Cocea, Mihaela

English

Name not available

Extendibility of educational systems to include a learner-adaptive motivational module

Portsmouth University Research Portal (Pure)

Extendibility of Educational Systems to Include a Learner-Adaptive 
Motivational Module 
 
 
Mihaela Cocea 
National College of Ireland 
mcocea@ncirl.ie 
 
 
Abstract 
 
Motivation is a key component of learning, no 
matter if it takes place in the classroom, via an online 
system or in a blended setting. Motivated learners feel 
more self-efficacious, they spend more effort and 
persist more on a task, they are more interested in the 
learning activities and they use more self-regulatory 
learning strategies. If in classroom teaching 
motivation is handled by teachers, in the case of online 
learning, motivation has been considered only in terms 
of content and ways of delivery. There is a need for 
considering motivation by educational systems in a 
more personalised way that would allow adequate 
interventional strategies to motivate learners. This 
paper explores the possibility of existing open-source 
educational systems to be extended with a motivational 
module. 
 
 
1. Introduction 
 
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the 
extendibility of some open-source educational systems 
with a motivational module. A review of six systems is 
presented, focusing on certain characteristics that 
would allow assessment of motivation and 
complementation of interventions in order to increase 
or maintain the level of motivation. Thus, this review is 
different from the many reviews available (e.g., [1]), as 
most of them have been done from evaluation 
perspective. 
There are two main approaches to assessment of 
motivation: 1) non-intrusive deduction of motivational 
level from learner’s interactions with the system [2] 
and 2) “classical” assessment by asking the learner 
about his motivation, both to be included in the 
motivational module [3].  
For intervention, two aspects are important: a) the 
possibility of the system “talking” to the learner, giving 
feedback about his/her motivation related to the 
learning process; b) adapting the learning activities to 
the learner’s level of motivation. 
Thus, the following criteria are considered: 1) 
tracking the learners’ activity, 2) possibility to “dialog” 
with the learner, 3) the system’s possibility to keep 
learners’ profiles (user models for motivation and 
knowledge) and to adapt to them, or to be extended 
with these possibilities. 
The “dialog” refers to the possibility to 
communicate with the learner in order to assess his/her 
motivational characteristics. This dialog would “pop-
up” when activity tracking shows disengagement.   
Another criterion would also be relevant for this 
review: the pedagogy behind the system. The design of 
the envisaged learner-adaptive motivational module to 
be added to an educational system is based on Social 
Cognitive Theory [4] that represents a social 
constructivist view of learning. Thus, it would be 
important to work with a system that supports learning 
based on grounded learning principles. 
 
 
2. Educational systems review 
 
Only open source systems are included in this 
review due to the advantage of the open source code 
[5] and because of their presence in the academic 
arena, colleges and universities being directly involved 
in the development of open source e-Learning 
applications [6].   
The following learning systems are considered: 
Moodle [7], ILIAS [8], AHA! [9], ATutor [10], 
Claroline [11] and .LRN [12]. 
Almost all the systems considered (except AHA!) 
are learning management systems and they all have 
some common characteristics such as: course elements 
(lessons, resources, assignments, quizzes etc.), 
communication tools (forums, chat etc.), group 
management etc. 
However, the following review will focus on the 
differences between them with regard to the criteria 
mentioned above. 
 
 
2.1. Moodle 
 
Moodle (Modular Object Oriented Dynamic 
Learning Environment) is a course management system 
built on the social constructivism principles. It has a 
modular extensible architecture, the main focus being 
on activities. 
Moodle's logs provide detailed learner activity of 
page and tools access; also of the activity in forums and 
individual performance in tests.  
Moodle architecture is extensible, thus it is possible 
to integrate a “dialog”. Also, it has low coupling and 
high cohesion that makes the system easy accessible to 
developers. 
There is no user model in Moodle, as this system is 
not adaptive. 
The pedagogical theory behind Moodle is social-
constructivism that promotes especially learner’s 
involvement, group collaboration and learning by 
doing.  
 
 
2.2. ILIAS 
 
ILIAS is a web-based learning content management 
system and collaboration platform. The architecture is 
complex (see Figure 1.) and the tight coupling makes it 
hard to work with. 
 
Figure 1. Layers in the ILIAS 3 System (from [13]) 
 
 
 
ILIAS doesn’t provide student activity tracking: no 
track of pages accessed, but activity on individual 
forum and performance on tests is indicated. 
Although the architecture is extendable and a 
dialog could be included, the complexity and tight 
coupling makes it difficult to use.  
No adaptivity/ user model is included in ILIAS. 
The pedagogy behind ILIAS is social 
constructivism (with the key elements already 
presented for Moodle) and social leaning (sharing 
knowledge). 
 
 
2.3. AHA! 
 
AHA! (Adaptive Hypermedia Architecture) is an 
adaptive hypermedia platform. The architecture is 
presented in Figure 2. 
Unlike the other systems reviewed here, AHA! 
focuses on adaptation. It supports adaptive link hiding 
and adaptive annotation, and also conditional inclusion 
of fragments.  
 
Figure 2. Architecture of AHA! [14] 
 
 
 
The architecture of AHA! consists of Java servlets 
that interact with a combined domain/adaptation model 
DM/AM and with a user model UM. An authoring tool 
is available for defining concepts and relations between 
them, and also rules for adaptation. 
The user model in AHA! is based on concepts and 
it is updated with every visited page. It is an overlay 
UM, each concept being also in the domain model.  
An extension of the system should be possible to 
include a dialog and also, to add new concepts related 
to motivation in the user model.  
There is no pedagogy behind the system. 
 
 
2.4. ATutor 
 
ATutor is an Open Source Web-based Learning 
Content Management System.   
Activity tracking for student is supported in ATutor 
only for course usage and tests; there is no track of 
forum activity; tests performance is indicated. 
The ATutor architecture is monolithic and all 
functionality resides in the core of application. Because 
the architecture is not modular, it is difficult to extend it 
with other functionalities, as extensions must be made 
part of the application, and are tightly coupled. 
ATutor was designed with adaptability in mind. It 
provides adaptive navigation according to preferred 
navigational patterns: users can choose global, 
hierarchical or sequential navigation tools.  
No pedagogy is included in the system’s principles 
of design. 
 
 
2.6. Claroline 
 
Claroline is a learning course management system 
build on sound pedagogical principles.  
Learner’s activity tracking includes detailed 
statistics for course pages and tools and also for 
individual activity in forums; performance in tests is 
also indicated. 
The software architecture of Claroline seems 
modular, but this is not so well documented. Thus, 
extendibility may be possible, but difficult due to 
documentation problems. 
Claroline had no user model/ adaptation features. 
Figure 3 illustrates the pedagogical design, 
including the tools related to the learning model. 
 
Figure 3. Claroline e-Learning model [11] 
 
 
 
 
2.7. .LRN 
 
.LRN is an open source application suite for 
learning and research communities. .LRN includes 
course management, online communities, learning 
management, and content management applications. 
Tracking learner’s activity is limited to forum 
activity, no track of pages accessed; individual 
performance in tests is provided. 
Architecture is very complex, as it can be seen in 
Figure 4. Although it is extendable, the complexity and 
the documentation only for the core system make it 
difficult. 
 
Figure 4. .LRN Architecture [12] 
 
 
 
No adaptivity/ user model is included. 
.LRN was design for collaborative learning and to 
be used by learning communities. 
 
 
3. Discussion 
 
A summary of the reviewed features for each of the 
considered systems is provided in Table 1. 
 
Table 1. System’s review 
 
Features 
M
o
o
d
le
 
IL
IA
S
 
A
H
A
! 
A
T
u
to
r 
C
a
ro
li
n
e 
.L
N
R
 
Activity tracking + - + L
** 
+ L
**
 
Extendibility + D
* 
+ + D
* 
D
* 
Adaptation/UM - - + L
** 
- - 
Pedagogy principles + + - - + + 
 
*
Difficult 
**
Limited 
As Table 1 shows, there are two systems equally 
“recommendable”: Moodle and AHA!. While Moodle 
is a course management system, AHA! is an adaptive 
system (/ framework) for hypermedia. 
ILIAS has the disadvantage of no activity tracking 
that is necessary for detecting disengaged learners. 
The same problem applies to ATutor which has 
limited activity tracking. Also, even if designed with 
adaptivity in mind, the only adaptivity feature 
considered is adapting to navigational patterns which is 
not yet automatic. 
Claroline claims to have a solid pedagogical 
background, but it has the disadvantage of an unclear 
architecture and little documentation about it.  
.LRN is very complex and it has documentation 
only for the core system, which makes extendibility 
difficult. It also has limited tracking of the user’s 
activity. 
Compared to the other considered systems, both 
Moodle and AHA! have the advantage of a clear 
structured architecture, which make them easier to 
extend with new functionalities. Also, they have rich 
activity tracking although very different: Moodle logs 
offer a view of pages/ tools accessed and other actions 
performed, while AHA! stores the learner’s actions in 
the user model.  
At the same time, from the point of view of the 
selected criteria, both Moodle and AHA! each have a 
disadvantage: Moodle has no user model and implicitly 
no adaptivity, while AHA! has no pedagogy principles. 
For a motivational module both elements are 
important. A user model with motivational 
characteristics is necessary in order to adapt to the 
motivational level of the learner, thus adaptivity/ user 
modelling is a very important aspect for effective 
interventions on learner’s motivation. No adaptation 
means a limited range of intervention that would 
basically be reduced to different kinds of feedback. 
However, pedagogy is also important, as the 
motivational theory used, Social Cognitive Theory, 
refers to social constructivism principles of learning 
and thus, the learning systems should provide a 
framework for active construction of meaning (learning 
activities) in a social environment (communication 
tools). 
 
 
4. Conclusion 
 
This review showed that two of the six analysed 
systems satisfy the majority of the selected criteria: 
Moodle and AHA!. The two systems focus on different 
aspects of learning: Moodle focuses on learning/ 
content management and AHA! focuses on adapting the 
content to the learner. Both aspects are important from 
the motivational point of view and the ideal would be 
to have a system that combines each aspect.  
 
10. References 
 
[1] “Assessment of 5 leading open source CMS from 
Commonwealth of Learning”, May 2005, 
http://old.developmentgateway.org/download/201
768/COL_LMS_Open_Source_-_July_2003.pdf  
[2] A. de Vicente and H. Pain, “Informing the 
Detection of the Students’ Motivational State: an 
empirical Study”, in S.A. Cerri, G. Gouarderes 
and F. Paraguau, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, 
6th International Conference, 2002, pp. 933-943. 
[3] M. Cocea, “Assessment of Motivation in Online 
Learning Environments”, in Proceedings of 
Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based 
Systems, 2006, pp. 414-418. 
[4] A. Bandura, Social foundations of thought and 
action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood 
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1986. 
[5] C. Smart, “Choosing Open Source Solutions”, 
2005, http://www.elearning.ac.uk/features/oss  
[6] Open source - opens learning. Why open source 
makes sense for education, 2004 
http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/453/01/OpenSourceOp
ensLearningJuly2004.pdf 
[7] Moodle site, http://moodle.org/ 
[8] ILIAS site, http://www.ilias.de/ios/index-e.html 
[9] AHA! Site, http://aha.win.tue.nl/ 
[10] Atutor, http://www.atutor.ca/ 
[11] Claroline site, http://www.claroline.net/ 
[12] .LRN site, http://dotlrn.org/ 
[13] A. Killing and B. Schürmann, “ILIAS 3 
Architecture”, Developer Workshop in 2nd 
International ILIAS Conference, available online 
at http://www.ilias.de/conference/2003/pdf/WS1-
ARCHITECTURE.pdf 
[14] Paul De Bra, Ad Aerts, Bart Berden, Barend de 
Lange, Brendan Rousseau, Tomi Santic, David 
Smits, Natalia Stash, “AHA! The Adaptive 
Hypermedia Architecture”, Proceedings of the 
fourteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and 
hypermedia, Nottingham, UK, 2003, pp. 81-84. 
 


Assessment of Motivation in Online Learning Environments”,

Choosing Open Source Solutions”,

Informing the Detection of the Students’ Motivational State: an empirical Study”,

Open source - opens learning. Why open source makes sense for education,

Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs,

Tomi Santic,

Extendibility of educational systems to include a learner-adaptive motivational module

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Name not available

Portsmouth University Research Portal (Pure)