Miguel Gea

A Coloured Petri Net Formalisation for a UML-Based Notation Applied to Cooperative System Modelling

New approaches are currently being adopted to address the development of cooperative systems, although not many standards exist that can be used to develop this type of interactive system. We apply the standard Unified Modelling Language (UML) notation within a methodology aimed at the analysis and design of such systems, and present a semantic formalisation of the UML notation used to model cooperative systems. The semantics and its application are described on the basis of translation schemes to Coloured Petri Nets and the benefits of formalisation are shown.

Modelling Dynamic Group Behaviours

New technological challenges provoke continuous improvements in society, and thus, change the very conception of the world around us. Nowadays, communication and collaboration activities play an important role in the modern work organisation. The CSCW paradigm is a promising technology offering group support, but its success depends on the way in which real group organisation is captured. We propose a model to represent, describe and integrate the complex behaviour of groups in a suitable manner. After a review of the state of art, a conceptual framework to address the problem domain is presented, and a formalism is introduced by extending Unified Modelling Language (UML) notation to model foundations and peculiarities of groups.

Leveraging the linda coordination model for a groupware architecture implementation

Functional and non-functional requirements must be taken into account early in the development process of groupware applications in order to make appropriate design decisions, e.g. spatial distribution of group members and group awareness, which are related to the main characteristics exhibited by CSCW systems (communication, coordination and collaboration). This research work presents a proposal intended to facilitate the development of groupware applications considering non-functional requirements such as reusability, scalability, etc. In order to achieve these objectives, the proposal focuses on the architectural design and its implementation, with emphasis on the use of a realization of the technological Linda coordination model as the basis for this implementation. The outcome is a distributed architecture where application components are replicated and event control is separated. This work is part of a conceptual and methodological framework (AMENITIES) specially devised to study and develop these systems.

Authoring social-aware tasks on active spaces

Social-aware computing is an emerging trend based on ubiquitous computing technologies and collaborative work. A successful design demands a better understanding of group tasks, adaptation mechanisms and support for dynamic changes in a nomadic computing paradigm. This paper proposes the use of a hypermedia model to describe and support group activities in intelligent environments. The resulting system integrates adaptive context-aware information on the basis of user/group models in order to provide a structured access to dynamic task scheduling. In particular, we propose the use of the calendar metaphor as an ongoing connection between active spaces and collaborative tasks. This proposal provides the appropriate support for an easier human coordination to achieve common objectives in blended learning scenarios, and thus, extending authoring social tasks to physical spaces.

Development of Ambient Intelligence Systems Based on Collaborative Task Models

So far, the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm has been applied to the development of a great variety of real systems. They use advanced technologies such as ubiquitous computing, natural interaction and active spaces, which become part of social environments. In the design of AmI systems, the inherent collaboration among users (with the purpose of achieving common goals) is usually represented and treated in an ad-hoc manner. However, the development of this kind of systems can take advantage of rich design models which embrace concepts in the domain of collaborative systems in order to provide the adequate support for explicit or implicit collaboration. Thereby, relevant requirements to be satisfied, such as an effective coordination of human activities by means of task scheduling, demand to dynamically manage and provide group- and context-awareness information. This paper addresses the integration of both proactive and collaborative aspects into a unique design model for the development of AmI systems; in particular, the proposal has been applied to a learning system. Furthermore, the implementation of this system is based on a blackboard- based architecture, which provides a well-defined high-level interface to the physical layer.

Generating Lifelong-Learning Communities and Branding with Massive Open Online Courses

The arrival of Massive Open Online Courses MOOCs has stimulated teachers and universities to change in some ways the teaching methodologies. The success of these massive courses is based on involving students to acquire knowledge and skills in a wider community by learning from others and using active learning practices. MOOC providers also help universities to support the mission of transferring knowledge to society in any kind of area, supporting lifelong learning and adopting some kind of internationalization strategy. This is an ongoing trend where 17 of top 30 universities in the worlds adopted MOOC courses. Open learning is a strategic and valuable trend in knowledge society. Opportunities appear in the Anglo and Latin American market, while problems associated with the high drop-out rate, the sustainability, and the feasibility of skill certification should be addressed. In this paper we analyze the properties of a MOOC as a learning community by taking data from a pilot of three MOOC courses performed at AbiertaUGR, the MOOC platform of the University of Granada.

Turning out a social community into an e-Learning platform for MOOC: the case of AbiertaUGR

This paper considers the interest of traditional high educational institution to bounce into the world of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). This learning approach is defined over the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) in a basis of a high number of users that interact with the learning materials (mostly multimedia resources). This approach implies some challenges to the software platform that lies behind the learning experience. In this work we are going to evaluate the Open Source Social Networking Engine, ELGG, and how it has strongly evolved to AbiertaUGR.

Setting Up a Multimodal Dialogue System for Ubiquitous Environmen

This paper presents our current activities in the development of a system to assist students and teachers in their activities in educational environments. The system combines features of two different technologies: multimodal dialogue systems and ubiquitous computing. The former aims at developing computer programs that emulate the behaviour and communication of a human being in a specific task. The latter aims at developing intelligent systems adaptable to the user needs by interfaces usable in a intuitive way, making these systems available anytime and anywhere. The paper describes the main features of the system we are developing and discusses implementation issues, including system architecture, user identification and localisation in the ubiquitous environments, automatic speech recognition, natural language processing, dialogue management and response generation. Finally, it presents the conclusions and sets out some possibilities for future work.

A Proposal for Using Virtual Worlds for the Integration

This paper presents a proposal for integrating people in risk of exclusion by means of Virtual Worlds. Different studies show the benefits of using virtual worlds for educational purposes, where you can develop a wide variety of innovative teaching and learning activities. In particular we are working with immigrants; with high school students with learning disabilities; and with people with cognitive disabilities (autism, Asperger, Down syndrome). In this paper we present three experiences in this area, one of them already finished and the other two being currently implemented.

Transmedia Storytelling for Social Integration of Children with Cognitive Disabilities

This paper proposes the use of transmedia storytelling techniques to stimulate the day living of children with cognitive disabilities in the context of their social integration on future Smart Cities. By using virtual immersive world we focus on authoring stories and contents by these children to stimulate their abilities, and therefore, the exploration of their skills on a transmedia environment for therapeutically and employment purposes.