Knowledge Management System for Web 2.0 Technology-Supported Electronic Television Program Guide

Wenchao He      Michael Jefferies Shankai Zhang Han Qin

School of Information System and Technology

Faculty of Informatics, University of Wollongong, Australia

Executive Summary

1    Introduction

1.1    Background

Program guides are designed to provide the users a categorical view of the content that can be viewed within a given day, week, or month. With the expansion of the internet capabilities such as Web 2.0, Electronic Program Guides have been an integral part of TV and Cable broadcasting, providing online and TV set feedback to the user directly.

1.2    Problem Statement

The rapid expansion of television content and channels has made theinformation on TV program guides overloaded. Users are not informed relevantprograms at the right time and they find it difficult to choose between thevast amount of content and channels. The problem is Cable providers andBroadcasters have no Program guide that is expandable in the near future.  Users often have their viewable content limited too a number of large content providers often overlooking some relevantprograms from small content providers.

1.3    Method

The approach that will be taken will be firstly to develop an organisation modelling methodology to contextualise the organisation and problem. This will be done in the CommonKADs framework (Schreiber et al.2000) starting with the OM-1 identifying the problems and opportunities that have arisen, then secondly the OM-2 which analyses variant aspects of the organisation in context. The next step is to break down the business processes in the OM-3 to identify details of critical tasks, while the final OM-4 is to classify knowledge assets in the organisation.

The social analysis will be an integrated approach involving the conclusions drawn from each organisation model of CommonKADs. This section will focus directly on providing social theory to link problem with potentialanswers. Finally, a business feasibility analysis will be conducted using the results from the CommonKADs analysis and social analysis of the TV program guide information overloaded problem.

1.4    Thesis Statement

This report has proposed the solution to be a user profile oriented program guide supported by Web 2.0 technology. The solution has been analysed and derived by the CommonKADs framework and social analysis. The businessfeasibility analysis has demonstrated that the proposed solution is practicable for Cable providers and broadcasting providers, although minor risks have been identified with the proposed solution.

1.5    Outline of the Report

The report will initially discuss the background of the problem where the problems and opportunities of Cable providers and broadcasting provider sand their organisational contexts will be analysed using OM-1 to propose a potential solution.

The second section will include the Organisational Analysis which identifies the organisation structure, processes, people and resources. This will also include the knowledge resources within the organisation and particular cultural and power issues surrounding the organisational environment.

The third part of this report will focus on the task breakdown and knowledge assets. The process or task breakdown will identify critical knowledge components.

The fourth major component of this report is the Business feasibility which will draw together conclusions from the CommonKADs methodology and the social analysis of the issue at hand. This will discuss the proposed changes to organisation structure, including expected organisational benefits and potential risks.

The final component will make recommendations in the form of a proposed solution to the problem defined by the CommonKADs framework. This will recommend the user profile oriented electronic program guides to solve this problem.

2.1.2    Opportunities

The first opportunity is that Cable providers and Broadcasters could receive significantly more users and subscribers by providing more content and programs (such as to equal that of the Internet).

The second perceived opportunity will be that from a users point of view, in which viewers will have significantly more content and programs to choose from without being limited to Cable sponsored channels.

2.2    Organisational Contexts

The purpose of Cable providers and Broadcasting providers is to provide the link between content and viewers so that TV programs can be accessed and viewed on their Television sets. Cable providers refer to organisations that provide availability to several hundreds of channels by either satellite or cable. They do not necessarily produce the content, which is generally done by the content providers.

The key players involved in the Cable providers are the employees, management and technicians.  On an external level are organisations that provide the content which produce the programs and actual content and the broadcast organisations which provide the link between content organisations and the end user (the viewer).

Cable providers or Digital television providers provide numerous channels and links to different content providers in order to receive subscribers – the main source of their revenue and livelihood. Clearly the only strategy is to increase the number of subscribers to their network by increasing their content spread and availability. To do this they must be able to cope with expanding technologies and competition such as that from the Internet. They must also be able to provide content from the smaller productions by advertising their programs to viewers, rather than focusing on the largerorganisations.

2.3    Social Analysis

The TV medium has been predominately a monopolistic industry regardless of country with a small number of large content providers dominating the primetime space. For example, in Australiathe two major cable providers are Foxtel and Optus. They provide a link between content providers and the viewer. Their services are often highly competitive with the duopoly often creating an extremely competitive environment each trying to outdo each other in terms of content, availability and quality.

2.4    Proposed Solution

The proposed solution is to utilise Web 2.0 technology to increase the range of content available to users by removing or eliminating the traditional limited project selection in order to create user oriented profiles for personalised television viewing. This will provide access to a larger number of content providers and channels regardless of their organisational size in order to reduce the hold larger content providers have on cable, satellite and digital services.

2.5    Problem Statement

The clear problem is the fact that the range of viewable and accessible content is rapidly growing to point where digital, cable and satellite providers have to considered options to expand methods to allow their subscribers to access this information especially if it is relevant to their needs and desires. The need for equal advertisement and air time for all providers will also need to be addressed by these providers in order to satisfy the subscribers of their services. Cable, Satellite and digital providers should be capable of delivering content that is suitable and relevant from arange of different services in order to meet these requirements.

3    Organisational Analysis


3.1    Organisation Structure

3.2  Business Processe

The current traditional process of conducting business in cable, satellite and digital television providers are to gather resources from content providers, mostly large and known providers. These programs are transmitted to the user by either cable or satellite facilities at which the local house or place has a receiver (digital set top box or cable receiver)which allows users to access all the channels and content provided by the cable TV provider. At this time, the user chooses between different programs and depending on the relevance to his/her desire and needs to choose the most appropriate to view.

OM-2:  Business Processes

3.3    People Involved

There are several key actors/people involved within this organisation. Since we established that the Cable Providers are the organisation in focus we have actors such as technical staff, support andoperation staff, middle line management and strategic management. Theseinternal actors can be seen in the organisational structure chart in 3.1. There are also external organisations and actors associated with this organisation. Although they are not directly related with the services provided by the cableprovider/s, they do have some interaction. These include competitors, content providers, broadcast providers, media authorities and customers.

OM-2:  People Involved

3.4    Resources Involved

There are several different resources involved in this organisation from gathering content to communicating it with the end user (the viewer). These include video or TV program archives, the methods of transmitting to the user via cable connection, satellite or digital devices andend user devices such as Digital television, set top boxes, satellite dishes orcable receivers. Technical staff requires a detailed amount of knowledge inthese respective areas including installation, operation and maintenance. Operation staff also requires accounting/billing systems and accounts to maintenance the users current status, payments and other details. This could typically be a database.

3.5  Knowledge Resources Involved

Some of the knowledge resources include Program databases, such as program running times, classifications, genre, channels, program descriptions and actors. Another knowledge item would be the user interests which refers to the preferences of the users in terms of the TV programs. This knowledge aspect would often be categorised and easy to assimilate into understandable means. In the same sense we could also understand knowledge such as program dislikes which refers to programs that have never been viewed or accessed by a specific user. This could help to identify the programs that the user may not be interested in. The final knowledge component is the content type which may represent several different mediums or programs. The idea is to understand the many forms of media and content.

3.6  Culture and Power Issues

There are several issues with the organisation that are important to discuss. Cable, Satellite and Digital TV providers are notorious for providing TV programs produced by the ‘big guys’. Most cable organisations have strategic alliances with large production or content providers. Another issue revolves around the censorship of particular content and the moderation of such information. Media authorities play a key role in this aspect, and organisations such as Cable providers must abide by these rules and regulations otherwise serious consequences can arise. Communications in organisations likeCable providers often are rigid and sensitive; as such programs are often linked to broadcasting rights.

3.7    Social Analysis

The frameworks of every organisation are unique and often have different business practices and processes to get tasks done. Cable providers for example are no different. The OM-2 Model identified the variable aspects of the cable provider’s generic model showing the business processes andorganisational structure.

Perhaps traditional organisational focus on business-orientation has been phased out or has no room in the new technological age of the semantic Web2.0. The focus should shift towards a customer oriented style of business, such as gathering feedback and meeting the customer’s needs. The solution to the problem should enable Cable providers to step into the future of business, focusing on meeting the needs of customers and clients by implementing a technological solution to expand their viewing portfolio and choosing to take important information from their most valued asset – the customer.

4    Task and Knowledge Analysis

4.1  Task Break-Down

The worksheet OM-3 depicts the task break-down in the previous present of main business process. The whole business process is generally divided into three parts: Gathering resources, Transmitting process and Users choosing. To finish the whole business process, the tasks must be finished in a sequential order beginning from the providers’ side, going through the middleman transmitters, and finally ending at the users’ side.

Each part differentiates at its knowledge assets involved. Each part differentiates at its knowledge assets involved as they are different role players in the entire business chain without many activities sharing happening. In the initiator’s side, as the origin of the whole supply process which is really decided the meaning and quality of whole TV industry, the speciality evaluation knowledge and the insight of whole market and customer’s demands are more needed to be special in. The second task, from the transmitter’ side, knowledge of technical aspects is given more consideration including devices manipulation and maintain. Last part to provide a product which in here is not completely and well design for every consumer to be use is the aim of the whole process. Users play the key role in the using process, so they are assumed they armed with knowledge of recognizing information and device manipulation.

The high significances are given to tasks of gathering resources and transmitting process considering the important role initiators play and the ensuring of product safety and availability transmitter need to undertake. The choose of TV programs is really upon individual preference and users choosing is the end point of the whole business process also means this part will not influence in others. So the significance of the knowledge assets in the user side is put in a low level.

4.2      Knowledge Components

The OM-4 table gives a description of main knowledge assets involved in the whole TV business process. Due to different department functions and the role department play in the whole business process, different knowledge from a number of different areas is assessed. Knowledge of TV content evaluation and Marketing is so important because they are the preparation of whole business activity and the origin of information overload in TV channels. During the assess process, interaction with consumers was found is the key area those two knowledge assets overlook. In the aspect of user, it is hard to identify all information the providers provide as information is overloaded and the form of presenting information is ineffective.

4.3    Social Analysis

Secondly, the utilising of the Web 2.0 notion emphasizes the change from the form of tacit knowledge personal feeling to explicit knowledge TV programs preference. Two dimensions are indicated for tacit knowledge. One is the technical dimension which often referred to as “know-how” encompassing the kind of informal personal skills or crafts and one is the cognitive dimension which is made of beliefs, ideals, values, schemata, and mental models that are deeply ingrained in us (Nonaka and Konno 1998). On the other side, explicit knowledge point at the way of expressing in words and numbers which are shared in the form of data, scientific formulate specifications, manuals and the like (Nonaka and Konno 1998). In the situation of TV users, most of their tacit knowledge is the cognitive dimension type. The change from personal feeling to TV programs preference benefits in users locating programs and not to cost another time to find something uncertain.

5    Business Feasibility

5.1    New Organisation Structure

The Web 2.0 technology-supported solution has taken users’ perspective into account when providing TV program guide. This will have an impact on the organisational structure. While rethinking and redesigning TV cable providers’ operating processes, we should focus on the organisation’s core competencies in order to achieve dramatic improvements in organisational performance (Lowenthal 1994). With applying the proposed solution, TV cable providers are to enhance their core competencies in the user management area. This includes a technical part as well as non-technical support. In the new organisation structure, two new departments will be created to support the new business processes. One is the Information System Department, in which there are several function units such as user interface design and maintenance, database management, information system administrators, IT infrastructure management, etc. Internally, this department will be technically in charge of the new system to collect, store, and make use of the information about users’ preference and viewing behavior.

The other new department is Customer Relationship Management Department. In the Web 2.0 technology solution context, such department should have three new sub-units, which will be online community moderation, program guide editing and user feedback management. This department will be in charge of initiating online interaction amongst users and between users and the organisation. The interaction can be supported by social networking service based on users’ common interests, discussion board, program rating and commenting. To make use of the information and knowledge generated by the users, it is necessary to reorganise the data for the program guide editing (e.g., an introduction to a show includes a digest of users’ discussion on the actors/actresses who will appear in that show). Furthermore, if users provide the organisation with suggestion or complaints, such information should also be organised and sent to relevant departments within the organisation.

New Organisational Structure

5.2      Expected Benefits for the Organisation

5.2.1 Increase of Revenue

As the digital TV cable providers apply the Web 2.0 technology-supported solution into practice, users’ satisfaction may be increased because they will have a better experience of using the digital TV broadcasting service with personalised guidance. This will lead to the increase of the organisations’ revenue as potential users are more likely to subscribe to the service. The root of the increase of revenue is that the new solution can enhance the intellectual capital of the organisations. Intellectual capital is the intellectual material – knowledge, information, intellectual property, experience – that can be put to create wealth (Stewart 1997). The activities and the behaviours of the users within the Web 2.0 framework keep generating such intellectual material and convey it to the organisations.

An organisation’s intellectual property is indicated by various factors, which include finance, customer, human, process, renewal and development (Kaplan and Norton 1992). Figure 1 is the balanced scorecard by Kaplan and Norton (1992), in which customer perspective is recognised as one of the important components of measuring an organisation’s intellectual capital. If we focus on “entities” instead of “perspectives”, the core value of intellectual capital is from human capital, organisational capital and customer capital (see Figure 2) (Petrash 1996). Thus, it is obvious that digital TV users’ satisfaction and feedback are forming a critical part of the cable providers’ intellectual property. The new solution will be facilitating the transition from customers’ experience into the organisations’ managed knowledge asset. This asset will be ultimately part of the organisations’ intellectual capital which is expected to create tangible benefit from sales.

· Figure 1 The Balanced Scorecard by Kaplan and Noron (1992)

· Figure 2 Intellectual Capital Framework by Petrash (1996)

5.2.2 Improvement of the Organisation’s Image

By applying the Web 2.0 technology-supported solution, the organisations’ public images will be managed and improved. Traditionally, much research into corporate image concluded that corporate image is determined mostly by the organisation per se (e.g., logos, advertisement, business management, etc.) (Dowling 1986; Wreford 1987). However, more and more researchers have found that image is also determined by both environmental and personal factors of the audience member. The combination of all these factors becomes a part of the impression-formation process and produces an overall perceptually-based audience image (Haedrich 1993; Moffitt 1994; Williams and Moffitt 1997).

Social networking activities amongst current and potential customers of the organisations are personal factors that influence the organisations’ image. In the traditional one way communication mode between digital TV program guide and current customers, it is difficult for the organisations to perceive, manage and response to such personal factors. To a large extent, the organisations’ image is at risk as long as the external factors are not controllable. This difficulty is determined by the nature of the knowledge generated during people’s socialisation. Such knowledge is usually about people’s ideas, feelings and experience and it is considered as tacit knowledge (Nonaka and Konno 1998).

However, if the organisations adopt the Web 2.0 technology-supported solution, such communication will be made explicit because customers are encouraged to use specific figures, words and/or choices to convey their preferences, feelings, ideas, and experiences on the mediums managed by the organisations. The organisations then combine the information from the customers into their service and response quickly once they receive negative feedback from the customers (e.g., low rating of a program, complaint on the online forum, etc.) so that the organisations’ image will be protected and improved as the customers will perceive the organisations’ respecting their feedback.

5.3  Risks of the Change

5.3.1   Immaturity of the New Solution

Although Web2.0 is used for EPG, it is still not mature enough for matching exactly the needs to the customer. Due to the high development of the current Internet technology, the organisation and the people can be connected much easier than ever before by network. Even by using the most advanced technology, some information can still not match the customer’s needs. So there must be some balance between richness and reach (Evans and Wurster 1997). In our situation, although the Web 2.0 will be merged with the EPG, no one knows whether this combination can work well or not. In other words, whether the new technology can customize the needs to the customers is still a question. Probably, when a customer search for a particular program, although most relevant information will be listed, some programs still may not appear on the screen. Consequently, the customer may potentially miss some really important programs which relates to his/her demand, but he/she has assumed that the “machine” is correct and does not manually browse the traditional view of TV program guide.

5.3.2   Small Content Providers May Be Still at Risk in the New Solution

Due to the similarities of the program, the small companies’ channels are usually ranking behind the big ones. According to Macdonald (1998), if the piece of information is scarce, the value of that information is just like gold (Macdonald 1998). On the other hand, if the information is very common and nearly every body knows, the value of that information will become poorer and poorer. In our situation, once both the big content provider and the small one provide the same or the similar programs, the EPG must list the big company’s content in front of the small company due to the strength of the big corporation. For most customers, they usually look at the first couple of programs and neglect the rest ones which may still affect the small company’s advertisement revenue. Thus, in order to survive in the competitive market, the small company has to do more brainstorming and try to be innovative and create some unique programs that the big company doesn’t have so that their programs can be the top one. As a result, they can attract more advertisements and their revenue can be guaranteed.

5.3.3   Fake Message Attack

Since small broadcasters can utilize the web to develop the online community, it is possible for the rival to post the fake message to criticize the company’s reputation.  According to Green (2000), in order to survive in today’s competitive world, a company has to find a good competition way to survive. The competition includes the normal competition and abnormal competition which most companies will take advantage in the market (Green 2000). In our situation, some companies may use the abnormal competition approach. As all the comments posted via the online portal could be anonymous and could be with fake identities attached, it is easy for a competitor to text any fake and bad information on the notice board without worrying about being sued by the law. When an audience reads the message, he/she may probably believe it and even transfer it into other forums. Consequently, the company’s reputation will be affected negatively and face the potential threat of losing customers.

6    Recommendations

6.1    Construction of a Two-Way Communication Channel

The existing one-way communication channel between the organisations and the customers stops the organisations from learning the customers’ program view preference, interests, feelings, etc. Such learning need is increasing as the information about programs seems to be overloaded because the digital TV cable providers have to provide the viewers with more relevant information. A two-way communication channel can facilitate the information flow from the viewers to the broadcasters. The interaction between the organisations and the customers helps increase the quality of the service as the presentation of the program guides can be modified according to viewers’ feedback.

6.2    Construction of the Profiles for Users and Programs and the Matching Mechanism

6.3    Business Process Reengineering and Enterprise Architecture Redesign

6.4    Reviewing the Solution

7    Conclusion

This report has used the CommonKADS method and social analysis approaches to identify the problems and opportunities of the electronic TV program guides which have emerged because TV channels and programs keep growing dramatically. The main problems are that the information from the increasing TV channels and programs seems to be overloaded and in the traditional one-way communication mode, it is difficult for TV cable providers to provide the users with the right programs at the right time. On the users’ side, because there are too many choices and they are not familiar with most of the channels and programs, so they only rely on several major channels which leads to smaller content providers’ being left out.

Thus, it is believed that if cable providers solve these problems, they will attract more subscribers. A Web 2.0 technology-supported solution has been proposed to solve the problems. In the proposed solution, profiles of users and programs are used to create personalised TV program guides within an automatic matching mechanism. However, the current organisational structure and business processes do not support the new solution because the responsibilities of the people involved in the current structure and process have nothing to do with the new knowledge management system. Thus, it is necessary for the organisations to redesign the enterprise architecture and reengineer the business process. New departments such as information system management department and customer relationship management department need to be created. Relevant IT infrastructure should be set up. As the new solution being implemented, users’ tacit knowledge will be transferred to explicit knowledge on managed mediums and made available to the organisations. Such explicit knowledge will be used for TV program guide personalisation. As a result, the organisations’ revenue will be increased because the new solution helps them increase their “customer capital”.  On the other hand, the organisations’ image will be improved because the new solution helps them better manage and monitor their users’ social activities where their image is carried. Some risks of the solution have also been addressed. To implement the solution, the organisations should be concerned about the immaturity of the new practice, the at-risk smaller content providers and fake message attack.

Finally, based on the comprehensive analysis, it is recommended that the organisations should construct the two-way communication channels between the organisations and the users,  set up the profile matching mechanism,  complete the business process reengineering and enterprise architecture redesign in time, and review the new solution as it is being implemented.

8   References

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Applying Learning Science Research to the
Design and Use of Educational Technology for
Promoting Learning about Complex Systems

He, Wenchao

CoCo Research Centre

Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, Australia

25 May, 2008

Introduction

A complex system is a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties (behavior among the possible properties) not obvious from the properties of the individual parts (Weaver, 1948). Complex systems exist in various subjects (e.g. biology, physics and society) within education settings and they are believed to be difficult for learners to learn. Many learning scientists have been studying the difficulties involved in understanding concepts within complex systems as emergence and decentralized control and in helping learners grow their understandings of these difficult concepts (Kolodner, 2006). Journal of the Learning Sciences, one of the official journals of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS), published a strand of articles on promoting learning about complex systems in the first volume in 2006. This paper will study the guidelines that three articles from the strand provide for the design and use of educational technology in relation to complex systems, and then identify, discuss, compare, and critically evaluate their methodological approaches, quality and applicability.

Guidelines from the Learning Sciences Community

Jacobson & Wilensky (2006) argue that the field of the learning sciences now has a major opportunity to help address the widening gap between current best understandings and analytical tools in the physical and social sciences and the working knowledge of professionals, policymakers, and citizens. They asserted that the learning sciences have been well positioned to contribute in this area and then they proposed five principles for creating environments and tools to help students learn scientific ideas about complex physical and social systems, which are (pp. 20-24):

(1) Experiencing complex systems phenomena

(2)    Making the complex systems conceptual framework explicit

(3)    Encouraging collaboration, discussion, and reflection

(4)    Constructing theories, models, and experiments

(5)    Learning trajectories for deep understandings and explorations

Different from Jacobson & Wilensky (2006), Lesh (2006) does not view current learning science theories as being sufficient to provide answers to most questions about the nature of the conceptual systems. In contrast, he believes that the most exciting point about learning science investigations of complex systems is precisely that such research is likely to require a variety of significant paradigm shifts beyond current ways of thinking. Furthermore, he believes that these paradigm shifts should have implications for learning and problem solving related to a wide range of constructs and situations where relationships to systemic understandings are far less obvious than in the case of complex systems. To support these claims, he suggests distinguishing among three kinds of complex systems (p. 46):

(1)    “Real life” systems (or simulations of such systems) that occur (or are created) in everyday situations

(2)    Conceptual systems that humans develop to design, model, or make sense of the preceding “real life” systems

(3)    Models that researchers develop to describe and explain students’ modeling abilities

In other words, layers of complexity of complex systems are different. Systems such as double pendulum can be referred to as being “simply complex” to contrast them with the kind of “deeply complex” systems that abound in “real life” systems where the “agents” within the system are often living organisms or ecosystems that are not characterized by simple, linearly combined, or concatenated hardware- or software-based rules. Therefore, to have adequate explanatory power, the design of models of complex systems should be based on at least three assumptions and principles (p. 49):

(1)    Useful models of complex systems’ most important properties cannot be derived from a list of simple functional rules.

(2)    Knowledge about useful models of complex systems tends to be both situated and distributed.

(3)    Useful models of complex systems meaningfully capture and illuminate some properties of the world.

Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo (2006) point out that one of the major issues affecting students’ ability to learn about complex systems is their cognitive, metacognitive, and self-regulatory processes. Understanding and reasoning about complex systems places a huge burden on working memory resources and is often counterintuitive. So they believe that studying the use of metacognitive processes in understanding complex systems is critical to understanding how we can facilitate learning about complex systems, as learners must engage in monitoring multiple activities during such learning—their emerging understanding, the aspects of their learning context and also their conceptual growth.

In addition, though agree with Jacobson and Wilensky’s (2006) claim about the importance of experience with complex systems, Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo (2006) argue that discovery alone is not sufficient and computer-based learning environment should provide students with embedded scaffolds to guide their exploration and experience, but should not provide all students with all students the same scaffolding from embedded scaffolds.

In terms of the use of educational technology, they notice that, although educators have become inundated with computer-based learning environments that may have the potential to facilitate students’ learning about complex systems, unfortunately teachers are not being trained how to support students’ learning with such technology-based environments. It is especially important for teachers to have the skills needed to support learning of complex systems from simulation and modeling software.

Methodological Approaches

Among the three articles, Jacobson & Wilensky (2006) and Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo (2006) discussed issues of methodological approaches regarding the research on the guidelines and principles that they proposed. Both the discussions aim to bridge the gap between the studies on complex systems in multiple disciplines and the learning sciences research through the use of data from complex systems in real world for educational purposes. However, they focused on different aspects of the use and the data.

Jacobson & Wilensky (2006) emphasize the way that we use the data and the validity of the data, and claim that the gap can be bridged by research on the use of conceptual and methodological disciplinary toolkit such as computational modeling of systems of learning and education where validated data from real world have been embedded. Such computational modeling approach allows dramatically enhanced capabilities to investigate complex and dynamical systems and has been widely implemented in scientific practice. Once researchers have demonstrated a valid model for a particular system compared to available data, it is then possible to run “computational experiments” in which what-if scenarios about the behavior of the system may be explored to understand a system under different conditions. And such model can be developed for educational purposes under the design guidelines and principles of educational technology.

Differently, Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo (2006) emphasize the theoretical and empirical base synthesized by studying the data collected as well as the variety of the types and sources of data. They argue that we need to amalgamate diverging theoretical frameworks from multidisciplinary-approach-based research in complex systems and also need to collect multiple data source, such as those from laboratory and classroom experimentation, and use mixed methods to triangulate between qualitative data and quantitative data. They believe that the amalgamated framework and the different types of data are necessary for us to analyze and understand the complexities in learning about complex systems, which may be beneficial for corresponding design and use of educational technology.

It is evident that the two articles are promoting different directions for bridging the gap. While Jacobson & Wilensky (2006) base their exploration on complex systems perspectives and consider how to introduce computation modeling into learning sciences research, Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo (2006) start the research from the complexity of learning per se and promote educational-setting-based studies in relation to the field of complex systems. As Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo (2006) have noticed that the learning sciences is at an early stage of understanding how people think and learn about complex systems, Jacobson & Wilensky’s (2006) methodological approach—from complex systems perspectives to learning sciences—seems relatively more easy and efficient because computational modeling has been somewhat more mature in science practice and it can be immediately applied in educational settings once related guidelines from learning sciences research have been integrated into the process of its design and use.

Quality and Applicability

Though all of the three articles provide educational technology designers and users with the guidelines from different perspectives, they are still conveying the same information from the learning sciences community—it is not easy to design and use educational technology for promoting learning about complex systems, and they acknowledge that further research is needed as many current problems have not been solved. These problems can be sorted into three catalogues—cognition, computational tools, and teachers’ instruction.

For cognition, the three articles have addressed how difficult for students to change the way that they have been used to think, but only they have gone through the process of conceptual change can they better understand complex systems. Jacobson & Wilensky (2006) encourage further research about how to provide students with opportunities to experience complex systems and how to make complex systems conceptual framework explicit, which indicates that they intend to solve the problem out of the learners. Lesh (2006) criticizes the mechanistic information processing metaphors and claims that educational technology design should not reduce complex systems into a list of simple functional rules but does not claim what should be done to solve the problem. Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo (2006), focusing the cognitive challenge per se, suggest studying the use of metacognitive processes in understanding complex systems, which is critical to understand how to facilitate learning about complex systems.

As for computational tools, all of the three articles agree that we should use it to assist the learning about complex systems, but what the authors are worrying about is that computational tools may not provide students with the true representation of complex systems in real world and this may lead to misunderstanding and/or difficulty of understanding of real complex systems. Jacobson & Wilensky (2006), on the one hand, suggest introducing computational modeling approach from science practice domain to educational settings, and on the other hand turn the research focus to explore students’ learning during constructing and revising their own models. These two approaches can avoid the embarrassment in pursuing “real complex systems” in the educational technology context and are also much applicable. Lesh (2006) suggests that we differentiate three kinds of models of different degrees of complexity. Knowledge about the “simply complex” ones may be well distributed by computational tools while the “deeply complex” ones may not. However, the assumptions and principles that he proposes about useful models of complex systems tend to be hardly in relation to the solution of the “reality” issue of computational modeling. Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo’s (2006) solution is similar to Jacobson & Wilensky’s (2006) avoiding the embarrassment. But their focus is on the design of computational tools’ content and functions. They argue that computational tools should provide students with different kinds of embedded scaffolds to support their various learning needs. Nevertheless, they are still not sure how to realize the claim and then they argue that more research is necessary to understand when, how, and why to scaffold learning about complex systems in the context of computer-based learning environment.

As for teachers’ instruction, all of the three articles have discussed the challenge for teachers to teach about complex systems, especially to teach those “non-everyday” or impossible-to-directly-experience phenomena. Jacobson & Wilensky (2006) claim that teachers should organise collaboration, discussion and reflection in learning environments in which students come to experience and to construct their understandings about complex systems context. In addition, Jacobson & Wilensky (2006) also encourage investigating whether the complex-systems-knowledge-and-methodologies integrated curriculum fosters learning trajectories for deep understanding and explorations that students can apply not only in the domain of that curriculum but also other areas. But they have not provided implementation details though such claim may be still applicable but difficult for many teachers. Both Lesh (2006) and Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo (2006) focus on teachers’ preparation before class rather than the instructional activities in class and the investigation after class. While Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo (2006) still emphasize preparing teachers to be skillful of supporting learning about complex systems in class, Lesh (2006) identifies the importance for teachers to model students’ modeling abilities which may result in teachers’ deep understanding of how students’ learn about complex systems. And he also argues that researchers should help develop useful models to describe and explain students’ modeling abilities under three assumptions and principles that he proposed. Among the three articles, Lesh’s (2006) solution tends to be the most radical. Once the work of modeling students’ modeling abilities has been done by further research, it would be much easier for teachers to process their teaching about complex systems. Therefore, though three articles’ claims about the teachers’ instruction issue have not been followed by detailed guidelines for the application, those proposed by Lesh (2006) are relatively more reasonable comparing to the others.

There are strengths and weaknesses in the three articles regarding to solving the problems in relation to cognition, computational tools and teachers’ instruction. While Hmelo-Silver & Azevedo’s (2006) and Jacobson & Wilensky’s (2006) solutions are respectively the most applicable and of highest quality in terms of dealing with the issues about cognition and computational tools, the applicability of Lesh’s (2006) suggestion for teachers’ instruction issue still need to be examined in the future, but it is probably the best way to prepare teachers for the teaching about complex systems.

Conclusion

This paper has summarized the guidelines that three articles from the Complex Systems Strand of Journal of the Learning Sciences provide for the design and use of educational technologies for promoting learning about complex systems, and discuss, compare and evaluate their methodological issues, quality and applicability. All of three articles provide us with valuable discussion about technology-based learning about complex systems, but their emphases and scopes of the applicability are different. Therefore, we should apply the most appropriate guidelines for the corresponding issues—bridging the gap between complex systems research and learning sciences research, students’ cognition, computational tools and teachers’ instruction when we design and use educational technology for promoting learning about complex system.

References

Hmelo-Silver, C. E., & Azevedo, R. (2006). Understanding Complex Systems: Some Core Challenges. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15(1), 53-61.

Jacobson, M. J., & Wilensky, U. (2006). Complex Systems in Education: Scientific and Educational Importance and Implications for the Learning Sciences. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15(1), 11-34.

Kolodner, J. L. (2006). A Note From the Editor. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15(1), 1-2.

Lesh, R. (2006). Modeling Students Modeling Abilities: The Teaching and Learning of Complex Systems in Education. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15(1), 45-52.

Weaver, W. (1948). Science and Complexity. American Scientist, 36, 536.