bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
An ontology‐based architecture for the design of knowledge bases in Intelligent Instructional Systems
Authors: Meisel Helmut , Compatangelo Ernesto
Published: June 2010

This paper describes an architecture for the usage of Instructional Design (ID) knowledge in intelligent instructional systems. In contrast with other architectures, ontologies are used to represent ID knowledge about both what to teach and how to teach. Moreover, set‐theoretic reasoning is used for the provision of inferential services. In particular, the paper shows how set‐theoretic deductions can be applied (i) to support the modelling of ID knowledge bases, (ii) to retrieve suitable teaching methods from them, and (iii) to detect errors in a training design. The intelligent knowledge management environment CONCEPTOOL is used to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed architecture.
An ontological approach to interactive navigation for problem solving oriented learning processes
Authors: Seta Kazuhisa , Tachibana Kei , Fujisawa Ikuyo , Umano Motohide
Published: June 2010

Our research aim is to propose a support model for problem‐solving oriented learning (PSOL) and implement a humancentric system that supports learners and thereby develops their ability. We propose a human‐centric interactive framework for PSOL by employing the research results in the educational psychology field. The characteristic of our research is that our system understands the principle knowledge to support users through human‐computer interactions. It is very important to clarify the principle knowledge of the target application domain and develop the system based on it. We call the principle knowledge as ontology. By embedding ontology into the basis of a system, we can implement a more positive navigation function. In this paper, we analyze the learners’ cognitive activities in PSOL, propose a support model that encourages self‐regulated planning processes, and illustrate an interactive environment for making effective problem‐solving and learning processes based on the ontology.
Using a virtual student model for testing intelligent tutoring systems
Authors: Negoita Mircea Gh. , Pritchard David
Published: June 2010

Education is increasingly using Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), both for modelling instructional and teaching strategies and for enhancing educational programs. The first part of the paper introduces the basic structure of an ITS as well as common problems being experienced within the ITS community. The second part describes WITNeSS ‐ an original hybrid intelligent system using Fuzzy‐Neural‐GA techniques for optimising the presentation of learning material to a student. The original work in this paper is related to the concept of a “virtual student”. This student model, modelled using fuzzy technologies, will be useful for any ITS, providing it with an optimal learning strategy for fitting the ITS itself to the unique needs of each individual student. In the third part, experiments focus on problems developing a “virtual student” model, which simulates, in a rudimentary way, human learning behaviour. Part four finishes with concluding remarks.
Open web‐based learning environments and knowledge forums to support people with special needs
Authors: Hamburg Ileana , Hersh Marion , Gavota Mihai , Lazea Miona
Published: June 2010

Internet technology and, in particular Web‐based services, have the potential to revolutionise approaches to learning. These new forms of learning could provide additional educational opportunities for people with special needs to support their social integration and integration into the knowledge‐based economy. This paper starts with a short presentation on open Web‐based learning environments and knowledge forums followed by a discussion of some recent results on e‐learning and special needs users. Two examples of learning portals for supporting e‐learning forums developed within the European projects, EURO H 2000 and a DAAD German‐Romanian cooperation, are given. Ways of including users with special needs in projects on the design of learning materials and environments are also discussed.
A VR‐based shared web system for distance education
Authors: Shih Timothy K , Chang Ya‐Fung , Hsu Hun‐Hui , Wang Ying‐Hong , Chen Yung‐Hui
Published: June 2010

Distance education has been an important research issue of multimedia computing and communication. Since the instructional activities are implemented on cyberspace, how to control behaviors of students and to increase the degree of communication awareness have been a challenging issue. We propose a system based on the scaffolding theory. Behaviors of students are supervised by an intelligent control system, which is programmed by the instructor under our generic interface. The interface is built based on virtual reality and real‐time communication technologies. Students and instructors have their individual avatars that are controlled by a video game like navigation. Those behaviors that violate virtual campus regulations are detected and interceptive actions are performed. The proposed system is implemented on a Windows system and can be used for general purpose of distance education.
Using empirical data to clarify the meaning of various prescriptions for designing a web‐based course
Authors: Boulet Marie‐Michèle
Published: June 2010

Design prescriptions to create web‐based courses and sites that are dynamic, easy‐to‐use, interactive and data‐driven, emerge from a “how to do it” approach. Unfortunately, the theory behind these methods, prescriptions, procedures or tools, is rarely provided and the important terms, such as “easy‐to‐use”, to which these prescriptions refer are not defined. The empirical results reported here bring lighting on the meaning of several design prescriptions that contain qualitative attributes. This paper aims at clarifying the meaning of several web‐based course design prescriptions found in the literature in the context of two music web‐based courses. Two examples are presented and the results of the students’ assessment regarding several design prescriptions are given. First, what we learned while producing the first release of the web part of an undergraduate music course entitled Teaching and Music Technology is presented. Then, what else we learned when the second release was assessed by students is detailed. The next part concerns what we used while developing the undergraduate music course French‐Canadian folk which gives access to several music files and scores. Again the results of the students’ assessment are presented. The list of the various technologies that must be highly mastered to produce such musical content is given.
A decision support prototype tool for predicting student performance in an ODL environment
Authors: Kotsiantis S B , Pintelas P E
Published: June 2010

Machine Learning algorithms fed with data sets which include information such as attendance data, test scores and other student information can provide tutors with powerful tools for decision‐making. Until now, much of the research has been limited to the relation between single variables and student performance. Combining multiple variables as possible predictors of dropout has generally been overlooked. The aim of this work is to present a high level architecture and a case study for a prototype machine learning tool which can automatically recognize dropout‐prone students in university level distance learning classes. Tracking student progress is a time‐consuming job which can be handled automatically by such a tool. While the tutors will still have an essential role in monitoring and evaluating student progress, the tool can compile the data required for reasonable and efficient monitoring. What is more, the application of the tool is not restricted to predicting drop‐out prone students: it can be also used for the prediction of students’ marks, for the prediction of how many students will submit a written assignment, etc. It can also help tutors explore data and build models for prediction, forecasting and classification. Finally, the underlying architecture is independent of the data set and as such it can be used to develop other similar tools
The effects of spatial layout on relationships between performance, path patterns and mental representation in a hypermedia information search task
Authors: Boechler Patricia M , Dawson Michael R W
Published: June 2010

The purpose of this study is to build on previous research in hypermedia by including an investigation of the relationships between navigation tools, path patterns and mental representations with traditional measures of navigation outcomes. We examined the effects of four different spatial layouts on three facets of hypermedia use, performance, path patterns and mental representation, during an information search task. Typically, such measures are evaluated independently. We have sought to reveal what types of information in a navigation tool might mediate links between these three aspects of hypermedia use. The performance measures indicated that providing certain types of spatial information does not enhance speed, accuracy or economy but does enhance recall of page titles. Reference is then made to an earlier analysis on the dataset of path patterns using Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) which indicated that users’ paths reflected the most prominent type of information provided in the navigation tool. The MDS configurations were then compared to the results of a distance‐like ratings task using correlation and regression methods. Only users given explicit spatial cues in the navigation tool exhibited ratings that reflected the paths they had actually taken. Although spatial information may not impact surface performance measures such as speed and economy, spatial information does play a role in influencing where users go and the development of their mental representations of the material in a hyper document.
Personal Investigator: A therapeutic 3D game for adolecscent psychotherapy
Authors: Coyle David , Matthews Mark , Sharry John , Nisbet Andy , Doherty Gavin
Published: June 2010

Although mental health problems increase markedly during adolescent years, therapists often find it difficult to engage with adolescents. The majority of disturbed adolescents do not receive professional mental health care and of those who do fewer still will fully engage with the therapeutic process (Offer et al. 1991; US Surgeon General 1999). Personal Investigator (PI) is a 3D computer game specifically designed to help adolescents overcome mental health problems such as depression and help them engage more easily with professional mental health care services. PI is an implementation of a new computer mediated model for how therapists and adolescents can engage. The model has its theoretical foundations in play therapy and therapeutic storytelling and applies current research on the educational use of computer gaming and interactive narrative systems to these foundations. Previously demonstrated benefits of computer games and interactive narrative systems in education include increased motivation, increased self‐esteem, improved problem solving and discussion skills and improved storytelling skills (Bruckman 1997; Bers 2001; Robertson 2001; Robertson and Oberlander 2002; Bers et al. 2003; Squire 2003). PI aims to take advantage of these benefits in a mental health care setting. PI incorporates a goal‐oriented, strengths based model of psychotherapy called Solution Focused Therapy (SFT). By engaging adolescents, in a client‐centred way, it aims to build stronger therapeutic relationships between therapists and adolescents. PI is the first game to integrate this established psychotherapy approach into an engaging online 3D game. Results of trials of PI with four adolescents, referred to clinics for issues including anxiety and behaviour problems, attempted suicide, and social skills difficulties, are presented.
More than just ‘XP’: learning social skills in massively multiplayer online games
Authors: Ducheneaut Nicolas , Moore Robert J.
Published: June 2010

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have become complex social worlds. As such, playing these games requires more than accomplishing simple objectives: it is also a process of socialization into a community of gamers. Through our observation of players’ activities we describe how MMORPGs provide opportunities for learning social skills such as: how to meet people; how to manage a small group; how to coordinate and cooperate with people; and how to participate in sociable interaction with them. We show how this social learning is tied to three important types of social interaction that are characteristic of MMORPGs: players’ self‐organization, instrumental coordination, and downtime sociability. We conclude by discussing the societal impacts of our findings and how the features of MMORPGs could be repurposed in environments specifically designed for social learning.
Social characters for computer games
Authors: Tomlinson Bill
Published: June 2010

Many current video games feature virtual worlds inhabited by autonomous 3D animated characters. These characters often fall short in their ability to participate in social interactions with each other or with people. Increasing the social capabilities of game characters could increase the potential of games as a platform for social learning. This article presents advances in the area of social autonomous character design. Specifically, a computational model of social relationship formation is described. This model formed the basis for a game entitled “AlphaWolf” that allows people to play the role of newborn pups in a pack of virtual wolves, helping the pups to find their place in the social order of the pack. This article offers the results from a 32‐subject user study that assessed the social relationship model, showing that it effectively represents the core elements of social relationships in a way that is perceivable by people. Additionally, this article proposes a game that will allow parents, teachers and children to experiment with computational social behavior through social virtual characters. This research contributes to the development of games for social learning by offering a set of viable algorithms for computational characters to form social relationships, and describing a project that could utilize this model to enable children to learn social skills by interacting with game characters.
Designing multiplayer games to facilitate emergent social behaviours online
Authors: Vogiazou Yanna , Eisenstadt Marc
Published: June 2010

This paper discusses an exploratory case study of the design of games that facilitate spontaneous social interaction and group behaviours among distributed individuals, based largely on symbolic presence ‘state’ changes. We present the principles guiding the design of our game environment: presence as a symbolic phenomenon, the importance of good visualization and the potential for spontaneous self‐organization among groups of people. Our game environment, comprising a family of multiplayer ‘bumper‐car’ style games, is described, followed by a discussion of lessons learned from observing users of the environment. Finally, we reconsider and extend our design principles in light of our observations.
A match‐making system for learners and learning objects
Authors: Boley Harold , Bhavsar Virendrakumar C. , Hirtle David , Singh Anurag , Sun Zhongwei , Yang Lu
Published: June 2010

We have proposed and implemented AgentMatcher, an architecture for match‐making in e‐Business applications. It uses arc‐labeled and arc‐weighted trees to match buyers and sellers via our novel similarity algorithm. This paper adapts the architecture for match‐making between learners and learning objects (LOs). It uses the Canadian Learning Object Metadata (CanLOM) repository of the eduSource e‐Learning project. Through AgentMatcher’s new indexing component, known as Learning Object Metadata Generator (LOMGen), metadata is extracted from HTML LOs for use in CanLOM. LOMGen semi‐automatically generates the LO metadata by combining a word frequency count and dictionary lookup. A subset of these metadata terms can be selected from a query interface, which permits adjustment of weights that express user preferences. Web‐based pre‐filtering is then performed over the CanLOM metadata kept in a relational database. Using an XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) translator, the pre‐filtered result is transformed into an XML representation, called Weighted Object‐Oriented (WOO) RuleML (Rule Markup Language). This is compared to the WOO RuleML representation obtained from the query interface by AgentMatcher’s core Similarity Engine. The final result is presented as a ranked LO list with a user‐specified threshold.
Research methods for validating and deriving guidelines for e‐learning online communities
Authors: Abras Chadia , Ozok Ant , Preece Jenny
Published: June 2010

E‐learning is becoming a major component in academia today. Therefore, the success of e‐learning online communities is crucial in order to ensure their permanency and effectiveness. There is a need for formalized guidelines in e‐learning that instruct the designer (course instructor) on how to design, maintain, and manage a course. Some research has been done on the subject, but none proposes formalized guidelines, and none draws the results from the users’ perspectives. The users, students in this case, should be at the heart of the design and their thoughts, wishes, and needs should be implemented in the user‐centered design. In this study, through an iterative testing approach, the researchers formalized and validated a set of design heuristics that instruct an online educator on how to design, manage, deliver, and nurture an e‐Learning online community.
Towards Web Service‐based Educational Systems
Authors: Sampson Demetrios G
Published: June 2010

The need for designing the next generation of web service‐based educational systems with the ability of integrating components from different tools and platforms is now recognised as the major challenge in advanced learning technologies. In this paper, we discuss this issue and we present the conceptual design of such environment, referred to as ASK Learning Service Platform (ASK‐LSP), that can support reusing and repurposing of learning scenarios, activities and content in a consistent manner.
A streaming content distribution network for e‐learning support
Authors: Esteve M. , Molina B. , Palau C. , Fortino G.
Published: June 2010

To date e‐Learning material has usually been accessed and delivered through a central web server. As the number of users, the amount of information, the frequency of accesses and the volume of data increase, together with the introduction of multimedia streaming applications, a decentralized content distribution architecture is necessary. In this paper we propose the adaptation of the well‐known scalable Content Distribution Networks (CDN) schema for media streaming supported e‐Learning using a novel architecture named COMODIN SCDN (COoperative Media On‐Demand on the InterNet ‐ Streaming Content Distribution Network). COMODIN SCDN utilises surrogates as edge content delivery nodes, incorporates a redirection mechanism able to route requesting clients to the closest copy of the content, encompasses distributed content delivery and management mechanisms to improve the speed, reliability, and scalability of user access to prevent flash‐crowds. Preliminary results in testbeds have shown that COMODIN SCDN increases the efficacy of information distribution through intra and inter‐campus area netwoks. This overlay network will provide learners and educators a scalable, balanced and expeditious access to e‐Learning contents.
Collaborative control of media playbacks in SCDNs
Authors: Fortino Giancarlo , Russo Wilma , Palau Carlos E.
Published: June 2010

In this paper we present a CDN‐based system, namely the COMODIN system, which is a media on‐demand platform for synchronous cooperative work which supports an explicitly‐formed cooperative group of distributed users with the following integrated functionalities: request of an archived multimedia session, sharing of its playback, and collaboration through questioning. The server‐side architecture of the COMODIN system is organized into two integrated planes: the Base plane, which consists of a streaming CDN providing media streaming, and the Collaborative plane, which provides the collaborative playback service. At the client‐side, the system centers on a Java‐based application which interfaces the cooperative group of users.
A scalable multimedia streaming scheme with CBR‐transmission of VBR‐encoded videos over the internet
Authors: Kabir H. , Shoja Gholamali C. , Manning Eric G.
Published: June 2010

Streaming audio/video contents over the Internet requires large network bandwidth and timely delivery of media data. A streaming session is generally long and also needs a large I/O bandwidth at the streaming server. A streaming server, however, has limited network and I/O bandwidth. For this reason, a streaming server alone cannot scale a streaming service well. An entire audio/video media file often cannot be cached due to intellectual property right concerns of the content owners, security reasons, and also due to its large size. This makes a streaming service hard to scale using conventional proxy servers. Media file compression using variable‐bit‐rate (VBR) encoding is necessary to get constant quality video playback although it produces traffic bursts. Traffic bursts either waste network bandwidth or cause hiccups in the playback. Large network latency and jitter also cause long start‐up delay and unwanted pauses in the playback, respectively. In this paper, we propose a proxy based constant‐bit‐rate (CBR)‐transmission scheme for VBR‐encoded videos and a scalable streaming scheme that uses a CBRtransmission scheme to stream stored videos over the Internet. Our CBR‐streaming scheme allows a server to transmit a VBRencoded video at a constant bit rate, close to its mean encoding bit rate, and deals with the network latency and jitter issues efficiently in order to provide quick and hiccup free playback without caching an entire media file. Our scalable streaming scheme also allows many clients to share a server stream. We use prefix buffers at the proxy to cache the prefixes of popular videos, to minimize the start‐up delay and to enable near mean bit rate streaming from the server as well as from the proxy. We use smoothing buffers at the proxy not only to eliminate jitter and traffic burst effects but also to enable many clients to share the same server stream. We present simulation results to demonstrate the effectiveness of our streaming scheme.
Driving demand for streaming
Authors: Owen Martin
Published: June 2010

This paper describes the origin and work of an independent research and development facility whose role is to catalyse the development of broadband applications for education. The paper describes how a three pronged approach is helping content developers understand the opportunities and make use of good research and practice in learning to develop the kinds of application that make use of emergent technologies, creative skills of the media industry and of educational thinkers, practitioners and researchers. Media streaming in itself does not make a contribution to education, and owners and developers of such technology need to develop a dialogue with other actors. This paper describes one such actor that works to catalyse and mediate between the many actors that are needed to make successful experiences and provides two concrete examples of activities that are providing a demand for streaming.
E‐learning: vision to reality
Authors: Mainka Christina , Benzies Angela
Published: June 2010

E‐learning offers many exciting opportunities for supporting a wide range of students to learn more effectively, but it has also created significant challenges for academic staff who feel increasingly strained to rethink teaching methodologies. This article seeks to explore the main barriers faced by academics in incorporating technology into their teaching and goes on to offer guidance and practical tips for a more successful and learner‐centred approach informed by the authors’ own e‐learning research, relevant publications and reflective analysis of their own practice. Awareness is also raised regarding survey findings and discussions with academics that confirm that successful implementation of an e‐learning strategy across an institution depends primarily on senior management’s recognition of the wide range of pedagogical, managerial and technological support needs of teaching staff and the workload implications if new student needs are to be met effectively. It is argued, furthermore, that institutions will only be in the position to draw on established benefits of teaching technologies if staff development programmes are redesigned to incorporate emerging technologies and electronic resources and show how these may be mapped on to pedagogical approaches. The paper aims to demonstrate how the lessons learnt have been applied to date and describes the ongoing activities in making the e‐learning vision a reality at Napier University. As such, the work has a predominately UK focus, rather than attempting to cover a wide range of international practice.
Developing organisational ‘off‐the‐shelf’ capacity: Continued implications for tutors who wish to increase their re‐use of electronically delivered time‐based media
Authors: Calverley Gayle
Published: June 2010

Higher inclusion rate of different media types within technology‐supported learning scenarios is becoming more necessary for higher education, as it seeks to attract more technologically‐minded students and still offer effective learning. An ‘off‐the‐shelf’ model is needed, for making third‐party, non‐text‐based, electronic resources available to academic staff who are building courses, but is shown to still be some way off. Ideally this type of model should allow independent, legal use of such resources by academic staff who rely predominantly on standardised forms of organisational services. When achieved, less‐intensive day‐to‐day support should be required per learning scenario developed so that use of different media types becomes more scaleable than at present. This paper specifically concentrates on aspects related to time‐based media (TBM).
Creating accessible educational multimedia through editing automatic speech recognition captioning in real time
Authors: Wald Mike
Published: June 2010

Lectures can be digitally recorded and replayed to provide multimedia revision material for students who attended the class and a substitute learning experience for students unable to attend. Deaf and hard of hearing people can find it difficult to follow speech through hearing alone or to take notes while they are lip‐reading or watching a sign‐language interpreter. Notetakers can only summarise what is being said while qualified sign language interpreters with a good understanding of the relevant higher education subject content are in very scarce supply. Synchronising the speech with text captions can ensure deaf students are not disadvantaged and assist all learners to search for relevant specific parts of the multimedia recording by means of the synchronised text. Real time stenography transcription is not normally available in UK higher education because of the shortage of stenographers wishing to work in universities. Captions are time consuming and expensive to create by hand and while Automatic Speech Recognition can be used to provide real time captioning directly from lecturers’ speech in classrooms it has proved difficult to obtain accuracy comparable to stenography. This paper describes the development of a system that enables editors to correct errors in the captions as they are created by Automatic Speech Recognition.
Learning through interaction: Improving practice with design‐based research
Authors: Voigt Christian , Swatman Paula M.C.
Published: June 2010

This article presents the first stage of a design‐based research project to introduce case‐based learning using existing interactive technologies in a major Australian university. The paper initially outlines the relationship between casebased learning, student interaction and the study of interactions ‐ and includes a review of research into technologies supporting varying types of interaction. We then introduce design‐based research (DBR) as a way of improving student interaction within an undergraduate e‐business course while simultaneously adding practical and theoretical insights to the literature in the field. Applying DBR, we present the learning environment used and analyse the interactions observed. The paper concludes with a summary of our findings concerning instructional means to make online interactions more meaningful and a discussion of future research activities within the project using design‐based research.
Collaborative learning: A connected community for learning and knowledge management
Authors: Rae John , Taylor Gary , Roberts Carole
Published: June 2010

Collaborative Learning in group settings currently occurs across a substantial portion of the UK Higher Education curriculum. This style of learning has many roots including: Enterprise in Higher Education, Action Learning and Action Research, Problem Based Learning, and Practice Based Learning. As such our focus on Collaborative Learning development can be viewed as an evolutionary step. This collaborative and active group learning provides the foundation for what can be collectively called connectivist ‘Learning Communities’. In this setting a primary feature of a ‘Learning Community’ is one that carries a responsibility to promote one another’s learning. It goes further: Senior managers are mature and experienced learners; practitioners that are seeking to link experiential learning with the application of interesting concepts that aid analysis and understanding of real issues. This is collaborative and dynamic demand‐pull learning and not static supply‐push. Should we not aim in HE to combine learning and knowledge management? This paper will outline a developmental collaborative learning approach and describe a supporting software environment, known as the Salford Personal Development Environment (SPDE), that has been developed and implemented to assist in delivering collaborative learning for post graduate and other provision. This is done against a background of much research evidence that group based activity can enhance learning. These findings cover many approaches to group based learning and over a significant period of time. Within this we explore how collaboration, learning, and knowledge management all serve to create a connected community. This paper reports on work‐in‐progress and the features of the environment that are designed to help promote individual and group or community learning that have been influenced by the broad base of research findings in this area.
Participatory design of learning media: Designing educational computer games with and for teenagers
Authors: Danielsson Karin , Wiberg Charlotte
Published: June 2010

This paper reports on how prospective users may be involved in the design of entertaining educational computer games. The paper illustrates an approach, which combines traditional Participatory Design methods in an applicable way for this type of design. Results illuminate the users’ important contribution during game development, especially when intended for a specific target group. Unless prospective members of the target group are consulted it is difficult to foresee opinions of game content, aesthetics and the overall game experience of the users ‐ aspects very much included or at least related to the theoretical concept of intrinsic motivation. Whereas pedagogical experts can contribute with learning content, the users are the ones who can state what is actually fun or not. Users’ participation during the design process enables development of games that are directed to the learners and their expectations. The researchers collaborated with a multimedia design team in development of an educational web‐based computer game,
developed for the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation.
A serious game for traffic accident investigators
Authors: Binsubaih Ahmed , Maddock Steve , Romano Daniela
Published: June 2010

In Dubai, traffic accidents kill one person every 37 hours and injure one person every 3 hours. Novice traffic accident investigators in the Dubai police force are expected to ‘learn by doing’ in this intense environment. Currently, they use no alternative to the real world in order to practice. This paper argues for the use of an alternative learning environment, where the novice investigator can feel safe in exploring different investigative routes without fear for the consequences. The paper describes a game‐based learning environment that has been built using a game engine. The effectiveness of this environment in improving the performance of traffic accident investigators is also presented. Fifty‐six policemen took part in an experiment involving a virtual traffic accident scenario. They were divided into two groups: novices (0 to 2 years experience) and experienced personnel (with more than 2 years experience). The experiment revealed significant performance improvements in both groups, with the improvement reported in novices significantly higher than the one reported in experienced personnel. Both groups showed significant differences in navigational patterns (e.g. distances travelled and time utilization) between the two training sessions.
Decision making in online fantasy sports communities
Authors: Smith Brian , Sharma Priya , Hooper Paula
Published: June 2010

This paper describes the forms of knowledge used by players of fantasy sports, games where players create ideal sports teams and compete to accumulate points based on professional athletes’ statistical performances. Messages from a discussion forum associated with a popular fantasy basketball game were analyzed to understand how players described their decision‐making strategies to their peers. The focus of the research was to understand if players use mathematical concepts such as optimization and statistical analyses when assembling their team or if they base their decisions on personal preferences, beliefs, and biases. The analyses in this paper suggest the latter, that players rely on informal, domain‐specific heuristics that often lead to the creation of competitive teams. These heuristics and other forms of player discourse related to knowledge use are described. The paper also suggests ways that analyses of existing practices might provide a foundation for creating gaming environments that assist the acquisition of more formal reasoning skills.
On the quality assessment of advanced e‐learning services
Authors: Stefani Antonia , Vassiliadis Bill , Xenos Michalis
Published: June 2010

Distance learning has been widely researched the past few years, nevertheless the focus has been more on its technological dimension. Designing, developing and supporting a large scale e‐learning application for Higher Education is still a challenging task in many ways. E‐learning is data‐intensive, user‐driven, and has increasing needs for multiculturalism, efficiency, adaptivity and competiveness. Although the complexity of such systems has increased exponentially, the design process still lacks a systematic quality control procedure. In this work we address the increasing need for new methods that maximize usability, and thus end‐user satisfaction. We analyse the technological, managerial and economic factors that affect the design and deployment of a large e‐learning platform with advanced services and propose a set of new metrics for assessing its quality. The metrics are based on the four external quality characteristics (functionality, usability, efficiency and reliability) of the ISO9126 standard for software systems.
Networked experiments and scientific resource sharing in cooperative knowledge spaces
Authors: Cikic Sabine , Jeschke Sabina , Ludwig Nadine , Sinha Uwe , Thomsen Christian
Published: June 2010

Cooperative knowledge spaces create new potentials for the experimental fields in natural sciences and engineering because they enhance the accessibility of experimental setups through virtual laboratories and remote technology, opening them for collaborative and distributed usage. A concept for extending existing virtual knowledge spaces for the means of the technological disciplines (“ViCToR‐Spaces” ‐ Virtual Cooperation in Teaching and Research for Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Engineering) is presented. The integration of networked virtual laboratories and remote experiments (“NanoLab Approach”), as well as an approach to community‐driven content sharing and content development within virtual knowledge spaces (NanoWiki) are described.
Automatic identification and storage of significant points in a computer‐based presentation
Authors: Dickson Paul , Richards Adrion W. , Hanson Allen
Published: June 2010

We describe an automatic classroom capture system that detects and records significant (stable) points in lectures by sampling and analyzing a sequence of screen capture frames from a PC used for presentations, application demonstrations, etc. The system uses visual inspection techniques to scan the screen capture stream to identify points to store. Unlike systems that only detect and store slide presentation transitions, this system detects and stores significant frames in any style of computer‐based lecture using any program. The system is transparent to the lecturer and requires no software or training. It has been tested extensively on lectures with multiple applications and pen‐based annotations and has successfully identified “significant” frames (frames that represent stable events such as a new slide, bullet, figure, inked comment, drawing, code entry, application entry etc.). The system can analyze over 20000 frames and typically identifies and stores about 100 significant frames within minutes of the end of a lecture. A time stamp for each saved frame is recorded and will in the future be used to compile these frames into a jMANIC multimedia record of the class.
The virtPresenter lecture recording system: Automated production of web lectures with interactive content overviews
Authors: Mertens Robert , Ketterl Markus , Vornberger Oliver
Published: June 2010

Lecture recordings can be a powerful addition to traditional lectures and they can even serve as a main content source in a number of didactic scenarios. If users can quickly locate relevant passages in a recording, the recording combines the ease of search that comes with electronic text based media with the authenticity and wealth of information that is delivered in a live lecture. Locating relevant passages in a time based media such as a recorded lecture is, however, not as easy as searching an electronic text document. This article presents the virtPresenter lecture recording system that tackles navigation in web lectures with a hypermedia navigation concept that is improved with interactive content overviews. Apart from navigation in web lectures the article also addresses didactic scenarios for web lectures and issues related to the workflow of recording lectures.
Supporting speech for annotation and asynchronous discussion of multimedia presentations
Authors: Lauer Tobias , Busl Sandra
Published: June 2010

Collaborative learning with recorded lectures and presentations can be supported by allowing users to anchor notes in the documents and exchange them with other learners. While the traditional modality for annotation and discussion is text, there are a number of reasons in favour of supporting other media and modalities as well. We describe the extension of a lecture‐on‐demand annotation and discussion system that allows learners to use spoken notes. Our main focus is on the development of a suitable user interface that facilitates the retrieval of speech data employing signal‐processing algorithms while at the same time being simple and easy to use.
Familiar problems re‐visited: the cooperative aspects of an e‐learning environment
Authors: Turner Susan , Turner Phil
Published: June 2010

Purpose

This paper sets out to highlight conclusions from computer‐supported cooperative work (CSCW) research, which are relevant to e‐learning environments, in this case, WebCT.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper analyses the CSCW literature and identifies the main findings relating to the use and acceptance of collaborative technologies. These findings are applied to the analysis of 65 free‐form accounts of the use of WebCT obtained from student users in a higher education institution.

Findings

The challenges to cooperative work tools widely demonstrated within the CSCW research community since the early 1990s are alive and well in the context of e‐learning technology more than ten years later. In particular, there is strong evidence of discrepancies in benefits for different stakeholders, the need for a critical mass of users, and problems with lack of fit with social norms.

Research limitations/implications

Conclusions are based on computing students from one institution, but there is no reason to believe that the sample is atypical.

Practical implications

The conclusions identify a need for stakeholder involvement in the introduction of e‐learning environments in the tradition of participative design.

Originality/value

The paper brings well‐established findings from the CSCW community to the e‐learning domain.
Model‐based design methods for adaptive e‐learning environments
Authors: Adonis Anastase , Drira Khalil
Published: June 2010

Purpose

This paper aims to provide a methodological road for the next generation of e‐learning environments.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper considers a survey of recent publications (1995‐2002), which aim to provide practical and theoretical indications and advice, which are coupled with practical experimentations.

Findings

The paper provides road‐mapping elements, indicating the impact on services and systems to be expected by this design approach.

Research limitations/implications

The survey is based on a selection of sources and it is not exhaustive. The methodology experiments that are used for argumentation are based on the authors’ platform.

Practical implications

The paper presents a useful source of knowledge for researchers and advanced students.

Originality/value

This paper identifies a road for advanced e‐learning systems, and can help researchers and those in industry who desire to introduce and understand the design methodological context of advanced e‐learning systems.
Navigational indices and content interlinkage on the fly
Authors: Ziewer Peter , Perst Thomas
Published: June 2010

Lecture recording provides learning material for local and distance education. The TeleTeachingTool uses the very flexible screen recording technique to capture virtually any material displayed during a presentation. With its built‐in annotation system teachers can add freehand notes and emphasize important parts. Unlike other screen recorders, our implementation offers slide‐based navigation, full text search and annotated scripts, which are obtained by automated post‐production. This article presents how automated analysis generates indices for slide‐based navigation on the fly and how to achieve live interlinkage of annotations with slides so that annotations disappear when a slide is changed and are made visible again when returning to that slide later during presentation, although screen recorders generally do not provide an association of annotations with slides.
Vector graphics for web lectures: experiences with Adobe Flash 9 and SVG
Authors: Ketterl Markus , Mertens Robert , Vornberger Oliver
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to is to describe vector graphics for web lectures, focusing on the experiences with Adobe Flash 9 and SVG.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper presents experiences made during the development and everyday use of two versions of the lecture‐recording system virtPresenter. The first of these versions is based on SVG, while the second is based on Adobe Flex2 (Flash 9) technology. The paper points out the advantages vector graphics can bring for web lectures and briefly presents a hypermedia navigation interface for web lectures that is based on SVG. The paper also compares the formats Flash and SVG and concludes with describing changes in workflows for administrators and users that have become possible with Flash.

Findings

Vector graphics are an ideal content format for slide‐based lecture recordings. File sizes can be kept small and graphics can be displayed in superior quality. Information about text and slide objects is stored symbolically, which allows texts to be searched and objects on slides to be used interactively, for example, for navigation purposes. The use of vector graphics for web lectures is, however, a trend that has begun only recently. A major reason for this is that multiple media formats have to be combined in order to replay video and slides.

Originality/value

The paper offers in insight into vector graphics as an ideal content format for slide‐based lecture recordings.
Authoring multimedia learning material using open standards and free software
Authors: González Téllez Alberto
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe the case of synchronized multimedia presentations.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposal is based on SMIL as composition language. Particularly, the paper reuses and customizes the SMIL template used by INRIA on their technical presentations. It also proposes a set of free tools to produce presentation content and design focusing on RealPlayer as delivery client. The integration in this e‐learning platform of multimedia compositions developed following the proposed technique is also presented.

Findings

Technological support to learning and teaching has become widespread due to computers and internet ubiquity. Particularly e‐learning platforms permit the any‐time‐and‐any‐place distribution of interactive multimedia learning materials. There are commercial tools available to author this kind of content, usually based on proprietary formats. This option has some drawbacks like license cost and software company dependency. To use open data standards and free software is an alternative without these inconveniences but available authoring tools are commonly less productive. This shortcoming is certainly important to non‐technical authors and it could be solved by open source collaboration.

Originality/value

The paper presents multimedia learning material using open standards and free software.
E‐learning activity‐based material recommendation system
Authors: Liu Feng‐jung , Shih Bai‐jiun
Published: June 2010

Purpose

Computer based systems have great potential for delivering learning material. However, problems are encountered, such as: difficulty of Learning resource sharing, high redundancy of learning material, and deficiecy of the course brief. In order to solve these problems, this paper aims to propose an automatic inquiring system for learning materials which, utilize the data‐sharing and fast searching properties of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and JAVA Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper describes an application to utilize the techniques of LDAP and JAXB to reduce the load of search engines and the complexity of content parsing. Additionally, through analyzing the logs of learners' learning behaviors, the likely keywords and the association among the learning course contents is ascertained. The integration of metadata of the learning materials in different platforms and maintenance in the LDAP server is specified.

Findings

As a general search engine, learners can search contents by using multiple keywords concurrently. The system also allows learners to query by content creator, topic, content body and keywords to narrow the scope of materials.

Originality/value

Teachers can use this system more effectively in their education process to help them collect, process, digest and analyze information.