Sustainable Efficiency and Usability for E-Learning Systems: Practical guide

This Guide has been written as a continuation of the efforts made during the SF-HEAT project to apply usability best practices in the design and development of the e-learning system of the project. The main idea that underlies the methodology behind the Guide is that educational effectiveness and efficiency crucially depends on the usability of the e-learning system. The Guide focuses on a simple practical approach related to a modified ADDIE model for sustainable usability improvement of the e-learning system

Vision systems with the human in the loop

The emerging cognitive vision paradigm deals with vision systems that apply machine learning and automatic reasoning in order to learn from what they perceive. Cognitive vision systems can rate the relevance and consistency of newly acquired knowledge, they can adapt to their environment and thus will exhibit high robustness. This contribution presents vision systems that aim at flexibility and robustness. One is tailored for content-based image retrieval, the others are cognitive vision systems that constitute prototypes of visual active memories which evaluate, gather, and integrate contextual knowledge for visual analysis. All three systems are designed to interact with human users. After we will have discussed adaptive content-based image retrieval and object and action recognition in an office environment, the issue of assessing cognitive systems will be raised. Experiences from psychologically evaluated human-machine interactions will be reported and the promising potential of psychologically-based usability experiments will be stressed

Desktop multimedia environments to support collaborative distance learning

Desktop multimedia conferencing, when two or more persons can communicate among themselves via personal computers with the opportunity to see and hear one another as well as communicate via text messages while working with commonly available stored resources, appears to have important applications to the support of collaborative learning. In this paper we explore this potential in three ways: (a) through an analysis of particular learner needs when learning and working collaboratively with others outside of face-to-face situations; (b) through an analysis of different forms of conferencing environments, including desktop multimedia environments, relative to their effectiveness in terms of meeting learner needs for distributed collaboration; and (c) through reporting the results of a formative evaluation of a prototype desktop multimedia conferencing system developed especially for the support of collaborative learning. Via these analyses, suggestions are offered relating to the functionalities of desktop multimedia conferencing systems for the support of collaborative learning, reflecting new developments in both the technologies available for such systems and in our awareness of learner needs when working collaboratively with one other outside of face-to-face situations

Evaluation of usage patterns for web-based educational systems using web mining

Virtual courses often separate teacher and student physically from one another, resulting in less direct feedback. The evaluation of virtual courses and other computer-supported educational systems is therefore of major importance in order to monitor student progress, guarantee the quality of the course and enhance the learning experience for the student. We present a technique for the usage evaluation of Web-based educational systems focussing on behavioural analysis, which is based on Web mining technologies. Sequential patterns are extracted from Web access logs and compared to expected behaviour

Evaluating system utility and conceptual fit using CASSM

There is a wealth of user-centred evaluation methods (UEMs) to support the analyst in assessing interactive systems. Many of these support detailed aspects of use – for example: Is the feedback helpful? Are labels appropriate? Is the task structure optimal? Few UEMs encourage the analyst to step back and consider how well a system supports users’ conceptual understandings and system utility. In this paper, we present CASSM, a method which focuses on the quality of ‘fit’ between users and an interactive system. We describe the methodology of conducting a CASSM analysis and illustrate the approach with three contrasting worked examples (a robotic arm, a digital library system and a drawing tool) that demonstrate different depths of analysis. We show how CASSM can help identify re-design possibilities to improve system utility. CASSM complements established evaluation methods by focusing on conceptual structures rather than procedures. Prototype tool support for completing a CASSM analysis is provided by Cassata, an open source development

Integrating information and knowledge for enterprise innovation

It has widely been accepted that enterprise integration, can be a source of socio-technical and cultural problems within organisations wishing to provide a focussed end-to-end business service. This can cause possible “straitjacketing” of business process architectures, thus suppressing responsive business re-engineering and competitive advantage for some companies. Accordingly, the current typology and emergent forms of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technologies are set in the context of understanding information and knowledge integration philosophies. As such, key influences and trends in emerging IS integration choices, for end-to-end, cost-effective and flexible knowledge integration, are examined. As touch points across and outside organisations proliferate, via work-flow and relationship management-driven value innovation, aspects of knowledge refinement and knowledge integration pose challenges to maximising the potential of innovation and sustainable success, within enterprises. This is in terms of the increasing propensity for data fragmentation and the lack of effective information management, in the light of information overload. Furthermore, the nature of IS mediation which is inherent within decision making and workflow-based business processes, provides the basis for evaluation of the effects of information and knowledge integration. Hence, the authors propose a conceptual, holistic evaluation framework which encompasses these ideas. It is thus argued that such trends, and their implications regarding enterprise IS integration to engender sustainable competitive advantage, require fundamental re-thinking