Theme 3: Active and Adaptive Learning ObjectsTheme 3: Active and Adaptive Learning Objects

“Influenced by and Influencing Social Computing”“Influenced by and Influencing Social Computing”

Jim Greer, Gordon McCalla, Ralph Deters, Julita Vassileva

Department of Computer Science

University of Saskatchewan

University of Saskatchewan

IntroductionIntroduction

Why social computing? Our deployed learning environments

have convinced us that there is an increasing social dynamic to be captured

This dynamic has two sides relevant to educational technology research: It’s important. Learners collaborate just-in-

time all of the time, and expect nothing less. Access to email, chat, and instant messaging within a learning environment has changed the ways learners do this online.

We can capture it. Learners are turning increasingly to technology to engage in their learning activities, and we have the option to be in the thick of it all.

Introduction 3

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer 4

▪ Julita Vassileva 4

▪ Ralph Deters 7

▪ Gord McCalla 8

Conclusions 2

University of Saskatchewan

Social Computing in E-LearningSocial Computing in E-Learning

We teach/learn in a [usage] data saturated environment

The tools in iHelp capture this attention metadata iHelp Courses, a standards-based research

LCMS iHelp Discussions, an asynchronous forum

system iHelp Chat, a synchronous forum system iHelp Share, online collaborative code

annotation groupware (demo at poster session)

We aim to capture fine grained attention metadata Who reads what? [post/object/chat] How long do they read it?

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Making Sense of DataMaking Sense of Data

Of course, usage data isn’t the only data of interest Content data

We are working with theme 1 (SFU) theme 4 (Waterloo) to dig into this data a bit more Can ontologies help to organize and provide

deductive reasoning over our collected data? Can ontologies provide a bridge between real

usage data and learning standards (e.g. IMS LD)?

How do user inputs (e.g. collaborative tagging) compare to automatic metadata generation?

Can content metadata be leveraged alongside content interaction metadata?

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Awareness and Assistance in iHelpAwareness and Assistance in iHelp

Are my friends around? Who is doing what? Where do I stand? Who is willing and able to help? Is an instructor available? What resources might fit my needs right

now?

Who is at risk? How healthy is the learning

environment? What kinds of interactions are occurring?

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Specific Projects - Jim GreerSpecific Projects - Jim Greer

Christopher Brooks

Basic Approach

Real systems, real learners

Large scale deployments

Collaboration in a safe environment

Building respect for privacy

Enabling and utilizing publicity

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

iHelp ShareiHelp Share

The iHelp project is still ongoing

Collaborative document annotation Programmer help Writing help Augmented by chat and discussion or voice

Why not collaborative editing?

Research opportunities Willingness to collaborate Tutor training

Demo by Stephen Damm, student

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Privacy in e-LearningPrivacy in e-Learning

Virtual learning communities may not be a circle of close friends

How to protect privacy Add pseudonymity

Building trust through reputation But without full identity

Reliable sharing of reputation data How? What about fusing partial reputations? What about transfer of reputation?

Poster by Mohd Anwar, PhD student

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

E-Portfolios to Learner ModelsE-Portfolios to Learner Models

Learner model is a detailed cognitive representation of a learner

Can an e-portfolio initialize a learner model? What information can be automatically

extracted? How can evidence be used to support claims

about cognitive abilities?

The process of “evidencing” Reflection has its benefits

User study

Poster by Zinan Guo, MSc student

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Specific Projects – Julita VassilevaSpecific Projects – Julita Vassileva

Comtella – a community for sharing Participation is the key problem!

Previous (now deployed) approaches: Incentive mechanisms: rewarding participation

through social visibility, status and privileges Successful, but do not necessarily help learning

(students “optimize” their participation to yield the rewards)

New approaches: Making the system immediately useful –

embedding sharing into Personal Information Management (PIM) – in blogs

Exploiting/Fostering interpersonal relationships to generate recommendations of RSS

Bridging communities – in this way even small communities can reach a “critical mass” since the community doesn’t need to provide all the services and users don’t need to start from scratch

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Collaborating through blogsCollaborating through blogs

Sharing? Why? Need to be useful for self first, then to others Sharing by default? Personal info management Need to be convenient, manage access seamlessly

Blogs – personal info space Currently – open for everyone to see (like a

homepage), e.g. MySpace, LifeJournal Managing access rights – very much needed Who sees what? Delegating access rights to groups. Collaborating – allowing others to modify blog

Prototype – a blog system allowing users to manage access rights to their blogs

Special language: user groups, access rights packages (roles), item groups (rooms)

Usability evaluation

See Indratmo’s poster (PhD student)

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Social networks for recommending contentSocial networks for recommending content Current recommender systems:

Content based, Collaborative and Hybrid Collaborative recommender systems use data about past

user actions (rating, buying), correlates it and finds users who have liked similar things in the past recommendations

However, recommendations are faceless “people who in the past have bought similar things like you bought this item”.

Information spreads using social networks Diseases spread also using social networks

Open model of the relationships of influence between users,

show it to users, allow users to add /remove people of influence they wish use these relationships to recommend content applied to recommend RSS

Evaluation: outperforms classic collaborative filtering even in a static database

Applicable also for recommending new items See Andrew Webster’s Poster (MSc student)

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Bridging online communitiesBridging online communities

Currently, online communities are “islands”. Can we enable users to seamlessly jump across

communities, without abandoning their old communities?

Three problems: Identity management across communities Translation of user data across communities Negotiation of policies across communities

Exploring solutions in the Comtella system Mutli-community, multi-node framework Different user roles, rights and priviledges Communities and nodes are autonomous, with own

policies. Decentralized user modelling

See Tariq Muhammad’s poster (MSc student)

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Scalability & Mobility – Ralph DetersScalability & Mobility – Ralph Deters

How to enable scalable solutions? Open, agile, manageable, etc… with great

performance

How to support users of mobile devices? Support the mobile learner, anytime,

anywhere

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Scalability & ManageabilityScalability & Manageability

Delivering/Accessing Learning Objects via Web Services

SOAP is Expensive

How to handle large volumes of requests?

Scheduling of Requests

Dmytro Dyachuk’s Poster

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Scalability & ManageabilityScalability & Manageability

Defining Learning Workflows

Use variety of accessible Learning Objects How to manage instances of workflows? How to ensure SLA? ……

Management of Workflows

Dong Liu’s Poster

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Scalability & ManageabilityScalability & Manageability

Accessing Learning Objects What happens if some LO are not accessible? How to use redundancy? How to ensure more reliable access? P2P?

Integration of P2P into Web Services Self-organizing Dynamic discovery

Weidong Han - Work completed

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Supporting Mobile LearnersSupporting Mobile Learners

Enabling access without stable networks!

Weak connectivity(Low-bandwidth and

intermittent connection )

Strong Connectivity(High-bandwidth

and reliable connection )

Null Connectivity(disconnection )

Laptop

Laptop

Laptop

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Challenges Challenges

Wireless Network

XML

XML

XML

XML

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Supporting Mobile LearnersSupporting Mobile Learners

Using a cache to overcome signal loss!

How to cache What to cache? How to cache? When to cache? Location of cache? …..

Model-Driven Caching

Xin Liu’s Poster

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Specific Projects: Gord McCallaSpecific Projects: Gord McCalla

Basic philosophy fragmented learning environments: just

in time learning, mediated by each individual learner’s various virtual communities

active learner modelling: model only what is needed for a particular pedagogical purpose

ecological approach: each learning object in a learning object repository has attached to it all the information known about each learner who interacted with it and what the interactions were at a fine-grained level; these learner model instances can be mined for interesting pedagogical insight

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Research Paper RecommenderResearch Paper Recommender

Tiffany Tang, Ph.D., expected 2007 capturing pedagogical features of

research papers in order to recommend them to students who are learning about a research area

matching these pedagogical features to models of learners to determine which papers are appropriate for which learners

ties in to ecological approach: can we capture information about learners’ actual interactions with the learning material in order to make better recommendations?

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Data Mining of Learner InteractionsData Mining of Learner Interactions

Wengang Liu, M.Sc., expected 2007 huge amount of interaction data in iHelp

and iHelp courses are there patterns in these data? one approach: bottom-up from data

trying to find pedagogically useful patterns, using data mining and clustering algorithms

current approach: define pedagogically interesting aspects of the learner and try to build metrics to measure these aspects

ties in to ecological approach see poster at this conference

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Building Usable MetadataBuilding Usable Metadata

Scott Bateman, M.Sc., expected 2007 goal is to make the tagging by humans

of learning objects more flexible and more useful

one approach: social tagging by the learners, implemented in OATS system

another approach: use WordNet as a closed ontology from which learners (and teachers) select metadata vocabulary, implemented in CommonFolks system

look for OATS demo, talk on CommonFolks, and poster

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

OATS ScreenOATS Screen

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Purpose-Based Open Learner Purpose-Based Open Learner ModellingModelling Collene Hansen, M.Sc., expected 2007 goal is to open the learner model to the

learner, the teacher, or to other learners when appropriate

for various pedagogical purposes active models of learner(s) can be computed and displayed appropriately

can be very informative to learners and teachers

system built and now being tested in courses at U. of S.

see example, next slide

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

An Example Purpose and VisualizationAn Example Purpose and Visualization

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

Enhancing Social CapitalEnhancing Social Capital

Ben Daniel, Ph.D., expected 2007 goal is to understand what affects social

capital in virtual learning communities and in distributed communities of practice

many empirical studies carried out, seeking variables and studying their affect

modelling of variable interactions with Bayes-Nets

see paper at this conference

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

The Broader PictureThe Broader Picture

In addition to in-lab projects, we are working with industrial and other partners Parchoma Consulting: Dissemination of the state

of the art in learning object practice. Developed and deployed content for the Canadian Association of Prior Learning Assessment (CAPLA), using iHelp as a basis

Desire2Learn: Initial meetings on technology integration, focusing on issues in and around data mining

Technology Enhanced Learning: Cooperating with university endeavours to realise iHelp systems in a larger scenario, and bringing the concepts of sociability into the online classroom

TR Labs: Working with theme 3 on many of the systems issues that crucially affect performance of e-learning systems

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions

University of Saskatchewan

ConclusionsConclusions

The educational technology domain could be a role model for new methods in psychological and social sciences research Learning is necessarily situated in the real world –

small experiments and “controlled studies” have limited impact

E-learning provides environments that are both saturated in data about learner interactions and also about which we can know much about learner purposes and goals: implies we can carry out fine grained studies in the real world

This kind of education research may be a prototype for fine-grained studies of people in various kinds of social situations, not just in learning contexts

Happy to answer any questions!

Introduction

Specific projects:

▪ Julita Vassileva

▪ Ralph Deters

▪ Jim Greer

▪ Gord McCalla

Conclusions