FORGE: An eLearning Framework for Remote Laboratory Experimentation on FIRE Testbed Infrastructure

The Forging Online Education through FIRE (FORGE) initiative provides educators and learners in higher education with access to world-class FIRE testbed infrastructure. FORGE supports experimentally driven research in an eLearning environment by complementing traditional classroom and online courses with interactive remote laboratory experiments. The project has achieved its objectives by defining and implementing a framework called FORGEBox. This framework offers the methodology, environment, tools and resources to support the creation of HTML-based online educational material capable accessing virtualized and physical FIRE testbed infrastruc- ture easily. FORGEBox also captures valuable quantitative and qualitative learning analytic information using questionnaires and Learning Analytics that can help optimise and support student learning. To date, FORGE has produced courses covering a wide range of networking and communication domains. These are freely available from FORGEBox.eu and have resulted in over 24,000 experiments undertaken by more than 1,800 students across 10 countries worldwide. This work has shown that the use of remote high- performance testbed facilities for hands-on remote experimentation can have a valuable impact on the learning experience for both educators and learners. Additionally, certain challenges in developing FIRE-based courseware have been identified, which has led to a set of recommendations in order to support the use of FIRE facilities for teaching and learning purposes

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

Courseware in academic library user education: a literature review from the GAELS Joint Electronic Library project

The use of courseware for information skills teaching in academic libraries has been growing for a number of years. The GAELS project was required to create a set of learning materials to support Joint Electronic Library activity at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities and conducted a literature review of the subject. This review discovered a range of factors common to successful library courseware implementations, such as the need for practitioners to feel a sense of ownership of the medium, a need for courseware customization to local information environments, and an emphasis on training packages for large bodies of undergraduates. However, we also noted underdeveloped aspects worthy of further attention, such as treatment of pedagogic issues in library CAL implementations and use of hypertextual learning materials for more advanced information skills training. We suggest ways of improving library teaching practice and further areas of research

Courseware in academic library user education: A literature review from the GAELS Joint Electronic Library Project

The use of courseware for information skills teaching in academic libraries has been growing for a number of years. In order to create effective courseware packages to support joint electronic library activity at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities, the GAELS project conducted a literature review of the subject. This review discovered a range of factors common to successful library courseware implementations, such as the need for practitioners to feel a sense of ownership of the medium, a need for courseware customization to local information environments, and an emphasis on training packages for large bodies of undergraduates. However, we also noted underdeveloped aspects worthy of further attention, such as treatment of pedagogic issues in library computer‐aided learning (CAL) implementations and use of hypertextual learning materials for more advanced information skills training. We describe how these findings shaped the packages produced by the project and suggest ways forward for similar types of implementation

Designing learning object repositories : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Information Science in Information Sciences at Massey University

Learning object repositories are expanding rapidly into the role of independent educational systems that not only are a supplement to a traditional way of learning, but also allow users to search, exchange and re-use learning objects. The intention of this innovative technology is to have such repositories to collect a database of learning objects catalogued by the learning content management system. However, for users to perform an efficient search, these learning objects would need to use metadata standards or specifications to describe their properties. For learning objects stored within the repositories, metadata standards are often used to descibe them so users of the respositories are able to find the accurate resources they required, hence metadata standards are important elements of any learning object repository. In this paper, a courseware example is used to demonstrate how to define a set of characteristics that we want to describe for our courseware, and attempt to map the data schema in the database with the available metadata standards. The outcome is to identify a set of metadata elements that would fully describe our learning objects stored within the learning object repository, and these metadata elements will also assist instructors to create adaptable courseware that can be reused by different instructors. Metadata standard is known as a critical element for the management of learning objects, not only will it increase the accuracy of the search results, it will also provide more relevant and descriptive information about the learning objects to the searchers

Web interfaces to enhance CAL materials: Case studies from law and statistics

One impact of the ‘information age’ is that a variety of new learning resources have become available to both students and tutors. Using these resources effectively and with a sound pedagogical basis presents a whole array of issues for teaching professionals. In this paper the authors describe the development and implementation of a Web interface to existing computer‐based learning materials in an attempt to enhance the student learning experience. Although the innovations occurred in two very different disciplines ‐statistics and law ‐ there are common lessons to be learned about the process of learning and the use of technology

Improving the Quality of Technology-Enhanced Learning for Computer Programming Courses

Teaching computing courses is a major challenge for the majority of lecturers in Libyan higher learning institutions. These courses contain numerous abstract concepts that cannot be easily explained using traditional educational methods. This paper describes the rationale, design, development and implementation stages of an e-learning package (including multimedia resources such as simulations, animations, and videos) using the ASSURE model. This training package can be used by students before they attend practical computer lab sessions, preparing them by developing technical skills and applying concepts and theories presented in lecture through supplementary study and exercises

Supporting personalization in a web-based course through the definition of role-based access policies

Role-based access policies model the users domain by means of complex structures where roles, which represent jobs or responsibilities assumed by users, are specialized into more concrete subroles which inherit properties and authorizations from their parents. Such an approach can be applied within the context of educational applications, where different roles are easily identified each of which has different views of the same information items and different capabilities to modify them. Moreover, even though this approach, has only been oriented towards modeling security requirements, it can be extended to support personalized access to the information. In this paper, we describe how to combine the basic principles of RBAC policies and adaptation with a view of providing personalized access to the different types of users of a web-based course. Moreover, we also present Courba, a platform to generate personalized web-based courses using XML to support the definition of access policies.Role-based access policies model the users domain by means of complex structures where roles, which represent jobs or responsibilities assumed by users, are specialized into more concrete subroles which inherit properties and authorizations from their parents. Such an approach can be applied within the context of educational applications, where different roles are easily identified each of which has different views of the same information items and different capabilities to modify them. Moreover, even though this approach, has only been oriented towards modeling security requirements, it can be extended to support personalized access to the information. In this paper, we describe how to combine the basic principles of RBAC policies and adaptation with a view of providing personalized access to the different types of users of a web-based course. Moreover, we also present Courba, a platform to generate personalized web-based courses using XML to support the definition of access policies