Manuel Caeiro

Educational metadata and brokerage for learning resources

The learning technology standardization process is one of the key research activities in computer-based education. Institutions like the IEEE, the US Department of Defense and the European Commission have set up committees to deliver recommendations and proposals in this area. The objective is to allow the reuse of learning resources and to offer interoperability among heterogeneous e-learning systems. The first part of this paper is devoted to the presentation of an up-to-date survey on one of the most prolific fields of the learning technology standardization: educational metadata. The second part shows how these data models are applied by actual software systems to facilitate the location of learning resources. Educational brokerage is a promising field that lets learners find those computer-based training resources that best fit their needs. We identify the main actors involved, their roles, and open issues and trends.

A Critical Analysis of IMS Learning Design

The objective of the IMS Learning Design specification is to provide a containment framework of elements that can describe any design of a teaching-learning process in a formal way. The proposed specification is pedagogically neutral and provides a means for defining diverse learning designs (e. g.: collaborative learning, problem-based learning, blended learning). Regardless of the pedagogy involved, in practice every learning design comes to: a Method prescribing various Activities for learner and academic staff Actors in a certain order. We agree with this proposal, but we have found some deficiencies and limitations in the way these elements are described. Considering ideas and solutions of the Activity Theory (AT) and the Workflow Management Systems (WFMS) domain we propose alternative structures to describe the Activity and Method parts of this specification.

A standards-driven open architecture for learning systems

The learning technology standardization process is taking one of the leading roles in the research efforts into computer-based education. Institutions like the IEEE, the US Department of Defense and the European Commission have set up committees to deliver recommendations and specifications on this area. Their goal is to provide interoperability among heterogeneous systems and reuse of learning objects. From this standardization work, we propose am open and distributed architecture that identifies some common software services for the e-learning domain. Our aim is to contribute to this standardization process from the software perspective.

PoEML: Modeling learning units through perspectives

This paper introduces an Educational Modeling Language (EML) to support the computational modeling of learning units. These computational models can be processed by suitable e-learning systems to support the authoring and delivering of learning experiences. Nevertheless, the modeling of learning units is a complex endeavor, involving issues of expressiveness, reusability, adaptability and flexibility. This paper proposes the Perspective-oriented EML to simplify this complexity. In PoEML, the model of a learning unit is not a single piece, as in current EMLs, but it is made up by several perspectives, where each perspective is focused on non-overlapping specific issues.

Engineering education in Spain: One year with the Bologna process

This paper shows the results of a study carried out by the IEEE-Education Society Spanish Chapter on the state of implementation of the Bologna process in engineering degrees along Spain and the opinion of teachers about the main aspects of this implementation. These include the implementation of new learning methodologies (problem-based learning, collaborative learning, project-based learning, etc.), resources, assessment criteria, workload of students and teachers, the support of each university for the EHEA implementation, and the general satisfaction (or not) about the EHEA. The aim of this paper to contribute to a reflexive debate, not only in Spain but also in the international community, about the advantages and drawbacks of the EHEA implementation in engineering education.

Observing Standards for Web-Based Learning from the Web

Learning technology standardization is a lively process that will last for years until a clear and precise set of recommendations are identified. So far, there is only one official standard and some final specifications in different ar- eas. Most documents are working drafts that are still in their development proc- ess before being approved and, most important, accepted by the global e- learning community. Currently, many institutions collaborate to produce new updates almost every week. In this situation it is really hard to get familiar with the learning technology standardization process and, even worse, to keep up- dated. The Workshop for Learning Technologies, within the European Com- mittee for Standardization (CEN/ISSS WS-LT), produced the Learning Tech- nology Standards Observatory, a web portal where those interested in this proc- ess can get familiar with it, learn the main differences between related specifi- cations, follow what is going on, what is planned for the near future and fur- thermore participate in the process itself. This paper presents the main function- alities and content areas within this site and how users can benefit from its use.

A Chemical Model for Dynamic Workflow Coordination

This paper investigates a chemical workflow enactment model that is intended to coordinate workflows of large set of activities on a large number of resources in a self-evolving nature, based on a chemical analogy. The concept of chemical workflow engine is introduced for a concurrent, self-coordinating enactment exploiting as much parallelism as inherently present. The concept is aimed at supporting a generalized workflow language without any restrictions, modeling most workflow patterns, separating data and control flow, supporting dynamic changes by multiple versions and instances. The paper presents the notion and model of the chemical based coordination.

Using IMS basic LTI to integrate games in LMSs — Lessons from Game×Tel

The Game×Tel project has arisen as a way take advantage of the possibilities of gaming in collaborative learning environments. In this paper we study the platform developed for Game×Tel on the basics of recently published specification IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability. An analysis on the functionalities of Game×Tel brings up some requirements that cannot be fulfilled by IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability (IMS Basic LTI) in its current form. The paper suggests some proposals of solution to the problems identified.

Game·Tel: An approach to multi-format and multi-device accessible engineering education

Game·Tel is an open source software system that supports personalized learning, focusing on serious games and simulations, making these and traditional content accessible and adaptive to the student and educational context. In this paper we discuss about its design and functionalities, its modular architecture and the multi-environment approach.

Architecting CORBA-based frameworks to support distributed and interoperable training systems in large enterprises

Enterprise software systems are mainly distributed. Distribution promises better efficiency, scalability, and availability, specifically of large-scale systems. This is also true for the computer-based training systems used by training departments. This paper addresses interoperability and reusability issues that appear as a consequence of the heterogeneous nature of the resources used for training. We propose a CORBA-based framework to develop distributed object computing systems to support enterprise training. This proposal is based on ongoing work by institutions like the US Department of Defense and the aviation industry in the learning technology standardization area. Our framework also identifies open software interfaces among distributed components and a systematic methodology to develop new systems from them. Therefore, architects are provided with a software product line to develop standards-driven interoperable distributed training systems.