience.com or the guest editors at the addresses listed below. Please include the title of the Journal in your email and give as much detail as possible about your query or problem.

IMPORTANT DATES

• Paper Submission: January 8th, 2010
• Results Notification: March 8th, 2010 (was Feb 8th)
• Revisions: April 8th, 2010 (was March 8th)
• Notification of Final Acceptance: April 21st, 2010 (was March 21st)
• Final versions: May 21st, 2010 (was April 21st)

REVIEWERS

• Abelardo Pardo (University Carlos III de Madrid, Spain)
• Dai Griffith (University of Bolton, UK)
• Denis Gillet (EPFL, Switzerland)
• Effie Law (University of Leicester, United Kingdom)
• Felix Mödritscher (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria)
• Graham Atwell (Pontydysgu, United Kingdom)
• Gytis Cibulskis (Kaunas Technical University, Lithuania)
• Mart Laanpere (Tallinn University, Estonia)
• Martin Wolpers (Fraunhofer FIT, Germany)
• Mohamed Amine Chatti (RWTH Aachen, Germany)
• Ralf Klamma (RWTH Aachen, Germany)
• Nikos Karacapilidis (University of Patras, Greece)
• Scott Wilson (University of Bolton, United Kingdom)
• Stéphane Sire (EPFL, Switzerland)
• Tony Hirst (Open University, UK)
• Ernie Ghiglione (Macquarie University, AU)

The Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) is organising a pannel discussion on “The most needed social innovations of the 21st century” together with the faculty of social sciences at the Vienna University on Monday, 30th of Novermber, 2009, 18:00 - 20:00.

High representatives of organisations dealing with social innovations from various continents will discuss the development, support, diffusion, importance and impact of social innovations. The pannel discussion is connected with public media (print media, TV, Internet, podcast) and is part of a two-day exchange of ideas, opinions and views. The meeting is hosted by the ZSI in Vienna.

The ROLE project is presented in a collection of abstracts. It is a preannouncement of the book: “Pendeln zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis.” (german only) There Sylvana Kroop is discussing Responsive Open Learning Environments in regard to important social innovative developments.

The event is part of the European year of creativity and innovation. For more information on the event see at: www.zsi.at/socialinnovation.

A new article about PLEs has been provided by our ROLE consortium:

Karen Velasco (11/2009): An Introduction to Personal Learning Environments. Making learning personal – using PLEs to enhance learning. Website: Towards Maturity

For more ROLE publications see under: http://www.role-project.eu/publications

There are two calls for proposals set up by the STELLAR Network of Excellence:

THEME TEAMS  - FIRST CALL FOR PROPOSALS
A STELLAR Theme Team is a network of mid-career researchers from different institutions, whose aim is to  explore and analyze collaboratively emerging research topics in the field of TEL. A Team may be a completely new network created around a specific topic of common interest, or composed of researchers who have already worked together on a certain issue (e.g. at a workshop or within a longer project).
The mission of a Theme Team is to share and integrate competences, methodologies and ideas already developed. The Teams are a means to integrate European research units in the field of TEL, but also competences coming from entreprises and institutions not included in the STELLAR network.

INCUBATORS  - FIRST CALL FOR PROPOSALS
STELLAR is launching an Incubator Programme, aimed at supporting promising early career researchers with mobility or “incubation scholarships” to spend some months in another research institution or enterprise with the aim of either fostering the incubation of new ideas/projects, or exploiting new prototypes/services/approaches.

Proposal Submission Deadline: January 15, 2010

Call for applications for the upcoming JTEL Winter School 2010:

Orchestrating Learning - 6 February 2010, Innsbruck

The Winter School brings interdisciplinary doctoral researchers together in order to provide intense research training and to foster cross-domain collaboration. The event will engage participants in high-level courses and workshops with leading scientists. As part of research teams the participants will contribute to an inspiring learning environment. The workshops and lectures organized during the JTEL Winter School focus on theoretical, methodological, and technological issues that are relevant to TEL research. Additionally, the JTEL Winter School provides space for interaction, group work, and informal discussions. Doctoral students will also be expected to present their research for constructive feedback from experts and other participants of the Winter School.

Important Dates
14 December 2009 – Deadline for applications
4 January 2010 – Participants’ information and scholarship grants
1-6 February 2010 – JTEL Winter School in Innsbruck

Further details on the event are available at
http://www.teleurope.eu/pg/groups/43

Online Educa 2009

ROLE will be presented by the stand of IMC , the stand of BILD as well as by the stand of the STELLAR Network of Excellence.

Conference Website:
http://www.online-educa.com

At Campus Innovation 2009 a ROLE stand will be provided by IMC.

Conference Website:
http://www.campus-innovation.de

Some ROLE topics will be presented and discussed at Professional Training Facts 2009:

Track 4: Competence Development with Responsive Open Learning Environments

Transitions are becoming of more importance for professional careers and learning histories, e.g. in changing between companies and between university and company and vice versa. Life-long learning is often self-regulated learning. Therefore, learners need not only an e-portfolio based management of competences but also reliable recommendations and responses for future learning activities, learning materials and learning communities based on different assessment strategies. In the recently started EU large-scale integrating project ROLE partners from industry and academia are researching and developing responsive open learning environments in the face of transition and the ever growing need for competence development.

• Structuring Skills and Competences in the Context of Knowledge Domains, Learning Tools, and Self-Regulated Learning Environments
  Karin Fruhmann, Technische Universität Graz, Austria
• Personal Learning Environment Meets Learning Management System - How Does the Future for Corporate Human Resource Development Look Like?
  Manuel Schmidt, Festo Lernzentrum Saar GmbH, Germany
• Web 2.0 Knowledge Map - RWTH Aachen Testbed
  Bodo von der Heiden, RWTH Aachen, Germany

Organised by: Dr. Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen, Germany

A conference on metadata hosted by the University of Vienna takes place from 12-13 November 2009. The participation is free.

Conference Website:
http://metadata.univie.ac.at