Adaptive Hypermedia

This paper describes the use of adaptation patterns in the task of formulating standards for adaptive educational hypermedia (AEH) systems that is currently under investigation by the EU ADAPT project. Within this project, design dimensions for high granularity patterns have been established. In this paper we focus on detailing lower granularity adaptive patterns based upon learning styles. Several patterns from existing AEH system case studies are identified and classified according to an extended learning style "onion" model. This model forms the basis of a learning style taxonomy, introduced here, whose components determine adaptation patterns for AEH. These patterns are of importance both for authoring, as well as for interfacing between adaptive hypermedia systems. From an authoring point of view, these patterns may be used to establish a fine-grain approach to instructional strategies that can be implemented in AEH systems, as a response to a particular learning style. The implementation of this adaptation pattern taxonomy is discussed, both generally and in detail.

Game-based approaches to learning are increasingly recognized for their potential to stimulate intrinsic motivation amongst learners. While a range of examples of effective serious games exist, creating high-fidelity content with which to populate games is resource-intensive task. To reduce this resource requirement, research is increasingly exploring means to reuse and repurpose existing games. Education has proven a popular application area for Adaptive Hypermedia (AH), as adaptation can offer enriched learning experiences. Whilst content has mainly been in the form of rich text, various efforts have been made to integrate serious games into AH. However, there is little in the way of effective integrated authoring and user modeling support. This paper explores avenues for effectively integrating serious games into AH. In particular, we consider authoring and user modeling aspects in addition to integration into run-time adaptation engines, thereby enabling authors to create AH tha...

""Computer-based learning has become a common phenomenon in the modern age. Many distance-learning systems distribute educational resources on the Internet and indeed entire study programmes are now widely available online. Such a large amount of content and information can be intimidating to learners, who may exhibit different individual characteristics, such as variation in goals, interests, motivation and/or learning preferences. This suggests that a uniform approach taken by learning environments to deliver materials and resources to students is not appropriate and that personalisation of such materials/resources should address users’ differences to provide a customised learning experience, thus enhancing its effectiveness, lowering drop-out rates and maintaining high student motivation.

This thesis addresses the latter issue of learning preferences, specifically investigating learning styles as an adaptation mechanism for personalised computer-based learning. A number of previous studies indicated the positive effect that this kind of adaptation provides, but under closer examination these were not conducted in a scientifically rigorous manner and thus their findings are somewhat limited. This research utilises a quantitative and highly objective approach to investigate visual/verbal and sequential/global learning styles in different user groups. Three user trials were carried out to discover whether there were any benefits to using these learning styles for studying in an adapted environment.

Overall, no statistically significant benefits were found and these findings now shed doubt as to whether learning styles are indeed an effective mechanism for personalised learning.""

This is the Brazilian Portuguese translation of "_Chess RHIZOME_ and Phase Space:  Mapping Metaphor Theory Onto Hypertext Theory."  Published in a volume in conjunction with a special symposium on Transdisciplinarity and Education sponsored by the Universidade de Sao Paolo's School of the Future and UNESCO in 2000, and held in the Atlantic resort town of Guaraja, where I also gave two other papers.

It is a widely held assumption that learning style is a useful model for quantifying user characteristics for effective personalized learning. We set out to challenge this assumption by discussing the current state of the art, in relation to quantitative evaluations of such systems and also the methodologies that should be employed in such evaluations. We present two case studies that provide rigorous and quantitative evaluations of learning-style-adapted e-learning environments. We believe that the null results of both these studies indicate a limited usefulness in terms of learning styles for user modeling and suggest that alternative characteristics or techniques might provide a more beneficial experience to users.

_Chess RHIZOME_ is a hypertext I have constructed to explore across disciplinary boundaries the range of references to chess, the chessboard, its pieces, its rules, and the peculiar role that time plays in the process of unfolding the game itself. The method informing _Chess RHIZOME's design draws on the work of Gilles Deleuze in the forging of contingent alliances among the disciplines of science, philosophy and the arts, for the purposes of conducting epistemological investigations. The motive for this project is to explore metaphor (or tropes more generally) as a site for trans-disciplinary study. Particularly, _Chess RHIZOME_ exploits the unstable nature of Richard Boyd's Theory Constitutive Metaphor (TCM) as a ground for epistemological criticism, by mapping the logics of the drift of the chess trope across disciplinary boundaries, in order to make visible its cultural work. The three particular logics that this hypertext project attempts to model are 1) genealogical: the causal drift of a trope from one user to another; 2) naive: the opaque, unself-conscious use of a particular trope, with an uncritical acceptance of its epistemological baggage; and 3) ironic: the transparent and self-conscious use of a particular trope, with a a skeptical perspective on its epistemological baggage. Later in this essay I will discuss these three tropic logics as a methodology for interdisciplinary studies.

Abstract. Web-based hypermedia systems allow user-driven access to information and services and content personalization. Application fields where adaptive hypermedia systems could be used are on-line learning, electronic commerce, on-line advertising etc. This paper presents a probabilistic approach for the modelling of Adaptive Hypermedia Systems (AHS). The Application Domain is modelled along three different adaptivity dimensions: technology (network and user's terminal), user's behaviour and external environment (location, ...

One of the interesting problems that have attracted the attention of both industry and academia in current e-learning environments is the reusability of learning content in Learning Management Systems (LMS). A number of standards have defined a Run-Time environment in order to allow an LMS to deal with learning objects i.e. to launch, track and communicate with it. Such standards achieved high performance when dealing with simple learning objects such as a text file, picture or a simple animation but when dealing with much complicated content such as rich interactive or adaptive content they show many limitations This paper takes a closer look at the issue of reusability and interoperability of interactive learning content and presents a case study that followed one of the non-standardised research efforts where an existing LMS integrates an independently developed interactive learning simulation activity. The lessons that have been learned from this work has also been stated here.

This paper describes how visual and verbal learning styles have been successfully integrated into an adaptive educational environment. User trials of this system were carried out, to determine the effect of the adaptation, and although these user trials do not indicate any statistically significant differences, the qualitative information gleaned from the study indicated that students preferred using this environment over other traditional revision methods, and that they perceived personalized tuition to be better than a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

The days where a web site consisted of a small amount of linked pages lie far behind us. Today, web sites are complex applications, containing large amounts of constantly changing information and functionality. To avoid usability problems typically associated with large ad hoc designed web sites, a systematic, well structured approach is required. Web site design methods address this need by separating the different design concerns involved in web site creation: requirements analysis, data design, navigation design, presentation design and implementation. By focussing on one aspect at a time, the designer is better able to cope with the intricacy of web site design, thereby improving the quality and usability of the resulting web site. However, even with the use of web design methods, the design of web sites is not an easy task. Due to the large variety in targeted visitors, each with different goals and intentions, and the diversity of the offered information and functionality, devising an efficient and easy to grasp site organization and navigation structure proves difficult. Taking into account web site usage information could help the designer to gain a better insight in the browsing behaviour of the users and to provide the best-suited design. However at design time this information is usually not available. Manual analysis of web site access logs is already applied, possibly resulting in manual changes or a complete redesign of the web site. The approach suggested in this dissertation goes one step further: to offer the web designer, during design, the ability to anticipate and react upon web site usage information. The result is adaptive web sites: sites that automatically improve their organization and presentation based on user access data. It is argued in this dissertation that the use of adaptation strategies, which are (design) specifications of how a web site can adaptively change (at runtime) based on user access information (from all users), aids the designer to improve the usability of web sites. Using adaptation strategies, a designer can anticipate runtime browsing behaviour, validate certain design decisions, automatically select between design alternatives and help the web site owner to better achieve business goals. The work is presented in the context of WSDM, an existing web design method. To support adaptive behaviour, an adaptation specification language has been defined, which allows the designer to specify, at design time, the adaptive behaviour that is allowed at runtime. The adaptation specification language is exemplified with three useful adaptation strategies, each illustrating one of the aforementioned benefits. To validate our ideas, a prototype implementation to support WSDM design and implementation, with adaptation support, was performed. The prototype was used to implement a case study, which demonstrates the applicability and effectiveness of designer specified adaptation strategies to automatically re-organize the web site (navigation) structure and organization.

Technology enhanced learning (TEL) aims to design, develop and test socio-technical innovations that will support and enhance learning practices of both individuals and organisations. It is therefore an application domain that generally covers technologies that support all forms of teaching and learning activities. Since information retrieval (in terms of searching for relevant learning resources to support teachers or learners) is a pivotal activity in TEL, the deployment of recommender systems has attracted increased interest. This chapter attempts to provide an introduction to recommender systems for TEL settings, as well as to highlight their particularities compared to recommender systems for other application domains.

This paper introduces an interoperability framework for user models between Adaptive Educational Hypermedia (AEH) systems. The framework classifies the user model attributes into four groups: Identifiers, Adaptation, Presentation and Domain. Mapping between user models is based initially on the attributes of the user model and then refined through the information contained in the user profiles. Experimental results are encouraging with high levels of success in mapping variables between the different AEH systems used in the tests. The paper concludes with a discussion of the future work which will involve ways of mapping interdependencies of the user model attributes.

Many Web-based educational applications are expected to be used by very different groups of users without the assistance of a human teacher. Accordingly there is a need for systems which can adapt to users with very different backgrounds, prior knowledge of the subject and learning goals. An electronic textbook is one of the most prominent varieties of Web-based educational systems. In this paper we describe an approach for developing adaptive electronic textbooks and present InterBook-an authoring tool based on this approach which simplifies the development of adaptive electronic textbooks on the Web.

The goal of personalised eLearning is to support e-learning content, activities and collaboration, adapted to the specific needs and influenced by specific preferences of the learner and built on sound pedagogic strategies. One of the major challenges to the mainstream adoption of personalised eLearning is the complexity and time involved in composing the adaptive learning experience. The key goal in personalized eLearning development tools is to sup-port the teacher in composing adaptive and non-adaptive ...

Present-day efforts in designing technologies to serve and adapt to human needs rather than forcing humans to adapt, embrace intelligent user interfaces as one of ambient intelligence key technologies. This paper elaborates on the design of an adaptive individual interaction in a type of computer-based educational system whose operation is supported by intelligent methods, an emulation of human teacher in the process of learning and teaching. In order to design interaction simple and effortless as well as to adjust learning process and teaching material to individual student, a mechanism for monitoring student’s interaction and generating related adaptive interface based on student model is developed. Furthermore, a classification of adaptive hypermedia systems with regard to employed adaptation technology is offered.