Satellite-enabled educational services specification and requirements analysis based on user feedback

Advanced tele-education services provision in remote geographically dispersed user communities (such as agriculture and maritime), based on the specific needs and requirements of such communities, implies significant infrastructural and broadband connectivity requirements for rich media, timely and quality-assured content delivery and interactivity. The solution to broadband access anywhere is provided by satellite-enabled communication infrastructures. This paper aims to present such satellite-based infrastructures that are capable of addressing the core requirements of rich media educational services in remote areas. The paper proceeds to examine a set of services that will realise such satellite-based distance learning systems and to assess the targeted users’ interest in such services. The presented work is undertaken within the framework of the EU-funded Broadband Access Satellite Enabled Education (BASE2) project. Furthermore, requirements analysis, based on the Volere template (Robertson) and on user feedback, is undertaken

Satellite-enabled interactive education: scenarios and systems architectures

There are specific sectors of the economy that can benefit from satellite-based tele-education. Areas, such as maritime and agriculture, share common needs for both broadband connectivity at remote geographical areas that cannot otherwise be covered, and for innovative content for tele-education purposes. Furthermore, each area has special requirements with regard to the type of content to be delivered. In this paper we propose a set of architectural designs and case scenarios that will realise such interactive end-to-end education systems based on satellite communications. Services requirements in this setting are also identified and discussed

Satellite-enabled educational services specification and requirements analysis based on user feedback

Advanced tele-education services provision to remote geographically dispersed user communities, such as agriculture and maritime, based on the specific needs and requirements of such communities, implies significant infrastructural and broadband connectivity requirements for rich media, timely and quality-assured content delivery and interactivity. The solution to broadband access anywhere is provided by satellite-enabled communication infrastructures. This paper aims at presenting such satellite-based infrastructures capable of addressing the core requirements of rich media educational services at remote areas. The paper proceeds to examine a set of services that will realise such satellite-based distance learning systems, and to assess the targeted users interest in such services. The presented work is undertaken within the framework of the BASE2 project [6]. Requirements analysis, based on the Volere template [1] and on user feedback is further undertaken

Idea-Space: A Use Case of Collaborative Course Development in Higher Education

A key component of Open Education movement are Open Educational Resources (OER), which are defined as any digital objects that are commonly shared in online repositories and can be freely accessed, reused and adapted by a community of users for educational purposes using an open license scheme. This broad definition includes a lot of different artefacts, such as digital learning objects, software tools like wikis or authoring systems, electronic textbooks, and lesson plans. Existing research on OER has focused on how to make digital objects available and re-usable for educators and learners. Currently, there are millions of resources for basically all subjects, education level. However, their adoption has been limited, the consumption of them is passive, and there are still many barriers towards the uptake of OER. Amongst those, are the not-invented-here syndrome and the lack of involvement and recognition of users who feel that they do or cannot contribute appropriately. In our research, we focus on tweaking the steps that are accomplished before having the resources complete and shared. In particular, in situations when ideas are initiated, shaped, and shared with like-minded people in order to create new educational outcomes, such as OER

Design principles for collaboration platforms for open education

Increasing the current low uptake of Open Education Resources (OER) is a key challenge for researchers and practitioners in the field. User studies have shown that collaboration is a main success factor for successful open educational activities. However, effective collaboration in open educational contexts requires well planned processes and platforms supporting collaboration, in particular in physically distributed settings. We have been investigating the value of such platforms, their main features and user requirements to enable collaboration from immature ideas to completed resources. We used quantitative and qualitative research methods to collect insights from potential users of such collaboration platforms to validate our approach. Based on these insights, we developed a collaboration platform for open education. We validated our platform using observation groups and focus groups to identify the key design principles of powerful collaboration platforms for Open Education. Examples are the need for a simple tool, use of a common terminology, and considering Intellectual Property Rights. In this paper, we present our findings from an initial validation of our collaboration platform and give recommendations towards powerful collaboration platforms for open educational contextsEdukologijos tyrimų institutasSocialinių mokslų fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta

Enhancing the experience of online users of open education

INSPEC Accession Number: 14853364The limited adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) has kicked off the launch of several projects to search for possible solutions. One of these projects is “Open Educational Ideas and Innovations” (OEI2). The goal of this project is to find alternatives for increasing the uptake of OER and facilitating the collaborative development of OER. To enhance the experience of the users of open education, we interviewed twelve educators and researchers from different higher education institutions across Europe focusing on gathering insights about idea sharing experiences. In this paper, we present our key findings based on these interviews and outline some recommendations for our next open educational platform. One of the main principles of our proposal is providing an end-to-end platform that supports educators right from the very beginning to the very end, instead of focusing on the content delivery only. An open education initiative starts with a preliminary idea whose owner shares with the other interested educators who in turn collaborate altogether to sharpen the idea and generate the content so that it becomes suitable for an open educational courseEdukologijos tyrimų institutasSocialinių mokslų fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta