Angel Conde

Automatic Generation of the Domain Module from Electronic Textbooks: Method and Validation

Technology-supported learning systems have proved to be helpful in many learning situations. These systems require an appropriate representation of the knowledge to be learned, the Domain Module. The authoring of the Domain Module is cost and labor intensive, but its development cost might be lightened by profiting from semiautomatic Domain Module authoring techniques and promoting knowledge reuse. DOM-Sortze is a system that uses natural language processing techniques, heuristic reasoning, and ontologies for the semiautomatic construction of the Domain Module from electronic textbooks. To determine how it might help in the Domain Module authoring process, it has been tested with an electronic textbook, and the gathered knowledge has been compared with the Domain Module that instructional designers developed manually. This paper presents DOM-Sortze and describes the experiment carried out.

The use of concept maps in Computer Engineering education to promote meaningful learning, creativity and collaboration

Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge. The fundamentals of concept mapping are in Ausubels learning theory which is based on the assumption that meaningful learning occurs when the new concepts are linked to familiar concepts existing in the learners cognitive structure. Creativity can be seen as a very high level of meaningful learning. Database Principles is a compulsory subject studied in the second year of the Computer Engineering degree at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. The study presented in the paper was designed pursuing a twofold goal: (1) to introduce engineering students the Concept Mapping technique as a way to promote meaningful learning, and (2) to involve engineering students in both a creative and collaborative learning experience using concept maps. Final exam marks showed significant statistical differences among the experimental group and the control group. In addition, participants admitted that the use of the concept mapping technique to fulfill the objectives of this study is applicable to other domains, situations and problems.

Evaluating the automatic extraction of learning objects from electronic textbooks using erauzont

Content reuse is one of the major concerns in the Technology Enhanced Learning community. ErauzOnt is a system that uses Natural Language Processing techniques, heuristic reasoning, and ontologies to generate Learning Objects from textbooks. It has been tested with several textbooks written in the Basque language in order to evaluate the automatic construction of Learning Objects.

litewi: A combined term extraction and entity linking method for eliciting educational ontologies from textbooks

Major efforts have been conducted on ontology learning, that is, semiautomatic processes for the construction of domain ontologies from diverse sources of information. In the past few years, a research trend has focused on the construction of educational ontologies, that is, ontologies to be used for educational purposes. The identification of the terminology is crucial to build ontologies. Term extraction techniques allow the identification of the domain‐related terms from electronic resources. This paper presents LiTeWi, a novel method that combines current unsupervised term extraction approaches for creating educational ontologies for technology supported learning systems from electronic textbooks. LiTeWi uses Wikipedia as an additional information source. Wikipedia contains more than 30 million articles covering the terminology of nearly every domain in 288 languages, which makes it an appropriate generic corpus for term extraction. Furthermore, given that its content is available in several languages, it promotes both domain and language independence. LiTeWi is aimed at being used by teachers, who usually develop their didactic material from textbooks. To evaluate its performance, LiTeWi was tuned up using a textbook on object oriented programming and then tested with two textbooks of different domains—astronomy and molecular biology.

An Intelligent Tutoring System Oriented to the Integration of People with Intellectual Disabilities

The development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) based on mobile platforms offers new perspectives for a better integration of people with intellectual disabilities. The LAGUNTXO System aims to achieve the performance of human tutors. Due to the wide diversity related to a person with disabilities, an intelligent structure that may achieve a convenient tutoring system configuration for each case has been incorporated. With an appropriate design of the structure and architecture of this task handler, it is very easy to operate by stakeholders. An automaton-based mechanism has been performed to technologically adapt the large amount of possibilities related to the interaction between people with disabilities, the task that is going to be made autonomously by users, and the mobile system elements. In this paper, LAGUNTXO architecture, operational ways, heuristic evaluation and a pilot study with final users are presented.

Real-time predictive maintenance for wind turbines using Big Data frameworks

This work presents the evolution of a solution for predictive maintenance to a Big Data environment. The proposed adaptation aims for predicting failures on wind turbines using a data-driven solution deployed in the cloud and which is composed by three main modules. (i) A predictive model generator which generates predictive models for each monitored wind turbine by means of Random Forest algorithm. (ii) A monitoring agent that makes predictions every 10 minutes about failures in wind turbines during the next hour. Finally, (iii) a dashboard where given predictions can be visualized. To implement the solution Apache Spark, Apache Kafka, Apache Mesos and HDFS have been used. Therefore, we have improved the previous work in terms of data process speed, scalability and automation. In addition, we have provided fault-tolerant functionality with a centralized access point from where the status of all the wind turbines of a company localized all over the world can be monitored, reducing O&M costs.

Tutor Project: An Intelligent Tutoring System to Improve Cognitive Disabled People Integration

Nowadays, the integration of people with cognitive disabilities, especially in the work environment in a growing competitive market, is a difficult task. The TUTOR project is addressed to the development and testing of an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). The ITS runs on a handheld device and its aim is to increase the autonomy of people with cognitive disabilities in labour and daily life activities, therefore, improving the social and labour integration of this collective and its quality of live. This paper describes the objectives of this project, the methodology followed, some preliminary achieved results and the future planned activities of this research group.

Automating the authoring of learning material in Computer Engineering education

Due to the impact that Information and Communication Technologies have in the current society in general, and in academic institutions in particular, there is a growing need for effective creation and management of digital content. But content authoring is known to be an effort and time consuming task. Digital contents used inside Technology Supported Learning Systems with learning purposes are often referred to as Didactic Resources, or Learning Objects if they are annotated with metadata. One of the main advantages of Learning Objects is that they can be reused to support learning in different platforms or environments. Along this paper an experiment carried out with ErauzOnt, a system that automatically builds Learning Objects from electronic textbooks using Natural Language Processing techniques, ontologies and heuristic reasoning is presented. ErauzOnt was able to gather definitions, examples and exercises for the topics of the Object Oriented Programming subject - a compulsory subject studied at the first year of the Computer Engineering degree at the University of the Basque Country - using as a starting point a textbook written in English.

Collaborative and Multilingual Approach to Learn Database Topics Using Concept Maps

Authors report on a study using the concept mapping technique in computer engineering education for learning theoretical introductory database topics. In addition, the learning of multilingual technical terminology by means of the collaborative drawing of a concept map is also pursued in this experiment. The main characteristics of a study carried out in the database subject at the University of the Basque Country during the 2011/2012 course are described. This study contributes to the field of concept mapping as these kinds of cognitive tools have proved to be valid to support learning in computer engineering education. It contributes to the field of computer engineering education, providing a technique that can be incorporated with several educational purposes within the discipline. Results reveal the potential that a collaborative concept map editor offers to fulfil the above mentioned objectives.

A Robust Intelligent Tutoring System for the Integration of People with Intellectual Disabilities into Social and Work Environments

The integration of people with disabilities into work and social environments is one of the principle issues in the EU strategy lines, clearly focused into the Seventh Research Frame Program (FP7). Particularly, it is necessary to pay special attention to the integration problem of people with intellectual disabilities. In order to face the problems that people with disabilities find in their integration into work environments in actual competitive market, one of the key issues is the implementation of solutions offered by new technologies by using what experts call “Support Technologies”. The development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) based on mobile platforms offers new perspectives for better integration of people with disabilities. The integration into social and work environments of people with disabilities is a fact nowadays. Tutoring systems are intended for helping this community in their life (Gonzalez et al., 1991). These tools are very helpful; although at the moment do not completely meet their needs. This work presents a robust and intelligent tutoring system that will cover several new aspects, coping with more complex tasks, but doing it in a flexible and useful way. One of the main objectives of this work is incrementing the user autonomy, both in social and work environments. Due to the fact that it there exist many different cases among people with disabilities, we will incorporate an intelligent structure that may achieve an appropriate tutoring system configuration for each case. This implies a personal study and a related profile to each person, made by human tutors or relatives. All these items lead to design a system with a configuration profile easily accessible to the user. This work is included in a new research project focused on the study and control of human factors. Besides, a big effort is made in new research subjects for attending and tutoring people with disabilities. The design of devices for solving the daily problems of these persons is one of the first objectives of this work. Moreover, it is trying to invest in economical supports, grants and human efforts in order to increase their quality of life. Nowadays, it is necessary to solve in an appropriate way the current problems in the integration of people with disabilities into work and social environments that daily are 14