Showing papers by "Riichiro Mizoguchi published in 2015"

Personalization of Gamification in Collaborative Learning Contexts using Ontologies

Abstract: The design of collaborative learning (CL) scenarios that increase both students' learning and motivation is a challenge that the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) community has been addressing in the past few years. On one hand, CSCL design (i.e. scripts) has shown to be an effective approach to support meaningful interactions and better learning. On the other hand, scripted collaboration sometimes decrease motivation of students to participate in the CL process, which makes more difficult the use of group activities over time. To deal with the problem of motivation, researchers and educators are now looking at Gamification techniques to engage students. Gamification in education is a complex task that requires, from instructional designers, knowledge about game elements (such as leaderboards and point systems), game design (how to combine game elements) and their impact on motivation and learning. To help the adequate use of gamification in collaborative learning activities we have applied ontological engineering techniques to develop an Ontology called OntoGaCLeS in order to formalize the representation of gamification concepts and explain how they affect motivation in CL situations. This paper will present the ontological structure to represent gamified CL scenarios and show the utility of our approach to define personalized conceptual models to gamify CL scenario based on students' needs and individual characteristics.

Causality and the ontology of disease

Abstract: The goal of this paper is two-fold: first, to emphasize causality in disease ontology and knowledge representation, presenting a general and cursory discussion of causality and causal chains; and second, to clarify and develop the River Flow Model of Diseases (RFM). The RFM is an ontological account of disease, representing the causal structure of pathology. It applies general knowledge of causality using the concept of causal chains. The river analogy of disease is explained, formal descriptions are offered, and the RFM disease definition is refined by describing causal chains in terms of causal relations. The definition is updated to coincide with the actual RFM classes found in its upper-level ontology, YAMATO, which brings to light some challenges in developing both YAMATO and the RFM. The RFM is also discussed in relation to another ontological account of disease. Strategies are offered toward interoperability between these theories.

Gamification of collaborative learning scenarios: Structuring persuasive strategies using game elements and ontologies

Abstract: This work presents an ontological model for the formal systematization and representation of knowledge that describes concepts from gamification and its use as Persuasive Technology (PT) in Collaborative Learning (CL) scenarios. This model enables the creation of intelligent systems that can personalize and apply the gamification techniques in group learning contexts in which the scripted collaboration decreases the motivation and engagement of students. Thus, our approach proposes to formalize the connection of concepts from theories and models to design PT in order to specify gamified CSCL scripts that induce students to willingly follow an intended learning behavior. To demonstrate the applicability of our approach, we also present a case study that shows how our ontological model could be used by in an intelligent theory-aware system to build better personalized gamified CL scenarios.

Families of roles: A new theory of occurrent-dependent roles

Abstract: Roles are important both theoretically and practically for modelling the world around us. Although many theories of roles have been proposed, there remain aspects which are little understood. In this paper we investigate roles and their contexts from a temporal point of view. We introduce the idea of a family of occurrent-dependent roles as a means to organise prospective and retrospective derived roles around an original role from which they are derived. By this means we account for the existence of groups of similar roles which are difficult to distinguish without a careful analysis of the temporal aspects. Following detailed informal discussion, we present a preliminary formalisation of the key concepts and relations.

Negotiation-Driven Learning

Abstract: Negotiation mechanisms used in the current implementations of Open Learner Models are mostly position-based and provide minimal support for learners to understand why their beliefs contradict with that of the system. In this paper, we propose the paradigm of Negotiation-Driven Learning with the aim to enhance the role of negotiations in open learner models with special emphasis on affect, behavior and metacognitive abilities of the learners.

Steps Towards the Gamification of Collaborative Learning Scenarios Supported by Ontologies

Abstract: The Computer-Support Collaborative Learning (CSCL) script is an effective approach to support meaningful interactions and better learning. Unfortunately, in some situations, scripted collaboration demotivates students, which makes more difficult its use over time. To deal with this problem, we propose the use of gamification to positively change learners’ motivation and engagement. Nevertheless, the adequate application of gamification is a complex task that requires deeper knowledge about game design and their impact on collaborative learning (CL). Thus, we develop an ontology called OntoGaCLeS to provide a formal systematization of the knowledge about gamification and its correct application. In this paper, we focus in the formalization of concepts relate to gamification as persuasive technology.

A Logical and Ontological Framework for Compositional Concepts of Objects and Properties

Abstract: In order to formalize complex and compositional concepts, we propose a logical framework based on an upper ontology constructed from the composition of basic concepts such as properties and objects. In particular, ontologically distinct compositions (called ontological compositions) that are not easily defined by using ISA and PART-OF relations are classified into characterizing, temporal, and spatial compositions (e.g., ’red face’ and ’today’). In this paper, we precisely model such ontological compositions by using monadic second-order logic; properties and objects are expressed as predicates, and attributes are expressed as predicates of predicates. The proposed approach provides a novel technique for the classification of attributes as higher-order concepts, and it clarifies illegal compositions of properties and objects and the uniqueness of temporal attributes. Moreover, our composition ontology is described by a set of RDF triples using the metamodeling of concepts in RDF Schema.

A Dictionary of Gestures for Multitouch-Based Interactive Geometry Software

Abstract: Interactive Geometry software (IGS) are tools that help students to explore geometry concepts using computers. Most of IGS interfaces developed to date are heavily based on the desktop model of user interaction where the user input comes from the selection of icons and drop-down menus with the help of a mouse and a keyboard. Nevertheless, with the widespread adoption of smartphones, tablets and other devices with multitouch screens the tradition interfaces of IGS became inadequate. Thus, this study presents the development of a dictionary of gestures for interacting with IGS. It completely removes the need of icons and drop-down menus to create and manipulate geometric objects. To evaluate these gestures we implement them in an IGS for mobile device called Geotouch. Then, we conducted a usability study with five experts to compare Geotouch with other three IGS currently available. The results indicate that Geotouch has less usability problems and enable to build geometric objects faster and with fewer errors.

Negotiation-Driven Learning: A New Perspective of Learning Using Negotiation

Abstract: Negotiation mechanisms used in the current implementations of Open Learner Models are mostly position-based and provide minimal support for learners to understand why their beliefs contradict with that of the system. In this paper, we propose the paradigm of Negotiation-Driven Learning with the aim to enhance the role of negotiations in open learner models with special emphasis on affect, behavior and metacognitive abilities of the learners.

Building a System Which Automatically Externalizes Teachers' Instructional Design Intentions and an Evaluation of Its Effectiveness

Abstract: In order to facilitate learners’ knowledge refinement process, it is effective to let them externalize their knowledge. However, in a domain of the instructional design in which existence of knowledge and its necessity are not sufficiently articulated or recognized, it is not easy for teachers who are also learners of how to externalize their knowledge. In this study, we have built a system called “FIMA-Light” which uncovers knowledge that teachers must have applied in their lesson plans from global to local viewpoints instead of them. FIMA-Light makes use of the OMNIBUS ontology which describes various instructional knowledge for attaining educational goals extracted from instructional/ learning theories. And, FIMA-Light automatically generates what we call I L event decomposition trees by interpreting a given lesson plan based on the OMNIBUS ontology. Then, FIMA-Light facilitates teachers’ deep reflection and helps them to refine their lesson plans by providing them with decomposition trees. We report some results of an experiment carried out for evaluation of the quality and the effectiveness of I L event decomposition trees.

Development of CHARM Pad: a Multi-viewpoint Knowledge Browsing System Towards Goal-oriented Learning of Nursing Actions and its Practical Use in Training of Novice Nurses

Abstract: Nurses' daily practices are performed according to nursing guidelines of hospitals. Novice nurses learn by consulting the bulky files of the guidelines for their practices. The nurses actions in practice are usually transmitted from experienced nurses to the novices through the daily practices. It is difficult to represent complex and intertwined actions with their goals by the paper guidelines. The goal of the actions is often implicit knowledge accumulated through the nurses daily practices. To cope with this problem, we have previously proposed a goal realization model called CHARM (an abbreviation for Convincing Human Action Rationalized Model). Unlike in the printed guidelines, CHARM can represent the goal of actions. We have described nursing actions and their goals as CHARM trees constructed from real nursing guidelines used in a hospital through consultation with experienced nurses. On the other hand, the novices need to learn sequence of the actions. Therefore we developed a tablet computer, which is called CHARM Pad, for browsing CHARM trees with two modes corresponding to the both viewpoints. The novices are able to learn nursing actions with their goals by both goal-oriented viewpoint and sequence-oriented viewpoint. The CHARM Pad has been used for training of the novice nurses at ICU unit. After the training, we received positive comments from the chief nurse in the ICU unit and the chief nurse in the Nursing Department. Questionnaires completed by the novice nurses also showed that the two modes of the CHARM Pad helped them to understand the goals and the sequence of the actions.