Juan M. Santos-Gago

A component model for standardized web-based education

We present a layered component model to support Web-based collaborative applications. We show how this model lets programmers focus on the particular logic of their applications, avoiding most of the issues related to collaboration, access control, and network management. The proposed model is organized into three layers on top of a foundation composed of commercial-off-the-shelf services and standard Internet protocols. The service level provides a network-transparent communications layer, database access, and distributed data interchange. The component level offers typical collaborative services, like user management, auditing, user-oriented messaging, higher-level events, project management, and a bulletin board. The application level supports actual applications constructed using the services offered by the underlying layers. A Web-based educational application has been developed over this framework to illustrate the process. This tele-education system, which follows the recommendations of the main institutions involved in the learning technology standardization process, is the second contribution presented by the authors.

Collection and Processing of Data from Wrist Wearable Devices in Heterogeneous and Multiple-User Scenarios

Over recent years, we have witnessed the development of mobile and wearable technologies to collect data from human vital signs and activities. Nowadays, wrist wearables including sensors (e.g., heart rate, accelerometer, pedometer) that provide valuable data are common in market. We are working on the analytic exploitation of this kind of data towards the support of learners and teachers in educational contexts. More precisely, sleep and stress indicators are defined to assist teachers and learners on the regulation of their activities. During this development, we have identified interoperability challenges related to the collection and processing of data from wearable devices. Different vendors adopt specific approaches about the way data can be collected from wearables into third-party systems. This hinders such developments as the one that we are carrying out. This paper contributes to identifying key interoperability issues in this kind of scenario and proposes guidelines to solve them. Taking into account these topics, this work is situated in the context of the standardization activities being carried out in the Internet of Things and Machine to Machine domains.

Standardization in computer-based education

This paper presents the state of the art and current trends in the standardization of computer-based education, including recent approaches like virtual learning or distributed education. Equipment, communication protocols, multimedia content and formats, description and representation of educational resources, organizations, modeling languages and management issues are some of the key areas in this standardization process. The main institutions participating in the process and their roles are also identified. This survey may serve as a reference for the researcher or practitioner in this field.

A semantic enrichment experience in the early childhood context

Current society is characterized by an increasing interest in the provision of high-quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services. In this area, we developed a platform aimed to create an effortless communication channel among parents and educational professionals. Parents and educators are provided with technological tools to increase the performance of the educational process in a holistic manner by means of automatic alert mechanisms and recommendations according to personalized information within the system. The next phase in the progression of our platform has been reusing information freely available on Internet to enrich the local Knowledge Base of the platform. This paper discusses the approaches used to complement the platform initial local data with information available on different Internet sources in order to improve the performance of the developed platform services.

BPMN-E 2 : a BPMN extension for an enhanced workflow description

This paper discusses a business process model and notation (BPMN) extension that includes new elements designed to improve its expressiveness. In previous works, different shortcomings concerning the BPMN language were detected. As a result, a set of requirements to overcome these issues was collected and used to guide this work. The proposed extension supports the representation of information commonly used by experts in the hazard analysis and critical control points domain, usually expressed in natural language, in a machine-understandable fashion. To take full advantage of the features introduced in this BPMN extension, tools such as ProM can be easily upgraded with appropriate plugins to support the new elements. In this line, an advanced conformance checking plugin was developed for process mining on BPMN models. A real-world example of use showing the benefits of applying the new elements is also discussed. This proposal paves the way for novel advanced analysis mechanisms for traceability systems.

Towards the use of commercial wrist wearables in education

This paper is about the use of commercial wrist wearables in education, more specifically, about how to support smart education in the context of new smart universities. Wrist wearable devices such smartwatches or smartbands include a variety of sensors that can be used to collect physiological and activity-related data about a subject, for example a learner or a teacher, and estimate insightful features about him. This paper reviews the current state of the art of projects and initiatives based on the use of these devices, the types of wearables available nowadays and the main problems and issues involved for educational purposes: data collection, data integration, sensor accuracy, etc. In the paper, we also introduce our developments towards the provision of sleep and stress indicators taking advantage of these devices. We distinguish among services for students, for teachers and for developers.

A Keyword Recommendation Experiment to Support Information Organization and Folksonomies in Edu-AREA

Edu-AREA is a Web 2.0 application whose main goal is to contribute to teaching innovation. It provides descriptions of educational resources and guidelines that can be used by teachers to create their lesson plans and later to document their teaching experiences. At the current stage of the Edu-AREA development, a main issue is related to the management and classification of information provided by users. This paper introduces a folksonomy approach, the architecture of the system, and the results of an experiment about keyword recommendations.

Re-engineering the Uptake of ICT in Schools

While many innovations in Technology Enhanced Learning TEL have emerged over the last two decades, the uptake of these innovations has not always been very successful, particularly in schools. The transition from proof of concept to integration into learning activities has been recognized as a bottleneck for quite some time. This major problem, which is affecting many TEL stakeholders, is the focus of the four year iTEC project that is developing a comprehensive approach.

A BPMN Based Notation for the Representation of Workflows in Hospital Protocols

Flowcharts used for hospital protocols have a series of ambiguities and limitations in order to express some types of information. In this article, a notation proposal for flowcharts that partially avoids these problems is presented. This new notation is an adaptation of BPMNE2, an extension of the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), which allows direct modelling of procedures that follow the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) model. The new notation has been validated in the hospital context, specifically in the field of hazardous drugs (HDs). To measure usability from the perspective of the health staff and auditors, the System Usability Scale (SUS) was used. A total of 47 experts took part in the assessment, resulting in a SUS score of 71, that corresponds to an acceptable level of usability. The feedback provided by these participants allows us to discover benefits and drawbacks of the proposal. Also, it is noteworthy that 76.6% of professionals prefer to migrate to the new notation from the ISO 5807:1985 notation, the most commonly used model. In addition to the direct benefits of this notation from the human point of view, its machine-understandable nature provides the required support for its integration into software tools for intelligent monitoring and auditing.

Update of a course about computer architecture in the first year of a degree in engineering (Work in progress)

Most of the courses should be evaluated time to time in order to determine if the objectives of the degree are keeping reached. In this paper, the steps to update a course of Computer Architecture of the first year of the degree in Telecommunication Technologies Engineering of the University of Vigo (Spain) are described.