Web-Based Learning: Men and Machines

Message from the ICWL 2002 Program Co-Chairs.

ICWL2002 Organizing Committee.

Program Committee Members.

Contents.

Recent development in information technology establishes a new education paradigm, for which self-directed learning is a foundation strategy. Nowadays, web-based learning, which has the potential to effect fundamental changes in the design of learning processes and the education system, has been gaining momentum with an irreversible trend. In this paper, the development and implementation of a web-based interactive computer-aided learning package on pipe flow is delineated. Several up-to-date expert system shell and web production software including Visual Rule Studio, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Java, JavaScript, Flash, are employed during its development. This learning package is tailored for the convenience of students in allowing them to click through to acquire the explanations of key concepts in pipe flow. It is demonstrated that various theories on pipe flow, design, and interactive "What-if" analysis on various design parameters can be performed using this package through an active and dynamic learning environment.

Web-based training (WBT) is an innovative approach to deliver training through the Web, Internet, Intranet and Extranet. The aim of this paper is to describe the current state of development and adoption of WBT in Hong Kong organizations. It also provides the basis for the development of WBT instruments and theoretical framework. The essentially exploratory aim is dealt with a qualitative study. Thirteen case studies were examined the context in which WBT in Hong Kong organizations. With different internal organizational features and external social forces, top management support is the main immediate factor influencing the decision to adopt WBT. Most organizations perceive that WBT is likely to adopt and implement in Hong Kong, especially suitable for the new generation. However, some respondents believe that WBT will never replace traditional training. WBT acts like an alternative channel to deliver training through the use of high technology and the Internet.

Universities trapped between rising student numbers and decreasing budgets are turning to e-learning as the one-stop solution, giving little concern for student or teacher needs. We designed e-ULE, a university level teaching and learning environment with a strong focus on usability. In contrast to many ITS/ILE, this system does not aim at replacing the lecturer ²⁰, or the university as a whole, but shall lift some of the burden of information transfer from the lecturer and thus allow the students to spend more "quality time" with their teachers. e-ULE provides the lecturer with an easy to use tool and a strong process, enabling him to create suitably linked, interactive hypertext lecture notes, which support the student in the different phases of learning. In compliance with the meagre university budgets the system is open sourced and relies on several prominent open source projects. Currently e-ULE's core components are being developed at a "proof of concept" stage.

The aim of this paper is to introduce a convenient and efficient way to transform presentation slides written in Tex/Latex document editors to an equivalent file of the Microsoft PowerPoint application. In this paper, we announce a new system, Tex2Ppt. This system can be used to strengthen the weakest part of the Microsoft products, inconvenient, homely and unfriendly of mathematical equation editing. We translate the most popular Tex/Latex source file into the PowerPoint file. Hence, we not only can use the formal Tex/Latex typesetting, but also can use the handy of the application of PowerPoint.

Although the Internet has become widely used in various aspects of the education process, the attention of its use in assessment has not been well received. This paper describes the development of a web-based assessment system, Quadrille, the proposed teaching and learning model with it and the preliminary feedback from teachers.

Currently, guiding students to reach the learning goals through problem-solving approach is quite primitive in most cyber-courseware systems on the Internet. In particular, these systems do not provide integrated learning-domain solutions for responding student enquiries based on individual student's background and interests. In order to offer student-specific problem-solving tutorship, dynamic generation of case-based solutions is a positive step towards this objective, which can accommodate individual student's needs accurately at anytime anywhere. In this paper, we present architecture and algorithms for developing an agent-based tutoring system called Coached Problem Solver (CPS) which, among other features, supports dynamic generation of student-oriented solutions on the Web. The facilities and capabilities of user profiles, rules, schema, XML and SMIL are incorporated and utilized by CPS so as to provide a better support to the interactive learning environment in which student-specific, content-based learning styles can be adequately entertained. A prototype system of CPS manifesting these algorithms has been built in Java, using IE on the PC platform.

The web is increasingly used as a platform for e-learning applications. The sophistication of these applications varies from simple libraries of static lecture presentations to fully integrated, dynamic multimedia applications enabling interaction between students and between student and lecturer. Replacing the physical presence of the lecturer who answers queries, motivates students and generally supports the whole learning process is clearly the most challenging aspect of any development effort. In a web-based learning environment the presence of the virtual lecturer may be required 24 hours a day and at any physical location around the globe. This paper provides both an evaluation of existing web-based learning applications and an introduction to a framework for integrating multimedia and software agents in web-based learning. An implementation of the proposed framework is presented which addresses two key issues: firstly, the effective integration and synchronisation of multimedia within applications; and secondly, provision for 24-hour interactive student support through the use of intelligent software agents.

A Knowledge Grid is our newly proposed mechanism for uniformly sharing and managing knowledge resources across the Internet, based on which, a new question-answering approach VEGA-KGQA is proposed. It can intelligently answer users' questions by incorporating five distinguished features: the semantic-web-based representation, the multi-level knowledge support, the human-machine-cooperative knowledge collection mechanism, the knowledge-based template and the knowledge reasoning and navigation mechanism. The VEGA-KGQA mechanism is a part of the engine of the Knowledge Grid VEGA-KG.

In this paper, we describe a multi-agent model called CLAM for collaborative learning on the web and propose a formal framework for learners to form groups dynamically under various conditions. And we also modified the semantic of communicative acts to enhance their power to express time and give formal specification to learner agents' intention. This learner-centered model we propose provides an easy way for learners to seek help on the web when he meets difficulties in his study.

When attempting to communicate experiences and knowledge between people over distances in time and space we can use the abilities of information technology. With an increase in access to information resources, teaching aids and information facilities, the user can postpone learning to a moment when knowledge is needed. Learning can occur simultaneously with knowledge being used. Sometimes learning even becomes superfluous as it is replaced by technology. A problem that usually needs some specific knowledge to be solved can be solved with support from an information resource, as a kind of knowledge-on-loan. This is nothing new, a textbook can provide knowledge-on-loan. But one gets something qualitative different when one constantly can access information – one cannot walk around with a library. The user can exceed his ability to solve certain tasks in a way that is comparable to a person with such knowledge. To an observer it might look as if the user has the knowledge, here called virtual knowledge. The borderline between information and the users knowledge tends to be vague, and in many cases dependent of the viewpoint. This article will put some light on these questions and is intended to mark out a direction for further research.

A well-designed test can always do more than assessment. Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) has great potential in both assessment, and in teaching and learning. The time and place bounded paper-and-pencil test is being liberated by the CAT through the use of the world wide web (WWW) technology. This transformation has opened immense opportunities in tool development and learning on the Web.

A self-pacing, immediate scoring and feedback, and time saving tool has been built based on the Rasch Model. This paper describes tries to critically evaluate the tool built. The preliminary results of the qualitative study confirmed the potential advantages of a CAT system deployed through the Web.

The emergence of the Semantic Web presents immense opportunities and challenges to the education industry. The second-generation web environment promises to offer a metadata framework for effective querying and intelligent tools for knowledge reasoning and inference. It is now regarded as an ideal platform for the implementation of E-Learning, an increasingly prominent style of learning. This paper identifies various web based learning scenarios that will thrive in the Semantic Web era. Three representative patterns will be shown. Each of these patterns would satisfy a characteristic learner group, sustain learning, and add values to web learning resources. The identification of all these patterns would enable tertiary institutions and other E-Learning providers to be more aware of possibilities and threats.

There is an increasing reliance on corporate training centres and educational institutions to deliver their programs via the Internet or Intranet. The success of such programs is dependent on the marrying of Internet technology, information systems, human computer interaction and educational strategies while catering for the needs of the individual student. This research investigates and evaluates the refined design of an innovative approach to an online formative assessment tool that permits the participant to choose their correct response and register their level of confidence in their choice. The tool provides enriched, granulated feedback to the students assisting them along the learning path.

Growing interest in german literature initiated two succeeding projects to provide content about "Austrian literature round 1900" and "Austrian Exile-Literature since 1933" as well as the technical infrastructure for content management and publication. This infrastructure is platform independent and based upon open standards like XML and mainly on open source libraries and tools. Publication is done to multiple formats like HTML and PDF from the same sources. From the first project to the second project it turned out, that standards and tools were subjected to significant changes, as well as experiences from the first project led to new concepts in the second project. Hence a complete refactoring of the application-code from the first project was performed. The experiences of this multi-step process is the main focus of this article.

With the development of the modern long-distance education, it is very important to study the virtual laboratory, which is a key part of the long-distance education resource. This paper introduces the project of architecture and implementation of the virtual laboratory platform to overcome the shortage of the current virtual laboratory. It also illustrates the key design and implementation technologies of its server and client in details. There are some new features in our virtual laboratory platform: (1) It is base on the general virtual laboratory and use component to provide the concrete facilities to construct laboratories in various domains. (2) It provides visual tools to design experimental process. (3) It introduces and creates the object of experimental process dynamically, and just downloads relative implement documents and resource documents according to the requirements of the clients. As the result, it will resuce the flow of network. (4) It uses multithead technique to improve implement efficiency. (5) Laboratory equipments, such as algorithms and instruments, can be developed with component design to improve the development efficiency, to reuse the software, and to expand the function of virtual laboratory easily. (6) It uses Java in client, so it is independent of platform, Safe and strong. (7) It makes use of CORBA to integrate various objects and to accomplish distribute process.

The recent emergence of Internet technology changes the study life of people. Interactive e-learning will become popular in the decade. In this paper, we introduce an interactive collaborative tool for distance learning – InCom. InCom is a server-based system designed to provide instant messaging services, flexible control and easy administration for online distance learning applications. It relies on open architecture based on Jakarta Tomcat Server, Apache web server and Java Technology. Its functions include instant whiteboard and instant chat for future development of virtual classroom, online tutorial and online synchronous discussion forum so as to facilitate both online teaching and learning purposes.

It is common that each course at a university has its own web site for managing course materials and communicating with students. However, the people, mainly instructors, who develop the course web site, tend to provide different interfaces and functions depending on their needs and web development skill. The Platform for Learning and Teaching Online (PLATO) is an online course management system, which aims at providing a uniform interface and hands-on functions for constructing various course web sites in a simple and customizable manner.

IT companies pay a lot of attentions to experience than before. Different from traditional education, IT training emphasizes the ability of problem-solving, design and project activities rather than concept knowledge. Accommodating themselves to new conditions, education organizations turn to the methodology of collaborative learning. In the paper, a self-controlled social-similar web-based platform CLP is provided for the training of persons satisfying the requirements from information industry.

The concept of a distance teaching laboratory is presented. Based on the widespread availability of personal computers and telecommunication networks as well as on utilising multimedia technology, this is an innovative approach for the automation of laboratory practicals as constituent of university teaching, and for both the spatial and temporal separation of students and experimental rigs and experimentation, respectively. An environment for the design of digital circuits was developed as the first realisation of the concept. A number of further experiments is in preparation.

We present approaches for the organized design and augmentative development of an adaptive Virtual University. It combines several techniques to provide personalization features to the educational material and the exchanging data streams. In this way it customizes the educational process, served by any virtual university to the learning curve of the user. At first adaptation is performed per activity and then knowledge of the different levels is passed to all of them providing personalization globally. In order to prohibit outdated data to keep loading the user aging of personalization is also included. Furthermore curriculum sequencing provides guidance to the user's learning procedure. Most interesting educational pages for the users are selectively delivered to them. The categorization of incoming data streams is handled by content and property based filtering. For the overall procedure we discuss the methodology followed to cover the needs of system upgrading, code reuse and administration issues.

Brazilian math assessments are an important social problem nationwide. A significant amount of our students score 3/10 at assessments that take place at the end of their secondary school years. The teachers' skills are one of the most important variables and the use of educational technology significantly contributes to the improvement of students' achievements. Thus, teachers' continuous education is essential. Also, by providing distant formation courses, we can reach a broader range of teachers. AMADeUs, our project, is based on the principle that multi-dimensional learner evaluation is very important to build a better picture of students' development and participation. Our design decisions were taken based on experiences with matematica.net. Furthermore, pilot studies are been conducted to orient the design processes and a methodology for this type of courses.

This paper will report work in progress on an investigation of the effectiveness of using computer-mediated instruction on learning of mathematics at the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK). Based on the statistics generated from the WebCT system in 1999 and 2000 showed that it only about 6% of foundation pure mathematics students actively involved in the discussion board and the others browsed the page only. The aim of this study is to investigate whether WebCT is an appropriate electronic tool to enhance OUHK mathematics students' learning. This study consists of two phases which include distribution of questionnaire and focus group interviews. The paper identifies the variables from literature for designing the instruments.

Author Index.