Ioannis Kazanidis

Adaptivity in ProPer: An Adaptive SCORM Compliant LMS

Adaptive Educational Hypermedia Systems provide personalized educational content to learners. However most of them do not support the functionality of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and the reusability of their courses is hard work. On the other hand some LMS support SCORM specifications but do not provide adaptive features. This article presents ProPer, a LMS that conforms to SCORM specifications and provides adaptive hypermedia courses. ProPer manages and delivers SCORM compliant courses and personalizes them according to learner’s knowledge, goals and personal characteristics. In addition learner’s progress and behavior is monitored and useful feedback is returned to tutors. ProPer will be used for an adaptive Java Programming course distribution to CS1 students. Statistical feedback will be gathered by tutors in order to improve course effectiveness. The technology background is briefly given and the system’s architecture and functionality are analyzed.

The impact of computer self-efficacy, situational interest and academic self-concept in virtual communities of inquiry during the distance learning procedures through Second Life

The current study investigates a case where the online learning procedure in three-dimensional (3D) technologically-advanced environments of the Web 2.0 is growing at an exponential rate. In this occasion it is highly imperative need to understand students’ interactions in this innovative mode of e-Education that requires from educators and scholars not only analysis conceptually, but also an empirically-driven optimization. The community of inquiry (CoI) model (or framework) consists to be as one of the most prominent multi-dimensional constructs that it is widely used to represent several distinct dimensions of social presence, teaching presence and cognitive presence, as a unique and fundamental theoretical concept to measure students’ interactions in contemporary electronic environments. Although, the effectiveness of these multi-dimensional constructs creates a dilemma to researchers who want the breadth and comprehensiveness of this model for the precision and clarity of users’ (instructors and students) dimensions with other motivational and learning variables. To address this dilemma, the current empirical study presents statistical analyses from the “trinity” constructs of the CoI model by utilizing correlation and hierarchical regression analyses with two fundamental motivational (computer self-efficacy and situational interest) and another one learning (academic self-concept) variables. This study goes one step further and introduces the conspicuously indisputable intervention of a virtual (V)CoI and its utilization in multi-user virtual worlds, like Second Life (SL). The study findings of one hundred thirty-five (135) participants who enrolled in several online sessions unveiled that the situational interest was the only significant predictor of social presence. The computer self-efficacy was not a significant predictor of the CoI model, while on the other hand academic self-concept was a significant predictor in a revamped attempt to validate the strong relationship among constructs within it. According to the aforementioned reasons, it can be surmised that the successful combination of the VCoI in Second Life, surpassing irrefutable and inherent shortcomings to a future-driven sustainable use and growth.

Homogeneity and Enrichment: Two Metrics for Web Applications Assessment

This paper presents a digital controlled distributed converter system with a switched-mode boost type PWM rectifier and several bidirectional buck/boost dc/dc converters for battery charge and discharge system using digital signal controller (DSC). The rectifier can implement bidirectional power flow, sinusoidal current control and unit power factor in grid side. The system is able to control power flow between the ac supply and dc side, or within the dc side. It is significant in development of green, economizing energy equipments. Simulation and experimental results are shown to verify the proposed distributed control scheme.Earlier studies suggest that educational institutions may further benefit from Learning Management Systems (LMSs) by generating reports regarding courses. That is, with the use of tools focus to assess students paths into course content. This paper affirms that educational meaningful information can be extracted from LMS student logged data and presents a methodology on how such findings may assist to the development of a reporting tool for educators. In the context of course assessment from student logged data, we introduce a new metric called homogeneity that extends the use of an older one, enrichment. We also propose a new algorithm that tries to qualify course content by classifying the course based on students’ course paths interest. We applied our algorithm to Open eClass LMS tracking data of an academic institution and we present the results identified in 12 courses along with interest insights. We leave for future development the creation of an automated tool of our algorithm implemented for the Open eClass platform.

Adaptivity in a SCORM compliant adaptive educational hypermedia system

This paper presents a Learning Management System (LMS) that provides adaptive hypermedia courses adopting SCORM standard and its specifications. Its main aim is to manage and deliver SCORM compliant courses, adapt those courses accordingly to the learner knowledge and individual characteristics and monitor users progress and course effectiveness providing feedback to the tutors. It is going to be used for the distribution of an adaptive Java programming course which will provide useful statistical feedback to the tutors. The focus of the paper is on the systems architecture and in adaptation technologies that were used.

On the value of Second Life for students' engagement in blended and online courses: A comparative study from the Higher Education in Greece

Nowadays three-dimensional (3D) multi-user virtual worlds (VWs) are the most well-known candidate platforms in Higher education. Despite the growing number of notable studies that have presented VWs as valuable platforms for the e-Education, there is still a paucity of a comparative study in order to be determined the degree of the students’ engagement in constructionist-collaborative learning scenarios. Concurrently, it seems imperative the need for educators and scholars to identify how can VWs influence students’ engagement in contemporary and reliable instructional formats, mainly on blended or online settings for university-level courses. In this study the effects of students’ achievements were measured by comparing the degree of students’ engagement from two student groups (graduate and undergraduate) enrolled in two different instructional formats (blended/online) held in Second Life (SL) to become learning content developers. The purpose of the current research is to present results from the comparative study of one hundred twenty-five (125) students that finally attended in order to be measured their engagement overall as a multi-dimensional construct consisting of the emotional, behavioral and cognitive factors. The study findings from the quantitative analysis have disclosed that graduate students who participated in online courses achieved more positive learning outcomes and as a result the degree of their engagement was significantly increased than those who enrolled with the blended. In these circumstances there are raised some fundamental educational implications which are also discussed.

E-Learning Activity Analysis

Abstract Nowadays, web-based educational systems are being installed more and more by universities, schools, businesses, and even individual instructors in order to add web technology to their courses and to supplement traditional face-to-face courses. These systems accumulate a vast amount of data which is very valuable for analyzing the contentof the courses and their usage from the learners. A new method is proposed in order to analyze these datain three layers based on an innovative organization. Seven variables are used.They are combined properly to quantify quality characteristics of the courses and offer useful insights based on their material and usage by the learners. All the variables were put to test in a case scenario that took place in a Greek university web based e-Learning data. The evaluation of the results has shown that the proposed system managed to track both educational content and course usage successfully. The results confirmed the validity of the approach and showed a relationship among the components of the proposed 3-layer organization.

Course Ranking and Automated Suggestions through Web Mining

This paper introduces new metrics for course evaluation. It is also proposes a ranking algorithm that classifies courses based on the previous course evaluation metrics and suggests appropriate actions for course content improvement. The algorithm was tested and verified successfully in data originated from the eClass platform of TEI Kavala.

Exploring the educational potential of three-dimensional multi-user virtual worlds for STEM education: A mixed-method systematic literature review

The present literature review builds on the results of 50 research articles published from 2000 until 2016. All these studies have successfully accomplished various learning tasks in the domain of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education using three-dimensional (3-D) multi-user virtual worlds for Primary, Secondary and Higher education, in order to: (a) present an overview about the potential contribution of this technology in practice-based perspectives on knowledge and learning; (b) identify the theoretical underpinnings based on contemporary learning theories and pedagogical approaches that leverage content design characteristics, with the respect to the constructs of their instructional design methods; (c) suggest a synthesis of the relevant literature about how the utilization of 3-D multi-user virtual worlds have affected positively learning outcomes based on students’ achievements; (d) concretize the educational potential and instructional affordances covering the pedagogical (socio-) cognitive, technological-operational and financial perspectives; and lastly (e) propose an instructional design workflow to contextualize pedagogical content design principles for the implementation of different learning scenarios in STEM courses. The overviewed articles ascertained that 3-D multi-user virtual worlds have many instructional and technological affordances as candidate learning platforms for different educational levels, influencing to a large extent students’ attendance, knowledge transfer, skill acquisition, hands-on digital experience and positive attitudes in laboratory experimental exercises. This technology gives to users the opportunity to manage learning materials more effectively and efficiently during the teaching process. The vast majority of educational benefits and potential enhanced the degree of their engagement and participation, contributing positively to their achievements.

Proposed cloud infrastructure of wearable and ubiquitous medical services

A Wearable Health Monitoring system is described that uses low-cost off the shelf sensors and computing components, along with custom made software, to provide an economical solution to personalized health care monitoring problems, while retaining all the functionality and flexibility of more expensive systems. Cloud technology is used to store sensor measurements which are categorized based on the criticality of bio-signals. Furthermore, a new session protocol for medical sensor data transmission is proposed. In a prototype system, tests based on different transmission architectures have so far yielded useful and favorable results in comparison with existing protocols and usually more expensive systems.

Applying Learning Styles to SCORM Compliant Courses

This paper proposes a general framework to develop SCORM compliant courses that provide adaptation according to user learning style. The SCORM standard as well as some of the most popular learning style models and adaptive systems that implement them are briefly presented. The general framework is introduced and a case study with some evaluation outcomes is discussed.