E-learning Content Research Articles

E-LEARNING RESOURCES REQUIREMENTS STANDARDIZATION ACCORDING TO LEARNERS’ INDIVIDUAL NEEDS AND PREFERENCES

The article considers the information models of e-learning resources requirements description and of the learners’ personal needs and preferences description. It presents the framework and the interconnections between the national and international e-learning content accessibility standards for different groups of users, including the ones with physical impairments.

학습목표영역에 따른 이러닝 컨텐츠 전달 유형별 학습 효과성과 선호도에 대한 연구

학습목표영역에 따른 이러닝 컨텐츠 전달 유형별 학습 효과성과 선호도에 대한 연구

Mobile-based system for cost-effective e-learning contents delivery in resource and bandwidth constrained learning environments

The advancement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has brought opportunities for the development of Smart Cities. The Smart City uses ICT to enhance performance and wellbeing, to reduce costs and resource consumption, and to engage more effectively and actively with its citizens. In particular, the education sector is adopting new ways of learning in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through e-learning systems. While these opportunities exist, e-learning content delivery and accessibility in third world countries like Tanzania is still a challenge due to resource and network constrained environments. The challenges include: high cost of bandwidth connection and usage; high dependency on the Internet; limited mobility and portability features; inaccessibility during the offline period and shortage of ICT facilities. In this paper, we investigate the use of mobile technology to sustainably support education and skills development particularly in developing countries. Specifically, we propose a Cost-effective Mobile Based Learning Content Delivery system for resource and network constrained environments. This system can be applied to cost-effectively broaden and support education in many cities around the world, which are approaching the 'Smart City' concept in their own way, even with less available technology infrastructure. Therefore, the proposed solution has the potential to reduce the cost of the bandwidth usage, and cut down the server workload and the Internet usage overhead by synchronizing learning contents from some remote server to a local database in the user’s device for offline use. It will also improve the quality of experience and participation of learners as well as facilitate mobility and portability in learning activities, which also supports the all-compassing learning experience in a Smart City.

About Convergence of Knowledge. The Project e-Infrastructures Austria, an interdisciplinary case study

>> See video of presentation (19 min.)The Current SituationIn January 2014, the kick-off of the funded three-year university-structuring project "e-Infrastructures Austria: Structure and Development of a Repository Infrastructure", for which 22 Austrian Universities, the National Library and two other academic institutions all over in Austria jointly submitted an application for the development of national e-infrastructures for research and academic teaching. The initiative is coordinated by the University of Vienna.The overall objective is the coordinated establishment and development of repository infrastructures throughout Austria. The project is structured in three parallel-running subprojects, which extend into each other thematically and/or build on each other:Sub-project A: Construction of Repositories and Publication Services: Development of know-how and technology transfer to enable repositories (institutional repositories in the narrower sense) at universities as well as to advise and support in the development of local repositories in organizational, technical, legal and content-based issues.Sub-project B: Design and Construction of Repositories Infrastructures for Research Data, Multimedia, e-Learning Content and other complex data setsSub-project C: The structure of the knowledge network e-Infrastructures Austria, intended to ensure the convergence of knowledge. This third focus is the development of a competence network for research data and data from research-based courses of study of heterogeneous origins with varying levels of accessibility. Convergence of knowledgeThe basic ideas behind the network are transparency, communication and a collaborative way of working. The skills and knowledge network are developed on a partnership basis by pooling available expertise and resources, using a trans-disciplinary approach and including many stakeholders (librarians, academics and researchers, IT managers, funding agencies, and so on), which are either within the organization or located outside the institutions. The result is an active exchange of experience in technical, organizational, legal and material respects. The project topics covered include management and organization of repositories, policies, legal & ethical Issues, share and release data, publish data, Open Access, long-term archiving, marketing, training and so on.A consistently significant feature in this context is the anchoring of this content in the organizational structures of libraries and their environments. In the course of the project, individual groups and persons acquire an expertise in very specific areas and can act as contact persons and experts after the project has ended. The know-how is always documented. Results can be translated into practical guidance, surveys, case studies, use cases, best practices, reference lists, reports and so on. It is important that these results be published by the project partners under free licenses and are freely and publicly available. Reference: www.e-infrastructures.at

Implementace standardů v eLearningových systémech

Nowadays, eLearning standards' support within eLearning systems is much discussed problem. In this problem domain especially the reference model SCORM must be considered. This de-facto standard is a package of common standards and specifications used for the standardization of eLearning activities as eLearning content preparation, using e-course, communication etc. Implementation of standards itself is a process with great difficulty and time requests. Interesting and considerable approach to this problem is dividing all the process into several standalone and isolated steps focused on the individual segments of standards. This concept, in the paper described as 4-tier model of eLearning standards’ implementation, principally based upon the SCORM model enables sequential implementation of support for standards of eLearning metadata, eLearning content and also communication and navigation in e-courses. This possibility leads to portability and independence of result e-content. Discuss concept is a framework for standardization within eLearning subsystem of University Information System at Mendel University in Brno.

Enhancing the Interoperability of Multimedia Learning Objects Based on the Ontology Mapping

This article addresses the interoperability between the semantic learning platforms and the educational resources banks, more precisely between the LOM and MPEG-7 standards. LOM is a set of metadata associated with e-learning content, while MPEG-7 is a standard for describing multimedia content. The use of educational resources has become an essential component to meet the learning needs. Given the multimedia nature of these resources, such use causes problems in the interoperability of multimedia learning objects in e-Learning environments, indexing and retrieval of digital resources. Faced with these problems, we propose a new approach for the multimedia learning objects by using the ontology mapping between the LOM and MPEG-7 ontologies.

Evaluation Plan and Preliminary Evaluation of a Network of Remote Labs in the Maghrebian Countries

The need for adopting virtual and remote labs in engineering education is high in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. This paper proposes the evaluation plan of a network of remote labs in the Maghrebian countries. This plan is based on the significant research that has been done until now concerning the evaluation of remote labs. More specifically the proposed evaluation strategy of the project will focus on five different but interrelated directions (a) usability of remote labs; (b) learners’ attitude towards remote labs; (c) technical evaluation of remote labs operation; (d) evaluation of the e-learning content namely the teaching units previously described; and (e) learning outcome. Furthermore, this paper presents preliminary evaluation results based on this evaluation plan and resulted from a pilot case study.

Qualifications and Abilities required of Japanese Language Teachers in the Process of Managing the E-learning Contents in Cyber Universities -Through the practice case in CUFS-

Qualifications and Abilities required of Japanese Language Teachers in the Process of Managing the E-learning Contents in Cyber Universities -Through the practice case in CUFS-

위험성 평가에 기반한 농작업 안전관리 E-Learning 체험 프로그램 개발 사례 연구

This paper presents a case study to develop e-learning contents of agricultural safety based on the assessment of risks of 4 selected crops and stock farming: rice, potatoes, apples, tomatoes and stock raising. The aged farmers, who are main workforce of current Korean agriculture and relatively more vulnerable to various risks of agricultural work compared to younger workers, were considered as the main users of the contents in developing them. The safety guidelines were presented as simple as possible and the interfaces were designed to be simple and easy to use so that the older users can use it without much difficulty. In making the scenarios of the contents, risk assessments were carried out for each crop and stock farming with the focus being on occupational diseases rather than accidental injuries. To make the contents more attractive to the farmers, the functions requiring active responses from the users, such as answering simple questions, were included in the contents. Usability evaluation by experts of ergonomics and agricultural tasks were carried out in modifying the draft version, whereas formal usability test was not included in the case study. Though there are some limitations in the developed contents in the aspects of evaluation of usability and effectiveness, this case study shows the structured procedure of developing e-learning safety contents based on the risk assessments on agricultural tasks. The developed e-learning contents are expected to be used practically and easily in educating and training older farmers about safety and health of agricultural tasks.

Peer Creation of E-Learning Materials to Enhance Learning Success and Satisfaction in an Information Systems Course

Creating up-to-date high quality learning materials requires significant resources many instructors cannot afford, especially when it comes to appealing eLearning materials. Peer creation may help to address this challenge. However, existing concepts of peer learning focus mostly on enhancing active discussion and reflection. Thus far, little to no research has addressed processes of systematically creating modular, re-usable learning materials and evaluated the extent to which these materials can enrich the learning experience. To close this gap, we transferred principles of traditional peer learning onto the creation of self-contained, high quality eLearning materials: Web Based Trainings that served as an interactive script and multiple-choice tests as peer assessments. These learning materials were used in a large-scale Information Systems course1. We analyzed user logs, measured learning outcomes by a pre- and post-power-test (n=164) and evaluated learner satisfaction by an online questionnaire (n=128). Results show a significant correlation between usage of the peer created eLearning materials and learning outcomes, as well as satisfaction. The study contributes to the pedagogical research by adapting and evaluating traditional peer learning concepts onto eLearning content creation. To practitioners, it reveals ways of creating high quality eLearning materials in spite of limited resources.

사이버대학 이러닝 콘텐츠의 보편적 학습설계 현황과 개선방안

본 연구는 사이버대학의 다양한 학습자의 참여와 평등한 학습권 지원을 위해 이러닝 콘텐츠의 보편적 학습설계의 실천적 적용 방안에목적이 있다. 콘텐츠를 분석하기 위해 국내 학사과정 4년제 사이버대학 17개 중 15개 사이버대학이 제공하고 있는 VOD 혼합형 이러닝 콘텐츠의 보편적 학습설계 원리의 적용현황을 분석하고 보편적 학습설계 원리의 적용을 위한 개선 방안을 제시하였다. 3명의 전문가 평가를통해 사이버대학 이러닝 콘텐츠의 보편적 학습설계 적용의 기준이 되는 평가 기준표를 작성하여 현재 사이버대학의 보편적 학습설계 적용현황을 평가하였다. 연구 결과, 인지적 네트워크에는 사전이나 해설기능, 시⋅청각장애인을 위한 지원, 학습에이전트 기능이 부족하였다. 전략적 네트워크에는 자신의 학습 패턴이나 학습 스타일, 학습 정도를파악할 수 있는 기능은 없었고, 정의적 네트워크에는 수업내용의 난이도 조절기능이 전무했다. 이러한 연구 결과를 통해 다양한 학습자를참여시킬 수 있는 사이버대학 본래의 목적에 부합한 이러닝 콘텐츠의UDL 적용을 위한 개선방안을 제시하였다.

Using concept similarity in cross ontology for adaptive e-Learning systems

e-Learning is one of the most preferred media of learning by the learners. The learners search the web to gather knowledge about a particular topic from the information in the repositories. Retrieval of relevant materials from a domain can be easily implemented if the information is organized and related in some way. Ontologies are a key concept that helps us to relate information for providing the more relevant lessons to the learner. This paper proposes an adaptive e-Learning system, which generates a user specific e-Learning content by comparing the concepts with more than one system using similarity measures. A cross ontology measure is defined, which consists of fuzzy domain ontology as the primary ontology and the domain expert’s ontology as the secondary ontology, for the comparison process. A personalized document is provided to the user with a user profile, which includes the data obtained from the processing of the proposed method under a User score, which is obtained through the user evaluation. The results of the proposed e-Learning system under the designed cross ontology similarity measure show a significant increase in performance and accuracy under different conditions. The assessment of the comparative analysis, showed the difference in performance of our proposed method over other methods. Based on the assessment results it is proved that the proposed approach is effective over other methods.

Building E-learning Content Repositories to Support Content Reusability

The paper presents the method and tools to build repositories of digitalized didactic materials to support their reusability. The method consists of a set of recommendations for the structuring of didactic materials and of a way to assign unambiguous didactic interpretation to sections of materials by means of UCTS. UCTS (i.e. Universal Curricular Taxonomy System) is a taxonomic system designed to situate learning content in the didactic process. Using this system to mark parts of materials ensures that users will access materials that are cohesive and relevant without the risk of downloading from the repository incomplete chunks of content. Such guarantee is indispensable in massive repositories, which are created and used by numerous users, and which contain non-uniform content. An important component of the presented method is dedicated software Content Repository Tool, which was designed to store and process didactic content with the ability to reuse it in different educational contexts. This software enables creation of single- or multi-topic repositories with the possibility to create distributed repositories.

Personalization and Contextualization of Learning Experiences based on Semantics

Context-aware e-learning is an educational model that foresees the selection of learning resources to make the e-learning content more relevant and suitable for the learner in his/her situation. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that an ontological approach can be used to define leaning contexts and to allow contextualizing learning experiences finding out relevant topics for each context. To do that, we defined a context model able to formally describe a learning context, an ontology-based model enabling the representation of a teaching domain (including context information) and a methodology to generate personalized and context-aware learning experiences starting from them. Based on these theoretical components we improved an existing system for personalized e-learning with contextualisation features and experimented it with real users in two University courses. The results obtained from this experimentation have been compared with those achieved by similar systems.

АНАЛІТИЧНИЙ ОГЛЯД ЕЛЕКТРОННИХ РЕСУРСІВ ДЛЯ ВИВЧЕННЯ ЛАТИНСЬКОЇ МОВИ

Стаття присвячена дослідженню сучасного стану розвитку електронного навчального контенту з латинської мови. Вперше зроблено спробу систематизувати відомості щодо існуючих зарубіжних і вітчизняних електронних ресурсів і видань для вивчення латини. Велику увагу приділено дослідженню дидактичного потенціалу локальних і мережевих мультимедійних курсів латинської мови, електронних підручників в посібників, збірок інтерактивних тестів і вправ, різноманітних словників і програм-перекладачів, баз даних і бібліотек. На основі аналізу сучасного світового ринку освітніх послуг і продуктів виявлено основні тенденції розвитку інформаційних ресурсів і електронних видань для вивчення латини. Окреслено перспективи розвитку електронного навчального контенту з латинської мови в Україні.

A Study on Visual Formative of Multi-layered Depth Map User Interface for Improving Interaction of Hologram-based e-learning Contents

A Study on Visual Formative of Multi-layered Depth Map User Interface for Improving Interaction of Hologram-based e-learning Contents

A New Method for Measuring Text Similarity in Learning Management Systems Using WordNet

As text sources are getting broader, measuring text similarity is becoming more compelling. Automatic text classification, search engines and auto answering systems are samples of applications that rely on text similarity. Learning management systems (LMS) are becoming more important since electronic media is getting more publicly available. As LMS continuously needs content enrichment and the web is getting richer, automatic collection of learning materials becomes an innovative idea. Intelligent agents can be used with a similarity measurement method to implement the automatic collection process. This paper presents a new method for measuring text similarity using the well-known WordNet Ontology. The proposed method assumes that a text is similar to another if it represents a more specific semantic. This is more suitable for LMS content enrichment as learning content can usually be expanded by a more specific one. This paper shows how the hierarchy of WordNet can be taken advantage of to determine the importance of a word. It is also shown how similarity method within an e-learning system is exploited to achieve two goals. The first one is the enrichment of the e-learning content, and the second is the detection of semantically similar questions in e-learning questions banks.

Roles of Japanese Language Teachers in Cyber Universities of Korea -Focusing on the e-learning contents production process in C University-

Roles of Japanese Language Teachers in Cyber Universities of Korea -Focusing on the e-learning contents production process in C University-

Concepts of Disaster Prevention Design for Safety in the Future Society

In this paper, we propose a pioneering concept of DPD(Disaster Prevention Design) to realize a securable society in the future. Features of danger in the future society are expected to be diverse, abrupt occurring, large scale, and complicated ways. Due to increment of dangers with their features of uncertainty, interactivity, complexity, and accumulation, human-oriented design concept naturally participates in activities to prevent our society against disasters effectively. We presented DPD is an essential design activity in order to cope with dangers expected in the future societies as well as realize securable environments. DPD is also an integrated design aids including preemptive protections, rapid preparing, recovery, and interactive cooperation. We also expect these activities of DPD is effective for generation of new values in the market, satisfaction of social needs, expansion of design industry, and a novel chance for development in the future society. Throughout this paper, we submit various aspects of DPD concepts including definition, classification, scope, necessity, strategy, influencing elements, process, and its principle. We expect these concepts will be the seed and/or basement of DPD research for the future works. For the direction of study for DPD in the future, we emphasize alarm system for preemptive protection rather than recovery strategy for the damage occurred. We also need to research about progressive prevention techniques and convergence with other areas of design. In order to transfer the concept of product design from facility-oriented mechanism to human-oriented one, we should develop new kinds of city basis facilities, public-sense design concepts referred to social weak-party, e-Learning content design preparing disasters, and virtual simulation design etc. On the other hand, we have to establish laws and regulations to force central and/or provincial governments to have these DPD strategies applying their regional properties. Modern design activities are expanding to UI(user interface) content design area overcoming the conventional design concept of product and/or service. In addition, designers are recognized as art directors or life stylists who will change the human life and create the social value. DPD can be divided into prevention design, preparedness design, response design, and recovery design. Five strategies for successful DPD are Precaution-oriented, Human-oriented, Sense-oriented, Legislation, and Environment Friendly Strategies.

Users’ perspectives on tour-guide training courses using 3D tourist sites

<p>Taiwan is currently attempting to develop itself into a twenty-first century tourist hub to take advantage of today’s thriving global tourism economy. In the coming years, Taiwan anticipates an urgent demand for tour guides, and there is a clear need for training solutions that can serve a rapidly growing population. Computer-mediated virtual 3D situated tourist sites (3D-STS) may provide an efficient solution. This study investigates users’ perspectives on a specially developed tour-guide training course employing 3D-STS technology. After participants completed the course, their responses to a survey questionnaire and follow-up interviews were compiled for statistical analysis. The results indicated that the overall experience of 3D-STS was satisfactory for trainees and showed a significant difference in the perspectives on 3D-STS of male and female trainees. However, one essential limitation of the study, that is, insufficient familiarity with the multiple advanced technologies, must be acknowledged. This could be a major obstacle for some users, interfering with their ability to access and process e-learning content. For more effective training outcomes for tour guides, the dynamic nature of 3D-STS as well as the characteristics of course content for tour guides should be considered carefully.</p><p> </p>