Emmanuel Fernandes

The goal of this three-year project is to establish a modular and interactive Internet website for the teaching of general chemistry to freshmen students enrolled in a life sciences university program (medicine, biology, possibly pharmacy). Students should become familiar with the basic chemistry concepts needed to understand important life processes and the whereabouts in day-to-day usage of chemical technologies. The idea behind the project, supported by four partner universities (Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Fribourg), is to offer a flexible tool to students who have followed very different secondary education programs, some of them having not yet taken any science course. The project aims therefore at optimizing their basic science training during the first year of higher education. A system of online exercises and tests helps the students to assess their understanding of the matter. Video films of live experiments and computer simulations illustrate the main principles and phen...

Quality assessment is becoming a strategic issue for ODL (Open and Distance Learning) service providers and users. As the market for ODL services is opening up in Europe the number of ODL services in the field of higher education is growing, but end users actually have no ways ...

RESUME Outre son intérêt pédagogique intrinsèque, le e-Portfolio répond à des considérations d'ordre stratégique. Tant au niveau de la Confédération helvétique qu'à celui des institutions européennes, on observe un mouvement d'élaboration de cadres de références visant à formaliser et rendre visible, au-delà des connaissances disciplinaires, les compétences acquises à l'Université. Les documents décrivant les cadres de références ont pour but de sensibiliser les étudiants à l'importance de prendre conscience de leurs ...

Resume: Les gouvernements des pays occidentaux ont depense des sommes importantes pour faciliter l'integration des technologies de l'information et de la communication dans l'enseignement esperant trouver une solution economique a l'epineuse equation que l'on pourrait resumer par la celebre formule " faire plus et mieux avec moins ". Cependant force est de constater que, malgre ces efforts et la tres nette amelioration de la qualite de service des infrastructures, cet objectif est loin d'etre atteint. Si nous pensons qu'il est illusoire d'attendre et d'esperer que la technologie peut et va, a elle seule, resoudre les problemes de qualite de l'enseignement, nous croyons neanmoins qu'elle peut contribuer a ameliorer les conditions d'apprentissage et participer de la reflexion pedagogique que tout enseignant devrait conduire avant de dispenser ses enseignements. Dans cette optique, et convaincu que la formation a distance offre des avantages non negligeables a condition de penser " autrement " l'enseignement, nous nous sommes interesse a la problematique du developpement de ce type d'applications qui se situent a la frontiere entre les sciences didactiques, les sciences cognitives, et l'informatique. Ainsi, et afin de proposer une solution realiste et simple permettant de faciliter le developpement, la mise-a-jour, l'insertion et la perennisation des applications de formation a distance, nous nous sommes implique dans des projets concrets. Au fil de notre experience de terrain nous avons fait le constat que (i)la qualite des modules de formation flexible et a distance reste encore tres decevante, entre autres parce que la valeur ajoutee que peut apporter l'utilisation des technologies n'est, a notre avis, pas suffisamment exploitee et que (ii)pour reussir tout projet doit, outre le fait d'apporter une reponse utile a un besoin reel, etre conduit efficacement avec le soutien d'un " champion ". Dans l'idee de proposer une demarche de gestion de projet adaptee aux besoins de la formation flexible et a distance, nous nous sommes tout d'abord penche sur les caracteristiques de ce type de projet. Nous avons ensuite analyse les methodologies de projet existantes dans l'espoir de pouvoir utiliser l'une, l'autre ou un panachage adequat de celles qui seraient les plus proches de nos besoins. Nous avons ensuite, de maniere empirique et par iterations successives, defini une demarche pragmatique de gestion de projet et contribue a l'elaboration de fiches d'aide a la decision facilitant sa mise en oeuvre. Nous decrivons certains de ses acteurs en insistant particulierement sur l'ingenieur pedagogique que nous considerons comme l'un des facteurs cle de succes de notre demarche et dont la vocation est de l'orchestrer. Enfin, nous avons valide a posteriori notre demarche en revenant sur le deroulement de quatre projets de FFD auxquels nous avons participe et qui sont representatifs des projets que l'on peut rencontrer dans le milieu universitaire. En conclusion nous pensons que la mise en oeuvre de notre demarche, accompagnee de la mise a disposition de fiches d'aide a la decision informatisees, constitue un atout important et devrait permettre notamment de mesurer plus aisement les impacts reels des technologies (i) sur l'evolution de la pratique des enseignants, (ii) sur l'organisation et (iii) sur la qualite de l'enseignement. Notre demarche peut aussi servir de tremplin a la mise en place d'une demarche qualite propre a la FFD. D'autres recherches liees a la reelle flexibilisation des apprentissages et aux apports des technologies pour les apprenants pourront alors etre conduites sur la base de metriques qui restent a definir. Abstract: Western countries have spent substantial amount of monies to facilitate the integration of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into Education hoping to find a solution to the touchy equation that can be summarized by the famous statement "do more and better with less". Despite these efforts, and notwithstanding the real improvements due to the undeniable betterment of the infrastructure and of the quality of service, this goal is far from reached. Although we think it illusive to expect technology, all by itself, to solve our economical and educational problems, we firmly take the view that it can greatly contribute not only to ameliorate learning conditions but participate to rethinking the pedagogical approach as well. Every member of our community could hence take advantage of this opportunity to reflect upon his or her strategy. In this framework, and convinced that integrating ICT into education opens a number of very interesting avenues provided we think teaching "out of the box", we got ourself interested in courseware development positioned at the intersection of didactics and pedagogical sciences, cognitive sciences and computing. Hence, and hoping to bring a realistic and simple solution that could help develop, update, integrate and sustain courseware we got…

This paper deals, based on a 3-cases study, with the necessity of having, before launching any development, a clear view of the different issues to be tackled when designing and implementing e-courseware. We propose the notion of topography to build a pertinent road-map enabling a" pedagogical engineer" to reach the desired goal. The topography should rely on one hand on pedagogical underlying models and on the other hand on the actors.

In a perspective to follow the evolution of the professional and social world, academia has integrated information and communication technologies (ICT). This integration in education require an adaptation of pedagogical strategies keeping in mind the learning aims, without reproducing online traditional face to face situations. In fact, some teaching teams and institutions judged necessary to improve their teaching methods taking advantage of the ICT. This has led to the emergence of many teaching solutions using these technologies as e- ...

L'article suivant propose un tour d'horizon sur les differents standards emergents du secteur de l'eLearning. Comme toute nouvelle technologie, l'eLearning et ses differentes fonctionnalites doivent pouvoir disposer d'un schema de reference standard. L'existence d'un tel standard est indispensable au developpement d'une nouvelle technologie, en le sens qu'il permet l'interoperabilite de ressources vouees autrement a etre incompatibles. L'interoperabilite est ici le mot-cle, et son absence la barriere principale a l'echange et au partage de ressources. L'apparition des standards permettra l'echange de ressources d'apprentissage, ce qui donnera la possibilite de produire du materiel didactique utilisant les TIC a moindre cout par l'entremise de l'interoperabilite des differents systemes logiciels. Les differents aspects de la standardisation sont ici consideres. Apres une breve presentation des acteurs principaux de l...

We try in this paper to propose a domain model for both author's and learner's needs concerning learning objects reuse. First of all, we present four key criteria for an efficient authoring tool: adaptive level of granularity, flexibility, integration and interoperability. Secondly, we introduce and describe our six-level Semantic Learning Model (SLM) designed to facilitate multi-level reuse of learning materials and search by defining a multi-layer model for metadata. Finally, after mapping different learning content models with our SLM, we show how our Phoenix authoring tool can deal efficiently with share-and-reuse problem.

The huge and exponentially growing diversity of digital material confuses the users who are confronted to the difficulty of choosing the right and appropriate document or information. On the same way the federation of Learning Object Repositories could conduct to the same difficulty while wanting to obtain a critical mass of learning object in order to facilitate their reusability. In this paper we describe a model, called SLM model and present a tool facilitating the decomposition process and the creation of multi source documents. According to the lifecycle of a pedagogical resource we develop a framework which performs three levels of adaptability: adaptive interaction, adaptive course delivery and content discovery and assembly.

In adaptive hypermedia systems, we distinguish AHAM as the most popular reference model which is based on the Dexter model. Our work consists on building an adaptive system following this model. In this paper, we deal both with the domain and the user's model. On one hand, the domain model called Semantic Learning Model (SLM) is described taking into account the pedagogical structure resulting from our pedagogical segmentation process. On the other hand, our user's model called eXtended Student Model (XSM) based on an ad hoc integration of the AHAM's user's model as well as the IMS/LIP and IEEE/PAPI standards.

Abstract The possibility of reusing learning objects in different context is one of the key issue in e-learning for the next years. In this work we describe how we will try to extend an authoring tool (Sephyr/Phoenix) in order to facilitate the reusability of learning objects. This tool previously forecasted for building a conceptual segmentation, will be connected to a learning object repository (Ariadne Knowledge Pool), and combined with an automated LOM generator, it will allow the creation or the re-composition, based on a conceptual ...

In adaptive hypermedia systems, we distinguish AHAM as the most popular reference model which is based on the Dexter model. Our work consists on building an adaptive system following this model. In this paper, we deal both with the domain and the user's model. On one hand, the domain model called Semantic Learning Model (SLM) is described taking into account the pedagogical structure resulting from our pedagogical segmentation process. On the other hand, our user's model called eXtended Student Model (XSM) based on an ad hoc integration of the AHAM's user's model as well as the IMS/LIP and IEEE/PAPI standards.

The following article presents an overview of the different standards developing in the eLearning sector. As any new technology, eLearning and its various functionalities need to be underpinned by a standard reference schema. The existence of such a standard is mandatory for the development of a new technology, as it allows the interoperability of resources that would otherwise be incompatible. Interoperability is the keyword here, and its lack is the main barrier to resource exchange and sharing. The emergence of standards will allow the exchange of learning resources, which in turn will allow the production of didactic material using ICT at a lower cost thanks to the interoperability of various software systems. Different aspects of the standardization are reviewed here. After a brief presentation of the main actors of the standardization, the discussion will focus on the description of the most used and the most promising standards. This discussion will include an introduction to...

L'article suivant propose un tour d'horizon sur les différents standards émergents du secteur de l'eLearning. Comme toute nouvelle technologie, l'eLearning et ses différentes fonctionnalités doivent pouvoir disposer d'un schéma de référence standard. L'existence d'un tel standard est indispensable au développement d'une nouvelle technologie, en le sens qu'il permet l'interopérabilité de ressources vouées autrement à être incompatibles. L'interopérabilité est ici le mot-clé, et son absence la barrière principale à l'échange et au partage de ressources. L'apparition des standards permettra l'échange de ressources d'apprentissage, ce qui donnera la possibilité de produire du matériel didactique utilisant les TIC à moindre coût par l'entremise de l'interopérabilité des différents systèmes logiciels. Les différents aspects de la standardisation sont ici considérés. Après une brève présentation des acteurs principaux de l...

In this article, we try to provide a solution facilitating navigation between resources in a Learning Object Repository (LOR). Our aim is to open up this kind of knowledge systems and transform them into open repositories. We define as open repository a LOR that can export and import resources between LORs and other knowledge sources such as the domain model and the Web. Building upon the state of the art, we propose a way of expressing learning objects interrelations that can take advantage of such as Semantic Web, adaptive hypermedia, e-learning, etc. We identified problems of variety of terminology, and difference of formalism to represent knowledge sources. After choosing the graph representation, we propose an architecture which is based on an extended LOR that defines an overlay navigation layer called Learning Object Network (LON).

We try in this paper to propose a domain model for both author's and learner's needs concerning learning objects reuse. First of all, we present four key criteria for an efficient authoring tool: adaptive level of granularity, flexibility, integration and interoperability. Secondly, we introduce and ...

In a perspective to follow the evolution of the professional and social world, academia has integrated information and communication technologies (ICT). This integration in education require an adaptation of pedagogical strategies keeping in mind the learning aims, without reproducing online traditional face to face situations. In fact, some teaching teams and institutions judged necessary to improve their teaching methods taking advantage of the ICT.

ABSTRACT In adaptive hypermedia systems, we distinguish AHAM as the most popular reference model which is based on the Dexter model. Our work consists on building an adaptive system following this model. In this paper, we deal both with the domain and the user's model. On one hand, the domain model called Semantic Learning Model (SLM) is described taking into account the pedagogical structure resulting from our pedagogical segmentation process.

Abstract This paper deals, based on a 3-cases study, with the necessity of having, before launching any development, a clear view of the different issues to be tackled when designing and implementing e-courseware. We propose the notion of topography to build a pertinent road-map enabling a" pedagogical engineer" to reach the desired goal. The topography should rely on one hand on pedagogical underlying models and on the other hand on the actors.

Comme toute nouvelle technologie, l'eLearning et ses différentes fonctionnalités doivent pouvoir disposer d'un schéma de référence standard. L'existence d'un tel standard est indispensable au développement d'une nouvelle technologie, en le sens qu'il permet l'interopérabilité de ressources vouées autrement à être incompatibles. L'interopérabilité est ici le mot-clé, et son absence la barrière principale à l'échange et au partage de ressources.

As any new technology, eLearning and its various functionalities need to be underpinned by a standard reference schema. The existence of such a standard is mandatory for the development of a new technology, as it allows the interoperability of resources that would otherwise be incompatible. Interoperability is the keyword here, and its lack is the main barrier to resource exchange and sharing.

RESUME Outre son intérêt pédagogique intrinsèque, le e-Portfolio répond à des considérations d'ordre stratégique. Tant au niveau de la Confédération helvétique qu'à celui des institutions européennes, on observe un mouvement d'élaboration de cadres de références visant à formaliser et rendre visible, au-delà des connaissances disciplinaires, les compétences acquises à l'Université.

Abstract: In this article, we try to provide a solution facilitating navigation between resources in a Learning Object Repository (LOR). Our aim is to open up this kind of knowledge systems and transform them into open repositories. We define as open repository a LOR that can export and import resources between LORs and other knowledge sources such as the domain model and the Web.