Christina M. Steiner

GRAPPLE: Learning Management Systems Meet Adaptive Learning Environments

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are used in many (educational) institutes to manage the learning process. Adaptive Learning Environments (ALEs) offer support for the learning process through adaptive guidance and perhaps also personalized learning material (content). GRAPPLE offers a new infrastructure that brings both together. This is done through single sign-on, a common User Model Framework and an (asynchronous) event bus that coordinates the communication between the other components. Authors can create structured course material and define the adaptation through a graphical interface, and a flexible and very extensible adaptation engine offers almost any type of presentation and adaptation an author might want. This chapter reports on early experience with the GRAPPLE environment, for teaching and for learning.

User needs for enhanced engagement with cultural heritage collections

This paper presents research carried out in order to elicit user needs for the design and development of a digital library and research platform intended to enhance user engagement with cultural heritage collections. It outlines a range of user constituencies for this digital library. The paper outlines a taxonomy of intended users for this system and describes in detail the characteristics and requirements of these users for the facilitation and enhancement of their engagement with and use of textual and visual cultural artefacts.

Personalising learning through prerequisite structures derived from concept maps

Current developments in Web-based learning are especially focusing on personalising learning by adapting the learning process to the students prior knowledge, learning progress, learning goal, and possibly further characteristics. For creating personalised learning paths and efficiently uncovering the knowledge or competence level of a learner, prerequisite structures on learning objects and assessment problems, or on skills underlying those entities, are extremely useful. Knowledge Space Theory and its competence-based extensions provide a sound mathematical psychological framework that is based upon such prerequisite structures. Concept maps or semantic networks representing domain ontologies offer a valuable source of information for establishing prerequisite structures. This paper outlines approaches on the use of concept maps for deriving prerequisite relations and structures, which can subsequently serve as a basis for implementing personalisation and adaptivity in Web-based learning.

Adult self-regulated learning through linking experience in simulated and real world: a holistic approach

This research considers the application of simulated environments for adult training, and adopts the view that effective adaptive solutions for adults should be underpinned by appropriate adult learning theories. Such environments should offer learning experiences tailored to the way adults learn: self-directed, experienced-based, goal- and relevancy oriented. This puts andragogy and self-regulated learning at the heart of the pedagogical underpinnings of the intelligent augmentation of simulated environments for experiential learning. The paper presents a holistic approach for augmented simulated experiential learning. Based on andragogic principles, we draw generic requirements for augmented simulated environments for adult learning. An extended self-regulated learning model that links experiences in simulated and real world is then presented. A holistic framework for augmenting simulators - SRL-A-LRS - is presented and illustrated in the context of the ImREAL EU project. This points at a radically new approach for augmenting simulated systems for adult experiential learning.

Little Big Difference: Gender Aspects and Gender-Based Adaptation in Educational Games

Computer games are tremendously successful and this is why the potential of using this medium for educational purposes is increasingly recognized and researched. However, as new learning technologies need to be appropriate for all students and ensure equal learning opportunities, it is important to take into account evidences on gender differences in the context of computer games. This paper reviews relevant research results on gender aspects. Aiming for the realization of gender-based adaptation in digital educational games, a model incorporating research evidences on gender aspects is elaborated and implications for adaptation are derived. Adaptation principles and game design are illustrated by means of the 80Days project.

Evaluating a digital humanities research environment: the CULTURA approach

Digital humanities initiatives play an important role in making cultural heritage collections accessible to the global community of researchers and general public for the first time. Further work is needed to provide useful and usable tools to support users in working with those digital contents in virtual environments. The CULTURA project has developed a corpus agnostic research environment integrating innovative services that guide, assist and empower a broad spectrum of users in their interaction with cultural artefacts. This article presents (1) the CULTURA system and services and the two collections that have been used for testing and deploying the digital humanities research environment, and (2) an evaluation methodology and formative evaluation study with apprentice researchers. An evaluation model was developed which has served as a common ground for systematic evaluations of the CULTURA environment with user communities around the two test bed collections. The evaluation method has proven to be suitable for accommodating different evaluation strategies and allows meaningful consolidation of evaluation results. The evaluation outcomes indicate a positive perception of CULTURA. A range of useful suggestions for future improvement has been collected and fed back into the development of the next release of the research environment.

Activity- and taxonomy-based knowledge representation framework

Elaborations of Competence-based Knowledge Space Theory (CbKST) incorporate skills that refer to the conceptual information of the domain as well as to the activities learners are expected to perform in this context. Thus, they are suggested as a formal knowledge representation framework that is able to take into account current activity-oriented pedagogical trends in designing effective Units of Learning (UoL). The broad array of required behaviour to be achieved by learners demands a search for instruments like taxonomies that allow for conceptualising activities, and consequently, skills and learning objectives. It is shown that the availability of such a taxonomy-based framework may be utilised in order to enhance the access and interface functionalities of learning systems. In particular, the selection of proper learning units and the delivery of effective feedback mechanisms on the teaching and learning progress are facilitated.

Non-invasive Assessment and Adaptive Interventions in Learning Games

Educational computer games are presently a hot topic in research and development. The idea of utilizing the motivational potential and the rich virtual worlds of today’s computer games is teasing educators as well as technicians. Fully exploiting the educational potential of computer games requires a strong personalization and adaptation to the individual needs and preferences. In the context of games, unfortunately, it is not (easily) possible to apply conventional methods of educational adaptation; methods like curriculum sequencing or adaptive presentation run the risk of seriously compromising the gaming experience and therefore the intrinsic motivation to play (which is considered being the major strength of educational games). In the present paper we present an approach to non-invasively assess knowledge and motivation and to provide the learner with various types of interventions, strongly embedded in the game. The approach is realized and evaluated in the context of the European research project 80Days.

Adaptive Learning Environments: A Requirements Analysis in Business Settings

The design and development of an adaptive learning system (ALS) should be guided by a thorough analysis of usersâ?? expectations and needs. A requirements analysis has been carried out by means of scenario-based semi-structured interviews in order to investigate the personalization and adaptation preferences of different stakeholder groups in business settings. Results show that an ALS has a decided advantage over a non-adaptive learning system by offering individual treatment of learners. The adaptation of content and learning activities to learner knowledge and learning goal, particularly determined by the job role, is perceived to be most relevant.

Cognitive Structural Modelling of Skills for Technology-Enhanced Learning

This paper suggests the combination of cognitive and structural modelling as a formal framework for intelligent learning systems. It takes up the distinction between declarative (conceptual) and procedural (action) knowledge in the sense of ACT-R. Additionally, prerequisite relations between skills of a domain are captured according to Competence-based Knowledge Space Theory. Benefits, drawbacks, and TEL applications of the outlined modelling approaches are discussed.