technology enhanced learning – some results and trends in iit – bas

IMI Seminar, Vilnius, 15.04.2009

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Technology Enhanced Learning – Some Results and Trends in IIT – BAS

Danail DochevInstitute of Information Technologies -Bulgarian Academy of Sciences


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Plan of the presentation

Short information for IIT – BAS.Brief presentation of the EU project LOGOS

“Knowledge-on-demand for ubiquitous learning”: aims and target groups; Authoring studio data models; LOGOS platform architecture, repositories, tools; evaluation of functionality and usability.Aims of a current national research project

“Semantic Technologies for Web Services and Technology Enhanced Learning”.


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IIT – BAS – brief presentation

Founded 1994 /successor of the Institute of Engineering Cybernetics - BAS – 1964 and the Institute of Engineering Cybernetics and Robotics – BAS – 1978/Total staff: 104 Research staff: 60 (31 full and assoc. professors)

www.iit.bas.bg

http://www.iit.bas.bg/


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IIT – BAS Departments

Eight research departments: * Information Processes and Systems* Artificial Intelligence – Knowledge

Processing* Pattern Recognition and Biometrics * Decision Support Systems* Modelling and Optimisation* Intelligent Control Systems* Signal Processing * Soft Computing


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INTERNATIONAL RTD PROJECTS IN THE LAST YEARS (1)

FP6 IST/P-027451 LOGOS “Knowledge-on-demand for ubiquitous learning” /2006-2009/

FP6 IST/ P-511723 INTRAWEBS “Intelligent Frame- work for Generating Open (Adaptable) Development Platforms for Web-Service Enabled Applications Using Semantic Web Technologies, Distributed Support Units and Multi-Agent Systems” /2004-2007/

6FP INCO-CT-20030003401 HUBUSKA “Networking Centres of High Quality Research on Knowledge Technologies and Applications” (2004 – 2007)

LdV PP JASON “On-the-job e-training Skills to deal with Digital Cultural Heritage Content (2004-2006)


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INTERNATIONAL RTD PROJECTS IN THE LAST YEARS (2)

LdV EL/2002/B/F/114025 KNOSOS “New Media Knowledge Village for Innovative e-learning Solutions” (2003 – 2005)

LdV HU/01/B/F/PP-136029 ADONIS: “Advanced On-the-job e-Training Solutions in e-Business for SMEs” (2002 – 2004)

4FP PL961060 ARCHIMED "Advanced Multimedia System Architectures and Applications for Educational Telematics" (1998 – 2000)

4FP PL961104 AGILE "Automatic Generation of Instruct- ions in Languages of Eastern Europe" (1998 – 2000)

4FP PL977069 EMG-NET "European Research Network for Intelligent Support of EMG Studies“ (1998 - 2000)


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LOGOS project

FP6 IST STREP LOGOS “Knowledge-on-demand for ubiquitous learning” /2006-2009/. 15 partners from 8 countries: Hungary(3), France (4), Greece (1), Bulgaria (2), United Kingdom(2), Italy(1), Finland (1) and Slovakia (1).Coordinator: Antenna Hungaria, Budapest.

EU funding – 2,6 MEuro


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LOGOS aims and target groups

Main objective - to create a platform for ubiquitous learning that combines: 1/ an authoring studio for creation of learning materials from existing digital repositories and 2/ facilities for cross-media courseware delivery through IP-based, digital video broadcasting and mobile communication channels.

Primary target group - eLearning actors (authors of courses, lecturers, advanced learners, learning content providers), creating courseware materials for university students and/or for adult learners in non-formal and informal education

Secondary target group - eLearning providers (companies and training institutions) and technology providers (DTV-companies, mobile operators), interested of cross-media delivery of learning materials.


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LOGOS Outputs

1/ A set of learning scenarios for ubiquitous learning in different settings (home, classroom, work and on-the-move learning).

2/ An environment for transforming digitised knowledge from existing digital archives in courseware objects (authoring studio) with emphasis on semantic annota-tion and access.

3/ An ubiquitous learning platform, integrating learning resources, generated by means of the authoring studio and combining platform communication spaces which integrate IP-based, DVB and mobile technologies.

4) Platform validation by extended experimentation of its functionality and usability by end-users - authors/ lecturers and learners in multiple national contexts.


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LOGOS Authoring Studio /1/

Integrates tools for pre-processing of multi-media objects (format transformation, segmentation, indexing, annotation, semantic description etc.) and blocks for building-up courseware objects for cross-media delivery on the base of learning designs, implement-ing the developed scenarios.

Uses repositories of digital objects with metadata descriptions and of learning materials (learning objects and courseware objects).


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LOGOS Authoring Studio /2/

Based on hierarchy of information objects:- ‘Raw’ multimedia objects;- Digital objects – MM objects, annotated

and semantically indexed (based on domain ontologies) with attached metadata (MPEG7);

- Learning objects - digital objects enriched with educational metadata (LOM);

- Courseware objects - graphs of learning activities associated with learning objects.


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User roles in the LOGOS platform Knowledge Managers: create and maintain

domain-specific ontologies, necessary for the semantic description of MM content.

Annotators: annotate, segment and semantically index the raw MM material in order to create and maintain digital objects /DO/.

Educationalists: create reusable learning objects by sets of DO enriched with educational metadata.

Learning Designers: create abstract learning scenarios for dynamic creation of personalized courseware.

Courseware Developers: create, maintain and publish static courseware for learners

IMI Seminar, Vilnius, 15.04.2009 13


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LOGOS platform repositories

Media Server - manages Media Objects coming from external content archives;

Digital Objects Repository - manages Digital Objects created on top of Media Objects or parts of them, annotated and indexed with administrative and semantic metadata;

Learning Objects Repository - manages Learning Objects built on top of Digital Objects and enriched with educational metadata;

Assessment Objects Repository - manages Assessment Objects (Assessment Items or Tests) enriched with educational metadata.

Courseware Objects Repository - manages Courseware Objects utilizing the underlying Learning Objects and Assessment Objects and corresponding to learning experiences that can be delivered using different delivery devices.


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Authoring Studio tools /1/

Ontology Management Tool: for creation and management of multilingual domain ontologies with graphical, intuitive and user friendly interfaces that could be efficiently used by domain experts (knowledge managers). The tool can create and manage knowledge inference rules, constraints and templates in order to reduce the indexation effort. Uses Conceptual Graphs formalism.

Content Description Tool: Produces LOGOS Digital Objects by segmentation and indexing of the MM objects, their annotation, se-mantic description and necessary format transformations. Uses semantic indexing templates created by the OMT to guide the annotation process.

Description Tool for Learning Objects: Produces reusable LOGOS Learning Objects by pre-selection and organization into a hierarchy of relevant Digital Objects for a given pedagogical use. Provides means to create educational (LOM) metadata.


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Authoring Studio tools /2/

Learning Designs Editor: Produces Learning Designs (abstract training scenarios) used for the automatic creation of personalized learning experiences to be used by courseware developers.

Courseware Objects Editor: Produces static Courseware Objects, including quizzes (learner assessments), by combining appropriate Learning Objects.

Publishing Tool: Publishes indexed, annotated, translated and enhanced audiovisual segments in appropriate formats to be used by Learners using different devices such as PCs (SCORM objects), mobile phones and ITV.

Dynamic Courseware Creation Middleware: for automatic creation of personalized courseware (eventual further editing by Courseware Objects Editor) according to specific learning needs expressed in Learner Profiles and using a set of Learning Designs.

Learning Management System components: for delivery of courseware to Learners encapsulating functionality to adapt the learning material to user needs/delivery devices (not part of the Authoring studio).


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Evaluation of the LOGOS implementation functionality and usability

The methodology combines specific inspection technique with user-testing.

“Formative evaluation” is an evaluation of an unfinished user interface, which aims to expose usability problems that exist in the development iteration; made by IT experts.

"Summative evaluation" of a complete interface with "human factors testing," done by end-users: 17 Authors and 90 Learners in 8 countries (Bulgaria, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, United Kingdom and Slovakia) with a common shared methodology.


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Author’s assessment /1/

3,24

3,35 3,33

3,44

3,56

3,74

3,57

3,00

3,10

3,20

3,30

3,40

3,50

3,60

3,70

3,80

3,90

4,00


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Author’s assessment /2/

The suitability for the Task dimension reached the acceptance (3,57) as well as Controllability of the system (3,74) and Suitability for individualization (3,56), the most improvements are needed in the Self-descriptiveness (3,24), Conformity with user expectation (3,24) and Error tolerance (3,33).

76% of the Authors declared they have not detected any problems (38% find 0 problems, 38% not reported anything significant).


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Learner’s assessment /1/


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Learner’s assessment /2/


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Semantic Technologies for Web Services and Technology Enhanced Learning

Starting project (2009-11), funded by the National Science Fund.

Continues some R&D trends of LOGOS and another 6FP IST project INFRAWEBS “Intelligent structure for generating open (adaptable) platforms for the development of distributed applications, based on Internet services in decision making and multi-agent systems” (2004-07).


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Rationale of the project

Limitations of current approaches for authoring learning content :

• Limited reusability across different learning contexts, and metadata standards.

• Limited dynamic adaptability to actual learning context.• High labour intensiveness of learning content preparation

and hence high development costs.Possible approach to increase the effectiveness of

preparation and use of adaptable learning content - to change the current data- and metadata-based paradigm to a dynamic service-oriented approach based on Semantic Web Service technologies.

Tendency to provide the learner with a dynamic supply of appropriate functionalities in order to enable a dynamic adaptation to the learning context at runtime of a learning process.


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Project objectives

• Developing new application-oriented methods and end-user oriented tools for description of Semantic Web Services and Goals

• Developing new methods for dynamic composition of Semantic Web Services suited for eLearning

• Developing a new Semantic SOA-based Framework oriented to eLearning applications facilitating reusability and repurposing of learning objects.

• Developing new methods and tools for creation and semantic annotation of learning objects compatible with SWS methodology

technology enhanced learning – some results and trends in iit – bas

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