Ecaterina Pacurar Giacomini , PhilippeTrigano UMR CNRS 6599 Heudiasyc research laboratory,

1Braga, Portugal –17/06/2005

Automatic generation of pedagogical website structures by using IMS LD

netUniversité web portal

CEPIAH Project

Ecaterina Pacurar Giacomini, PhilippeTriganoUMR CNRS 6599 Heudiasyc research laboratory,

University of Technology of Compiègne, FRANCE

2Braga, Portugal-17/06/2005

Plan

netUniversité: Conception Framework

netUniversité: Presentation of the Prototype

Conclusions and Perspectives

The CEPIAH project – Context and Problem statement


Context and Problem statement (1)

Origin of our work: the CEPIAH project• Our research concerns the development of a web portal

designed to provide support in the creation of educational web sites based on pedagogical scenarios represented in IMS LD

• Our application is a tool that helps staff with no skills in web development to design their educational web sites


Context and Problem statement(2)

The origin of the CEPIAH project • This research has its roots in the CEPIAH project

(Design and Evaluation of Interactive Documents for Human Learning) developed within our research team.

• The main role of these three modules is to guide the users (teachers, pedagogical designer) who have web development skills [Trigano & Giacomini, 2004].

• In this project we developed an interactive guide accessible on the web, composed of three modules: Design help, Evaluation help and Predefined web sites models



Interviews with people involved in teaching within the UTC • After a first validation of CEPIAH guide, we had a

some discussions with teachers of various disciplines at the UTC. These helped us to understand their teaching practices their opinions regarding the software tools used in web development.

• Observations We observed that a majority of the teachers expressed a reserve

in using these tools. This attitude was due, either to a lack of time necessary to develop online courses or a lack of technical skill (from a teaching and technical point of view).



New research line• All these aspects led to the development of our

interactive guide CEPIAH, an environment that assists the design of educational web sites (online courses) in order to support teachers who do not have web development skills

netUniversité: The new functionalities are integrated into a web portal, called netUniversité, as found in the CEPIAH guide.

– Environment for online courses assisted conception– Based on the dynamic generation of course structures


Plan

netUniversité: conception framework

Dynamic generation

netUniversité: presentation of prototype

Conclusions and perspectives

Context and problematic


netUniversité: conception framework

Online course generator

Edit & Administrate

Navigator

Course basis

Student

Teacher

Use of IMS LD for the representation of pedagogical contents


Plan

Research goalsnetUniversity: general backgroundDynamic generation

netUniversity: presentation of the prototypeConclusions and perspectives


• Questionnaires : design steps• Knowledge based modelling


Questionnaires : design steps Dynamic generation

Pedagogical questionnaire (1)• Our pedagogical questionnaire makes it possible for the user to

dynamically choose the pedagogical elements that will be integrated in his or her educational Web site. This questionnaire is structured on three levels of granularity: a question itself, its reformulation as well as an elaboration of this question.

• Bibliographic study related to the Instructional Theory [Ch. Reigheluth, 1987, 1999].

• Interviews with people involved in teaching at UTC

• Analysis of 175 teaching websites from the point of view of the « course content » (University of Technology of Compiègne)


Classic scenario with a presentation of the theoretical concepts and solutions to exercises

• Specific type of pedagogical scenarios ?

Problem solving scenario integrating an individual or collaborative work, with progression

«Project based learning » type of scenario, based on collaborative and/or an individual work

• This helped us to draw up the items in the pedagogical questionnaire related to the generation of structures


Pedagogical questionnaire (2)


Pedagogical questionnaire Example of question – pedagogical questionnaire

At the elaboration phase of the questionnaire, we present a short synthesis of the theoretical concepts of teaching and training, connected to this question. We also explain the results of a particular answer on the final course structure.


Questionnaire regarding the graphic interface


composition

choice

• The analysis of 175 pedagogical websites from the « graphical interface » point of view enabled us to determine various types of possible interfaces. Several criteria are taken into account: navigation starting from the menus, the shapes of the buttons of navigation within the various pages of the web site, the colors of the menus, the buttons, etc.


Graphical interface questionnaire

Starting from this typology we designed a questionnaire, called web site interface questionnaire, that facilitates the choice of the final web site GUI attributes.

Example of question - questionnaire regarding the graphical issues


Plan


netUniversité: presentation of the prototypeConclusions and perspectives


• Questionnaires : design steps• Knowledge base modelling


Knowledge Base• The problem of the complexity of the conditions used for the automatic generation lead us to a knowledge-based system.• The number of entries (represented by the possibilities of response to the questionnaires) and the great number of pedagogical course structures obtained resulted in the development of a rules- based system. • Content: Rules, Facts, Responses to questionnaires

Course Structure Generation :• use of « pedagogical bricks » represented in XML-IMS LD

Knowledge base modelling Dynamic generation



How are these structures created?

• Starting from the generated links (JESS facts) which are situated between the “initial pedagogical models”, the Course Builder loads these initial models and connects them thus obtaining the desired course structure.

• The rules are used in order to generate the connections between the pedagogical models of the course.


A « link » fact associates a « child » element to a « parent» element

Activity –Introduction of theoretical concepts

(Reigheluth)

Activity-Solution to exercises(Skinner)

Generic Pedagogical Unit

linklink

Scenario-Theoretical

Course

Scenario-Solution to problems

etc.

link link

etc.linklink



Plan


netUniversité: presentation of the prototypeConclusions and perspectives




netUniversité (1) Web portal: the administration, conception and display of

the online course


netUniversité (2) Course Content Editor using IMS LD level A, B and C


netUniversité (3) Without going into the details, we specify that our web portal

netUniversité, also integrates a QTI editor for interactive exercises. The QTI editor can be accessed from the interface of the course content IMS LD editor.

The link towardsthe QTI editor


netUniversité (4) Currently, the types of exercises, which we propose, are for example:

fill in the gap, open answer, true/false, multiples choices query, etc.

To edit the false response

To edit the true response

The option to choose many types of exercises


netUniversité – QTI (1)

In our tool we implemented a "lite" version of this standard that allows the representation of the six types of exercises:

• text based exercises, multiple choice, true/false, matrices for "single choice", open answer (large text area), etc.

All the tests represented in this personalized version of QTI are also valid for the complete version.


netUniversité – QTI (2)

In the "lite" QTI version implemented in our tool, a test corresponds to a QTI structure "assessment". The test is composed from one or more sections of exercises/questions (items).

The QTI player• The QTI player is implemented as a XSL style-sheet. The goal is

to display the test content in an HTML format conforming to the QTI specification


netUniversité-QTI (5)

Integrating the QTI player in the netUniversité navigator (IMS LD player)

• The IMS LD player considers the QTI XML files defining the evaluation tests as simple resources.

• Thus, these files are referenced in the “resources” section of the unit of learning like all the resource documents.

• The IMS LD player differentiates these types of resources by using attribute type (in our case “qti”) which specifies where the resource is declared.


netUniversité (5) Graphic Editor module for modifying the course structures

• Once the teacher generates his course, he cannot modify its structure. We would like to give the possibility to change the order of the activities, to add or delete them.

• As the project is aimed at teachers who do not have experience in using the computer, we have decided to set up a graphic editor, which should help them to modify the IMS LD course structure.

• This kind of presentation makes their work much easier as it provides, at the same time, an overview of the course.


netUniversité (6) The user interface within the Graphic Editor (1)

. In the upper part we have a toolbar, providing support for all operations. The buttons from left to right are: moves selected node one position to the left; moves selected node one position to the right;

• Adds a new node;• Marks the selected node

for deleting;• Renames the selected

node;• Save the current

configuration; • Undelete the selected

node;• Undelete the selected

node and all its sub-trees.


Plan

Research goalsnetUniversity: conception frameworkDynamic generation

netUniversity: presentation of the prototypeConclusions and perspectives




Conclusions and Perspectives Realisation

•The first version of netUniversitéThe integration of levels A, B and C in IMS LD

Ongoing work

•Test and make corrections to the first version of netUniversité • Test of QTI editor (version lite)• Test of a graphic editor in order to be able to interactively modify the course structures



First results obtained• Experimenting with the teachers :

University of Technology of Compiègne, France

• Integration of the communication tools (email, chat, forum)

Ongoing work

“Polytehnica” University of Timisoara, in Romania “Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad, in Romania Institut of High Management Studies (IHEC) from Carthage, Tunis



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Appréciation globale par modules

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netUniversite-QTI (3) Particularly, in the implemented QTI version we have two types of

evaluation: evaluation by question and evaluation by response. In the case of evaluation by question we consider a total score

attributed when all the answers are correct. This situation is represented from the QTI point of view by only one condition (section reprocessing) that sets a certain value to the variable score (if the answers are correct).

In the other case (evaluation by answer) for each answer we add a partial score to the final score. From the QTI point of view we define a condition each answer to be evaluated. Thus, if an answer is correct we add a certain value to the final score of the question.


netUniversite-QTI (4) After the user includes the desired element into the exercise, he can

edit the content and specify the correct responses. In the case of evaluation by response, he will also add the scores for

each of the correct answers. In order to specify the score the teacher must click on the small orange

icon associated with the correct answer. A gray zone will be displayed, which includes: an option to define the

type of answer (bad or correct) and an option to edit the score (in the case of correct answer).


netUniversité-QTI (6) Integrating the QTI player in the netUniversité

navigator (IMS LD player)• Therefore, the navigator knows (using the resource type) that in

the central page of the course it must display the test represented in QTI file, and uses the XSL style-sheet in order to transform XML content into HTML.

• After the user answers all the questions, the result of the test is obtained from its answers and from the information of score computing for each question specified in QTI file.

• The "Test Processing" module which implements this calculation process checks firstly if the user has not already complete the test. This situation is indicated by the value of the score stored in the database.


netUniversité (7) The user interface within the Graphic Editor (2)

In the lower part there are three views• To the left is the main view, here the whole tree is represented. For each role we

have a tree. We shall explain what the tree represents in the next paragraph. • In the upper right part is the empty tree view. The difference compared with the

previous one is that all nodes are empty and we display only one tree.

• In the lower right part is a view with only a node and his child. When we select one in any of the previous views it will appear here as a root and all his children will be shown.

• These trees represent a course structure. The root has a generic name; it’s the activity for that role.

• To understand how a student will go through the course we read the tree from left to right. The second level in the tree is made by plays. They are a way to organize the course presentation.

Ecaterina Pacurar Giacomini , PhilippeTrigano UMR CNRS 6599 Heudiasyc research laboratory,

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