Empowering geographically isolated communities with instant access to learning and training through satellite

Enabling learning for members of geographically isolated communities such as agrarian, or maritime communities presents benefits in terms of promoting regional development and cost savings for governments and companies. We present a methodology for designing a satellite and wireless based network infrastructure and learning services to support distance learning for such isolated communities. This methodology entails (a) the involvement of community members in the development of targeted learning services from an early stage and (b) a service-oriented approach to learning solution deployment. Here this methodology is applied in the context of the European research project BASE2 (BASE2 2006), in which the following two types of geographically isolated communities are considered: agrarian and maritime

Application of a virtual scientific experiment model in different educational contexts

E-learning practice is continuously using experimentation in order to enhance the basic information transfer model where knowledge is passed from the system/ tutors to the students. Boosting student productivity through on-line experimentation is not simple since many organizational, educational and technological issues need to be dealt with. This work describes the application of a Learning Model for Virtual Scientific Experiments (VSEs) in two different scenarios: Information and Communication Technologies and Physics. As part of the first, a VSE for Wireless Sensor Networks was specified and deployed while the second involved the specification and design of a collaborative VSE for physics experiments. Preliminary implementation and deployment results are also discussed

Editorial. Special issue on: Ubiquitous e-Learning Solutions over Heterogeneous Networks

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2009 Springe

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 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-based delivery of educational content to geographically isolated communities: A service based approach

Enabling learning for members of geographically isolated communities presents benefits in terms of promoting regional development and cost savings for governments and companies. However, notwithstanding recent advances in e-Learning, from both technological and pedagogical perspectives, there are very few, if any, recognised methodologies for user-led design of satellite-based e-learning infrastructures. In this paper, we present a methodology for designing a satellite and wireless based network infrastructure and learning services to support distance learning for such isolated communities. This methodology entails (a) the involvement of community members in the development of targeted learning services from an early stage, and (b) a service-oriented approach to learning solution deployment. Results show, that, while the technological premises of distance learning can be accommodated by hybrid satellite/wireless infrastructures,this has to be complemented with (a) high-quality audio–visual educational material, and (b) the opportunity for community members to interact with other community members either as groups (common-room oriented scenarios) or individuals (home-based scenarios), thus providing an impetus for learner engagement in both formal and informal activities

the safety transformation in the future internet domain

Public Safety is nowadays a priority, cornerstone and major concern for governments, majors and policy makers in current (and future) smart cities. Notwithstanding the foregoing, large advances in ICT technologies are foretold to revolutionize our society and enhance our feeling of safety (and hopefully, wellbeing). This chapter presents an introduction to three of the most promising technological pillars considered to be spearheads in this transformation: Internet of things, understood as the data capillarity through billions of sensors, Intelligent Video Analytics and Data Mining Intelligence, the latter two enabling smarter contextual awareness and prediction of potential threats leading to proactive prevention of them. The associated horizontal economic implications of this evolution and its impact into the societal and economic fabric are also tackled. Part of the results and analysis produced in this chapter are the outcome of the work carried out in the FP7 EU project SafeCity, one of the eight Use Cases of the FI Programme

Toward Virtual Campuses: Collaborative Virtual Labs & Personalized Learning Services in a Real-Life Context

Virtual campuses are gradually becoming a reality with the advances in e-learning and Web technologies, distributed systems and broadband communication, as well as the emerging needs of remote Universities for collaboration on offering common programs. The advances in grid-based distributed infrastructures have further significantly contributed to this fact providing optimized and real-time system performance and support for virtual communities even under synchronous distributed multi-user usage contexts executing complex simulations in virtual lab applications. This paper focuses on realizing fundamental rich-media e-learning services for synchronous shared and interactive virtual labs offerings and asynchronous personalized learning paradigms towards enabling virtual campuses in a real-life context. The paper further presents evaluation results of the developed e-learning services on both learning and usability aspects in real-life learning contexts involving participation of student communities from remote collaborating Universities. The evaluation results showcase the interest of learning communities in such systems as they evolve to be more advanced and user-friendly and their impact in realizing virtual campuses

Grid-Based Interactive Virtual Scientific Experiments for Distributed Virtual Communities

E-learning technologies have matured to a point where distance learning classes are commonly offered from many leading Universities around the world. A major challenge in such distributed classrooms is the formation of virtual communities among the participating students, enhancing the overall learning experience. Shared virtual laboratories offer the possibility of forming such virtual communities as students form lab teams to run the same interactive simulation and in the course of such experiments learn to interact and understand each other better. We have designed and implemented a Virtual Scientific Experiment architectural framework on top of a Grid infrastructure for running interactive virtual laboratory experiments for such distributed student communities with visualization capabilities. The architecture is based on Web Services standard protocols such as WSDL and WS-Notification as implemented in the WSRF specification. For the first concrete instantiation of this architecture, we ported a stand-alone Wireless Sensor Network simulator written in Java in our Grid-based architecture and extended it to allow for initial collaborative parameter setup and on-the-fly visualization of the simulation execution and interaction with it, a capability not present in the original simulator. We report on results from running such simulations on a local Grid infrastructure. System evaluation results from a distributed pool of students show the added value of our system in enhancing distance-learning programs and Virtual Classes with extensible collaborative and interactive Virtual Laboratories sessions