Elvira Popescu

Adaptation provisioning with respect to learning styles in a Web-based educational system: an experimental study

Personalized instruction is seen as a desideratum of todays e-learning systems. The focus of this paper is on those platforms that use learning styles as personalization criterion called learning style-based adaptive educational systems. The paper presents an innovative approach based on an integrative set of learning preferences that alleviates some of the limitations of similar systems. The adaptive methods used as well as their implementation in a dedicated system (WELSA) are presented, together with a thorough evaluation of the approach. The results of the experimental study involving 64 undergraduate students show that accommodating learning styles in WELSA has a beneficial effect on the learning process.

Providing collaborative learning support with social media in an integrated environment

During the last few years, social media technologies have started to be used for collaborative learning. While most of the case studies reported so far involve a single social media tool or several individual, separate tools, in this paper we advocate the use of an integrated social learning environment, which aggregates several Web 2.0 tools (wiki, blog, microblogging tool, social bookmarking tool, media sharing tools). The platform, called eMUSE, occupies a well defined niche in the landscape of Web 2.0-enhanced learning spaces, providing value-added services for both students and teachers: learner tracking functionality, monitoring and visualization features, grading and evaluation support. A comprehensive rationale underlying eMUSE, a description of the platform architecture and functionalities, as well as an experimental validation in a project-based learning context are provided in the paper.

Towards a Unified Learning Style Model in Adaptive Educational Systems

Accommodating learning styles in adaptive educational systems represents an important step towards providing individualized instruction. The paper summarizes the main results reported in the literature, as well as the main criticisms of the current approaches. Thus, most of the adaptive educational systems to date are based on a single learning style model and the diagnosis is done explicitly, by means of a psychological questionnaire. The lack of an integrative, comprehensive learning style model and the questionable validity and reliability of the measuring instruments are two important problems of this approach. In this context, we advocate the use of a unified learning style model, which exhibits the following properties: i) it integrates the most relevant characteristics from several models in the literature; ii) it includes e-learning specific aspects (technology related preferences); iii) it is stored as a set of learning characteristics, not as a stereotyping model. Moreover, the student diagnosis is to be done implicitly, based on analyzing her/his interactions with the system.

Advances in Web-Based Learning ICWL 2012

Popescu, E., Li, Q., Klamma, R., Leung, H., & Specht, M. (Eds.) (2012). Advances in Web-Based Learning ICWL 2012. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference. September, 2-4, 2012, Sinaia, Romania. Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 7558 2012. Springer, Berlin.

Evaluating the Impact of Adaptation to Learning Styles in a Web-Based Educational System

Measuring the effect of providing educational experiences individualized to the learning style of the students is an open research issue. This paper aims at presenting a case study of a dedicated adaptive educational system called WELSA. First, the adaptation logic, methods and techniques employed in WELSA are briefly presented. Next, the validity and effectiveness of the system are assessed by means of an empirical evaluation approach, involving two experiments with 64 undergraduate students. The results obtained (in terms of learner behavior, performance, efficiency and satisfaction) are analyzed and discussed. The overall results of the experimental study indicate a positive effect of adaptation to learning styles on the learning process.

Rules for Learner Modeling and Adaptation Provisioning in an Educational Hypermedia System

This note presents our initial proposal for capturing knowledge required for learner modeling and adaptation provisioning in an educational hypermedia system using a rule-based approach. Rules have been categorized as i) modeling rules - necessary for the identification of the learner style based on observed learning preferences and ii) adaptation rules - necessary for content adaptation based on learning style and/or learning preferences.

Learning Styles and Behavioral Differences in Web-Based Learning Settings

Analyzing the behavior of learners in an educational system is the first step towards an implicit method for learning style diagnosis. To this end we performed an experimental study (reported in this paper) involving 75 students, whose interaction with WELSA educational system was monitored and analyzed. The investigation emphasized statistically significant relations between learning preferences and 30 of the behavioral patterns exhibited by the students. Discussions and interpretations of the obtained results are also provided in the paper.

Adaptive Information Provisioning in an Agent-Based Virtual Organization- Preliminary Considerations

In this note we consider design of a information provisioning subsystem for an agent-based virtual organization. Flexible delivery of information is based on matching of ontologically demarcated resource profiles, work contexts, and domain specific knowledge.

Description and Organization of Instructional Resources in an Adaptive Educational System Focused on Learning Styles

In this note we present an intelligent way of organizing learning material in an adaptive educational hypermedia system. We describe the use of instructional metadata which facilitates both the detection of student learning style and the application of various adaptation techniques. The advantage of our approach is that it is independent of a particular learning style model. Furthermore, the author has to supply only the annotated learning content (the static description) while the adaptation logic (the dynamic description) is provided by the system.

L-wrappers: concepts, properties and construction: A declarative approach to data extraction from web sources

In this paper, we propose a novel class of wrappers (logic wrappers) inspired by the logic prog- ramming paradigm. The developed Logic wrappers (L-wrapper) have declarative semantics, and therefore: (i) their specification is decoupled from their implementation and (ii) they can be generated using inductive logic programming. We also define a convenient way for mapping L-wrappers to XSLT for efficient processing using available XSLT processing engines.