Gonzalo Parra

Learning dashboards: an overview and future research opportunities

Abstract In this paper, we present work on learning analytics that aims to support learners and teachers through dashboard applications, ranging from small mobile applications to learnscapes on large public displays. Dashboards typically capture and visualize traces of learning activities, in order to promote awareness, reflection, and sense-making, and to enable learners to define goals and track progress toward these goals. Based on an analysis of our own work and a broad range of similar learning dashboards, we identify HCI issues for this exciting research area.

The Ariadne Infrastructure for Managing and Storing Metadata

Reusing digital resources for learning has been a goal for several decades, driven by potential time savings and quality enhancements. Although the rapid development of Web-based learning has increased opportunities for reuse significantly, managing learning objects and making them accessible still entails many challenges. This article presents and analyzes the standards-based Ariadne infrastructure for managing learning objects in an open and scalable architecture. The architecture supports the integration of learning objects in multiple, distributed repository networks. The authors capture lessons learned in four architectural patterns.

Understanding Engagement with Interactive Public Displays: an Awareness Campaign in the Wild

In this paper, we present the findings from a field study that quantifies the different engagement phases of an interactive public display: from noticing interactivity and the first reaction to it, to actually interacting with the screen and expressing interest in a campaign. For this purpose, we developed an interactive public display for a real-life campaign that aims to increase awareness on cardiac arrests and Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). In our study, we deployed two public displays with interactive prototypes in the biggest railway station of Brussels (Belgium), which resulted in 10,000+ passers-by and more than 1,000 reactions. We conclude that although interactive displays are effective at capturing attention and do provide a high conversion rate from passers-by to users interacting, this does not directly translate into achieving the goal of the display for the campaign as only 0,10% of them reach the final stage (visiting a website).

Evaluating the Use of Open Badges in an Open Learning Environment

This paper reports on our ongoing research around learning analytics. We focus on how learning analytics can be used to increase student motivation and the use of badges as a way to aggregate learning activity being a representation of their goals and progress along the course. The context of this work is an open learning environment, based on wikis, blogs, twitter, an activity stream mash-up and an open badges system. Our evaluation analyses perceived usefulness and usability of the system, as well as the impact on student motivation. Our results indicate that badges are useful to motivate students while activity streams have the potential to activate students.

Bridging repositories to form the mace experience

This paper reports on our experiences in bridging learning repositories on architecture within the MACE system. In order to make access to architectural learning resources simple and easy for students and teachers, we rely heavily on standards. We discuss the concepts behind the MACE system, describe related problems, and how we solve them by employing and modifying standards from the computer science and architecture. By bringing together numerous heterogeneous repositories, combining and relating metadata of their learning resources and incorporating social community support, we enable open access while still respecting organizational and legislative issues of all participating repositories.

Components of a research 2.0 infrastructure

In this paper, we investigate the components of a Research 2.0 infrastructure. We propose building blocks and their concrete implementation to leverage Research 2.0 practice and technologies in our field, including a publication feed format for exchanging publication data, a RESTful API to retrieve publication and Web 2.0 data, and a publisher suit for refining and aggregating data. We illustrate the use of this infrastructure with Research 2.0 application examples ranging from a Mash-Up environment, a mobile and multitouch application, thereby demonstrating the strength of this infrastructure.

A Digital Ecosystem for the Collaborative Production of Open Textbooks: The LATIn Methodology

Access to books in higher education is an issue to be addressed, especially in the context of un-derdeveloped countries, such as those in Latin America. More than just financial issues, cultural aspects and need for adaptation must be considered. The present conceptual paper proposes a methodology framework that would support collaborative open textbook initiatives. This meth-odology intends to be the main guideline for a digital ecosystem for the collaborative production of open textbooks and has the potential to solve standing methodological problems of current ini-tiatives, such as Wikibooks and Connexions. The systems architecture and construction will be guided by six collaborative writing di-mensions: process, roles, timing, con-trolling, granularity, and writing groups. Each dimension will coordinate an as-pect of the collaborative work and is detailed in the methodology proposed in this paper. This paper is divided in the following parts: the first part introduces the sub-ject, being followed by an analysis of related works about collaboration and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work; in this section, some authors, ideas, and methodological aspects of collaborative writing are also discussed. Next, the paper shows the proposal of a Digital Ecosystem for the collaborative creation of open text-books, the six dimensions of this Ecosystem, and its respective descriptions. The work finishes with some conclusions about the proposal and the next steps needed to implement it in the real world.

Quantifying the interaction stages of a public display campaign in the wild

In this paper we present the findings from three exploratory studies in the wild of an interactive public display aiming to increase awareness on cardiac arrest and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). Three different locations (train station, hospital, and university restaurant) were selected in order to understand how context affects the effectiveness of the real-life campaign. For this purpose, we defined and quantified different interaction phases based on the audience funnel and the characteristics of the prototype. Our results confirm that context (location and people) have a direct effect on engagement throughout the interaction phases. A location that clearly relates to the content of a campaign or has an audience that is able and willing to interact will positively influence the outcome of a campaign. In addition, we show that following a model to quantify and compare studies is a feasible and useful approach.

Studying the history of philosophical ideas: supporting research discovery, navigation, and awareness

The use of computational tools in the humanities for science 2.0 practices is steadily increasing. This paper examines current research practices of a group of philosophers studying the history of philosophical concepts. We explain the methodology and workflow of these philosophers and provide an overview of tools they currently use in their research. The case study highlights a number of fundamental challenges facing these researchers, including: (i) accessing known relevant research content or resources; (ii) discovering new research content or data; (iii) working collaboratively rather than individually. We propose a mash-up of search, visualization, and awareness tools addressing these challenges and discuss the design of the mash-up, its implementation, and evaluation with the target users. Through our case study, we demonstrate the benefits of a user-centered design approach, as well as the benefits of the concrete mash-up for historians of philosophy, and, importantly, the limitations of these tools for conducting historical and philosophical research.

What should i read next?: awareness of relevant publications through a community of practice

Due to the dramatic growth in the number of scientific publications, evaluating what is more or less relevant to read (and why) is becoming a more challenging task. This case study presents the design and findings of TiNYARM, a Science 2.0 tool that enables researchers to share and suggest reading activities with their peers. Social Awareness Streams, Personal Information Management and Gamification concepts are applied in order to generate awareness and engage users.