In today’s world, connectivity is increasingly taken for granted. Wireless networks, cell towers, and satellites provide ubiquitous connectivity through a number of devices. However, in austere locations constant connectivity cannot be assumed, e.g., due to the remoteness of the area, due to a disaster or combat situation, or due to insecurity or lack of access to available communications. This...

The use of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom is becoming more widespread, as educators begin to recognise their use as effective learning and teaching tools. Web 2.0 facilitates new modes of social interaction that offer the potential to enrich university educational activities. New roles, structures and activities can be enabled, engendering new forms of creativity and increasing the avail...

Proximity learning is a technologically enhanced version of what teacher-scholars have done for centuries in the best Socratic traditions. Proximity learning is not a new concept, so why do we define it anew? We define proximity learning to bring balance to the current debates about the roles of technology in learning, debates that often emphasize distance learning. We hope to bring attention t...

To achieve the vision of eGovernment, organizations across the U.S. federal, state, and local government are challenged to improve efficiency and effectiveness, and to afford citizens the same access to information and services they have come to expect from eCommerce. eGovernment also has the potential to foster participation in governance. To achieve eGovernment objectives, leaders must collab...

Rural women in Bangladesh have limited access to resources and public spheres due to socio-cultural restrictions. Women suffer from severe discrimination, and it is thought this is heightened due to a lack of access to information. Information communication and technology (ICT) is a potential tool that can reach rural women and enrich their knowledge. This paper discusses women‟s empowerment in...

We present a method for access to information in remote databases without any prior form of schema integration. The approach is based on a generalisation of the ideas of universal relation interfaces to other data models. Queries are mapped to a universal data model which has a minimal structure. Remote systems try to interpret the query in the context of their local schemas. To assist in the s...

The complexity of the problems to be addressed in an e-democracy framework and the variety of involved stakeholders, with different backgrounds, views and access to information sources, lead to consider the case in which enegotiation should be performed among subjects who have partial, sometimes incompatible, information and can hardly be gathered to discuss issues altogether, under the supervi...

• Technology obsolescence • Very large quantities of digital information that may be worth preserving for reuse • Heterogeneous and complex digital resources • Lack of scalable methods for preservation • Economic models What is at stake? What is at stake? • Investments in conversion of information to digital form • Preservation of an increasing share of information that is " born-digital " • Ab...

As manufacturers require closer and closer links to geographically more diverse suppliers in order remain competitive, virtual teamworking is beginning to look attractive. However, the full benefits which closer communication are meant to bring require informal and free interaction among team members in a way which communications technology could block. We use case studies of two supply chain t...

Many countries are adopting water policies and legislative instruments for water management in conformance to the agenda 21. According to this agenda, the use and protection of surface water and groundwater are coordinated at a river basin level. The success of river basin management systems relies upon coordinated actions, including provision of and access to information as well as the capabil...