A VISUAL DESIGN METHOD AND ITS APPLICATION TO HIGH RELIABILITY HYPERMEDIA SYSTEMS

This work addresses the problem of the production of hypermedia documentation for applications that require high reliability, particularly technical documentation in safety critical industries. One requirement of this application area is for the availability of a task-based organisation, which can guide and monitor such activities as maintenance and repair. In safety critical applications there must be some guarantee that such sequences are correctly presented. Conventional structuring and design methods for hypermedia systems do not allow such guarantees to be made. A formal design method that is based on a process algebra is proposed as a solution to this problem. Design methods of this kind need to be accessible to information designers. This is achieved by use of a technique already familiar to them: the storyboard. By development of a storyboard notation that is syntactically equivalent to a process algebra a bridge is made between information design and computer science, allowing formal analysis and refinement of the specification drafted by information designers. Process algebras produce imperative structures that do not map easily into the declarative formats used for some hypermedia systems, but can be translated into concurrent programs. This translation process, into a language developed by the author, called ClassiC, is illustrated and the properties that make ClassiC a suitable implementation target discussed. Other possible implementation targets are evaluated, and a comparative illustration given of translation into another likely target, Java

Culturally-based adaptive learning and concept analytics to guide educational website content integration

In modern learning environments, the lecturer or educational designer is often confronted withmulti-national student cohorts, requiring special consideration regarding language, cultural norms and taboos, religion, and ethics. Through a somewhat provocative example we demonstrate that taking such factors into account can be essential to avoid embarrassment and harm to individual learners' cultural sensibilities and, thus, provide the motivation for finding a solution using a specially designed feature, known as adaptive learning paths, for implementation in Learning Management Systems (LMS). Managing cultural conflicts is achievable by a twofold process. First, a learner profile must be created, in which the specific cultural parameters can be recorded. According to the learner profile,a set of content filter tags can be assigned to the learning path for the relevant students. Example content filter tags may be "no sex" or "nudity ok, but not combined with religion". Second, the LMS must have the functionality to select and present content based on the content filter tags. The design of learning material is presented via a meta-data based repository of learning objects that permits the adaptation of learning paths according to learner profiles, which include the cultural sensibilities in addition to prior knowledge and learning and categorized learning content - a detailed example is given.The drawback of using static or predefined meta-data elements is discussed, suggesting a further refinement via the introduction of dynamic concept analysis to be applied to both learner profiles and learning objects (restricted to text at this stage). An automated method of generating the content filter tags is achieved through the use of the Normalised Word Vector algorithm first developed for Automated Essay Grading system known as MarkIT (R. Williams, 2006). An automated method reduces human effort and ensures consistency.Sophisticated fine-grained dynamic learning path adaptivity is achieved through a detailed design given in the article, helping ensure that learners from a variety of cultural backgrounds can be treated appropriately and fairly and are not disadvantaged or offended by inappropriate learning content and examples

A Virtual University Infrastructure For Orthopaedic Surgical Training With Integrated Simulation

This thesis pivots around the fulcrum of surgical, educational and technological factors. Whilst there is no single conclusion drawn, it is a multidisciplinary thesis exploring the juxtaposition of different academic domains that have a significant influence upon each other. The relationship centres on the engineering and computer science factors in learning technologies for surgery. Following a brief introduction to previous efforts developing surgical simulation, this thesis considers education and learning in orthopaedics, the design and building of a simulator for shoulder surgery. The thesis considers the assessment of such tools and embedding into a virtual learning environment. It explains how the performed experiments clarified issues and their actual significance. This leads to discussion of the work and conclusions are drawn regarding the progress of integration of distributed simulation within the healthcare environment, suggesting how future work can proceed

D1.1 Open ICOPER Content Space Implementation of 1st Generation of Open ICOPER Content Space including Integration Mini Case Studies

In the context of the ICOPER project, the Open ICOPER content space (OICS) has been defined as the umbrella combining a portfolio of interoperable repositories, content and tools, as a test bed for the specifications and standards that become part of the ICOPER reference model. The use cases that the OICS will support emerge from the collaboration of all work packages. After fruitful discussions between all partners of work package 1, it was decided to conceive the first generation of the OICS as a meta-repository providing search functionality. Technologically, it would be based on metadata harvesting and provide a simple search interface for querying this metadata. This should build the foundation for the implementation of more sophisticated use cases that are currently collected by work package leaders, and are analyzed under the supervision of WP7. These use cases serve as concrete inputs for the future development of OICS. Detailed descriptions about this task are presented in Section 7.This project is funded under the eContentplus programm