A human‐computer interaction principles based framework to assess the user perception of web based virtual research environments

Due to various challenges and opportunities such as globalisation of research agenda and advancements in information and communication technologies, research collaborations (both international and national) have become popular during the last decade more than ever before. Within this context, the concept of Virtual Research Environments(VRE) is an emerging concept looking at addressing the complex challenges associated with conducting collaborative research. Even though concept of VRE is at its infancy, it is important to assess user perception about those, both to establish its success of uptake and future development strategies. However, to date, there is no formal method established to evaluate VREs .This paper reports a strategy adopted within an international collaborative research project (EURASIA) to evaluate its custom built VRE, VEBER, using the well known Computer Human Interaction principles. Santruka Ivairiausi iššūkiai ir galimybes, tokios kaip planuojamu moksliniu tyrimu globalizacija ir informacijos bei komunikacijos technologiju pažanga, pastaraji dešimtmeti leme didesni nei bet kada tiriamojo bendradarbiavimo (ir tarptautinio, ir nacionalinio) populiaruma. Šiame kontekste virtualiosios moksliniu tyrimu aplinkos (VMTA) savoka – tai gimstanti savoka, kuria siekiama imtis sudetingu iššūkiu, susijusiu su tiriamuoju bendradarbiavimu. Nors VMTA savoka kol kas žengia pirmuosius žingsnius, svarbu ivertinti, kaip vartotojai ja suvokia, siekdami nustatyti, kaip jai seksis prigyti, ir būsimasias pletros strategijas. Tačiau formalaus metodo VMTA vertinti kol kas nera. Šiame darbe pristatoma strategija, taikyta tarptautiniame moksliniu tyrimu bendradarbiavimo projekte (EURASIA), nes norima ivertinti specialiai tam sukurta VMTA, pavadinta VEBER, naudojant gerai žinomus kompiuterio ir žmogaus saveikos principus. First Publish Online: 18 Oct 201

Gamification in a learning resource for the study of Human Computer Interaction

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is increasing in relevance as it, in part, concerns the design of digital interfaces such as downloadable apps. Despite the importance of the subject area students frequently find the topic boring, dry and overly theoretical. In order to address this apparent lack of student interest, a gamified learning resource for a HCI module in the second year of University was created. A literature review into the HCI educational requirements was conducted and used to inform the design. A further analysis of the literature on dialogic feedback, simulations and gamification features was conducted and key features were matched to the educational requirements. The resultant gamified learning resource, dubbed the “work simulation”, was evaluated first by a two cohort comparison for module lecture attendance and exam attainment. The results of the first phase of the evaluation showed a statistically significant improvement in both attendance and attainment for the cohort experiencing the “work simulation”. A further evaluation was carried out by means of interviews with students, which suggested that dialogic feedback and the game narrative/fiction, in particular, were useful

Novel Datasets, User Interfaces and Learner Models to Improve Learner Engagement Prediction on Educational Videos

With the emergence of Open Education Resources (OERs), educational content creation has rapidly scaled up, making a large collection of new materials made available. Among these, we find educational videos, the most popular modality for transferring knowledge in the technology-enhanced learning paradigm. Rapid creation of learning resources opens up opportunities in facilitating sustainable education, as the potential to personalise and recommend specific materials that align with individual users’ interests, goals, knowledge level, language and stylistic preferences increases. However, the quality and topical coverage of these materials could vary significantly, posing significant challenges in managing this large collection, including the risk of negative user experience and engagement with these materials. The scarcity of support resources such as public datasets is another challenge that slows down the development of tools in this research area. This thesis develops a set of novel tools that improve the recommendation of educational videos. Two novel datasets and an e-learning platform with a novel user interface are developed to support the offline and online testing of recommendation models for educational videos. Furthermore, a set of learner models that accounts for the learner interests, knowledge, novelty and popularity of content is developed through this thesis. The different models are integrated together to propose a novel learner model that accounts for the different factors simultaneously. The user studies conducted on the novel user interface show that the new interface encourages users to explore the topical content more rigorously before making relevance judgements about educational videos. Offline experiments on the newly constructed datasets show that the newly proposed learner models outperform their relevant baselines significantly