In the last decade, the evolution of educational technologies has forced an extraordinary interest in new methods for delivering learning content to learners. Today, distance education represents an effective way for supporting and sometimes substituting the traditional formative processes, thanks to the technological improvements achieved in the field in recent years. However, the role of technology has often been overestimated. The amount of information students can obtain from the Internet is huge, and as a result, they can easily be confused. Teachers can also be disconcerted by this vast quantity of content and are often unable to suggest the correct content to their students. In the open scientific literature, it is widely recognized that an important factor for success in delivering learning content is related to the capability for customizing the learning process for the specific needs of a given learner. This task is still far from having been fully accomplished, and there is a real interest in investigating new approaches and tools to adapt the formative process to specific individual needs. In this scenario, the introduction of ontology formalism can improve the quality of the formative process, allowing the introduction of new and effective services. Ontologies can lead to important improvements in the definition of a course's knowledge domain, in the generation of an adapted learning path, and in the assessment phase. This paper provides an initial discussion of the role of ontologies in the context of e-learning. The improvements related to the introduction of ontologies formalism in the e-learning field are discussed, and a novel algorithm for ontology building through the use of Bayesian networks is shown. Finally, the application of this algorithm in the assessment process and some experimental results are illustrated.

Ontology for E-Learning: A Bayesian Approach

Inflation-adjusted tuition and fees in education have risen for decades. College textbook costs have risen as well. The authors discuss reasons for higher textbook costs. The development and use of encyclopedic introductory textbooks creates higher monetary cost for students and higher nonmonetary cost for students and teachers, from increased text–course friction. One method to lower costs is the custom, professor-written online textbook. Development issues, such as curriculum coordination, course organization, copyright, institutional cooperation and contractual agreements, pricing, and revenue distribution, are discussed in the business college context. Additionally, student opinion on whether the text was a valuable learning tool is presented and discussed.

Lowering Business Education Cost With a Custom Professor-Written Online Text

Un sistema adaptativo es aquel que ajusta su funcionamiento al usuario tomando este como unidad esencial en su desempeno. Partiendo de esta premisa se pude deducir la importancia del modelo del usuario para este tipo de sistemas ya que todas las caracteristicas y metas de la persona que interactua con el sistema se veran directamente reflejadas en un cambio de estrategia dentro del funcionamiento del mismo. Este articulo hace referencia a la creacion de un modelo de usuario, en este caso el estudiante, para sistemas adaptativos aplicados de educacion virtual por lo que se modelaran aquellas caracteristicas de estudiante, que afectan el proceso de aprendizajeI¾ la forma en que estas se pueden inicializar y tambien actualizar. Ademas se mostrara la forma en que el modelo del estudiante propuesto encaja en un sistema de educacion virtual llamado SICAD.

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Modelo del estudiante para sistemas adaptativos de educación virtual

The E-Learning is becoming an effective approach for the improving of quality of learning. Many institutions are adopting this approach both to improve their traditional courses both to increase the potential audience. In the last period great attention is paid in the introduction of methodologies and techniques for the adaptation of learning process to the real needs of students. In this scenario the Adaptive Educational Hypermedia System can be an effective approach. Adaptive hypermedia is a promising area of research at the crossroads of hypermedia and adaptive systems. One of the most important fields where this approach can be applied is just the e-Learning. In this context the adaptive learning resources selection and sequencing is recognized as among one of the most interesting research questions. An Adaptive Educational Hypermedia System is composed by services for the management of the Knowledge Space, the definition of a User Model, the observation of student during his learning period and, as previously said, the adaptation of the learning path according to the real needs of the students. In particular the use of ontologyâ??s formalism for the modeling of the â??knowledge spaceâ? related to the course can increase the sharable of learning objects among similar courses or better contextualize their role in the course. This paper addresses the design problem of an Adaptive hypermedia system by the definition of methodologies able to manage each its components, In particular an original user, learning contents, tracking strategies and adaptation model are developed. The proposed Adaptive Educational Hypermedia System has been integrated in an e-Learning platform and an experimental campaign has been conducted. In particular the proposed approach has been introduced in three different blended courses. A comparison with traditional approach has been described and the obtained results seem to be very promising.

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E-Learning and Personalized Learning Path: A Proposal Based on the Adaptive Educational Hypermedia System

New technologies are quickly changing the traditional educational approaches and systems. In fact the integration of new technologies in the field of education offers new challenges and opportunities in distance learning, lifelong learning and e-learning in general. On the other hand e-Learning is an interesting application area for adaptive hypermedia system (AEH). Through the use of user models intelligent tutoring and students tracking techniques an AEH can recognize individual users and their needs adapting in an effective way the student learning path. This paper attempts to enhance student learning by addressing different learning styles by the use of the Adaptive Hypermedia System approach. In particular it addresses to define a standardized and simple user model and some tracking parameters and techniques in order to update the proposed learning path. The proposed system collects information on the user learning style by the use of various well known in literature test We propose a mapping of this acquired information in some parameters defined in standard metadata user description like IMS LIP. The final goal is a student learning style representation by the use of a quantitative model So we can develop a tracking strategy through the observation of the main model parameters. A similar approach could be used for the description of learning objects in order to provide the introduction of well defined metrics for the dynamic tailoring of the learning path to the student's learning style and needs.

Adaptive hypermedia system in education: A user model and tracking strategy proposal

We describe a student model using possibilities in computer-based education. The model's classification is given. The results of a comparable analysis of presently available student models are shown. Analysis was made after parameters that are considered to be essential for teaching process effectiveness. Offers of developing student model are given.

Student models in computer-based education

The paper describes the electronic textbook and e-learning system developed and used in educational process at Riga Technical University. The architecture of the universal on-line electronic textbook is reviewed. The possibilities of the textbook and elearning system are shown. The courses included in them are outlined.

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Electronic Textbook and E-Learning System in Teaching Process

The paper studies the problems of e-learning environments' visual design and its effects on end-user. The requirements of good visual design are proposed. The evaluating criteria are described. The results of some e-learning systems' and corporate websites' visual design evaluation are presented. Some visual design recommendations are provided.

Visual design of e-learning environments

The paper studies the problem of learning process organizing in higher education institutions. Different computer-based learning systems types are described. Architecture of the most popular of them is shown. Learning objects concept is outlined. Various learning objects tasks types are considered. The system and electronic textbook developed and used at Riga Technical University are reviewed.

Learning Systems in Higher Education

The paper studies the problems of e-learning systems’ visual design. The requirements of good visual design are considered. The evaluating criteria are described. The results of some e-learning systems’ visual design evaluation are presented.

Larissa Zaitseva

Papers

Student models in computer-based education

Electronic Textbook and E-Learning System in Teaching Process

Visual design of e-learning environments

Learning Systems in Higher Education

Visual Design of E-learning Systems