Supporting the generation of guidelines for online courses

The research on online teaching is a demanding field that requires an innovative point of view to support courses in this context. There are multiples approaches to design, implement or deliver online courses. Nevertheless, less attention has been paid to assist teachers in order to guide them to use technology-based environments in this kind of courses. This work proposes an approach to support the generation of teaching guidelines based on a conceptual framework that enables the representation and processing of the instructional and technological issues involved in an online course. The application of this approach will allow the instructor to define the instructional requirements of a specific learning setting and to map them with the features provided by a Virtual Learning Environment. This mapping process should facilitate the systematic generation of teaching guidelines based on matching both instructional and technological concepts.Buendía García, F. (2011). Supporting the generation of guidelines for online courses. Je-LKS : Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society. 7(3):51-61. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/46927S51617

A Hybrid Recommender System for HCI Design Pattern Recommendations

[EN] User interface design patterns are acknowledged as a standard solution to recurring de¿ sign problems. The heterogeneity of existing design patterns makes the selection of relevant ones difficult. To tackle these concerns, the current work contributes in a twofold manner. The first con¿ tribution is the development of a recommender system for selecting the most relevant design pat¿ terns in the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) domain. This system introduces a hybrid approach that combines text¿based and ontology¿based techniques and is aimed at using semantic similarity along with ontology models to retrieve appropriate HCI design patterns. The second contribution addresses the validation of the proposed recommender system regarding the acceptance intention towards our system by assessing the perceived experience and the perceived accuracy. To this pur¿ pose, we conducted a user¿centric evaluation experiment wherein participants were invited to fill pre¿study and post¿test questionnaires. The findings of the evaluation study revealed that the per¿ ceived experience of the proposed system¿s quality and the accuracy of the recommended design patterns were assessed positively.Braham, A.; Khemaja, M.; Buendía García, F.; Gargouri, F. (2021). A Hybrid Recommender System for HCI Design Pattern Recommendations. Applied Sciences. 11(22):1-25. https://doi.org/10.3390/app112210776S125112

Aplicación de un modelo de calidad para evaluar experiencias e-learning en el Espacio Europeo Universitario

Durante los últimos años, las comunidades universitarias han dedicado grandes esfuerzos para integrar nuevas tecnologías a fin de mejorar sus procesos de aprendizaje. En este sentido, la mayoría de las universidades europeas han incorporado plataformas de e-learning que sirven de apoyo y complementan el modelo clásico de enseñanza. Sin embargo, la utilización de estas plataformas no siempre es suficiente para mejorar los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Por este motivo, se hacen necesarios métodos de diseño y evaluación de procesos educativos basados en plataformas de e-learning que tratarán de garantizar los objetivos de aprendizaje fijados. Este trabajo está orientado a evaluar este tipo de experiencias y, más específicamente, a proporcionar un procedimiento que utilice un modelo de calidad y que sirva de guía en la evaluación de experiencias educativas apoyadas en plataformas de e-learning.Nowadays, Universities and other higher education institutions invest a lot of resources to integrate Information & Communications Technologies (ICT) in their learning processes. In particular, e-learning platforms have been incorporated to support the traditional campus-based activities. However, the application of these platforms is not enough to improve learning and teaching processes. Innovative methods are required to design and evaluate ICT enhanced learning experiences that contribute to change the traditional face-toface teaching in this context. This work is focused on evaluating this kind of experiences and more specifically, on providing procedures to guide their evaluation when e-learning platforms are used.Durant els últims anys, les comunitats universitàries han dedicat grans esforços a integrar noves tecnologies per millorar els seus processos d'aprenentatge. En aquest sentit, la majoria de les universitats europees han incorporat plataformes d'e-learning que serveixen de suport i complementen el model clàssic d'ensenyament. Tanmateix, la utilització d'aquestes plataformes no sempre és suficient per millorar els processos d'ensenyament i aprenentatge. Tanmateix, amb la utilització d'aquestes plataformes no sempre n'hi ha prou per millorar els processos d'ensenyament i aprenentatge. Per aquest motiu, es fan necessaris mètodes de disseny i avaluació de processos educatius basats en plataformes d'e-learning que tractaran de garantir els objectius d'aprenentatge fixats. Aquest treball està orientat a avaluar aquest tipus d'experiències i, més específicament, a proporcionar un procediment que utilitzi un model de qualitat i que serveixi de guia en l'avaluació d'experiències educatives basades en plataformes d'e-learning

Automatic Ontology-Based Model Evolution for Learning Changes in Dynamic Environments

[EN] Knowledge engineering relies on ontologies, since they provide formal descriptions of real¿world knowledge. However, ontology development is still a nontrivial task. From the view of knowledge engineering, ontology learning is helpful in generating ontologies semi¿automatically or automatically from scratch. It not only improves the efficiency of the ontology development pro¿ cess but also has been recognized as an interesting approach for extending preexisting ontologies with new knowledge discovered from heterogenous forms of input data. Driven by the great poten¿ tial of ontology learning, we present an automatic ontology¿based model evolution approach to ac¿ count for highly dynamic environments at runtime. This approach can extend initial models ex¿ pressed as ontologies to cope with rapid changes encountered in surrounding dynamic environ¿ ments at runtime. The main contribution of our presented approach is that it analyzes heterogene¿ ous semi¿structured input data for learning an ontology, and it makes use of the learned ontology to extend an initial ontology¿based model. Within this approach, we aim to automatically evolve an initial ontology¿based model through the ontology learning approach. Therefore, this approach is illustrated using a proof¿of¿concept implementation that demonstrates the ontology¿based model evolution at runtime. Finally, a threefold evaluation process of this approach is carried out to assess the quality of the evolved ontology¿based models. First, we consider a feature¿based evaluation for evaluating the structure and schema of the evolved models. Second, we adopt a criteria¿based eval¿ uation to assess the content of the evolved models. Finally, we perform an expert¿based evaluation to assess an initial and evolved models¿ coverage from an expert¿s point of view. The experimental results reveal that the quality of the evolved models is relevant in considering the changes observed in the surrounding dynamic environments at runtime.Jabla, R.; Khemaja, M.; Buendía García, F.; Faiz, S. (2021). Automatic Ontology-Based Model Evolution for Learning Changes in Dynamic Environments. Applied Sciences. 11(22):1-30. https://doi.org/10.3390/app112210770130112

Tinta digital aplicada a la enseñanza universitaria de la Informática: menos lecciones y más actividades

Este trabajo resume los resultados iniciales de un proyecto de innovación que utiliza Tablet-PCs conectados en red como elementos clave para desarrollar un entorno de enseñanza-aprendizaje interactivo. Los objetivos del mismo son reducir tanto las tasas de absentismo como las de abandono (actualmente superior al 50%) y, sobre todo, facilitar el aprendizaje y mejorar el rendimiento académico. El proyecto ha sido aplicado durante el segundo cuatrimestre del curso 08-09 a un grupo piloto de 20 alumnos de Ampliación de Tecnología de Computadores, asignatura obligatoria de primer curso de Ingeniería Técnica de Informática de Sistemas, en la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Los resultados preliminares en este grupo muestran que la tasa de abandono se ha reducido más de un 50%, mientras que el número de aprobados, en la convocatoria de junio, se ha doblado con respecto al valor medio del resto de grupos. Por otro lado, un análisis cualitativo de la experiencia ha proporcionado una muy buena percepción tanto por parte de los alumnos como del personal participante en la misma.Peer Reviewe

Las Fuentes del Learning Analytics. Más allá de las Platafomas de Aprendizaje

[ES] Resulta innegable el interés creciente que durante los últimos años está teniendo el fenómeno del Learning Analytics. Gran parte de la atención se ha centrado en las llamadas plataformas de aprendizaje que proporcionan un enorme flujo de información sobre la actividad del estudiante. Sin embargo, y como otros autores también comentan, hay que señalar que una buena parte de dicha actividad se produce fuera de tales plataformas. Este trabajo pretende presentar una serie de indicaciones para seleccionar y combinar diversas fuentes de información para incrementar el impacto y utilidad del Learning Analytics. Dichas indicaciones se han aplicado a un conjunto de experiencias en dos asignaturas del Grado de Ing. Informática

Using patterns to design technology-enhancedlearning scenarios

[EN] Research on designing for learning is a field that has concentrated a lot of efforts in the context of technology-enhanced settings. This fact has demonstrated the need to represent learning scenarios using a more formal perspective. This paper reviews some representation mechanisms which enable the systematic design of learning issues in technological settings, and proposes an approach that applies pattern notations in an effort to better understand and prepare for different learning context. A case study is also described to show the application of these scenarios in a specific technology-enhanced setting for teaching computing curricula. This application is based on the use of digital ink technologies and demonstrates how patterns may be able to mediate between pedagogical and technical issues.Buendía García, F.; Benlloch-Dualde, JV. (2011). Using patterns to design technology-enhancedlearning scenarios. eLearning Papers. (27):1-12. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/29658S1122

A method of assessing academic learning experiences in virtual learning environments

© 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.[EN] Adapting curricula to the European space for higher education has been an opportunity for Spanish universities to perform a new approach to the structure of their degrees. In this process takes a special importance incorporate new technologies to the university system, a task that had been initiated in an isolated way in the last years of XX century, but now became in a strategic action for universities. In institutions of higher education, there is a growing movement towards the use of e-Learning platforms to support access to educational or academic activities, also known as "Virtual Learning Environments, VLE" or "Learning Management Systems LMS, to support access to educational resources, the academic activities or the incorporation of new methodologies, however, without an assurance of quality, this effort and investment would not be productive. In this paper a method of assessing a virtual university experience is proposed, which allows the use of a quality model, incorporating a web tool to effectively manage both the design process, and the implementation and presentation of results. In addition, there are two case studies with different scopes and purposes, obtaining comparable results that support the efficiency of the proposed method.Este trabajo ha sido parcialmente financiado por el Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain, TIN2005-08788-C04-02 Proyecto AEEVA, y el Proyecto de excelencia GR47 de la Junta de Castilla y León. Spain.Hervás, A.; Buendía García, F.; Peñalvo, F. (2014). A method of assessing academic learning experiences in virtual learning environments. IEEE Latin America Transactions. 12(2):219-226. https://doi.org/10.1109/TLA.2014.6749541S21922612

Designing Serious Games for getting transferable skills in training settings

[EN] Nowadays, serious games are present in almost every educational context. The current work deals with the design of serious games oriented towards getting transferable skills in different kinds of training settings. These games can be a valuable way of engaging citizens and workers in the learning process by means of metaphors or similar mechanisms close to their user experience. They also contain an encouragement factor to uptake generic job competencies. An approach is proposed to develop this type of game by mixing traditional design steps with an instructional strategy to provide structured learning bites in training settings. Several game prototypes have been developed to test this approach in the context of courses for public employees. The obtained outcomes reveal the wider possibilities of serious games as educational resources, as well as the use of game achievements to evaluate the acquisition of transferable skillsThis work is supported by the TEA project (PAIDUPV/2791)Buendía García, F.; García-Martínez, S.; Navarrete-Ibáñez, EM.; Cervelló-Donderis, MJ. (2013). Designing Serious Games for getting transferable skills in training settings. Interaction Design and Architecture(s). (19):47-62. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/47743S47621

A Model-based Approach to Integrate e-Learning Platforms and Social Networks using a Service-Oriented Framework

[EN] E-learning is moving beyond traditional Learning Management Systems and Social Networks are raising new ways of learning. This work proposes an approach to integrate social networks and e-learning platforms taking advantage of both kinds of tools. The approach is based on a method which enables the formal representation of social e-learning situations by means of models. A service-oriented framework is proposed to implement such approach in a two way direction between e-learning platforms and social networks. This framework has been prototyped using widespread Facebook social networking platform tools and adapting a learning management system called Coome. The developed prototype has been evaluated demonstrating how useful such integration can be.The research results present in this paper are at least in part supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain, project AACV TIN2009-14317-C03-0 and the Slovene Human Resources and Scholarship Fund, Slovenia.Rozac, J.; Ballester Server, JV.; Buendía García, F. (2012). A Model-based Approach to Integrate e-Learning Platforms and Social Networks using a Service-Oriented Framework. Journal of Research and Practice in Information Technology. 44(3):247-263. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/37227S24726344