A literature synthesis of personalised technology-enhanced learning: what works and why

Personalised learning, having seen both surges and declines in popularity over the past few decades, is once again enjoying a resurgence. Examples include digital resources tailored to a particular learner’s needs, or individual feedback on a student’s assessed work. In addition, personalised technology-enhanced learning (TEL) now seems to be attracting interest from philanthropists and venture capitalists indicating a new level of enthusiasm for the area and a potential growth industry. However, these industries may be driven by profit rather than pedagogy, and hence it is vital these new developments are informed by relevant, evidence-based research. For many people, personalised learning is an ambiguous and even loaded term that promises much but does not always deliver. This paper provides an in-depth and critical review and synthesis of how personalisation has been represented in the literature since 2000, with a particular focus on TEL. We examine the reasons why personalised learning can be beneficial and examine how TEL can contribute to this. We also unpack how personalisation can contribute to more effective learning. Lastly, we examine the limitations of personalised learning and discuss the potential impacts on wider stakeholders

Science of Digital Libraries(SciDL)

Our purpose is to ensure that people and institutions better manage information through digital libraries (DLs). Thus we address a fundamental human and social need, which is particularly urgent in the modern Information (and Knowledge) Age. Our goal is to significantly advance both the theory and state-of-theart of DLs (and other advanced information systems) - thoroughly validating our approach using highly visible testbeds. Our research objective is to leverage our formal, theory-based approach to the problems of defining, understanding, modeling, building, personalizing, and evaluating DLs. We will construct models and tools based on that theory so organizations and individuals can easily create and maintain fully functional DLs, whose components can interoperate with corresponding components of related DLs. This research should be highly meritorious intellectually. We bring together a team of senior researchers with expertise in information retrieval, human-computer interaction, scenario-based design, personalization, and componentized system development and expect to make important contributions in each of those areas. Of crucial import, however, is that we will integrate our prior research and experience to achieve breakthrough advances in the field of DLs, regarding theory, methodology, systems, and evaluation. We will extend the 5S theory, which has identified five key dimensions or onstructs underlying effective DLs: Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios, and Societies. We will use that theory to describe and develop metamodels, models, and systems, which can be tailored to disciplines and/or groups, as well as personalized. We will disseminate our findings as well as provide toolkits as open source software, encouraging wide use. We will validate our work using testbeds, ensuring broad impact. We will put powerful tools into the hands of digital librarians so they may easily plan and configure tailored systems, to support an extensible set of services, including publishing, discovery, searching, browsing, recommending, and access control, handling diverse types of collections, and varied genres and classes of digital objects. With these tools, end-users will for be able to design personal DLs. Testbeds are crucial to validate scientific theories and will be thoroughly integrated into SciDL research and evaluation. We will focus on two application domains, which together should allow comprehensive validation and increase the significance of SciDL's impact on scholarly communities. One is education (through CITIDEL); the other is libraries (through DLA and OCKHAM). CITIDEL deals with content from publishers (e.g, ACM Digital Library), corporate research efforts e.g., CiteSeer), volunteer initiatives (e.g., DBLP, based on the database and logic rogramming literature), CS departments (e.g., NCSTRL, mostly technical reports), educational initiatives (e.g., Computer Science Teaching Center), and universities (e.g., theses and dissertations). DLA is a unit of the Virginia Tech library that virtually publishes scholarly communication such as faculty-edited journals and rare and unique resources including image collections and finding aids from Special Collections. The OCKHAM initiative, calling for simplicity in the library world, emphasizes a three-part solution: lightweightprotocols, component-based development, and open reference models. It provides a framework to research the deployment of the SciDL approach in libraries. Thus our choice of testbeds also will nsure that our research will have additional benefit to and impact on the fields of computing and library and information science, supporting transformations in how we learn and deal with information

Cut-and-Paste Plagiarism: Teaching Student Researchers Boundaries

Librarians affiliated with educational institutions, as members of an academic community, participate in teaching students and future scholars how they share in the responsibility of upholding ethical standards of scholarship and values of academic honesty. Academic honesty, in its variant forms,was part of issues in education long before the introduction of computers. Two forms, plagiarism and copyright infringement, were chronic problems in the print realm and present additional dimensions in today’s electronic environment. The causes of copyright infringement and plagiarism are extensive and complex. Divergent positions are represented in the literature on how to deal with these issues. They are not only legal issues, but moral and ethical issues as well

Vision for the Engagement of the e-Facilitator in School in the Inspiring Science Education Environment

The Inspiring Science Education project is all about elaborating a learning environment using an inquiry based learning (IBL) approach. The Inspiring Science Education portal as a main part of the environment is the place where a registered user can find (create) eLearning Tools and digital educational resources, which can be used in class and as a place to connect with like-minded teachers and schools around Europe to share experiences and collaborate on projects. On the other hand, starting from 2009 in various EU countries, including Bulgaria, research was done to describe and categorize the professional profile of the e-facilitator, carrier of the mission to overcome digital divide between the generations, through implementing ICT knowledge. Our team worked on the requirements and explored the need for an e-facilitator in school as a major ICT expert and consultant, who empowers access to the electronic services in the e-education space, facilitates links with virtual libraries, acts as initiator and architect of social communication by forming communities involving all participants in the learning process—students, teachers, parents, administration, etc. This paper expresses the author’s projection of the roles and functionalities of the e-facilitator in school in the Inspiring Science Education environment. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): K.3.1

The effect of using facebook markup language (fbml) for designing an e-learning model in higher education

This study examines the use of Facebook Markup Language (FBML) to design an e-learning model to facilitate teaching and learning in an academic setting. The qualitative research study presents a case study on how, Facebook is used to support collaborative activities in higher education. We used FBML to design an e-learning model called processes for e-learning resources in the Specialist Learning Resources Diploma (SLRD) program. Two groups drawn from the SLRD program were used; First were the participants in the treatment group and second in the control group. Statistical analysis in the form of a t-test was used to compare the dependent variables between the two groups. The findings show a difference in the mean score between the pre-test and the post-test for the treatment group (achievement, the skill, trends). Our findings suggest that the use of FBML can support collaborative knowledge creation and improved the academic achievement of participatns. The findings are expected to provide insights into promoting the use of Facebook in a learning management system (LMS).Comment: Mohammed Amasha, Salem Alkhalaf, "The Effect of using Facebook Markup Language (FBML) for Designing an E-Learning Model in Higher Education". International Journal of Research in Computer Science, 4 (5): pp. 1-9, January 201

Book Recommendation System using Data Mining for the University of Hong Kong Libraries

This paper describes the theoretical design of a Library Recommendation System, employing k- means clustering Data Mining algorithm, with subject headings of borrowed items as the basis for generating pertinent recommendations. Sample data from the University of Hong Kong Libraries (HKUL) has been used in a Quantitative approach to study the existing Library Information System, Innopac. Data Warehousing and Data Mining (k-means clustering) techniques are discussed. The primary benefit of the system is higher quality of academic research ensuing from better search results. Personalization improves individual effectiveness of learners and overall in better utilizing library resources.published_or_final_versio

Personalizing the Learning Process With Wihi

Societies are changing rapidly because of automation and digitalization, but local and global business environments are also becoming more volatile. Changing societies also place requirements on education: the number of atypical learners is growing all the time, and lifelong careers have been changed to lifelong learning. Traditional education approaches do not support part-time learners or lifelong learning; personalizing the learning process for every student separately is too laborious. In this paper, we study a flexible, personalized learning approach and an information system (Wihi) to support it. Wihi is a thesis management tool for students to plan and schedule their theses and for the thesis supervisor to centrally monitor the progress of different theses. In addition, it allows curriculum management to follow the whole thesis situation. Although Wihi was developed for a specific need, the personalized learning assumptions behind it are also applicable in other education cases

Navigating the Library Slopes: Dispositional Shifts in the National School Library Standards

The article discusses the impact of the 2018 National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries on library practice. Topics covered include a set of professional dispositions that the school librarian can embody, and the need for school librarians to engage the skills of both educator and information professional in performing their duties

Instructional elements in an online information literacy Open Educational Resource (OER) and their influence on learner achievement, satisfaction, and self-efficacy

This study tested the influence of instructional elements within an online Open Educational Resource (OER) focused on information literacy (IL) on outcome measures of IL achievement, learner satisfaction and IL self-efficacy among undergraduate students. An online OER was designed to address the domains of access, evaluation and communication of IL guided by the notion of instructional scaffolding and self-regulated learning. Participants were randomly placed into one of six different OER conditions: (a) full version with all instructional elements, (b) lean version, (c) version without tooltip text, (d) version without embedded practice questions, (e) version without learning objectives and (f) version without summaries. There were no significant differences found across the six conditions on the dependent measures. Participants averaged 58% for IL achievement, performing slightly better in the domain of access versus evaluate and communicate. Limitations include a controlled laboratory setting where participants were not necessarily motivated to complete the study tasks at a high level of achievement. Future research can explore more ecologically valid environments where learners might be more motivated, along with more rigorous intervention and assessment construction. This paper includes implications for educators and researchers to explore the established and innovative instructional elements that are natural affordances of an online OER in IL. This paper presents innovative IL instruction that does not require instructor or learner training and evaluates its effectiveness using a sound, replicable methodological approach to isolate the effects of the individual instructional elements