A Unified e-Learning Information Managemet System D.N. Kleftouris Dept of Information Technology

1. A Unified e-Learning Information Managemet System • D.N. Kleftouris Dept of Information Technology Alexandrion Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki www.it.teithe.gr

2. CONTENTS • AIM OF THE PAPER • INTRODUCTION • CURRICULUM REFORM PROCESS • THE PORTAL ENVIRONMENT • THE VLE PLATFORM • CONCLUSIONS

3. AIM OF THE PAPER • At the Department of Information Technology of the Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, in September 2003, supported with funds from the 2nd European Community Support Framework (EPEAEK, Continuing Training, Action against Exclusion for the Job Market) an ambitious project was launched. • The ultimate aim of the project was to deploy methods and techniques as to continuously improve the quality of the learning process in the undergraduate studies by incorporating technology-enabled learning.

4. INTRODUCTION1 • In this work we report on the experience accumulated in planning and developing the building blocks of a flexible technological framework that facilitates a unified e-Learning Information Management System in order to incorporate technology enabled learning and thus achieve a continuous improvement of the learning process in our department, a challenge that all educational institutions face nowadays.

5. INTRODUCTION2 • With the aid of a well known commercially available Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard™) installed in one of the department servers, the educational/training course content, in digital form, is managed dynamically, shared by the students freely and forms the basis for personalized e-Learning.

6. INTRODUCTION3 • Students who cannot physically attend classes, utilizing the possibilities of synchronous and asynchronous learning can pursue studies from a distance, taking advantage of the Internet and the Web. • Furthermore, new elective courses can be offered and managed by the VLE and thus certain groups of associated courses can form directions and specializations within the curriculum. • In general, e-Learning managed by a VLE platform will enable course creators to intelligently store, reuse, reassemble and share learning objects (lessons, assessments, lectures, tutorials, activities, simulations, and other intellectual assets).

7. INTRODUCTION4 • To achieve the goals of the project efficiently and effectively nine (9) Work Packages were established: • WP1 : Project Management • WP2 : Evaluation and Reform of the New Curriculum ( Formation of Directions/Specialisations, Development of a Quality Assurance System, New Curriculum Proposal). • WP3 : Development of the New e-Learning Model ( Selection, Purchase, Installation, Training of the New VLE Platform, Development of a Portal, Usability Studies). • WP4 : Development of CoursePacks to Load on the VLE.

8. INTRODUCTION5 • WP5 : Development of Digital Educational Tools ( eBooks, Vrlabs available on the VLE). • WP6 : Synchronous and Asynchronous Internetworking Learning, Teleconference. • WP7 : Improvement of the Educational Content ( Help Desk, On line Counseling, Management of Distant Labs, Courses in Enterprise Management and in Advanced English ). • WP8 : New Seminar/ Laboratory Courses, Case Studies. • WP9 : New Trends and Emerging Technologies in E-Learning, Dissemination, Workshop.

9. CURRICULUM REFORM PROCESS1 • The department provides undergraduate education in the field of Information Technology, Technology Applications as well as Analysis and Development of Information Systems. • Its mission is to develop and enhance individual’s knowledge and professional competence in the above areas and related technologies. • The study program which features current and emerging technologies, prepares students to contribute to the computing profession upon graduation, provides a basis for continued study, post graduate studies and growth in the field.

10. CURRICULUM REFORM PROCESS2 • Factors that influence curricula in Computer Studies in general are : • Rapid changes taking place in the discipline. • The emergence of new programming paradigms and new design methodologies. • Need for graduates who have good communication and teamwork skills, in addition to being technically competent. • Need for the study program to facilitate the gap between what is taught at academia and what is needed in the business.

11. CURRICULUM REFORM PROCESS3 • A process for curriculum improvement is necessary in order to provide the best educational results i.e. mainly to recognize the learning achievements of students through the use of commonly understood measurements. • Assessment is an essential part of this process. Assessment depends on goals and appropriate measures. As changes to curriculum are made the assessment process is repeated, ensuring a continuous cycle of improvement. • At this time we are in the process of assessing the present curriculum and next, proceed with the development of an improved one.

12. CURRICULUM REFORM PROCESS4 • Faculty members are engaged in a major attempt to innovate the undergraduate program of studies by establishing many new elective courses that together with core ones, certain groups of associated courses can form directions and specializations within the curriculum and thus widen the choices available to students. • In fact three directions/specialisations is the target, the Networking and Internetworking, the Software Engineering and the Artificial Intelligence ones.

13. CURRICULUM REFORM PROCESS5 • To ensure high quality of the learning process, technologically enabled learning must be incorporated. Based on the use of a VLE Platform, the Blackboard, a distributed learning environment is developed, that contains in digital form most of the knowledge and learning material used in our faculty and will allow its access at any time and from any distance

14. THE PORTAL ENVIRONMENT1 • The need of information management and dissemination of the academic community at the Information Technology department must be facilitated with the development of a modern portal environment. • The web is rapidly evolving into a universal information repository with services that span across nearly all the aspects of a human’s life, such as work, entertainment, communication e.t.c. • Within the departmental structure, one can identify user roles (e.g. student, teacher, technical staff, administrator, alumni, etc) and organizational units that need be supported in the abstraction of a web based community model.

15. THE PORTAL ENVIRONMENT2 • Along the lines of the requirements specifications set forth, the new portal environment should : • comprise a single “one stop” point, serving the information dissemination, exchange and communication needs of the teaching, student, technical, administrative and alumni user communities. • support an easy to use interface. • implement modularity by organizing its contents and services in a way that reflects the departmental structure.

16. THE PORTAL ENVIRONMENT3 In the respect of these requirements the tasks and the functionality that will be available to the target user population are identified as follows [2]: • Personalization • Customization • Grouping and Team Working • Simplicity of Use • Modular Design • Granular Administration

17. THE PORTAL ENVIRONMENT4 • The developed model, its inner structure involves six basic facilities: • Announcements Board : Registering announcements of interest to the user community. • Discussion Fora : A discussion board containing a number of user-initiated discussion fora. • Events Calendar : Registering info on upcoming events.

18. THE PORTAL ENVIRONMENT5 • Web Applications : A variable number of external applications accessible from within the web site environment. • Web Links : Hyperlinks to web addresses containing information of interest to the local user community. • Subject Catalogs : A hierarchy of sub-directories/folders with documents that are meant to be accessible only by the user community in question.

19. THE PORTAL ENVIRONMENT6 • For the development of the portal environment the deployment of an open source solution/platform was decided. • A number of open source web site development software solutions were considered. • After a lot of experimentation with Content Management Systems such as PHP Nuke, PostNuke CMS Platform, phpWebSite community driven webware, CMS Drupal 4.7 was selected for the provision of granulated administration.

20. THE PORTAL ENVIRONMENT7 The developed portal environment includes: • A unified user authentication system that also covers a number of services via the departmental web site. • A cross platform search engine facility. • System usage log file analysis for the determination of user patterns and resource usage.

21. THE VLE PLATFORM1 • To publish on the Web courses, schedules and syllabi online is not adequate. • A truly effective e-learning solution must be aligned with an institution’s mission and goals. • Emerging learning technologies are deployed to meet the requirements: • Continually improve the learning experience • Deploy state-of-art educational technologies • Maintain lifelong learning relationships with students • Enhance institutional resources as efficiently as possible

22. THE VLE PLATFORM2 • In educational environments nowadays the following issues must be faced : • To provide a supportive forum for practicing activities learnt in a traditional classroom environment. • To move the teaching task from a class based to a student based activity. • To facilitate flexible, independent, self-paced learning. • To maintain an adequate level of feedback for course development. • To provide an environment for group collaborative learning without the restriction of geographical proximity.

23. THE VLE PLATFORM3 • E-Learning techniques must be adopted to enhance the process of teaching and learning. • E-Learning will enable course creators to efficiently store, reuse, reassemble and share learning objects such as assessments, lessons, lectures, tutorials, activities, simulations and other intellectual assets. • Students will freely share the educational content and thus enjoy the possibility of personalized learning. • Students who cannot physically attend classes, utilizing either synchronous or asynchronous learning can pursue studies from a distance, taking advantage of the Internet and the Web.

24. THE VLE PLATFORM4 • Our e-Learning IMS is based on the Blackboard™ virtual learning environment. • On this VLE platform instructors have uploaded most of the learning material available in our department, curriculum courses and course content are offered online , eBooks, courses in Enterpise Management, Advanced English, Virtual Labs, Distant Labs, ready made CoursePacks, Questionaires, Solved Problems, video and audio, are in fact a real wealth of learning material at the disposal of the students, giving them the flexibility to learn at their convenience. • Furthermore, students are encouraged to leave “tracks” in the system, i.e. notes, papers, projects, exercises, reports etc

25. CONCLUSIONS1 • Evolving Internet computing technologies as well as Web engineering are the emerging technologies implemented by institutions in the sector of higher education as a means of incorporating technology enabled learning to support mainly the success of enrolled students, so that they complete their current programs with satisfaction and are encouraged to return for further learning. • In an attempt to enhance and improve the study program and the quality of the learning process in our department, we installed in our servers a well known commercially available Virtual Learning Environment Platform and started uploading learning objects and material to it in an attempt to develop a Unified e-Learning Information Management System.

26. CONCLUSIONS2 • Our preliminary observations suggest that the VLE is easy to use and effective with learners. • The results so far have given us positive indications as to begin a full-scale study involving all undergraduate students. • It is now acceptable among the staff of the department that the development of this e-Learning IMS system and its successful deployment for undergraduate teaching could be an important indicator for our future approach to teaching computer science courses.

27. CONCLUSIONS3 • However, we do not currently intend the use of this e-Learning Information Management System to be the substitute for the classroom , but as an alternative learning forum mainly to support students’ attendance in the department by offering the entire learning content available in digital form as an alternative to the traditional way of learning ie. to study a single book and revise through teaching notes.

32. END OF PRESENTATION THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ATTENTION