Development, Application and Evaluation of Adaptive Hypermedia in Distance Learning Suad Kulagli BH Telecom, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
[email protected] Samra Muja i Faculty of Electrical Engineering & UCDED University of Tuzla Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
[email protected] Izudinka Kapetanovi BH Telecom, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
[email protected]
Abstract: Adaptive hypermedia systems have been conceived on principles of content personalization and navigation functionality depending on the user's requirements. User information is presented by user model while domain model and adaptation model are used to store and present appropriate content to the user. In this paper we report on the design, development and evaluation of an adaptive hypermedia system for e-learning. The experimental TeleEDUCOS application has been developed based on the users modeling and content and navigation adaptation. Test course on ADSL technology has been published and delivered using TeleEDUCOS application. An evaluation is presented, which has been carried out in the context of a test class involving 18 students. The students' learning results showed that the students performed significantly subject knowledge. On the other hand, based on the qualitative analysis, they found the adaptive hypermedia system very appropriated and useful tool for learning.
Introduction Electronic learning covers, among other things, two important aspects (Kubes, 2007): • The aspect of creating and delivering content - describing how the lecturer delivers content to users, and the following must be considered: - content to be delivered and the objectives to be achieved, - for whom content is delivered, - the best way of learning transmission and presentation of content to the user. • The aspect of learning - describing how a user acquires knowledge. It is clear that the results and effectiveness of these aspects in the acquisition of subject knowledge depend on many factors, primarily by user characteristics such as a prior knowledge, cognitive abilities, preferences, interests and goals. Thanks to the development of information and communication technologies and the ubiquity of the Internet, e-learning enables the easy and quick way to expand educational information and to make it available on a broader level (Brusilovsky, 2001). In doing so, it must be stressed two indisputably important influences to: • The entire society IT education - development of basic skills and competencies of the users in the area of information and communication technologies are one of the prerequisites for the rapid and comprehensive development of society. • Economic financial rationalization - the overall costs of education can be significantly reduced.
Toward Adaptive Hypermedia Hypertext structure forms a network of nodes and links that are broadly considered as a hyperspace. In the process of distance education the video, as a powerful and information-rich medium, is much more interesting than hypertext because it can create a better and more efficient tool for the process of distance education than
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hypertext. In this way we can get a tool that outlines information such as video segments but still supported by graphics, images, sound and text (Schwan, 2004). Hypermedia is used as a logical extension of the term hypertext in which text, graphics, audio, video and hyperlinks intertwine to create a generally non-linear information media. Navigation within the hypervideo is conducted similarly as hypertext navigation. It allows the user to follow the choices offered to further display the content, determines the actuality of the moment of choice for viewing content that follows or has already been viewed. Web pages usually contain more static links within its space (Muja i , 2007). Hypermedia, as stated above, consists of hypertext and the particular interactive multimedia components. In hypermedia the user can in many ways to move through the information content. However, for adaptive hypermedia, an adaptation of information content to the end user, which is realized on the basis of the user model, is essential characteristic (Stash, 2007). Realization of adaptive hypermedia systems aims to increase and facilitate the utilization of hypermedia knowledge spaces. For this reason, in an appropriate manner, a user model is created to incorporate the goals, preferences, levels of knowledge on specific content, specific interests of individual users of the system, etc. These data are largely obtained through the explicit directives of the users and partly through the observation of specific user interaction with the system. Adaptive hypermedia systems build a user model based on user information obtained during user interaction with the system or on the basis of information obtained by users through certain forms, such as their preferences, goals, interests, etc. Conceptually, the most adaptive hypermedia systems can be viewed through three segments (Hongjing, 2006): • Information domain, storing the entire content of an adaptive hypermedia system. • User model, representing user characteristics (knowledge, preferences, goals, navigation history, etc.) that are important in the process of personalized adaptation. Some of these data refers to information domain, and the other on the user and his environment. • The process of adaptation. Existing adaptive hypermedia systems are designed for different applications and at first glance seem quite diverse. However, in essence they are similar in internal structure so we can say that the basic components of adaptive hypermedia systems are: domain model, user model and model of adaptation (Hoi -Boži , 2005). The domain model represents a segment of an adaptive hypermedia system whose task is to describe the structure of the content that teaches and serves as a basis for structuring the adaptive content. Simplest form of the model domain is an independent set of domain concepts. Concepts are defined as elementary components of knowledge for a given domain or areas of learning and have different names in different applications: elements of knowledge, learning objects, etc. User model is a component of an adaptive hypermedia system whose role is the storage and presentation of user characteristics such as preferences, experiences, goals, knowledge, history of navigation and other user-related relevant data. In the process of structuring, the user model takes into account the parameters that are primary to customize the system. Besides the already mentioned models, a very important component of an adaptive hypermedia system is a model of adaptation. Adaptation model uses information from the user model in terms of user's reactions to the offered content from the domain model, and determine what is the next most appropriate content for users (Froschl, 2005). In the context of adaptive hypermedia systems, different methods and techniques are used to adapt the presentation or customize content (content-adaptation) and to adapt navigation (adaptive navigation) or customize a hyperlink. The main benefit of adaptive content presentation is to attempt to alleviate the problem of information overload, which is a classical problem of hypermedia systems, so as to reduce the presentation of content only to the part that is most important for a specific user. In the most existing adaptive hypermedia systems the subject-related user's knowledge represents the most important customer characteristics. Many agree that the third of adaptive hypermedia system adapts its interface according to the supposed knowledge of the user (Brusilovsky, 1996)
Application TeleEDUCOS TeleEDUCOS is the personalized web application for distance learning - based on adaptive hypermedia technologies and developed for the purpose of master thesis. The proposed and adopted concept is based on the following: • Using existing Web technologies (HTML, CSS, PHP, and JS), a relational database (MySQL) and massive use of Internet allow it to be available to the users anywhere, anytime. • Using adaptive hypermedia, the application allows users with specific interests, goals, preferences and prior knowledge, to display the most appropriate content from the database as suggested by the navigation and movement through the application itself.
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The architecture and the concept of TeleEDUCOS are based on • Domain model, which consists of fragments of content, • User model that is presented by the knowledge level of the concept, based on records of visited pages and assessment results, • Adaptive link annotation, where the navigation links can obtain six states shown in different colors. Application is designed to interact with three types of users: administrator, lecturer and user (student), Figure 1. System administrator is the person responsible and authorized for creating the basic areas where the lecturers will store their content, as well as creating access data (username and password) for the lecturers. Also, the administrator has the authority to, directly, through the phpMyAdmin module, or indirectly, through the application interface, inserts, updates or deletes certain data from the database system. Using the learning objects module lecturer incorporates certain content (lectures, lessons and fragments) in the database, which are considered as a domain model. During the work with application, lecturer has the ability to view certain information from the user's model regarding the user’s progress in knowledge acquisition. User, after logging into the system and initial determination of his type, sends requests to view specific content through the module for managing user information. Adaptive module is responsible, on the basis of these requirements, to create the appropriate content adapted to the user. Module for managing user information forwards all interactive user information in a user model for updating basic user information for the purpose of modeling the current user profile. In this way it is possible to realize a process of adaptive educational hypermedia based on user interaction with adaptive hypermedia system and implemented program logic. The application integrates surveys, a set of concepts (fragments and lessons) and modules (lectures) in the form of hypermedia, as well as synchronized multimedia (SMIL). This provides a comprehensive multimedia environment for users, while, at the same time, provides the users important information for the purpose of acquiring knowledge. TeleEDUCOS contains comprehensive application functionality (logging) and monitoring of the user (session), which are very important for an adaptive hypermedia system. Also, information about user activities, such as responses to the questionnaires, the assessment results, information about visited concepts and modules as well as information about user interactions with the system along with temporal information are stored in the system. The application was used for the development and delivery of ADSL technology test course. The test course is structured in the form of lectures and lessons associated with adaptive display of fragments within the relevant lessons depending on the current profile obtained by analyzing data from the user model. The most important feature of adaptive hypermedia, flexibility or adaptability, was realized in the area of content adaptation and navigation adaptation. Application TeleEDUCOS uses the technique of content adaptation implemented as extensible fragments (stretch text), while the adaptability of the navigation is realized with technique of annotation of navigation links in different colors. The assessment module was realized in such way that allows lecturers to check the level of knowledge acquired by the users whose results are used in the process of these adaptations. For the purpose of content creating, the author module was designed which allows content generating and storing in database, as well as some adaptation rules definition.
Figure 1: Architecture of adaptive hypermedia application TeleEDUCOS
Design and Development of TeleEDUCOS The main requirements in designing and developing of TeleEDUCOS were to create an adaptive hypermedia system which should, continuously over time, adapt and provide users with specific content from the database. As a starting point of user interaction with the adaptive hypermedia system, TeleEDUCOS uses set of parameters
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from the database gathered through the answers on the initial questionnaire, and classifies users in one of three stereotype categories: novice, professional or expert in a particular area. In this way, it is initially determined which content of a domain model is the most appropriate for users and therefore it suggests a sequence of behaviors in knowledge hyperspace. This initial process is commonly used in adaptive hypermedia systems as it allows the system in a short period of time, depending on the accuracy of data entered by the user, to generate an appropriate user profile to be used in creating users models.
Tools Used to Develop TeleEDUCOS TeleEDUCOS requires the following component to be installed: Apache Web server, PHP programming package and MySQL database. The chosen platform for application development was WAMP software package for Microsoft Windows and Web development environment. To create a graphical user interface, HTML markup language was used in conjunction with CSS. To obtain specific animation, application uses a JavaScript programming language and AJAX technology, to quickly communicate with Web servers and storage data in the database.
Evaluation This paper presents design, development and application of a flexible approach to the individualization process of acquiring knowledge on the specific content of the hypermedia space that is realized through the basic principles of adaptive hypermedia. Evaluation is an important element in considering ways of improving the efficiency and use of certain adaptive hypermedia system. The evaluation process of TeleEDUCOS was performed for the controlled environment within the telecom company BH Telecom, Tuzla, BH (total of 18 users participated). They were in different ages, sex, education level, work experience and computer skills. During the test period, the users have been accessing the test course on ADLS technology using TeleEDUCOS application. The course titled "Instructions for installing ADSL connection" was composed of several lessons that have dealt with certain phases of implementation of ADSL connection. The lessons were created by selecting the appropriate fragments from the content database and contain objects as text, still image and video. Based on its excellent synchronization capabilities, SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) was chosen for creating the video-centered multimedia content, Figure 2.
Figure 2: Presentation of multimedia lesson using SMIL In order to perform comparisons and analysis of the users’ progress, they were provided with the initial test in conjunction with the aforementioned course. The initial test contained the same questions which were located in the tests of individual lessons that users have had to pass during the later work with application TeleEDUCOS to successfully complete the course. The evaluation of TeleEDUCOS application was focused on two key aspects: • Aspect of acquiring knowledge by the user through the consideration of efficiency and effectiveness of the system to adequately adapt the required content for different users categories, • Aspect of user’s satisfaction with applicability and usability of application.
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The first aspect was measured through the quantitative analysis of user performance improvement expressed in the form of assessment results and other information stored in the database system, while the other aspect referred to the questionnaire-based feedback from the users. Based on the initial data entered by the users, it can be stated as follows: a) 15 users or 83% explicitly stated their profession in the field of telecommunications, and 3 or 17% in the field of informatics. b) 14 users or 77% explicitly expressed their goal of accessing the course as an exam preparation whiles the remaining 23% only as a survey of the given lectures. c) All 18 users or 100% expressed the desire to have the option to view video content within individual lessons. d) 15 users or 83% presented their computer skills on professional level while the remaining 17% on fundamental level. e) 8 users or 44% stated they were familiar with adaptive hypermedia. f) 12 users or 66% explicitly stated they used video-based applications and are familiar with its basic configuration settings, while the remaining 34% used video applications just for viewing video content. What is very important is that none of users have used another application of adaptive educational hypermedia before accessing this course. Quantitative Analysis Analyzing the initial test results it could be concluded that 9 out of 18 users gave correct answers to all questions or 100%, 5 users had 71-99% correct answers and 4 users had less than 70% correct answers which had been considered as unsatisfying results. At the end of the course test period all the users (except those with 100% initial test score) significantly improved their knowledge, as presented in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Relation between initial and final users’ assessment results Qualitative Analysis Qualitative analysis of TeleEDUCOS application has been performed on the base of users’ attitudes on the application acquired from the questionnaire. Such users’ feedback has been used to acquire the information on: design and application, obstacles in work with application, contents appropriateness, content adaptive characteristics, appropriateness and usability of navigation functionality, general opinion on application of adaptive hypermedia. By considering obtained information it can be concluded: a) Regarding design and use of application, 15 users or 83% considered that application is good, 3 users or 17% that it is very good. These opinions show that additional efforts in finding more attractive graphical and application solutions should be made. Special attention should be paid to stretch fragments. b) 10 users considered that content was appropriately adapted to their knowledge, 6 users had opinion that it was done partially and 2 users stated that content was not adequately adapted to their knowledge of this subject. That shows that content must be structured according to more levels of presentation, so that users with different levels of subject knowledge could get appropriate presentation of the content. This implies a request on application to realize the multilevel presentation of the content in relation to 3 levels allowed in current version. c) 16 users had opinion that navigation was easy and logical for understanding; 2 users considered that it was confusing. d) Concerning understanding of principles and role of adaptive hypermedia application, 12 users stated they were thoroughly knowledgeable about principles and role; 6 users expressed they partially got picture on it.
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e) All 18 users answered that adaptive hypermedia is very useful method in accomplishing the better and more comprehensive knowledge acquiring. Analyzing the data from database, that were stored during the users’ interaction with the system, the following could be concluded: • The most users made a progress in terms of knowledge level they had before accessing the system, which imposes as a fact that the application of adaptive educational hypermedia system is effective and applicable in distance education. • Users have shown an appropriate level in the use of test applications, which means that this approach is acceptable by the users, but requires more effort in promoting adaptive hypermedia in education in general. • Video and audio content were definitely the preferred way to acquire knowledge and better understanding of the presented content, which certainly should be taken into account in further implementation.
Conclusion Adaptive hypermedia application TeleEDUCOS, developed and applied to a particular group of users in the test phase, has shown its functionality in delivering adaptive content presentation to the users according to their interests, goals and level of knowledge of related content. The users accepted this method of knowledge acquiring and they made significant learning progress. At the same time, users have expressed a better understanding of the principles of adaptive hypermedia after accessing the system, which was one of the goals of the application. The complexity of this topic represents significant obstacle and difficulties in the wider application and development of adaptive hypermedia systems in general. However, on the other hand it opens up new areas for research and engagement of experts from various fields to create the appropriate adaptive hypermedia applications that should be applied not only for educational purposes but also in other areas of interest such as medicine, economics and other disciplines.
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