Juan I. Asensio-Pérez

GLUE!: An architecture for the integration of external tools in Virtual Learning Environments

The integration of external tools in Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) aims at enriching the learning activities that educational practitioners may design and enact. This paper presents GLUE!, an architecture that enables the lightweight integration of multiple existing external tools in multiple existing VLEs. GLUE! fosters this integration by imposing few restrictions on VLE and tool providers, as well as by requiring an attainable effort from developers, unlike other integration works. Besides, GLUE! facilitates the instantiation and enactment of collaborative activities within VLEs, leveraging the VLEs distinctive features for the management of users and groups. GLUE! has been evaluated using three authentic collaborative learning situations, instantiated and enacted by real practitioners at university level. The results of this evaluation show that GLUE! reduces the burden of educators when instantiating collaborative activities that require the integration of external tools, while facilitates students the realization of these activities in collaboration. Interestingly, the development effort required by the integration software is similar to that in other lightweight generic approaches that offer a lower degree of functionality.

Anomaly Detection in Network Traffic Based on Statistical Inference and \alpha-Stable Modeling

This paper proposes a novel method to detect anomalies in network traffic, based on a nonrestricted α-stable first-order model and statistical hypothesis testing. To this end, we give statistical evidence that the marginal distribution of real traffic is adequately modeled with α-stable functions and classify traffic patterns by means of a Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT). The method automatically chooses traffic windows used as a reference, which the traffic window under test is compared with, with no expert intervention needed to that end. We focus on detecting two anomaly types, namely floods and flash-crowds, which have been frequently studied in the literature. Performance of our detection method has been measured through Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves and results indicate that our method outperforms the closely-related state-of-the-art contribution described in. All experiments use traffic data collected from two routers at our university-a 25,000 students institution-which provide two different levels of traffic aggregation for our tests (traffic at a particular school and the whole university). In addition, the traffic model is tested with publicly available traffic traces. Due to the complexity of α-stable distributions, care has been taken in designing appropriate numerical algorithms to deal with the model.

Free- and Open-Source Software for a Course on Network Management: Authoring and Enactment of Scripts Based on Collaborative Learning Strategies

This paper describes a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) case study in engineering education carried out within the context of a network management course. The case study shows that the use of two computing tools developed by the authors and based on free-and open-source software (FOSS) provide significant educational benefits over traditional engineering pedagogical approaches in terms of both concepts and engineering competencies acquisition. The Collage authoring tool guides and supports the course teacher in the process of authoring computer-interpretable representations (using the IMS learning design standard notation) of effective collaborative pedagogical designs. Besides, the Gridcole system supports the enactment of that design by guiding the students throughout the prescribed sequence of learning activities. The paper introduces the goals and context of the case study, elaborates on how Collage and Gridcole were employed, describes the applied evaluation methodology, and discusses the most significant findings derived from the case study.

A Tailorable Collaborative Learning System That Combines OGSA Grid Services and IMS-LD Scripting

This paper presents Gridcole, a new collaborative learning system that can be easily tailored by educators in order to support their own CSCL scenarios, using computing services provided by third parties in the form of OGSA grid services. Educators employ scripts in order to describe the sequence of learning activities and required tools, with standard IMS-LD notation. Thus, through the integration of coarse-grained tools, that may even offer supercomputing capabilities or use specific hardware resources, educators do not depend on software developers to easily configure a suitable environment in order to support a broad range of collaborative scenarios. An example of a learning scenario for a Computer Architecture course is described to illustrate the capabilities of Gridcole.

GLUE!-PS: a multi-language architecture and data model to deploy TEL designs to multiple learning environments

The complexity of orchestrating TEL scenarios prompts for a careful learning design by practitioners. Currently, teachers can use variety of tools and languages to express their designs, but they are unlikely to be supported in deploying such designs in the learning environment of their choice. This paper describes a multi-tier architecture and data model to support the deployment of learning designs, expressed in multiple languages, to different learning platforms. The proposal strives to be sustainable in authentic scenarios by minimising both software development costs and changes to current installations. The architecture and data model are theoretically validated through the transformation of a well-known learning scenario from several design languages to different learning platforms, preserving the designs essential characteristics.

ILDE: Community Environment for Conceptualizing, Authoring and Deploying Learning Activities

This demonstration paper presents the Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE). ILDE is being developed in the METIS project, which aims at promoting the adoption of learning design by providing integrated support to teachers throughout the whole design and implementation process (or lifecycle). ILDE integrates existing free- and open-source tools that include: co-design support for teacher communities; learning design editors following different authoring and pedagogical approaches; interface for deployment of designs on mainstream Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). The integration is designed so that teachers experience a continuous flow while completing the tasks involved in the learning design lifecycle, even when the tasks are supported by different tools. ILDE uses the LdShake platform to provide social networking features and to manage the integrated access to designs and tooling including conceptualization tools (OULDI templates), editors (WebCollage, OpenGLM), and deployment into VLEs (e.g., Moodle) via GLUE!-PS.

Supporting Teacher Orchestration in Ubiquitous Learning Environments: A Study in Primary Education

During the last decades, educational contexts have transformed into complex technological and social ecologies, with mobile devices expanding the scope of education beyond the traditional classroom, creating so-called Ubiquitous Learning Environments (ULEs). However, these new technological opportunities entail an additional burden for teachers, who need to manage and coordinate the resources involved in such complex educational scenarios in a process known as “orchestration”. This paper presents the evaluation of the orchestration support provided by GLUEPS-AR, a system aimed to help teachers in the coordination of across-spaces learning situations carried out in ULEs. The evaluation, following an interpretive research perspective, relied on a study where a pre-service teacher designed and enacted an authentic across-spaces learning situation in a primary school. The situation, which illustrates the orchestration challenges of ULEs, was aimed at fostering orienteering skills. It spanned five sessions taking place in the classroom, in the schools playground and at a nearby park, using multiple technologies and devices. The evaluation showed that GLUEPS-AR helped the teacher in the multiple aspects of orchestration, including implementation of his pedagogical ideas, adaptation in runtime, and sharing of orchestration load with students. Teacher awareness during outdoor activities was the main aspect to improve upon.

GRIDCOLE: a Grid Collaborative Learning Environment

Research in the computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) field is currently tackling three important problems which are closely related: difficult integration of CSCL tools, scarce software reuse and technification. This work presents a Grid Collaborative Learning Environment (GRIDCOLE) that combines IMS learning design (IMS-LD) and Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) technologies in order to address these issues. More specifically, GRIDCOLE allows users with no technical skills easy integration and use of applications that effectively support collaborative learning processes. IMS-LD is employed to formally describe the design of these collaborative learning processes while applications are built using tools provided by third-party suppliers as OGSA-compliant Grid services. With this aim, the GRIDCOLE architecture and its main functionalities are introduced. A simple prototype is also presented in order to show the feasibility of the most important concepts introduced in this paper. Furthermore, a real collaborative learning scenario in which we plan to validate GRIDCOLE is introduced.

A Linked Data approach for the discovery of educational ICT tools in the Web of Data

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools to support learning activities is nowadays generalized. Several educational registries provide information about ICT tools in order to help educators in their discovery and selection. These registries are typically isolated and require much effort to keep tool information up to date. To address this issue, this paper explores whether educational tool registries can be federated to other datasets currently available on the Web of Data. In order to answer this question, and following the Linked Data approach, this paper proposes to collect data from third-party sources, align it to a vocabulary understandable by educators and finally publish it to be consumed by educational applications. This way, an incipient educational dataset can be automatically created and easily maintained, since non-educative information is obtained from updated third-party sources. A case study with practitioners has been carried out to evaluate whether the information about ICT tools provided by this dataset is understandable and useful for educators. Evaluation results show that available information on the Web of Data can be used to obtain suitable tools for real educational settings, thus overcoming the sustainability problems of existing ICT tool registries.

Supporting orchestration of CSCL scenarios in web-based Distributed Learning Environments

The orchestration of technology-enhanced learning situations (especially collaborative ones), that involve both Virtual Learning Environments and Web 2.0 tools (what some authors call Distributed Learning Environments, or DLEs) is often complex and burdensome, given the heterogeneous array of resources involved. In this paper we explore how GLUE!-PS (a system for the deployment and run-time management of learning designs across DLEs) supports orchestration, through its teacher usage in three authentic university courses and one teacher workshop. Our mixed methods evaluation reveals that GLUE!-PS supports multiple aspects of orchestration, especially the efficient implementation of teacher learning designs, the ability for useful and intuitive adaptations in run-time, and its adequacy to pragmatic restrictions that teachers face in authentic settings. Aside from the implications for the evaluated system itself, this article discusses the need for evaluations that address orchestrations multiple facets, and provides a practical example of such multi-faceted evaluation of educational systems, in order to assess their potential for adoption and sustainability in authentic settings.