An E-Learning Investigation into Learning Style Adaptivity

Abstrac

Identifying Archetypal Perspectives in News Articles.

A novel approach to news aggregation is proposed. Rather than ranking or summarisation of cluster topics, we propose that articles are grouped by topic similarity and then clustered within topic groups in order to identify archetypal articles that represent the various perspectives upon a topic. An example application is examined and a preliminary user study is discussed. Future applications and evaluation of validity are outlined

CASAM: Collaborative Human-machine Annotation of Multimedia.

The CASAM multimedia annotation system implements a model of cooperative annotation between a human annotator and automated components. The aim is that they work asynchronously but together. The system focuses upon the areas where automated recognition and reasoning are most effective and the user is able to work in the areas where their unique skills are required. The system’s reasoning is influenced by the annotations provided by the user and, similarly, the user can see the system’s work and modify and, implicitly, direct it. The CASAM system interacts with the user by providing a window onto the current state of annotation, and by generating requests for information which are important for the final annotation or to constrain its reasoning. The user can modify the annotation, respond to requests and also add their own annotations. The objective is that the human annotator’s time is used more effectively and that the result is an annotation that is both of higher quality and produced more quickly. This can be especially important in circumstances where the annotator has a very restricted amount of time in which to annotate the document. In this paper we describe our prototype system. We expand upon the techniques used for automatically analysing the multimedia document, for reasoning over the annotations generated and for the generation of an effective interaction with the end-user. We also present the results of evaluations undertaken with media professionals in order to validate the approach and gain feedback to drive further research

Visualisation of Complex Systems

There are a large number of computer based, and other, systems which are composed of large numbers of interacting components. Examples include large software systems, the world wide web and a wide range of information systems. Understanding and manipulating the structure and behaviour of these systems is extraordinarily difficult, even when the systems (eg. programs) have been well designed and engineered. The approach described in this paper is to maintain a representation of the system within a virtual reality. The organisation of the components within the virtual reality is determined by behaviours attached to the components which, typically, leads to a spatial organisation which reflects the semantic structure of the system. A prototype implementation of a development environment for the SELF programming language is described. This system shows how effectively previously hidden structure can emerge. There is also some discussion and examples of further work which is being undertake..

Design and Usability Evaluation of Adaptive e-learning Systems Based on Learner Knowledge and Learning Style

International audienceDesigning effective adaptive e-learning systems, from a usability perspective, represents a challenge because of the complexity of adaptivity in order to meet the diverse requirements of learners. Furthermore, there is a lack of well-designed experimental evaluation of adaptive e-learning systems in general, and of their usability in particular. The aim of this paper is the presentation of an adaptive e-learning system based on learner knowledge and learning style, and of the results of an initial experimental evaluation of the usability of its two modes of operation. This involves comparing the usability of an adaptive version of the system with the usability of a non-adaptive version, in a learning environment with 75 participants. The experiment produced significant results; they indicate that an adaptive e-learning system based on learner knowledge and learning style has a higher level of perceived usability than a non-adaptive e-learning system. This may also increase the level of satisfaction, engagement and motivation of learners and therefore enhance their learning

User Perception of Interruptions in Multimedia Annotation Tasks.

For mixed-initiative multimedia annotation systems an effective dialogue between the system and user is critical. In order to inform the development of such dialogue a clear insight into the impact of interruptions upon the perceptions of the user is required. We present preliminary results of an investigation into interruptions in the form of queries to the user. We show that a user can perceive differences between trivial and important queries. Whether a query is shown in or out of context, or at some opportune time, is also shown to have an impact on user perception of the system

Interaction Issues in Computer Aided Semantic Annotation of Multimedia.

The CASAM project aims to provide a tool for more efficient and effective annotation of multimedia documents through collaboration between a user and a system performing an automated analysis of the media content. A critical part of the project is to develop a user interface which supports both the user and the system working co-operatively and asynchronously. In this paper we discuss the work undertaken, the proposed user interface and underlying interaction issues which drove its development