Development, implementation, and evaluation of an online English placement test at college level: a case study.

The primary purpose of the present project was to research the case study of current English placement practices at Intercollege in view of incorporating change, improvement and efficiency, within the framework of current work based learning and applied linguistics (and more particularly English online language testing) research discipline. The review of work based learning and current theories and practices in applied linguistics research discipline helped establish the characteristics of an insider researcher and the research approach and research techniques that would best serve such a project. The review of current theories and practices in second language (L2) teaching and learning in general, and in L2 testing in particular revealed that there is an extensive range of practices: these range from testing discrete points to integrative tasks. Tests are also delivered both in pen-and-paper as well as in electronic form, the latter being either computer based testing (CBT) or computer adaptive testing (CAT). The review of current English placement practices at Intercollege indicated the need for a new English placement test, developed in a scientific way, informed by current theories and practices, based on current test design models and taking advantage of more efficient methods of delivery, and placement. This review also revealed the need for more efficiency in the mode of delivery, administration, marking, reporting and test duration. Finally, this study of the current English placement practices at Intercollege established the need for a placement test that would incorporate a mechanism of continuous testing of reliability and validity as well as improvement. The detailed study of the specific context, setting, particular language programme, resources, test-takers, instructors, etc. informed by current theories and practices in second language (L2) testing online, helped in the development of the New English Placement Test Online (NEPTON) test specifications, and as a consequence, the development of the proposed test itself. The study of test delivery modes and the consideration of the specific work based conditions and requirements. For example administration, delivery, time and money efficiency, urgent need of an improved and more efficient English placement test (EPT) resulted in the selection of computer based testing delivery, with many features of the computer adaptive testing delivery mode incorporated in it such as randomized selection of test items and fewer items. The test item writing and item modération process resulted in the formation of a substantial pool of varied items in different skills, text types, topics, settings, and covering a variety of lexical and grammatical points and communicative, authentic-like situations in ali six levels. The field test which was took place in May 2004 in pen-and-paper form by almost 1200 students in ali three Intercollege campuses helped check the content and the test trial which took place in the period of August-September in its electronic form helped come up with the test cutoff points, and the fine-tuning of the test. The item analysis ensured the appropriateness of ali items. Pre-test questionnaires established test-takers' biographical data and information about test-taker computer familiarity. The test face validity (stakeholders' attitudes and feelings about the NEPTON) was established through the use of pre and post-test questionnaires. Experts in the area Coming, from the three campuses, also studied the test specifications and the test itself (both in its electronic and pen-and-paper format) and completed a questionnaire, thus contributing to the establishment of the test content and construct validity. The test reliability was established through a split half reliability index process and a series of other aspects or processes such as the size of the item bank, the instructions, the moderation process, and the item analysis, which are explained in chapter 5 in more details. The research project consists of two components: (a) The report, which describes the way work based and applied linguistics research approaches were used to investigate the case study of English placement test at college level at Intercollege in Cyprus and to what extent this has broad change, improvement and effìciency to current practices; and (b) The evidence of such a research project, which is the New English Placement Test Online (NEPTON), in other words, the test itself, developed, implemented and evaluated in order to materialize this change, improvement and efficiency aimed at by this project

Random Linear Network Coding for 5G Mobile Video Delivery

An exponential increase in mobile video delivery will continue with the demand for higher resolution, multi-view and large-scale multicast video services. Novel fifth generation (5G) 3GPP New Radio (NR) standard will bring a number of new opportunities for optimizing video delivery across both 5G core and radio access networks. One of the promising approaches for video quality adaptation, throughput enhancement and erasure protection is the use of packet-level random linear network coding (RLNC). In this review paper, we discuss the integration of RLNC into the 5G NR standard, building upon the ideas and opportunities identified in 4G LTE. We explicitly identify and discuss in detail novel 5G NR features that provide support for RLNC-based video delivery in 5G, thus pointing out to the promising avenues for future research.Comment: Invited paper for Special Issue "Network and Rateless Coding for Video Streaming" - MDPI Informatio

SmartEx: a case study on user profiling and adaptation in exhibition booths

An investigation into user profiling and adaptation with exhibition booth as a case study is reported. First a review of the field of exhibitions and trade fairs and a summary introduction to adaptation and profiling are given. We then introduce three criteria for the evaluation of exhibition booth: effectiveness, efficiency and affect. Effectiveness is related the amount of information collected, efficiency is a measurement of the time taken to collect the information, and affect is the perception of the experience and the mood booth visitors have during and after their visit. We have selected these criteria to assess adaptive and profiled exhibition booths, we call smart exhibition (SmartEx). The assessment is performed with an experiment with three test conditions (non-profiled/non adaptive, profiled/non-adaptive and profiled adaptive presentations). Results of the experiment are presented along discussion. While there is significant improvements of effectiveness and efficiency between the two-first test conditions, the improvement is not significant for the last test condition, for reasons explained. As for the affect, the results show that it has an under-estimated importance in people minds and that it should be addressed more carefully

3D video coding and transmission

The capture, transmission, and display of 3D content has gained a lot of attention in the last few years. 3D multimedia content is no longer con fined to cinema theatres but is being transmitted using stereoscopic video over satellite, shared on Blu-RayTMdisks, or sent over Internet technologies. Stereoscopic displays are needed at the receiving end and the viewer needs to wear special glasses to present the two versions of the video to the human vision system that then generates the 3D illusion. To be more e ffective and improve the immersive experience, more views are acquired from a larger number of cameras and presented on di fferent displays, such as autostereoscopic and light field displays. These multiple views, combined with depth data, also allow enhanced user experiences and new forms of interaction with the 3D content from virtual viewpoints. This type of audiovisual information is represented by a huge amount of data that needs to be compressed and transmitted over bandwidth-limited channels. Part of the COST Action IC1105 \3D Content Creation, Coding and Transmission over Future Media Networks" (3DConTourNet) focuses on this research challenge.peer-reviewe

A review on massive e-learning (MOOC) design, delivery and assessment

MOOCs or Massive Online Open Courses based on Open Educational Resources (OER) might be one of the most versatile ways to offer access to quality education, especially for those residing in far or disadvantaged areas. This article analyzes the state of the art on MOOCs, exploring open research questions and setting interesting topics and goals for further research. Finally, it proposes a framework that includes the use of software agents with the aim to improve and personalize management, delivery, efficiency and evaluation of massive online courses on an individual level basis.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Saving Energy in Mobile Devices for On-Demand Multimedia Streaming -- A Cross-Layer Approach

This paper proposes a novel energy-efficient multimedia delivery system called EStreamer. First, we study the relationship between buffer size at the client, burst-shaped TCP-based multimedia traffic, and energy consumption of wireless network interfaces in smartphones. Based on the study, we design and implement EStreamer for constant bit rate and rate-adaptive streaming. EStreamer can improve battery lifetime by 3x, 1.5x and 2x while streaming over Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G respectively.Comment: Accepted in ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (ACM TOMCCAP), November 201