SPECIFICATIONS OF AN INTELLIGENT MEDIATING MODEL FOR COLLABORATIVE e-LEARNING COURSEWARE SYSTEMS

1. SPECIFICATIONS OF AN INTELLIGENT MEDIATING MODEL FOR COLLABORATIVE e-LEARNING COURSEWARE SYSTEMS By Dr. Caleb .O. Akanbi Information and Communication Technology Osun State University,Osogbo, Nigeria

2. Presentation Layout Introduction Background System Architecture Model Specifications Implementation Conclusion 2 2 September 18, 2014 September 18, 2014

3. Introductione-Learning Courseware System (e-LCS) • an educational software platform for implementing e-learning programmes ( Universities, Colleges, Polytechnics) • platform can be obtained according to Monari(2005) ) by : • purchasing commercial e-LCSs such as WebCT, Convene, Blackboard, Authoware, Learning Space, Course Info, Cyber Proof, Mallad, CM Online. • subscribing to a kernel of e-LCS of another institution. • in-house software development by each institution 3 3 September 18, 2014

4. Introductione-Learning Courseware System (e-LCS) contd. e-LCS simulates the traditional learning classroom environment by using syllabus, schedule, course notes, examples, assignments, etc. Major Components of e-LCS : • tutoring and pedagogical contents. • learners Model • on-line facilities such as online assessment and multimedia course delivery. • Facilitators Model • Tools/environment for collaboration 4 4 September 18, 2014

5. Collaboration in Learning • an opportunity for students to learn through the expression and exploration of diverse ideas and experiences in cooperative groups. • forum for discuss with groups who advise, motivate, criticize and direct the students toward a better understanding of the subject matter. • Virtually all courseware are equipped with groupware collaborative tools which could be: • Synchronous such as: audio and Internet phone, video conferencing ,text chat. • Asynchronous such as e-mail, bulleting board system, multicast backbone (m-bone). 5 5 September 18, 2014 September 18, 2014

6. Benefits of Collaboration • deepens understanding, increases mastery of learning concepts and complements learning processes. • motivates and stimulates active students during learning processes. • extends knowledge by providing platform for solving a given problem together. 6 6 September 18, 2014 September 18, 2014

7. Limitations of Groupware Collaboration Tools • high bandwidth requirements through audio, video or multiple charting involved. • problem of finding suitable peers that will assist in time. • Even if peers found, the response may not be immediate to address the e-learner query request . • such tools do not provide platform for collaboration at the level of learning content 7 7 September 18, 2014

8. Why Content Level Collaboration ? • These e-LCS systems lack ontologies for sharing their domain knowledge learning objects with others (Sampson and Karampiperis, 2006). • Lack of interoperability Due to • differences in architectures, • platforms, • protocols and representations. Hence • does not permit collaboration with other e-LCSs during a learning process particularly, when a learner needs further adaptive and intelligent supports to

9. Collaboration proposed in this study Learning contents collaboration which involves • sharing e-LCS domain knowledge /learning objects on request. • Proposed solution Modeling an intelligent mediating architecture that provides a collaborative platform for courseware collaboration see figure 1 9

10. Intelligent Mediating System • software agent that act as intermediaries between providers of services and the consumers, requesting for the services. • improves the management of the integrated system through the amalgamation of learning objects coming from different knowledge base of diverse learning objects • which is a smallest digital reproducible and addressable resources of a learning contents stored in various Knowledge base of courseware systems (Koper, 2003). achieved collaboration using Artificial Intelligence approaches

11. Intelligent Approaches in Agent–Based SystemsCategories ( Gruer et.al. and Krishna 2006) • Rule based Reasoning: - IF-THEN statements represent knowledge encoded as rule • Case-based Reasoning: - adapt previous solution to a current problem. • Pattern Recognition: - detect sound ,shapes or long sequences using neural network ,fuzzy logic • Automatic Programming: - mechanism that generate a program to do a specific task • Artificial life: - recreate biological phenomena within computer based systems • Hybrid/ Integrated: - combination of two or more reasoning approaches adopted in this study

12. Embedded Intelligent Frameworks in Mediator System. The Hybrid reasoning approach consisting of • case based reasoning (CBR) and • rule based reasoning(CBR) adopted to provide intelligence for mediator system in this study to search for similar learning objects

13. System Architecture Model Design Considerations Agent based system architecture that provides • Knowledge Sharing across heterogeneous sources(.i.e courseware systems ) . • Adaptive support. The conceptual diagram showing e-learning collaborative environment envisioned in this study is showing in figure 1

14. Mediator System Architecture The system architecture consists of three main components; • Courseware Mediator Interphase (CMI). • Recommender Engine • Knowledge Base It has two agents • collaborative agent for searching for similar learning objects) and • filtering agent for recommending suitable learning modules. • Figure 2

15. Model Specifications Software engineering tool used is UML to specify the active and passive entities • Active entities are • R-courseware, • P-courseware, • Collaboration Agent and • Learners • Passive entities are • Courseware Mediating. Interface(CMI), • Filter agents, and • SynonymsDB . The active and passive entities specification is shown Figure 3 containing various cases and rules.

16. Implementation We are currently developing this prototype intelligent mediating system using appropriate program language such as • JAVA (Java expert shell software(JESS) and • Java Agent Development Environment (JADE) Technologies.

17. Conclusion • The UML model specifications of class diagrams has been presented in this paper to show various interactions in the design. • It is believed that the full implementation of this mediating model will go a long way to solve the interoperability problem among diverse e- learning courseware systems in various institutions of higher learning.

18. Thank you for listening