Martín Llamas

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.

CHARLIE: An AIML-based chatterbot which works as an interface among INES and humans

INES (INtelligent Educational System) is a functional prototype of an online learning platform, which combines three essential capabilities related to e-learning activities. These capabilities are those concerning to a LMS (Learning Management System), a LCMS (Learning Content Management System), and an ITS (Intelligent Tutoring System). To carry out all this functionalities, our system, as a whole, comprises a set different tools and technologies, as follows: semantic managing users (administrators, teachers, students…) and contents tools, an intelligent chatterbot able to communicate with students in natural language, an intelligent agent based on BDI (Believes, Desires, Intentions) technology that acts as the brain of the system, an inference engine based on JESS (a rule engine for the Java platform) and ontologies (to modelate the user, his/her activities, and the learning contents) that contribute with the semantics of the system, etc. At the present paper we will focus on the chatterbot, CHARLIE (CHAtteR Learning Interface Entity), developed and used in the platform, which is an AIML-based (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) bot. We will specifically address its performance and its contribution to INES.

A Qualitative Comparison of Techniques for Student Modeling in Intelligent Tutoring Systems

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) are interactive learning environments based on instruction assisted by computers. The intelligence of these systems is largely attributed to their ability to adapt to a specific student during the teaching process. In general, the adaptation process can be described by three phases: (i) getting the information about the student, (ii) processing the information to initialize and update a student model, and (iii) using the student model to provide the adaptation. In this paper we studied aspects related with student modeling (SM) in intelligent tutoring systems. First we make a qualitative comparison of two techniques: Bayesian networks (BN) and case-based reasoning (CBR) for SM. We apply both techniques to a case study concerning the development of an ITS for e-learning in the medical domain. Finally, we discuss the results obtained

Simulators over the network

In this paper we present SimulNet, our contribution to the improvement of high-quality learning at home using new technologies. SimulNet provides students with a teleteaching environment where the “learning-by-doing” paradigm is possible. Unlike other distance teaching systems whose aim is to achieve a virtual classroom, SimulNet provides a virtual laboratory to put theoretical knowledge into practice. Because SimulNet is a 100% pure Java system, our labware can be run on any computer and operating system. Our approach is based on the simulation of the actual laboratory tools which are delivered through the Internet (Java applets) or by CD-ROM technology (Java applications). Although SimulNet can be used in a remote access way, Java allows us to provide always the highest level of interactivity, which is an essential feature in any distance education system. In addition, SimulNet also provides a set of communication and tutoring tools for learners and instructors, providing a full cooperative learning atmosphere. We believe distance education should not mean to study alone and, therefore, we made an extra effort to provide an environment where students and teachers feel as is they were in a virtual lecture room.

Labware for the Internet

We present a survey on several systems that cope with the “learning‐by‐doing” paradigm. They represent the current state of the research work in the field of virtual laboratories, from standalone simulators to distributed virtual environments. Our aim is to offer to the reader an overall view of the current trends in the labware researching area.

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.

T-Bot and Q-Bot: A couple of AIML-based bots for tutoring courses and evaluating students

Intelligent tutoring systems are computer programs that aim at providing personalized instruction to students. In recent years, conversational robots, usually known as chatterbots, become very popular in the Internet, and ALICE (artificial linguistic internet computer entity) is probably the most popular one. ALICE brain is written in AIML (artificial intelligence markup language), an open XML language. We consider the combination of both approaches, i.e, the use of AIML-based bots for tutoring purposes in open e-learning platforms like Claroline or Moodle. With that aim in mind, we have developed two different bots for helping the students during the learning process and for supporting the teaching activities of the professor. One of them is a tutor bot (T-Bot), and is able to analyse the requests made by the learners in written natural language and to provide adequate and domain specific answers orienting the student to the right course contents. The other one is an evaluation bot (Q-Bot), and is oriented to track and supervise the student progress by means of personalized questionnaires. Both bots have been already developed and integrated as user-friendly modules in Claroline and Moodle.

Modeling the best practices towards the adaptation to the European credit transfer system in technical degrees within the IEEE ES chapter

Several Spanish universities have started their process of adaptation towards a common educational space as a first stage towards the implementation of the credit system as established by the regulation prior to 2010. These universities have developed several highly- illuminating experiences which could be useful to those teachers and institutions who have no previous references and models to develop new experiences of ECTS adaptation. To help these scholars and universities this paper reports on a project that has been recently completed and which has been supported by the Spanish Government and by the participation to the Spanish Chapter of IEEE Education Society. More specifically, the paper provides details about the management of the project, namely, details about the contributions of its three working groups, as well as the different tasks carried out and their monitoring. The paper also describes the results obtained with the project and provides assessment on previous pilot experiences presented by Spanish university teachers at Engineering Education Conferences as well as on the experiences compiled through the projects Web site.

Design of a Semantic Web-based Brokerage Architecture for the E-learning Domain. A Proposal for a Suitable Ontology

The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information in a machine-processable form can coexist and complement the existing human-readable information, better enabling computers and people to work in co-operation. In this way, some processes that need to be carried out manually today will be performed automatically. E-learning is one of the domains that may benefit from this technology enhancement. We present some of the outcomes from the first authors PhD, which contributes to the e-learning domain through the proposal of a reference service architecture for Web-based brokerage using semantic Web technologies. In particular, this paper focuses on the underlying ontology that is required for that, introducing several sub-ontologies about, for instance, courses and learning objects, on-line service providers, content providers, learners, etc