Contributions to affective learning through the use of data analysis, visualizations and recommender sytems

Student modeling is an important issue in telematics learning environments, e.g. learning resources can be adapted based on the students' information. An emergent area of student modeling is the inclusion of affective information. The improvement of emotion detectors based on the students' events in different telematics learning environments is an open issue. Moreover, there is a need of proposing and evaluating new visualizations involving affective information, and proposing generic solutions for the recommendation of learning materials based on the affective information. This PhD proposes two different models for the detection of emotions in two different telematics learning environments. The first model uses a Hidden Markov Model to infer the emotions in a programming learning environment in which students should use different tools to learn how to program. The second model uses a set of rules to infer the emotions in a Massive Open Online Course platform in which students should solve exercises and watch videos. An evaluation of the first model for the detection of emotions was performed using a controlled experiment, comparing the results of the model with the students' answers regarding their emotions in different instants of times. The results showed that the model was not able to detect accurately the students' answers regarding their emotions. Other models of the literature applied in other learning environments were tested and they were not able to predict accurately the students' answers regarding their emotions. Therefore, the detection of emotions based on students' events in these types of environments might not be feasible, or the reference data of students' answers to a survey with different questions about emotions should be redefined. Moreover, this PhD proposes a set of affective-related visualizations for learning environments. Some of these visualizations only involve affective information, while others combine this affective information with other related to the students' activities with the learning platforms. Some of these visualizations were evaluated with real students and results showed a good usability, usefulness and effectiveness. Finally, this work proposes a generic framework for enabling the recommendation of learning resources based on affective information. The solution includes an Application Programming Interface for the definition of the different possible events. A specific implementation of this recommender has been developed as a plugin of the ROLE SDK platform.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Ingeniería TelemáticaPresidente: Carlos Enrique Palau Salvador.- Secretario: Eva María Méndez Rodríguez, Eva Maria.- Vocal: Ruth Cobos Pére

A Widget to Recommend Learning Resources Based on the Learner Affective State

Proceedings of: 3rd International Workshop on Motivational and Affective Aspects in Technology Enhanced Learning (MATEL 2012), Saarbrücken, Germany, 18-19 September , 2012.This paper describes the Learning Resources A ective Recommender, a widget that recommends resources to the learner based on her current a ective state and her learning objectives. The widget is meant to be used in a Personalized Learning Environment in combination with widgets to search for resources. The architecture that supports the widget follows a client-server pattern, with the widget as the client and a recommendation service on the server side. The paper includes the description of both client and server and a discussion about the possibilities of this approach.Work partially funded by the EEE project, "Plan Nacional de I+D+I TIN2011-28308-C03-01", the "eMadrid: Investigación y desarrollo de tecnolog as para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid" project (S2009/TIC-1650), and "Consejo Social - Universidad Carlos III de Madrid".Publicad

A Cloud-Based Architecture for an Affective Recommender System of Learning Resources

Proceedings of: 1st International Workshop on Cloud Education Environments (WCLOUD 2012), Antigua, Guatemala, November 15-16, 2012.One of the most common functionalities in cloudbased learning environments is the recommendation of learning resources. Many approaches have been proposed to deploy recommender systems into an educational environment. Currently, there is an increasing interest in including affective information into the process to generate the recommendations for the learner. In this paper, we propose a cloud-based architecture for a system that recommends learning resources according to the affective state of the learner. Furthermore, we provide the details of an implementation of the architecture along with a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the proposal.Work partially funded by the EEE project, “Plan Nacional de I+D+I TIN2011-28308-C03-01”, the “Emadrid: Investigación y desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” project (S2009/TIC-1650), and “Consejo Social - Universidad Carlos III de Madrid”.Publicad

Towards Flexibility on IMS Learning Design Scripts

Proocedings of: 41st Annual Frontiers in Education Conference: Celebrating 41 Years of Monumental Innovations from Around the World (FIE 2011). Rapy City, South Dakota, October 12–15, 2011.IMS Learning Design is considered by many authors the "de facto" standard in educational modeling languages. The versatility of the framework enables its use in very different situations. However, such versatile framework is usually hidden by its complex management. One handicap identified in practical experiences is the lack of flexibility of scripted courses during the enactment phase. The activity sequence and learning resources are rigidly defined during authoring. This fact makes difficult to react to unexpected events that may happen in live courses. Also, this rigidness does not allow instructors to give "their personal touch" to courses. This paper presents the improvements made on GRAIL - an IMS LD compliant player-aimed at the support of a flexible enactment phase. Two types of modifications are considered: the modification of the learning flow and the management of course content with a wiki engine. Finally, this paper discusses how the integration of third party services in the activity sequence relaxes the rigidness of scripted learning flows. Experiences deployed in real scenarios allowed analyzing how such integration offered flexibility in practical situations.Work partially funded by the project “eMadrid: Investigación y desarrollo de tecnologías para el elearning en la Comunidad de Madrid” (S2009/TIC-1650) and the Spanish project “Learn3: Towards Learning of the Third Kind” (TIN2008-05163/TSI).Publicad

Managing Assessment Resources in the Open ICOPER Content Space

With the introduction of the Web 2.0 philosophy in the learning arena, the way learning actors interact has changed substantially. From a collaborative perspective, all the actors in the learning landscape could make use of a variety of tools for collaboration, making up what it is called: "collaborative learning 2.0." In this chapter, the discussion is focused on the open educational resources (OER), concretely open assessment resources, i.e., open resources used in the assessment process (formative and/or summative). The authors explore the way to create, share, search, manage, and access to these resources; all these actions are described from the context of collaboration inherited from the Web 2.0 paradigms: collaboration among teachers and course designers, teachers and learners, and any other factors that could arise in the assessment process. On the other hand, the approach to managing the open assessment resources is based on an outcome-based assessment process because of the great importance of the outcome-based learning.This work was partially funded by the Best Practice Network ICOPER (Grant No. ECP-2007-EDU-417007), the Learn3 project, “Plan Nacional de I+D+I” TIN2008-05163/TSI, and the eMadrid network, S2009/TIC-1650, “Investigación y Desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid”Publicad

Provision of awareness of learners' emotions through visualizations in a computer interaction-based environment

One of the challenges of intelligent systems for education is to use low-level data collected in computer environments in the form of events or interactions to infer information with high-level significance using artificial intelligence techniques, and present it through visualizations in a meaningful and effective way. Among this information, emotional data is gaining track in by instructors in their educational activities. Many benefits can be obtained if an intelligent systems can bring teachers with knowledge about their learner's emotions, learning causes, and learning relationships with emotions. In this paper, we propose and justify a set of visualizations for an intelligent system to provide awareness about the emotions of the learners to the instructor based on the learners' interactions in their computers. We apply these learner's affective visualizations in a programming course at University level with more than 300 students, and analyze and interpret the student's emotional results in connection with the learning process.Work partially funded by the EEE project, ‘‘Plan Nacional de I+D+I TIN2011-28308-C03-01’’ and the ‘‘Emadrid: Investigación y desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid’’ project (S2009/TIC-1650)’’

User Identity Issues in Mashups for Learning Experiences using IMS Learning Design

The combination of services that provide personal information in technologies such as educational mashups brings some issues in the management of users' identity and authorization. This article presents a scenario based on the fact that an IMS LD server requires information relevant to each learner, and this information is provided by external services. This scenario allows to describe the problems of user correspondence, authenticated data retrieval, and remote account creation; a solution using technologies currently available is provided for each, as well as recommendations to take into account in similar scenarios.This work has been partially funded by the Project Learn3 (TIN2008-05163/TSI) from the Plan Nacional I+D+I, the Spanish National Project FLEXO (TSI-020301-2008-19,www.ines.org.es/flexo) and ”Investigación y Desarrollo de Tecnologías para el e-Learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” funded by the Madrid Regional Government under grant No. S2009/TIC-1650.Publicad

Course Evaluation Study in Europe: The Current Picture

Proceedings of: First International Conference on Reforming Education, Quality of Teaching and Technology-Enhanced Learning: Learning Technologies, Quality of Education, Educational Systems, Evaluation, Pedagogies (TECH-EDUCATION 2010). Athens, Greece, May 19-21, 2010.Course evaluation is one of the key processes in the educational context that is in charge of the assurance of quality of courses taught in an institution. Although it is an essential process realized in every institution, the procedure followed for course evaluation does not comply with any evaluation standard. The objectives of this document are: to define a course evaluation concept map to understand better the needs of this field; to analyze the course evaluation standard ISO/IEC 19796, the only standard for course evaluation; and finally, to carry out a study of European institutions evaluation processes to determine why anyone is using standards in this learning process.This work was partially funded by Learn3 project, “Plan Nacional de I+D+I” TIN2008-05163/TSI and the Best Practice Network ICOPER (Grant No. ECP-2007-EDU-417007).Publicad

Course evaluation for technology enhanced learning: current status in Europe

Course evaluation is one of the key processes in the educational context that is in charge of the assurance of quality of courses taught in an institution. Although it is an essential process realised in every institution, the procedure followed for course evaluation does not comply with any evaluation standard. The objectives of this document are: to define a course evaluation concept map to understand better the needs of this field; to analyse the course evaluation standard ISO/IEC 19796, the only standard for course evaluation; to carry out a study of European institutions evaluation processes to determine why no institution is using standards in this learning process; and finally, to inform about the course evaluation support in two open-source well-known learning management systems (LMS) (Moodle and .LRN).This work was partially funded by the Best Practice Network ICOPER (Grant No. ECP-2007-EDU-417007), the Learn3 project, ‘Plan Nacional de I + D + I’ TIN2008–05163/TSI, and the eMadrid network, S2009/TIC-1650, ‘Investigación y Desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid.’Publicad

Orchestrating Learning Activities in 3D Virtual Worlds: IMS-LD in Open Wonderland

Proceedings of: 6th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning Towards Ubiquitous Learning (EC-TEL 2011). Palermo, Italy, 20-23 September, 2011.Immersive environments such as virtual worlds and virtual reality platforms are being increasingly used for educational purposes. Possibilities of these environments are huge, but also are the technical challenges that have to be overcome in order for these platforms to become more usable. One of the main problems that educators have to face when designing an educational experience for virtual worlds has to do with the orchestration of the learning sequence. In this paper, we present a novel approach to support the deployment and execution of Units of Learning (UoLs), described with an Educational Modeling Language such as IMS-LD [1], into a virtual world, with the aim to facilitate the creation of well defined learning sequences for these platforms.This research has been partially supported by the following projects: The Spanish CDTI project “España Virtual” funded by the Ingenio 2010 programme, subcontracted by Deimos Space; The Spanish project “Learn3: Towards Learning of the Third Kind” (TIN2008-05163/TSI) funded by the Spanish “Plan Nacional de I+D+i” of the Ministry of Research and Innovation; The project “eMadrid: Investigación y desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” (S2009/TIC-1650) funded by the Government of the Region of Madrid.Publicad