Lifelong learners who select learning activities to attain certain learning goals need to know which are suitable and in which sequence they should be performed. Learners need support in this way-finding process, and we argue that this could be provided by using Personalised Recommender Systems (PRSs). To enable personalisation, collaborative filtering could use information about learners and learning activities, since their alignment contributes to learning efficiency. A model for way-finding presents personalised recommendations in relation to information about learning goals, learning activities and learners. A PRS has been developed according to this model, and recommends to learners the best next learning activities. Both model and system combine social-based (i.e., completion data from other learners) and information-based (i.e., metadata from learner profiles and learning activities) approaches to recommend the best next learning activity to be completed. Keywords: Personalised Recommender Systems; PRS; collaborative filtering; sequencing; learner profile; learning technology specifications; domain model for way-finding; learning technology. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Hummel, H.G.K., van den Berg, B., Berlanga, A.J., Drachsler, H., Janssen, J., Nadolski, R. and Koper, R.  Combining social-based and information-based approaches Biographical notes: All authors work at the Educational Technology Expertise Centre of the Open University of the Netherlands, and are currently involved in projects researching critical facilities for way-finding in learning networks. Hans G.K. Hummel works as an Associate Professor and his main interests are focused on way-finding facilities, learning technology specification and competence-based education. Bert van den Berg works as an Educational Technologist and is involved in the research and development of tools for providing navigational support. Adriana J. Berlanga works as an Assistant Professor with a background in adaptive hypermedia research and is involved in the research and development of models for competence development. Hendrik Drachsler is a PhD student carrying out research into personalised recommendation systems. José Janssen works as an Assistant Professor and is currently carrying out PhD research into a learning path specification. Rob Nadolski works as an Assistant Professor with experience in researching competence-based multimedia and is currently focusing on competence modelling. Rob Koper works as a Full Professor and Director of the technology development programme, focusing on self-organised distributed learning networks for lifelong learning.
In REF , the authors provide for way-finding process among Moodle learning objects using personalized recommender systems (PRSs).
Combining social-based and information-based approaches for personalised recommendation on sequencing learning activities
IJLT
IJLT
Computer Science