Annotated program examples as first class objects in an educational digital library

Reviewer: Mercedes Martinez Gonzalez

The success of e-learning and educational tools makes educational digital libraries an important tool for educators. These systems contain learning objects that are used with several purposes, ranging from offering examples to guiding the learning process. Problem-solving examples are well appreciated by both teachers and students as a learning method. Brusilovsky et al. present the problems they encountered when they tried to use program examples as first-class objects in educational digital libraries, the main one being the teachers' lack of participation in the process of introducing comments to the examples. Their solution consisted of engaging the students in the process of commenting on the examples. To ensure the quality of the comments, they introduced peer review. The last part of the paper explains the results obtained in a real-life experience: the peer reviews contributed to a high increase in the quality of poor comments. The experience presented and the conclusions obtained are the main values of this paper. The authors make it interesting for any educator who intends to use online resources. The problems encountered (lack of participation and lack of quality) are not restricted to educational contexts, but are among the main weaknesses of community-based systems. However, the solutions provided may not extend so easily to other contexts?what would be the motivation for nonstudent users to participate in peer review__?__ Online Computing Reviews Service