This paper presents KnowledgeTree, an architecture for adaptive E-Learning based on distributed reusable intelligent learning activities. The goal of KnowledgeTree is to bridge the gap between the currently popular approach to Web-based education, which is centered on learning management systems vs. the powerful but underused technologies in intelligent tutoring and adaptive hypermedia. This integrative architecture attempts to address both the component-based assembly of adaptive systems and teacher-level reusability.

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KnowledgeTree: a distributed architecture for adaptive e-learning

From the Publisher:
To improve the cost effectiveness and sustainability of e-learning, many national and international initiatives are pioneering new ways in which educators can share their curricula with teachers and learners around the world. To enable this global sharing, educators must learn to design, manage and implement reusable electronic educational resources. This unique book outlines approaches to sharing and reusing resources for e-learning. Drawing upon research by 30 prominent scholars from seven countries, the authors offer multiple perspectives from schools, continuing and higher education institutions as well as industry. It is essential reading for those implementing e-learning in education and corporate training, including teachers, trainers, academics, educational developers and support staff as well as senior managers.

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Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to E-Learning

Adaptive hypermedia is a new area of research at the crossroads of hypermedia, adaptive systems, and intelligent tutoring systems. Educational hypermedia systems is currently the most popular kind of adaptive hypermedia. The goal of this paper is to uncover the secrets of authoring adaptive educational hypermedia. The paper provides a clear structured view on the process of adaptive hypermedia authoring starting from the early design stage. It also reviews a few modern adaptive hypermedia authoring systems that are oriented to educational practitioners.

/pdf/developing-adaptive-educational-hypermedia-systems-from-31v7thhj0g.pdf

Developing Adaptive Educational Hypermedia Systems: From Design Models to Authoring Tools

We argue that traditional sequencing technology developed in the field of intelligent tutoring systems could find an immediate place in large- scale web-based education. This paper discusses two models that have been explored by the authors - the dynamic course generation system DCG and the concept-based course maintenance system CoCoA. DCG includes components for domain authoring and for automatic generation of adaptive courses on the WWW. It allows automatic generation of individualised courses according to the learner's goal and previous knowledge, and can dynamically adapt the course according to the learner's success in acquiring knowledge. . CoCoA can check the consistency and quality of a course at any moment of its life and also assists course developers in some routine operations.

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Course sequencing techniques for large-scale web-based education

In this paper, we survey the field of learning object repositories. Learning objects are typically relatively small content components that are meant to be reusable in different contexts. Associated to these learning objects are metadata, so that they can be managed, searched, etc. As the international standardization in this area is making important progress, the number of these repositories is growing rapidly, and the whole field of learning objects is rapidly maturing as a research area in its own right.

Reusable learning objects: a survey of LOM-based repositories

The Ariadne knowledge pool system

In this paper, we focus on the development of a framework for automatic metadata generation. The first step towards this framework is the definition of an Application Programmer Interface (API), which we call the Simple Indexing Interface (SII). The second step is the definition of a framework for implementation of the SII. Both steps are presented in some detail in this paper. We also report on empirical evaluation of the metadata that the SII and supporting framework generated in a real-life context.

/pdf/automating-metadata-generation-the-simple-indexing-interface-rzn8du6ppz.pdf

Automating metadata generation: the simple indexing interface

Learning Management Systems (LMS) generally offer big repositories of learning material, but the lack of publicly available metadata to describe the learning objects makes it very difficult to share and reuse these objects. If metadata could be generated for these objects in order to index them in Learning Object Repositories (LOR), the gained amount of resources could solve the sub-critical mass problem of most existing Learning Object Repositories. This work proposes two orthogonal frameworks that could facilitate the analysis, design and implementation of Automatic Indexers for LMS content. One of them focuses on the methodology needed to pass from a LMS to a LOR, while the other focuses on the technological aspect of the Automatic Metadata Generation. Prototype implementations of Automatic Indexing Systems for real LMSs (SIDWeb and Toledo-Blackboard) show that the amount of effort needed to construct them was small compared with the benefits that this kind of systems could have in educational technologies. While the metadata seems to be good enough at first sight, further research of the quality of automatic generated metadata is needed.

Frameworks for the Automatic Indexation of Learning Management Systems Content into Learning Object Repositories

This paper reports on the principles underlying the semantic and pedagogic interoperability mechanisms built in the European Knowledge Pool System, developed by the European research project ARIADNE. This system, which is the central feature of ARIADNE, consists in a distributed repository of pedagogical documents (or learning objects) of diverse granularity, origin, content, type, language, etc., which are stored in view of their use (and reuse) in telematics-based training or teaching curricula. The learning objects are indexed, usually by faculty staff, according to the ARIADNE metadata set. The principles embodied in the indexation tool, which interacts directly with the repository,stem from a few theoretical ideas but foremost from empirical, pragmatic considerations, suggested by the context of actual use. They tentatively address the stringent demands for semantic and pedagogic interoperability implied by a context of rather wide cultural and linguistic diversity, as well as those stemming from the very nature of the domain application itself: education and training. Possible extensions to the educational metadata scheme developed by ARIADNE on these basis, may accommodate corporate training/information needs. These extensions are briefly discussed as a mean for enhancing 'semantic' interoperability between different (kinds of) corporations. Finally, the architecture of the ARIADNE system, which heavily relies on this educational metadata system, is briefly reviewed.

Kris Cardinaels

Papers

The Ariadne knowledge pool system

Automating metadata generation: the simple indexing interface

Frameworks for the Automatic Indexation of Learning Management Systems Content into Learning Object Repositories

Semantic and pedagogic interoperability mechanisms in the ARIADNE educational repository

Experiences with the ARIADNE pedagogical document repository