Ioannis Apostolakis

The Present and Future of Standards for E-Learning Technologies

This paper studies the e-learning technologies from the standardization aspect with a glimpse on future changes. Our aim is to thoroughly review the existing standards, the e-Learning process workflow and the market needs and trends and indicate the best path for achieving a global standard for e-learning activities. The generic model of e-learning is presented without emphasis on specific software and hardware solutions. We focus on the major necessities like reusability or interoperability of content and technologies and revise the current standards regarding these two aspects. The most popular infrastructure models are presented in details and the related committees and organizations involved in the standardization process are referenced. As an epilogue to this presentation we provide our insights for a global standard, which will cover all aspects of elearning and will be supported by all related organizations, vendors, institutions and individual educators. We illustrate the steps for the successful configuration and deployment of a globally accepted standard and display the merits of this approach.

Medical Informatics in the Web 2.0 Era

The main role of medical and healthcare informatics is the manipulation of medical information and the dissemination of knowledge. The advent of the Web increased the pervasiveness of medical information and attracted the interest of both practitioners and patients. Web 2.0 in its turn brings people together in a more dynamic, interactive space. With new services, applications and devices, it promises to enrich our web experience, and to establish an environment where virtual medical communities may flourish away from private interests and financial expectations. This article performs a bird’s eye view of Web 2.0 novelties, portrays the structure of a medical community and describes how medical information can be exploited in favor of the community. It discusses the merits and necessities emanating from various approaches and tools and gives emphasis on the intelligent information management inside the medical community.

A framework for monitoring the unsupervised educational process and adapting the content and activities to students’ needs

The growth of internet and the evolution of supporting infrastructures motivated universities and other educational institutions to adopt new teaching methods. These unsupervised methods are focused on the dissemination of the educational material and the evaluation of the users through tests and activities. The user behavior is not monitored and the performance of users cannot be reasoned in most cases. We strongly believe that the monitoring and analysis of the users’ behavior in a distance course may help on improving the course plan and the quality of the reading material. In this direction we define the framework for an unsupervised educational process that combines reading material and examinations and monitors the user performance throughout the educational process. We detail on how this framework can be implemented using web technologies, thus creating a web-based educational application. We additionally define the methodology and tools that can be employed for monitoring and processing users’ data.

A framework for the quality assurance of blended e-learning communities

E-learning enables learners to decide what to learn, when, how and how fast. In the blended e-learning paradigm, knowledge is delivered using a combination of online and traditional distant education practices. The purpose of this paper is to propose a set of criteria for the evaluation of the educational process in blended e-learning communities. The systematic surveying and evaluation of the various parameters that affect the educational outcome is the primary aim of the quality assurance process. Existing evaluation methods provide general guidelines, which fail to cover the traditional distant education procedures (e.g. educational material, sporadic face-to-face meetings) that accompany e-learning activities. The key reason for the success of a blended e-learning approach is the balance between computer based and face-to-face interactions and the harmonic merge of the two. First, we review the current quality evaluation models for education and focus on the criteria that apply to blended e-learning approaches. Then, we discuss the issues arising from the combination of the two alternatives and propose solutions for improving the quality of the whole process.

Certification and Security in Health-Related Web Applications: Concepts and Solutions

Health-related Web applications have provided advanced services, such as telemedicine, to patients and doctors. However, with the creation of these applications has come the need to record, process and store medical information by following standard and lawful procedures, to protect medical data from unauthorized access, and to ensure continuity and constant availability of healthcare services.Certification and Security in Health-Related Web Applications: Concepts and Solutions aims to bridge the worlds of healthcare and information technology, increase the security awareness of professionals, students and users and highlight the recent advances in certification and security in health-related Web applications.

Web-Based Communities for Lifelong Medical Learning

The exponential growth of medical information, the increased demands for expertise and the limited time that people have to spend for self-improvement create the need for delivering the appropriate knowledge to the appropriate people in the minimum of time. Traditional learning and training approaches are inadequate to fulfil the needs of doctors and medical practitioners, who need always to get informed on new technologies, devices and products and seek for solution in specific problems. Open educational programs and e-learning solutions usually fail to adapt to the emerging needs. The only viable solution seems to be education on demand and communities offer good ground for this. This work examines web-based medical communities as means for delivering education on demand whilst in the same time allowing participants to contribute their expertise. Successful community paradigms are reviewed and the structure of a community for medical learning is detailed. The community tools increase the synergy among industry, practitioners and scientists and allow information sharing, “on the spot” advices and collaborative knowledge building. In the same time, patients receive valuable consults and industry disseminates information on new products and devices and promotes professional excellence. This work summarizes the benefits from the use of communities in deploying medical education to professionals and students, discusses best practices and pitfalls that should be avoided and gives a sketch of the community structure and tools to be employed.

The Evolution of Healthcare Applications in the Web 2.0 Era

Healthcare refers to the diagnosis, treatment and management of illness, as well as to the preservation of health through specialized services. Healthcare services are offered by medical practitioners and organizations and directed to individuals or to populations. The advent of the Web increased the pervasiveness of healthcare services and attracted the interest of both practitioners and patients. In its turn, Web 2.0 brought people together in a more dynamic and interactive space. With new services, applications and devices, it promises to enrich our web experience, and to establish an environment where virtual medical communities may flourish away from private interests and financial expectations. This article performs a bird’s eye view of Web 2.0 novelties, portrays the structure of a community for healthcare and describes how medical information can be exploited in favor of the community. It discusses the merits and necessities of various approaches and tools and sheds light on pitfalls that should be avoided.