Visual modelling and designing for cooperative learning and development of team competences

This paper proposes a holistic approach to designing for the promotion of team and social competences in blended learning courses. Planning and modelling cooperative learning scenarios based on a domain specific modelling notation in the style of UML activity diagrams, and comparing evaluation results with planned outcomes allows for iterative optimization of a course's design. In a case study - a course on project management for computer science students - the instructional design including individual and cooperative learning situations was modelled. Specific emphasis was put on visualising the hypothesised development of team competences in the course design models. These models were subsequently compared to evaluation results obtained during the course. The results show that visual modelling of planned competence promotion enables more focused design, implementation and evaluation of collaborative learning scenarios

Cognitive Effectiveness of Visual Instructional Design Languages

The introduction of learning technologies into education is making the design of courses and instructional materials an increasingly complex task. Instructional design languages are identified as conceptual tools for achieving more standardized and, at the same time, more creative design solutions, as well as enhancing communication and transparency in the design process. In this article we discuss differences in cognitive aspects of three visual instructional design languages (E²ML, PoEML, coUML), based on user evaluation. Cognitive aspects are of relevance for learning a design language, creating models with it, and understanding models created using it. The findings should enable language constructors to improve the usability of visual instructional design languages in the future. The paper concludes with directions with regard to how future research on visual instructional design languages could strengthen their value and enhance their actual use by educators and designers by synthesizing existing efforts into a unified modeling approach for VIDLs

Visual Modelling for Design and Implementation of Modular Curricula

Visuelle Modellierung als Unterstützung für Entwicklung und Umsetzung modularer Curricula Viele Curricula in Europa werden derzeit umstrukturiert, um Anforderungen und Empfehlungen des Bologna-Prozesses zu genügen. Die Entwicklung und Umsetzung neuer Curricula bedeuten enorme Änderungprozesse, welche die Kooperation und Koordination aller Verantwortlichen und Betroffenen erfordern. Dieser Artikel beschreibt die Verwendung von visueller Modellierung innerhalb einer interaktiven Webumgebung („ActiveCC Web“), um Inhalte und Struktur eines neues Curriculums festzuhalten und Koordination zwischen Lehrenden während der Umsetzung des Curriculums zu fördern. Dabei wird mittels graphenbasierter Visualisierung die Curriculumsstruktur sowie pädagogische Aspekte in Kursen abgebildet und eine intuitive Navigation durch das Curriculum ermöglicht. 20.02.2009 | Sonja Kabicher & Michael Derntl (Wien

Spacialist: Eine virtuelle Forschungsumgebung für die Spatial ‌Humanities

Die Verarbeitung von Text- und Sprachressourcen mit digitalen Werkzeugen steht im deutschsprachigen Raum im Fokus der Digital Humanities. Nicht-textuelle Ausprägungen der Kultur und deren Verortung in Raum und Zeit finden hierbei in der Regel nur wenig Beachtung. Gerade an dieser Stelle liegt das besondere Potenzial der Verwendung von neuen digitalen Methoden. Diese bieten nun erstmals die Möglichkeit, sämtliche Ausprägungen des menschlichen Kulturschaffens im miteinander in semantische und analysierbare Beziehungen zu setzen. Zugleich ist es mit derartigen integrierten digitalen Methoden nun möglich, bedrohte Objekte und Räume, aber auch immaterielle kulturelle Ausprägungen präzise zu dokumentieren sowie dauerhaft nachhaltig zu bewahren und der Forschung bereitzustellen. Gerade vor dem Hintergrund der infrastrukturellen Entwicklung sowie der mutwilligen Zerstörung des Kulturerbes wird diese Bedeutung nochmals deutlicher. Ziel des Projekts ist es, für die raum- und objektorientierten Wissenschaften ein Werkzeug zur Verfügung zu stellen, das die standardisierte Erfassung und Analyse sowie eine langfristige Archivierung und Nachnutzbarkeit der Daten erlaubt. Ein hoher Standardisierungsgrad sowie eine nachhaltige Vorhaltung der Informationen sind gerade im Bereich der Geisteswissenschaften aufgrund der Unwiederbringlichkeit der Daten von besonderer Bedeutung. Spacialist wird eine einheitliche, Disziplinen überspannende Softwarelösung zur Erfassung, Verwaltung, Archivierung und Publikation von Forschungsdaten werden, die in raum- und objektbezogenen geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschungsprojekten gewonnen werden. Diese Softwarelösung wird an der Universität Tübingen gemeinsam mit den fachwissenschaftlichen Partnern basierend auf existierenden Softwareprototypen und -systemen weiterentwickelt und in deren Workflow und Semantik integriert werden. Das Werkzeug wird ausschließlich Open-Source-Komponenten verwenden und als freie Software entwickelt werden, sodass die Weiterverwendbarkeit an anderen Hochschulen und Forschungseinrichtungen gewährleistet ist. Das Werkzeug soll einen essentiellen Beitrag zur Bewahrung des kulturellen Erbes in seiner materiellen und immateriellen Ausprägung in nationalen und internationalen Forschungsprojekten leisten

Spacialist – A Virtual Research Environment for the Spatial Humanities

Many archaeological research projects generate data and tools that are unusable or abandoned after the funding period ends. To counter this unsustainable practice, the Spacialist project was tasked to create a virtual research environment that offers an integrated, web-based user interface to record, browse, analyze, and visualize all spatial, graphical, textual and statistical data from archaeological or cultural heritage research projects. Spacialist is developed as an open-source software platform composed of modules providing the required functionality to end-users. It builds on controlled multi-language vocabularies and an abstract, extensible data model to facilitate data recording and analysis, as well as interoperability with other projects and infrastructures. Development of Spacialist is driven by an interdisciplinary team in collaboration with various pilot projects in different areas of archaeology. To support the complete research lifecycle, the platform is being integrated with the University’s research-data archive, guaranteeing long-term availability of project data

Yjs: A Framework for Near Real-Time P2P Shared Editing on Arbitrary Data Types

Abstract. Near real-time shared editing of documents in the Web browser has become popular for many applications like text writing, drawing, sketching and others. These applications require protocols for exchanging messages among user agents and for resolving editing conflicts. The available frameworks mostly rely on operational transformation approaches and often expose drawbacks like failing to scale, restriction to linear data structures and client-server architectures. In this paper we present Yjs, a lightweight open-source JavaScript framework that can be used for collaborative editing of arbitrary data types in peer-to-peer settings. The framework is based on a new operational transformation-like approach and supports communication protocols like XMPP and WebRTC. From an engineering perspective Yjs is easy to integrate into Web applications. Evaluations show that it has a favorable runtime complexity

Spacialist – Eine virtuelle Forschungsumgebung für die Spatial Humanities

Research projects in the humanities generate data and tools that are often abandoned after the project funding ends. Moreover, research data handling and the deployed tools are often highly specific for single projects. This insustainable practice leads to solutions that are incompatible with other tools, projects and infrastructures, and they often do not rely on accepted standards. To close this gap the project Spacialist, which was funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg in the “E-Science” program, set out to develop a modular virtual research environment that offers an integrated, web-based user interface to record, browse, analyze, and visualize all spatial, graphical, textual and statistical data from archaeological or cultural heritage research projects. To address the highly heterogeneous requirements of such projects, Spacialist was developed as a software platform that is instantiated, customized and deployed separately for each project. The data model was designed as a meta model that defines entities with their properties and relationships. During the customization of the data model for a particular project, these abstract entities need to be instantiated for the project’s domain. For representing domain-specific concepts Spacialist uses controlled vocabularies (thesauri) based on the XML-based standard SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System), thus facilitating data analysis and interoperability. Core functionality such as the thesaurus and the creation and editing of entities is available out of the box for each project. Additional functionality is implemented in plugin modules that can be added on demand. These include file management, data analysis, geographical maps, and others. The development of Spacialist’s open-source software was driven by an interdisplinary team of software developers, geographers, ethnologists, archaeologists and librarians in collaboration with pilot projects in various areas like mediterranean archaeology and cultural heritage preservation. To address the challenge of creating a sustainable business model beyond the initial funding, Spacialist was integrated into the service offered by the eScience-Center Tübingen, which has the necessary infrastructure and staff to provide Spacialist instances initially free to projects. The initial deployment and custom data model are covered by permanent staff. If the client project decides to adopt Spacialist as their research environment, the project is charged with a fee that covers hosting and maintenance of their Spacialist instance, and they have to enter a contractual agreement with eScience-Center defining usage and data privacy issues. To support the full research project lifecycle even after the projects end, the platform is being integrated with our University’s research-data archive, which guarantees the long-term availability and reusability of project data

Learning design Rashomon II: exploring one lesson through multiple tools

International audienceAn increasing number of tools are available to support the learning design process at different levels and from different perspectives. However, this variety can make it difficult for researchers and teachers to assess the tool that is best suited to their objectives and contexts as learning designers. Several of the tools are presented elsewhere in this issue. In this article, the aforementioned tools are used as lenses to view the same learning design narrative - an inquiry-based learning lesson on healthy eating aimed at secondary-school students - from different perspectives, in a manner inspired by the plot structure of Kurosawa's film "Rashomon". In modelling the lesson on five tools, we uncovered similarities and differences in relation to the challenges posed by modelling a particular learning scenario, the ease of implementation of the computer-interpretable products' output by the tools and their different target audiences and pedagogical specialities. This comparative analysis thus illustrates some of the current underlying issues and challenges in the field of Learning Design

The Student View on Online Peer Reviews

Peer review is used as an effective quality assurance measure in many contexts, including science, business, programming or education. In education, several studies confirmed the positive effects of peer reviewing on student learning. Based on recent research concerning the role of media in the peer review process this study investigates how students perceive the process, content and effects of peer reviews. We also analyze students' opinions on different modes of peer reviewing activities, e.g. online vs. face-to-face reviewing. In the context of a computer science course on scientific writing, these research questions were addressed by administering an online questionnaire (n=38) and analysis using quantitative and qualitative methods. Results indicate that students value the peer review activity, take peer reviews seriously and provide comprehensive and constructive reviews. Findings also show that students prefer written online reviews with the possibility of oral follow-up questions to reviewers