ITAFFE'10

Tutorial: “Learning resources, repositories and portals for agricultural educational content: a hands-on tutorial”

Overview

The proposed tutorial will present the participants with a repository tool that is used to annotate learning resources with metadata. After familiarizing the participants with the tool, a hands-on exercise will ask them to provide metadata for a digital resource of their choice. Finally, an online portal will be used, to demonstrate the searching functionalities available in thematic educational portals and familiarize the users with the process of retrieving learning resources online.

Scope

This tutorial is planned as a half-day event (~4 hours), divided into three (3) parts, with two (2) sessions per part, adding to a total of six (6) sessions. More specifically, the tutorial opens with an introductory presentation to the process of retrieving educational content through search engines over the World Wide Web, and continues with a crash course on metadata concepts and theory. The second part deals with e-Portfolios, showcasing a specific tool on which a hands-on session is organized. The third part presents an educational portal and attempts a hands-on session on retrieving learning resources with the use of simple and advanced searching functionalities.

Intended Audience

The proposed tutorial addresses all stakeholders of the educational sector, ranging from trainers, to tutors and teachers, despite the application domain in which they specialize. The subjects of metadata, digital learning resources, e-Portfolios and educational portals will be of interest to all stakeholders of the educational domain. The application field of the specific tools to be demonstrated during the tutorial may also be of interest to professionals of other domains, such as organic agriculture, ecology and life sciences in general.

Objective

The objective of this half-day tutorial is to familiarize the participants with the use of e-Portfolios and educational portals in order to store, share, search and retrieve digital learning resources on their topics of interest. Despite the specific example that will be showcased during the tutorial, the main outcomes from this event are expected to cover a broader range of disciplines, as they are domain-independent. The participants are expected to gain a valuable insight to metadata creation, sharing of digital resources and searching through educational content in different ways than the traditional search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc.

Outline of Tutorial

Tutorial Part	Subject	Duration (min)
Introduction	Welcoming, Session timing, Setting up laptops	15
Session 1	Searching for educational content in online sources. The case of well known search engines	20
Session 2	Metadata for learning resources: An introduction to concepts and theories	20
Break	Short Coffee	15
Session 3	Presentation of an e-Portfolio tool for annotating resources with metadata	20
Session 4	Hands on session: Creating e-portfolios for organizing and annotating learning resources	60
Break	Short Coffee	30
Session 5	Using online portals to retrieve learning resources: The case of Organic.Edunet	20
Session 6	Hands on session: Using Organic.Edunet to retrieve content-specific educational resources	30
	Total Duration (min)	230

Prerequisite

All participants must have a laptop with them, with Mozilla Firefox browser installed.

Presenters and brief biographical information

Dr. Nikos Manouselis

Mr. Manouselis is working for the Greek Research & Technology Network (GRNET S.A.). He has a diploma in Electronics & Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Crete, Greece (2000). He has also a Master in Operational Research from the Dept. of Production & Management Engineering (2002), as well as, a Master in Electronics & Computer Engineering from the Dept. of Electronics & Computers Engineering (2003), both from the Technical University of Crete, Greece.

In 2008, he has completed a PhD thesis on the application of metadata technologies to support social information retrieval in the domain of agriculture, at the Informatics Laboratory of AUA.

Nikos Palavitsinis (MSc)

Mr.Palavitsinis is currently working for the Greek Research & Technoogy Network (GRNET S.A.). He has graduated from the Department of Management Science & Technology (major in Information Systems and Electronic Commerce) of the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), Greece.

He holds a Master''s degree in "New Technologies in Agriculture" of the Science Dept. of the Agricultural University of Athens, in the direction of Geo-informatics and Geographical Information Systems. He is currently a PhD candidate in the University of Alcalá in Spain.

Greek Research & Technology Network (GRNET) S.A.

56, Messogion Av.
115 27 Athens, Greece
tel: +30 210 7474 267
fax: +30 210 7474 490
http://www.grnet.gr
emails: palavitsinis@grnet.gr ; nikosm@grnet.gr

Tutorial: ICT-AGRI Era-Net Project calls, topic selection and application procedures

Overview

The proposed tutorial will present definition of Era-Net project, objectives of ICT-AGRI Era-Net, the results of mapping studies completed up to now and the tools (web-page, database, workshop, congress) to achieve the goal. Mapping studies of researches in Turkey and in other countries will be discussed. Detailed information will be given about calls and application procedures.

Scope

This tutorial is planned as 2-3 hours event, divided into two (2) parts. First part will cover introduction to ICT-AGRI Era-Net project, objectives, work plan and timetable of project, calls, application and funding procedures. Related web-pages for application and documents will be presented and questions will be answered about application to the calls. Newsletters of ICT-AGRI will be distributed in this part. Second part deals with the discussion about the position and priorities of Turkey in ICT-AGRI area. In that part, handout about previous international workshop in Ghent and SCAR report will be presented and distributed.

Intended Audience

All researchers-related academics, private sector, SME, public institutions- can be invited to the workshop. For the first part, especially the researchers who would like to propose project to the calls will be kindly invited. For the second part, all researchers who has done project on ICT-AGRI area and have a broad view about the situation of ICT-AGRI in Turkey and Europe will be kindly invited.

Objective

There are two objectives of this workshop. First one is to make participants familiar with Era-Net projects, ICT-AGRI and application procedures fro the calls. Second one is to disseminate information obtained in the network up to now and to discuss where Turkey on ICT-AGRI area is and what our priorities, overlapping sides of them with Europe are.

Outline of Tutorial

Tutorial Part	Subject	Duration (min)
Introduction	Welcoming, Brief info about Era-Nets and ICT-AGRI	10
Session 1	Presentation about timetable, call and evaluation procedure of ICT-AGRI	15
Session 2	Discussion about application to calls	25
Break	Short Coffee	15
Session 3	Results of mapping studies in ICT-AGRI up to now	15
Session 4	Presentation about topic selection for the calls, info obtained up to now	15
Session 4	Making list of topics	10
Break	Short Coffee	15
Session 6	Discussion and ranking of ICT-AGRI topics important for Turkey and Europe	30
	Total Duration (min)	150

Prerequisite

A computer and projector are required for presentation.

Presenters and brief biographical information

Meltem SOYDAN KARABACAK

Mrs. Meltem S. KARABACAK has BS and MS degree in the Department of Food Engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU) in 2003 and 2006, respectively. She is still attending Ph.D studies in the same University. She had been research assistant in Food Engineering Department, METU for 2 years. At the moment, she has been working as a Scientific Programmes Assistant Expert for Agriculture, Forestry & Veterinary Research Grant Committee in The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) since 2006. She is taking role in evaluating and monitoring the national and international projects funded by TUBITAK in food and agriculture related reseach areas.

TÜBİTAK-TOVAG

Tunus cad. No: 80

06100 Kavaklıdere ANKARA
tel: +90 312 468 53 00/1172

fax: +90 312 467 70 99
http://www.tubitak.gov.tr
email: meltem.soydan@tubitak.gov.tr

Overview

The proposed tutorial will present the participants with a short history of engineering design and different engineering design methods. Participants will be familiarized with methods of sustainable engineering design and its positive and negative aspects. The next part of tutorial will be focused on engineering design in specific conditions (third world countries, tropical and subtropical countries, European countries etc.). Last but not least part of presentation will introduce the modern systems of engineering design with aid of 3D computer software. The methods for solving kinematics, dynamics and design of machine details will be integral parts of this presentation.

Scope

This tutorial is planned as a half-day event, divided into fourth parts: 1. the history and the methods of engineering, 2. sustainable engineering design and special conditions of engineering design, 3. computer aided design with aid of software Autodesk Inventor, 4. computer design of machine details and computer solving kinematics and dynamics of mechanisms.

Intended Audience

The proposed tutorial addresses all stakeholders of the educational sector, ranging from trainers, to tutors and teachers, despite the application domain in which they specialize. This tutorial is also aimed at students of all levels of study such as bachelor, master and doctor. This tutorial is set up not only for designers but for all who are involved in engineering practice, such as operating engineers, quality managers, manufacturers etc.

Objective

The objective of this half-day tutorial is to familiarize the participants with the different engineering design methods for different conditions and requirements and to introduce the new computer methods for designing and solving engineering problems with aid of the Autodesk Inventor professional.

Outline of Tutorial

Tutorial part	Subject	Duration (min)
Introduction	Welcoming and foreword	15
Session 1	History and the methods of engineering design	45
Break	Short Coffee	15
Session 2	Sustainable engineering design	30
Session 3	Engineering design in specific conditions	30
Break	Short Coffee	15
Session 4	CAD – Autodesk Inventor	60
Break	Short Coffee	15
Session 5	Design of machine details and kinematics and dynamics of mechanisms	60
	Total duration	285

Prerequisite

There are no special requirements.

Presenters and brief biographical information

assoc. prof. Ing. David HERAK, Ph.D.
Dr. David Herak is associated professor at Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Czech Republic, Faculty of Engineering, Department of mechanical engineering. He holds master degree (Ing.) in “Road transportation and city traffic” (2001), doctor degree (Ph.D.) in “Technology and mechanization in agriculture“ (2005) and associated professor degree in „Energetic“ (2009) from Czech University of Life Science Prague.

His scientific work is focused on the designing of agriculture machines at special conditions of tropical and subtropical areas. The general topics of his research are biofuel production from Indonesian oil bearings crops, mechanical properties of oil bearing crops under compression loading and engineering design of oil screw pressers. Five years ago he established education and consultation center at Indonesian region Tapanuli Utara. He carried out his research and worked as assistant professor at Indonesian university Unita for two years. At present time he is member of few international projects and national professional bodies dealing with sustainable development.

Department of mechanical engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Kamycka 129, Praha 6, Prague, Czech Republic, 16521
email: herak@tf.czu.cz
tel: 00420 224 383 181
http://www.czu.cz/en/

Overview

The proposed tutorial will introduce the concept of object-oriented data normalization on the conceptual level and the Daskalos data modeling tool. The participants will be given a chance to try the object normalization approach on an example using the said tool and their results will be reviewed and commented by the lecturers.

Scope

The tutorial is planned as a 4 hour event divided into three parts; each part consisting of two sessions. The first part will introduce the concept of object-oriented data normalization and the software tool that will be used in the practice session. In the second part the participants will be divided into working groups and will practice the method on an example of their choice. The results of each group will be evaluated and commented by the lecturers in the third part.

Intended Audience

The proposed tutorial is intended for analysts, programmers or database users interested in the area of object programming, data modeling or database design of information systems for agriculture or agriculture-related industry or social life.
In these specific conditions, it is reasonable to assume that the importance of object databases will grow in the near future, because there are now many applications, where object database shows practically its advantages. Large amount of complex data structures and their variability during system operation is the common attribute of these applications, which cause same problems to relational databases. (In these systems, for example, we need to write down the queries over sets containing elements of various types. At the same time we expect that while adding of a new query it will not overwrite the already executed queries.) These systems are characteristic for information systems containing ecological information, agricultural information, historiographical information as well and decision support.

Objective

The objective of the proposed tutorial is to introduce the concept of object-oriented data normalization on the conceptual level and to familiarize the participants with the data modeling tool capable of data manipulation and modeling by example approach. The participants are expected to gain a basic knowledge of the object-oriented data normalization that could prove to be useful in their future work.

Outline of Tutorial

Tutorial part	Subject	Duration
Introduction	welcome speech, software installation	15 min
Method	method presentation, prepared examples	60 min
Break		15 min
Groups	formation of the working groups	15 min
Group projects	independent group work	60 min
Break		15 min
Presentation	result presentation and discussion	45 min
Conclusion	final comments, evaluation	15 min

Total Duration

4 hours

Prerequisite

All participants must have their own laptop with MS Windows XP or higher and any web browser.

Presenters and brief biographical information

Vojtech Merunka is an Associate Professor at the Dept. of Information Engineering, Faculty of Economics and Management, the Czech University of Life Sciences and at the Dept. of Software Engineering in Economy, Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, the Czech Technical University in Prague. He is a founding member of SIGMAS (Special Interest Group on Modeling and Simulation) at the Association for Information Systems (AIS). His main research interests are software engineering methods based on the object-oriented technology, business and requirement modeling issues and data modeling. He received his MSc. degree in computer science at Czech Technical University in Prague and his PhD degree in data modeling at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. He has practical experience as a former senior consultant in Deloitte the international consulting company. He visited several international universities, for example Loughborough University in GB, Lehigh University in PA, USA, Agriculture University in Athens, GR, Thessalian University in Volos, GR, and Agriculture University in Plovdiv, BG.

Baris Unal and Jiri Brozek are researchers and PhD students at the the Dept. of Information Engineering, Faculty of Economics and Management, the Czech University of Life Sciences and at the Dept. of Software Engineering in Economy, Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, the Czech Technical University in Prague. They have long-term practical experience with information systems development using technologies related to this tutorial.