Evaluating Recommender Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning: A Quantitative Survey

The increasing number of publications on recommender systems for Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) evidence a growing interest in their development and deployment. In order to support learning, recommender systems for TEL need to consider specific requirements, which differ from the requirements for recommender systems in other domains like e-commerce. Consequently, these particular requirements motivate the incorporation of specific goals and methods in the evaluation process for TEL recommender systems. In this article, the diverse evaluation methods that have been applied to evaluate TEL recommender systems are investigated. A total of 235 articles are selected from major conferences, workshops, journals, and books where relevant work have been published between 2000 and 2014. These articles are quantitatively analysed and classified according to the following criteria: type of evaluation methodology, subject of evaluation, and effects measured by the evaluation. Results from the survey suggest that there is a growing awareness in the research community of the necessity for more elaborate evaluations. At the same time, there is still substantial potential for further improvements. This survey highlights trends and discusses strengths and shortcomings of the evaluation of TEL recommender systems thus far, thereby aiming to stimulate researchers to contemplate novel evaluation approaches.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzad

Evaluating Recommender Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning: A Quantitative Survey

The increasing number of publications on recommender systems for Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) evidence a growing interest in their development and deployment. In order to support learning, recommender systems for TEL need to consider specific requirements, which differ from the requirements for recommender systems in other domains like e-commerce. Consequently, these particular requirements motivate the incorporation of specific goals and methods in the evaluation process for TEL recommender systems. In this article, the diverse evaluation methods that have been applied to evaluate TEL recommender systems are investigated. A total of 235 articles are selected from major conferences, workshops, journals, and books where relevant work have been published between 2000 and 2014. These articles are quantitatively analysed and classified according to the following criteria: type of evaluation methodology, subject of evaluation, and effects measured by the evaluation. Results from the survey suggest that there is a growing awareness in the research community of the necessity for more elaborate evaluations. At the same time, there is still substantial potential for further improvements. This survey highlights trends and discusses strengths and shortcomings of the evaluation of TEL recommender systems thus far, thereby aiming to stimulate researchers to contemplate novel evaluation approaches.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzad

The Quality Of Saudi Accreditation Standards For Distance Learning: Benchmarking And Expert Validation

The quality of distance learning is a concern among different stakeholders. An online learning degree is recognized in some countries while it is not accredited in others. Saudi Arabia is one of these countries that have skepticism in the quality of distance learning. It also has specific conditions for accrediting distance learning programs. Saudi Arabia recently has developed accreditation standards to ensure the quality of this learning mode but Saudi universities have not adopted the standards yet. Thus, the quality of these standards has not been tested yet. Therefore, this study investigates the quality of these standards by applying the methodology of benchmarking to compare their quality to frequently cited quality models for online learning and to aspirational countries in the West (US, UK, and Australia) and to peer countries in Asia (South Korea, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka) and Arabic Region (Jordan and United Arab Emirates (UAE)). It also explores the differences and similarities in the regulations of distance learning accreditation between these 8 countries and Saudi Arabia. The study also validates the standards in a survey design using experts’ rating to the relevance and importance of the Saudi standards for quality distance learning. The findings revealed an overall quality of the Saudi standards based on benchmarking and experts’ rating. Suggestions have been made to improve or change very few quality indicators. The regulations and rules for accrediting distance learning in Saudi Arabia are found to be strict in comparison to other countries. Therefore, the study also recommended policy makers in Saudi Arabia to adopt some of the regulations and standards of distance learning accreditation available in some of the aspirational and peer countries. Other recommendations have been suggested to different stakeholders including higher education institutions, instructional designers, and program directors

Evaluating Recommender Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning: A Quantitative Survey

The increasing number of publications on recommender systems for Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) evidence a growing interest in their development and deployment. In order to support learning, recommender systems for TEL need to consider specific requirements, which differ from the requirements for recommender systems in other domains like e-commerce. Consequently, these particular requirements motivate the incorporation of specific goals and methods in the evaluation process for TEL recommender systems. In this article, the diverse evaluation methods that have been applied to evaluate TEL recommender systems are investigated. A total of 235 articles are selected from major conferences, workshops, journals, and books where relevant work have been published between 2000 and 2014. These articles are quantitatively analysed and classified according to the following criteria: type of evaluation methodology, subject of evaluation, and effects measured by the evaluation. Results from the survey suggest that there is a growing awareness in the research community of the necessity for more elaborate evaluations. At the same time, there is still substantial potential for further improvements. This survey highlights trends and discusses strengths and shortcomings of the evaluation of TEL recommender systems thus far, thereby aiming to stimulate researchers to contemplate novel evaluation approaches.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzad

Student Perceptions Of Online Education At Community Colleges: A Review Of The Literature

ABSTRACT There is a need to identify and discuss community college student perceptions of online education as a window to an array of challenges that these institutions face. Student perspectives can confirm, or disconfirm, the impressions and accounts of other community college stakeholders and decision makers. The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive review of the literature from 1995-2015 that answered the primary research question, What are the student perceptions of online education at community colleges in the United States? Extensive strategies were used to locate information for review. Analysis of the literature yielded a framework for formulating findings. That heuristic consisted of input elements interacting within a context to yield an outcome, and for some interactions, also a product. This research produced six findings: 1) early distance education and Internet technology interacted within the context of a community college yielding online education infrastructure, 2) student attributes and online education infrastructure interacted within the context of open access at community colleges yielding learning opportunities for students, 3) online education infrastructure and learning opportunities interacted within a context of instruction resulting in student perceptions of online education at community colleges, 4) interactions among course content, the instructor, and the students within the context of online education yielded the potential for learning which produced student perceptions of online education, 5) cognitive, social, and teaching presence interacted within the context of a community of learners yielding the potential for learning which produced student perceptions of the quality of online education, and 6) currently, there are no reports of student-identified best practices that are essential for student satisfaction, learning, and success in online education at community colleges. There is only a small body of literature on student perceptions of online education at community colleges--much of which offers conflicting findings which make it difficult to formulate generalizations. Further, for the case studies of online courses, disciplines, or a single college there are yet no follow-up investigations that test the verification, reliability, and generalizability of the findings. Both qualitative and quantitative research are needed in the areas identified in this study

Online Teacher Professional Development: The Importance of Training to Deliver PD Online

Thesis advisor: Joseph PedullaThe most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, focuses on the continued importance of teacher professional development. There are a great deal of challenges involved with delivering high-quality teacher professional development to all teachers, however, such as time, geography, and available resources. Online professional development is emerging in the literature as a viable alternative to traditional face-to-face online professional development. With the recent emergence of such a trend, however, very little research had been conducted on the quality of the individuals providing the online PD to teachers. The aim of this study was to examine one online facilitator-training program which was designed to train facilitators in the skills and best practices associated with delivering high quality PD to teachers across eight states. Using survey data collected over a two-year period, this dissertation explored the relationship between facilitator trainee ratings of training workshop quality and teacher outcomes of interest through a set of five regression equations. While only three of the relationships were found to be statistically significant, all provided valuable insight nonetheless. Specifically, the significant contributions include; a better insight into the relationship between training facilitators to deliver PD specifically in an online format and teacher perception of course quality, a series of tools to measure this relationship with other facilitator training programs in the future and, a contribution to the sparse literature currently available on this topic.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation