Patrick Prévôt

Generic framework for remote laboratory integration

Similar to classical in-situ laboratories, remote laboratories are necessary in e-learning environments, especially in scientific and technical disciplines. This paper outlines our current research on this particular way of learning. Our research objectives consist in proposing a generic framework (independent of educational content) to allow, in one hand, tutors to integrate (both remote and virtual) laboratories in their LMS (learning management system), and in the other hand, to enable creation, distribution and exchange of pedagogical scenarios for practical works. So, authors are able to deal their scenarios through LCMS (learning content management system) and to reuse scenarios from other authors (as for any classical e-learning content). Furthermore, scenarios are no more written for a specific apparatus, but for a class of them (inverted pendulum, optical bench, ...). Two main topics are developed. First one consists of modelling laboratory and scenario structures regarding IMS-LD specification to separate content from containers. Second one consists of describing system components and functionalities using ontologies (OWL standard in our case). A prototype for automation discipline is presented.

Remote laboratories: new technology and standard based architecture

E-Laboratories development appears to be more complex than other e-learning contexts such as online courses, virtual classrooms, e-projects, role-playing, etc. However, this kind of training is essential for scientific and technical disciplines and fits a real need. Recently we initiated a project [A. Leleve et al., (2003)] whose main goal is to build a complete remote laboratory system with an open, extensible and reusable architecture. This paper gives a global context of electronic, remote and virtual laboratories. Concerning e-lab scenario structure, our works are currently focusing on IMS learning design appropriateness.

A Knowledge Management Tool for the Interconnection of Communities of Practice

In their daily practice, practitioners belong to local communities of practice CoPs within their organisation. This knowledge is rarely capitalised upon because discussions are mainly verbal. Practitioners can also belong to general CoPs online. Within these general CoPs, discussions are rarely linked to the context in which they appeared, since the members are from different companies or institutions. This paper 1 connects these two levels of CoPs by contacting practitioners belonging to CoPs centred on the same general activity but who are geographically distributed and 2 capitalises on the produced knowledge by contextualising, allowing it to be accessible and reusable by all the members. The authors detail the main results of the research: 1 a model of the interconnection of CoPs ICP to support knowledge sharing and dissemination; and 2 a specific knowledge management tool for the ICP knowledge base. The authors apply the model and platform to university tutors by: 1 developing a use case, which links the model and the TE-Cap 2 platform and highlights the new possibilities offered by the knowledge management tool; and 2 conducting a descriptive investigation lasting for five months.

The development of TE-Cap: an assistance environment for online tutors

Our research is based on the hypothesis that the most important problem that has to be solved, so as to help tutors, is the gap between required competencies of distance tutoring and the lack of training and recommendations given to them on the role they have to play in the learning process. In this article, we detail the development of the assistance environment for tutors named TE-Cap (Tutoring Experience Capitalization). We first present results of interviews conducted with tutors to define their explicit and implicit needs. We then detail functionalities of the TE-Cap (Tutoring Experience Capitalization) platform we developed and first results of an experiment, in terms of computing functionalities and interface design. Finally, we present some future directions of our research.

A Web-Based System for Observing and Analyzing Computer Mediated Communications

Tracking data of users activities resulting from computer mediated communication (CMC) tools (forum, chat, etc.) is often carried out in an ad-hoc manner, which either confines the reusability of data in different purposes or makes data exploitation difficult. Our research works are biased toward methodological challenges involved in designing and developing a generic system for tracking users activities while interacting with asynchronous communication tools like discussion forums. We present in this paper, an approach for building a Web-based system for observing and analyzing user activity on any type of discussion forums

Students' Tracking Data: An Approach for Efficiently Tracking Computer Mediated Communications in Distance Learning

This paper presents an approach for closely observing the different levels of human and computer interactions during studentpsilas communication activities on computer mediated communication (CMC) tools. It focuses on how to efficiently track learnerspsila activities, along with their outputs, and to exploit the collected tracking data in order to assist participants, both learners and teachers, in the learning process. Three experiments using the system and the result analysis are also presented.

Configuration and Management Tool for laboratory training

Electronic Laboratories have been growing during the last decade, but till now, configuring a complex automated system shared between several institutes and used for several disciplines, is a process restricted to qualified staff. Moreover, authoring and managing lab resources (programs, learning scenarios, documentation for both instructors and trainees) is a complex task as soon as the number of instructors, disciplines, different levels... grows up. This paper introduces a software tool aiming at helping in the lab resource management and session configuration.

Towards semi-automatic generation of training scenarios in industrial automated systems

In the context of E-Learning, remote hands-on training has become an insisting need as in traditional learning, especially in scientific and technical disciplines. Electronic Laboratories (ELabs) have been growing for the last few years. But till now, exchanging learning scenarios of ELabs is still difficult as existing scenarios (elaborated by means of standard ELearning authoring tools) are restricted to specific apparatuses, which prevents instructors from reusing or exchanging scenarios. Actually, LIESP team started in 2002 a research aiming to provide a framework which helps towards exchanging ELab learning scenarios when they fit to similar apparatuses (same functions, maybe not the same hardware). Meanwhile, LIMOS team focused on a design process to automate PLC code generation to help to design and generate programs for industrial discrete systems. This paper presents a project of merging these works to help ELab designers to design and integrate apparatuses into ELab frameworks when these apparatuses are discrete systems.

AHXEL: adaptive hyperdocument using XML for e-learning

Today, the majority of interactive systems in educational field are developed using hypermedia documents (P. Brusilovsky, 2003). Nevertheless, because of the lack of experience feedback, it is always necessary to use the architectures of these systems in order to make them more flexible and interoperable (E. Furtado, 2000). We have investigated such a study during the design and the realisation of a new environment called AHXEL. AHXEL enables adapted pedagogical hypermedia management. In this system, the transmitted information is structured and adapted automatically according to the user profile. Our approach is based on XML technologies and allows to present pedagogical documents adapted to each learner. Using an example of hyperdocument (a course), This work presents the different structure levels in AHXEL which enable to add the meta data required to construct the adapted pedagogical activities. Next, always start from the same example, This work describes the e-learning environment we propose and the processes involved during the generation and the display of these hyperdocuments.

Modeling hypermedia documents for adaptative presentation

The aim of this paper is to describe a hypermedia document modelling method. This model enables presentation adaptation for users. A user model is described. The main components of this model, besides demographic and behavioural ones, are 25 cognitive indicators divided into 5 cognitive sectors: memory, attention, executive functions, language and visuo-spatial abilities. The adaptation process uses these two models to adapt the multimedia document to the user model.