Since the turn of the millennium the national Open Universities in China and India have been integrating online learning as an additional means of course delivery. Over this period both countries have witnessed exponential growth in Internet access and a commensurate need, mandated by government, to increase enrolments in higher education with one focus placed on using networked technologies. Prevailing arguments suggest there is a growing convergence towards a universal model of higher education based on a western world culture. The question of whether online learning may support, or accelerate, such a convergence by hastening the displacement of national ideas and values is the central question addressed in this investigation. Aspects of online learning in the Open University of China (OUC) and the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) are compared: policy, curriculum and students’ experiences and perceptions A comparative case study methodology has been used, incorporating a mixed methods design. Data collection techniques include document analysis, interviews and surveys. The analysis of policy documents, covering the period from 1997 to 2011, and data from interviews with institutional policymakers point to differences in the experience of developing online learning in the two national institutions. The OUC has taken a top down linear approach backed by government oversight, whereas IGNOU has tended to devise policy based on the emerging experiences of instructors and students learning online. A consideration of the content of four courses in each institution, combined with data from interviews with course developers, offers a glimpse of curriculum design for online learning within the larger Open Universities. A rubric is used to quantify the extent of national and foreign content in some of the courses. The findings point to varying degrees of a national representation of knowledge in the presentation of content. The third data set presents findings of a student survey. Results point to general satisfaction with online learning at each Open University, including a positive outlook for future employment as an outcome of learning online. Additional findings indicate that students believe the representation of national knowledge in content may be compromised as the use of online learning grows. Tying these results together, this investigation aims to bring a deeper awareness of the impact of online learning within each Open University. As each institution enrolls approximately three million students, with growth expected, it is valuable for policymakers and curriculum designers to reflect on how national knowledge may be balanced with global learning content in this new and widely used medium. Finally, the fact that the two institutions are similar in infrastructure, enrolments and openness to online learning, results in insights into how each system may learn from the other as it goes forward.

In this thesis, I address the problem and promise of decentralization, in the context of standard-setting for physical systems. I explore how the process of the decentralization of power works in the context of physical information, in three subsets:the relationship between existing standards and the decentralized control of physical information; how hands-on experimentation helps to shed light on the decentralized control of physical information; and how existing Free/Libre Open Source Software culture addresses the decentralized control of physical information.

In this thesis, I address the problem and promise of decentralization, in the context of standard-setting for physical systems. I explore how the process of the decentralization of power works in the context of physical information, in three subsets:the relationship between existing standards and the decentralized control of physical information; how hands-on experimentation helps to shed light on the decentralized control of physical information; and how existing Free/Libre Open Source Software culture addresses the decentralized control of physical information.

Since the turn of the millennium the national Open Universities in China and India have been integrating online learning as an additional means of course delivery. Over this period both countries have witnessed exponential growth in Internet access and a commensurate need, mandated by government, to increase enrolments in higher education with one focus placed on using networked technologies. Prevailing arguments suggest there is a growing convergence towards a universal model of higher education based on a western world culture. The question of whether online learning may support, or accelerate, such a convergence by hastening the displacement of national ideas and values is the central question addressed in this investigation. Aspects of online learning in the Open University of China (OUC) and the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) are compared: policy, curriculum and students’ experiences and perceptions A comparative case study methodology has been used, incorporating a mixed methods design. Data collection techniques include document analysis, interviews and surveys. The analysis of policy documents, covering the period from 1997 to 2011, and data from interviews with institutional policymakers point to differences in the experience of developing online learning in the two national institutions. The OUC has taken a top down linear approach backed by government oversight, whereas IGNOU has tended to devise policy based on the emerging experiences of instructors and students learning online. A consideration of the content of four courses in each institution, combined with data from interviews with course developers, offers a glimpse of curriculum design for online learning within the larger Open Universities. A rubric is used to quantify the extent of national and foreign content in some of the courses. The findings point to varying degrees of a national representation of knowledge in the presentation of content. The third data set presents findings of a student survey. Results point to general satisfaction with online learning at each Open University, including a positive outlook for future employment as an outcome of learning online. Additional findings indicate that students believe the representation of national knowledge in content may be compromised as the use of online learning grows. Tying these results together, this investigation aims to bring a deeper awareness of the impact of online learning within each Open University. As each institution enrolls approximately three million students, with growth expected, it is valuable for policymakers and curriculum designers to reflect on how national knowledge may be balanced with global learning content in this new and widely used medium. Finally, the fact that the two institutions are similar in infrastructure, enrolments and openness to online learning, results in insights into how each system may learn from the other as it goes forward.

In this study, I design an empirical open source software selection process, which reuses some ideas from Commercial Off-the-Shelf selection methods and addresses the characteristics of the open source software. Basically, it consists of three basic steps: identification, screening and evaluation. The identification step is to find all possible alternatives to open source software that can meet the high level requirements. The next step is screening, in which the refined requirements are applied to filter the alternatives. The evaluation step is based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, in which the alternatives are inspected from functional suitability, source code, support strength and popularity. In more detail, under functionality suitability criterion, alternatives to open source software are evaluated in viewing of how much functionality can fit in with the functional user requirements. The source code of the alternatives is evaluated from six criteria: programming language, code size, code comment, code intra-module complexity and code inter-module complexity. The evaluation of support strength depends on the evaluation of field support and support resources. The field support includes commercial support and community support. The community support specifically refers to the direct responses from the community to the support requests. Aside from field support, open source software projects also provide various support-related resources such as, documents, wiki, blog, etc. To determine the popularity of the alternatives, I evaluate them from software use, development participation and web popularity. In the case study, I utilize the process to select the best open source unified modeling language tool from the ten alternatives for the software development process. After the screening phase, the four competitive alternatives, BOUML, ArgoUML, UMLet and Violet, are evaluated from functionality, source code, support strength and popularity criteria. The evaluation result indicates that ArgoUML is the best tool for the requirement. The case study demonstrates the effectiveness of the selection process. Various important attributes of open source software are taken into consideration systematically and the final decision is reached based on comprehensive investigation and analysis. The process provides an operable solution to the open source selection problem in practice.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-197).

Thesis (M.U.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-89).

Thesis (M.L.A.) -- University of Texas at Arlington, 2008.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes special report entitled: Gathering spaces for elders. Includes bibliographical references.