Policy, Practice and Praxis: Computer-Aided Decision Support to Enable Policy-Making in Lifelong Learning (original) (raw)
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Epistemology and Ontology: Definitions and Their Relationship to Social Theory
It can be said that social science is described as the scientific study of human societies and the social relationships formed within these societies. Where, an advancement of scientific knowledge, according to Noel Card, “is based on systematic building of one study on top of a foundation of prior studies, the accumulation of which takes our understanding to ever increasing heights” (Card, 2012, p. 3). An aspect of social science is that of meta-theory. Meta-theory, also known as qualitative research synthesis, is illustrated by Card as “a powerful approach to summarizing and comparing results from empirical literature” (Card, 2012, p. 3). Furthermore, meta-theory involves the statistical investigation of the results and outcomes of more than one study. Thus, the ideal that meta-theory, firstly, “involves the results of studies as the unit of analysis, specifically results in the form of effect size” (Card, 2012, p. 5), and secondly, it is the “analysis of results from multiple studies, in which individual studies are the unit of analysis” (Card, 2012, p. 5), shows that it can be discussed as drawing inferences from sample studies, and extends to the ideal that it can also be understood as a form of literature review. From this, it is clear that two aspects are of importance, that of knowledge and that of existence, also termed as epistemology and ontology, where epistemology is the study of knowledge and meaning, and ontology is the study of existence, both in a philosophical sense and non-philosophical sense, where it is the portrayal of what exists within a field. With this in mind, the discussion to follow will critically discuss these two terms, epistemology and ontology, their importance to social research, and some examples of specific issues, problems or arguments within their understanding.
The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, 2012
University of Hawai'i crookes@hawaii.edu word count 3799 reference word count 555
Supporting public decision making in policy deliberations: an ontological approach
Operational Research, 2011
Supporting public decision making in policy deliberations has been a key objective of eParticipation which is an emerging area of eGovernment. EParticipation aims to enhance citizen involvement in public governance activities through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). An innovative approach towards this objective is exploiting the potentials of semantic web technologies centred on conceptual knowledge models in the form of ontologies. Ontologies are generally defined as explicit human and computer shared views on the world of particular domains. In this paper, the potentials and benefits of using ontologies for policy deliberation processes are discussed. Previous work is then extended and synthesised to develop a deliberation ontology. The ontology aims to define the necessary semantics in order to structure and interrelate the stages and various activities of deliberation processes with legal information, participant stakeholders and their associated arguments. The practical implications of the proposed framework are illustrated.
Towards a multidisciplinary foundation of Ontology
2012
EPEKEINA is a sixmonthly double-blind peer-reviewed journal published online by CRF C I R F , a non-pro t cultural association and indipendent research centre founded in Palermo (Italy) as spin-o of the local University. It covers all sorts of research on Ontology including Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Mind, Political Philosophy, and other relevant areas. It tries to provide a platform for scholars worldwide to exchange their latest ndings.
Applied ontology
The aim of the following report is to outline the content of the lectures given during the First IAOA Interdisciplinary Summer School on Ontological Analysis (July 16-20 2012, Trento, Italy). The report emphasizes some of the hot topics or open questions discussed during the sessions, while reflecting a variety of perspectives on the goals of ontological analysis and the importance of interdisciplinarity in dealing with certain problems. Full-paper request: http://iospress.metapress.com/content/h1r5x34112310013/?p=672652b056a64326b179885956e7e33e&pi=3