Automatic Lecture Recording

Lecture recording has become a very common tool to provide students with additional media for their examination preparations. While its effort has to stay reasonable, only a very basic way of recording is done in many cases. Therefore, watching the resulting videos can get very boring completely independent of how interesting the original topic or session was. This thesis proposes a new approach to lecture recordings by letting distributed computers emulate the work of a human camera team, which is the natural way of creating attractive recordings. This thesis is structured in six chapters, starting with the examination of the current situation, and taking its constraints into account. The first chapter concludes with a reflection on related work. Chapter two is about the design of our prototype system. It is deduced from a human camera team in the real world which gets transferred into the virtual world. Finally, a detailed overview about all parts necessary for our prototype and their planned functionality is given. In chapter three, the implementation of all parts and tasks and the incidents occurring during implementation are described in detail. Chapter four describes the technical experiences made with the different parts during development, testing and evaluation with a view to functionality, performance, and an proposal towards future work. The evaluation of the whole system with students is presented and discussed in the fifth chapter. Chapter six concludes this thesis by summing up the facts and gives an outlook on future work

Сравнительный анализ функциональности прототипов интеллектуальных пространств

A survey of smart space prototypes intended for scientific and educational meetings and facilitated by means of automatic speech recording is represented in the paper. Analysis of the used audio visual signal processing means and realized user services allowed us to propose a classification of smart space prototypes. The peculiarities of the developed smart meeting room and its distinction features from the considered prototypes are described.В статье представлен обзор прототипов интеллектуальных пространств, предназначенных для поддержки проведения научно-образовательных мероприятий и оснащенных средствами автоматической записи выступлений участников. На основе анализа применяемых в них средств обработки аудиовизуальных сигналов и реализованных пользовательских сервисов была предложена оригинальная классификация прототипов интеллектуальных пространств. Также описана специфика разработанного интеллектуального зала и его отличия от рассмотренных прототипов

A Survey of Smart Classroom Literature

Recently, there has been a substantial amount of research on smart classrooms, encompassing a number of areas, including Information and Communication Technology, Machine Learning, Sensor Networks, Cloud Computing, and Hardware. Smart classroom research has been quickly implemented to enhance education systems, resulting in higher engagement and empowerment of students, educators, and administrators. Despite decades of using emerging technology to improve teaching practices, critics often point out that methods miss adequate theoretical and technical foundations. As a result, there have been a number of conflicting reviews on different perspectives of smart classrooms. For a realistic smart classroom approach, a piecemeal implementation is insufficient. This survey contributes to the current literature by presenting a comprehensive analysis of various disciplines using a standard terminology and taxonomy. This multi-field study reveals new research possibilities and problems that must be tackled in order to integrate interdisciplinary works in a synergic manner. Our analysis shows that smart classroom is a rapidly developing research area that complements a number of emerging technologies. Moreover, this paper also describes the co-occurrence network of technological keywords using VOSviewer for an in-depth analysis

Effectiveness of Video Lecturing Technology in ICT Learning

This thesis studies large-scale initiatives that support the use of video lecturing in teaching and presents a system for using video lectures and for integrating them to courses in a Moodle learning management system. The main emphasis of the thesis is in the implementation of video lectures and the analysis of the learning results through video lectures. Also, the influence of using video lectures in teaching is evaluated by comparing the learning of student groups with and without the possibility of using video lectures. Effectiveness of video lecturing has been studied by comparing the average exam points acquired by different student groups. First an introduction to video lectures and typical ways of using them in large-scale initiatives is presented. Also the challenges and possible ways to optimize the use of video lecturing are examined. Then the thesis describes possible ways to produce screencast to be used as video lectures and presents the method used to create these video lectures for an experimental course dealing with information technology systems and devices. The distribution of the video lectures to the students and the implementation to the Moodle learning management system are also described. The last part of the thesis focuses on analysing the use of video lectures and the exam results with three different student groups that used video lecturing material and one group without such possibility. Each group of students that used video lectures used them in different way. The result was that the benefits of using video lectures alone were not found to result in better exams results in the experimental course between groups with or without video lectures. However, at the same time the student inquiry clearly showed that video lecturing made studying more convenient for the students. Also the influence of time and place independent learning enabled by video lectures for youth students shows positively in the exam results

Improved Tracking with IEEE 802.11 and Location Fingerprinting

In recent years, location-based services have become increasingly important for our daily lives. To estimate a user’s position, these days mainly the Global Positioning System (GPS) is used. In situations where GPS in unavailable, location fingerprinting with the help of IEEE 802.11 has proven as a viable alternative. However, the latter still suffers from some problems that impede a widespread use. These problems firstly are identified in this thesis, and secondly solutions to the different issues are introduced and evaluated. The covered topics contain means to improve the positioning accuracy of location fingerprinting with IEEE 802.11, algorithms to greatly decrease the effort that is necessary to set up a fingerprint database, and ways to estimate the error that has to be expected when estimating a position with IEEE 802.11 and location fingerprinting. Furthermore, the thesis covers problems that occur when estimating the position of a mobile user with IEEE 802.11 and location fingerprinting. Finally, an overview of application scenarios for the given algorithms is presented and a conclusion is given

A utilização da plataforma Educast@fccn, como ferramenta de gravação de aulas no ambiente de e-learning português

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Audiovisual e Multimédia.No decorrer desta tese de mestrado, será estudado o processo de gravação de aulas em suporte de vídeo digital, na comunidade RCTS (Rede Ciência Tecnologia e Sociedade) e a sua posterior disponibilização aos alunos na internet e dispositivos móveis. A plataforma em análise é o Educast@fccn, que possibilita a gravação de aulas, eventos institucionais, seminários e workshops. A plataforma permite através de software e hardware dedicado gravar, editar e publicar conteúdos de uma forma integrada, combinando de forma síncrona, o sinal de áudio, vídeo e slide show apresentado em ambiente de sala de aula. Este estudo visa obter uma compreensão mais aprofundada dos hábitos e práticas de produção de conteúdos e-learning, baseados em formato audiovisual, no seio da comunidade académica e científica portuguesa. Serão ainda foco de estudo, as formas de disseminação e consumo dos conteúdos pelos alunos, o nível de produção nacional, o número de utilizadores, número de visualizações por formato, instituições aderentes e boas práticas de utilização da plataforma.ABSTRACT: During this Master Thesis, will be studied the process of lecture recording in digital video, in RCTS (Rede Ciência Tecnologia e Sociedade - Science Technology and Society Network) community and its subsequent availability to students in the internet and mobile devices. The platform is Educast@fccn, which enables the recording of lessons, corporate events, seminars and workshops. The platform allows through software and hardware to record, edit and publish content in an integrated way, combining synchronously the audio, video and slide show signals, presented in the classroom environment. This study aims to obtain a deeper understanding of the habits and production practices of e-learning content, based on audio-visual format, within the Portuguese academic and scientific community. This study will also focus on dissemination and consumption of contents by students, the national level production, number of users, number of views per format, member institutions and best practices of platform usage

Forschungsbericht Universität Mannheim 2008 / 2009

Die Universität Mannheim hat seit ihrer Entstehung ein spezifisches Forschungsprofil, welches sich in ihrer Entwicklung und derz eitigen Struktur deutlich widerspiegelt. Es ist geprägt von national und international sehr anerkannten Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften und deren Vernetzung mit leistungsstarken Geisteswissenschaften, Rechtswissenschaft sowie Mathematik und Informatik. Die Universität Mannheim wird auch in Zukunft einerseits die Forschungsschwerpunkte in den Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften fördern und andererseits eine interdisziplinäre Kultur im Zusammenspiel aller Fächer der Universität anstreben