IEEE --- 2005 International Conference on Emerging Technologies September 17-18, Islamabad
Semantic Integration of Learning Objects for UREKA Navigation & Integration Toolkit – UNIT Mobin Uddin Ahmed Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad, Pakistan
[email protected]
Mohib-ur-Rehman Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad, Pakistan
[email protected]
Muhammad Abdul Qadir Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad, Pakistan
[email protected] Abstract Now a day, education is getting more expensive, relative to other fields. The reason for such increasingly expensive field is due to less investment and efforts to involve Information Technology. There is a need to develop new and effective models for learning through Information Technology. The key component for such learning models is Learning Object, which includes different types of media i.e. audio, video, image, text etc. A lecture is a combination of one or more Learning Objects. Thus efficient and effective integration of Learning Objects becomes the key part of this activity. UNIT (UREKA Navigation & Integration Toolkit) is emerging model for such type of integration. It defines CMF (Common Media Framework) that has a predefined schema for integration of Learning Objects, and also the capability of handling spatial and temporal behavior for Learning Activity separately. Furthermore, it allows users to modify these behaviors and to attach presentational templates of their own comfort that provide reusability of both the integrated information and templates. The integration information in CMF file will be combined with loosely bounded presentational templates, dynamically to generate presentation for Learning Activity (A Lecture). Key terms: Common Multimedia Integration, Metadata, Learning Object
Media Framework, Navigation, SMIL,
1. Introduction
Imran Ihsan Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad, Pakistan
[email protected]
Nadeem Iftikhar Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad, Pakistan
[email protected] Multimedia Database [1] provides a framework that implicitly restricts teachers for the preparation of their lectures according to well know standards. This provides seamless integration of multimedia learning objects, partially or fully, and increases reusability of learning objects. UREKA uses IEEE LOM compliant metadata standards, XML for universal exchange of data, efficient searching and retrieval mechanism for learning objects, seamless integration of learning objects, loosely bounded temporal and spatial behaviors in standard multimedia presentation languages like SMIL, generating presentation (on the fly) with combining these loosely bounded integrated information and templates, and the synchronization of media objects in a Learning Activity.In UREKA architecture, learning objects are restructured in the form of SMUs (Semantically Meaningful Unit) and CMF (Common Media Framework) that are stored along with respective metadata in XML format. After efficient search and retrieval, selected SMUs can be integrated in the form of CMF (A Lecture) keeping their spatial and temporal behaviors and synchronization of media intact. On the basis of different functionalities, UREKA is divided into four major building blocks as shown in Figure-1. ULTRA (UREKA Learning-object Taxonomy & Repository Architecture) contains the repository of Learning Objects and its associated metadata after its classification according to predefined hierarchy i.e. Faculty, Field and Course [1]. USE (UREKA Search Engine) provides efficient search and retrieval of Learning Objects by implementing indexing on the contents of SMUs and their stored metadata [1].
To facilitate the proper organization of educational material and its metadata, a research project UREKA - A Grid Enabled Educational
0-7803-9247-7/05/$20.00 ©2005 IEEE
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IEEE --- 2005 International Conference on Emerging Technologies September 17-18, Islamabad ULTRA
UNIT
UREKA Learning Object Taxonomy & Repository
USE UREKA Search Engine
UREKA Navigation & Integration Toolkit
SMU and can use an SMU partially by selecting a portion or a slide of the SMU. This integrated CMF is stored in an XML format according to a predefined schema. The Figure-3 explains the functionality of Integrator.
2.2. Meta Collector URMS UREKA Rights Management System UREKA GRID ENVIRONMENT
Figure 1: Inter-Relations of UREKA Sub Systems UNIT (UREKA Navigation & Integration Toolkit) provides seamless integration of various Learning Objects into a Learning Activity that facilitates user interaction, spatial and temporal behaviors. URMS (UREKA Rights Management System) deals with the creation, authentication, and authorization of users in the system.
A CMF file uses same metadata schema, as defined for SMU in order to make it IEEE LOM [5] compliant. The associated metadata will be used for efficient search and retrieval, and reusability of learning object in different contexts. Basic and Domain profiles help to fill in the fields of metadata [1]. The input and output for Meta Collector is shown in Figure-3.
2. UREKA Navigation & Integration Toolkit All of the above mentioned four modules are required for the complete working of UREKA; however this paper only defines the architecture of UNIT as shown in Figure-2.
Figure 3: Input/Output of Integrator/Meta Collector/CMF Classifier
2.3. CMF Classifier The CMF Classifier associates a CMF with relevant Faculty, Field and Course. This classification is stored as part of metadata and is accessible by other modules of UREKA. The UREKA Classification Library (UCL) [1] is used to automate the classification procedure. The Figure-3 explains the functionality of Classifier.
2.4. CMF Editor
2.1. Integrator
In CMF Editor, the user can re-sequence and organize SMUs, apply temporal and spatial behavior for the learning activity, and apply style sheets for presentational and design purposes. The CMF file is then dynamically transformed into SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) [2] [3] [4] along with its spatial and temporal behavior, and its design templates.
After searching the required SMUs, the user can list the SMUs for integration. The user can opt to use a complete SMU or a portion of SMU. This list serves as an input to Integrator that produces an output in the form of a CMF file. A CMF files acts as a Learning Activity that only contains the references (URLs) of the integrated SMUs thus eliminates the redundancy of SMUs and provides efficient reusability. The user can also view an
Figure 4: Editor/Navigator
Figure 2: Components of UNIT
Input/Output
of
CMF
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IEEE --- 2005 International Conference on Emerging Technologies September 17-18, Islamabad The input and output of CMF Editor is given in Figure-4.
2.5. Navigator Navigator is responsible for displaying the SMIL file, along with its temporal and spatial behavior. In our context, the SMIL file is based on CMF which is a combination of several XML files (SMUs) as shown in Figure-7, and different loosely bounded templates as shown in Figure-5. Therefore the navigator provides the support for XML based multimedia language like SMIL. The Learning Activity will be generated on the fly with combining integration information (CMF File) and associated templates. There are many viewers and players that are available for playing SMIL file e.g. X-Smile Browser [8] [9] [10] [11], GRiNs [7], QuickTime [13] etc, however UNIT prefers to use QuickTime because of its additional scripting support for presentational behavior of SMIL file [13] [14].
3. Integration of Learning Object Different multimedia models (temporal, spatial, metadata, etc.) are employed, to representation the relationship between media elements in a presentation. These models are tightly bound with the information of integration, thus reducing the semantic level and reusability of multimedia contents. The schema of CMF file provides facility to store integration of media elements separately (Sample file is shown in Figure-8), and then attach required temporal behavior, spatial layout and metadata etc. as shown in Figure-5. CMF File
SMUs
Figure 7: CMF Structure
Metadata
Time Sheets
Spatial Layout
CMF File
Figure 8: Sample CMF File
Design Templates or Style Sheets
Figure-5: CMF with loosely bounded templates
2.6. Rights Management This component is responsible for the creation, authentication and authorization of the user. It also maintains the history for the user for accounts and billing purposes. UREKA is using third party component for the implementation of this component. The detail for input and output of this component is shown in Figure-6.
Figure 6: Management
Components
of
Rights
Figure-9: Sample of Associated Spatial Layout for CMF File
4. Presentation Generation A number of multimedia integration and presentation languages exist like HTML [16], SMIL [2], HyTime [6] [15]. In UNIT, we have proposed a schema of CMF file (sample file is shown in Figure-8), to fulfill the requirements for reusability in a true sense. The integrated information is stored in CMF file and templates preserving the relationship among the integrated elements of multimedia objects are stored separately. The loosely bounded templates with CMF file are integrated on the fly to generate a SMIL file, which is an XML based multimedia integration and presentation language. Afterwards, the SMIL file can be viewed in QuickTime Player [13] [14]. A sample SMIL file generated dynamically from integration information and templates is shown in Figure-10.
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IEEE --- 2005 International Conference on Emerging Technologies September 17-18, Islamabad
Figure 10: Sample of Dynamically Generated SMIL File for CMF In the header of sample SMIL file, different regions are defined with different attributes along with the global layout of the presentation. The first section of body is the object areas represents the first slide of presentation (between tags) where the contents of selected SMU “456” are executed in parallel for different screen placements as defined in layout section of header. Second section is the body where object areas of selected SMU “789” are executed in parallel for next slide.
5. Conclusion This paper defines the structure and functioning of Common Media Framework – CMF, which is a part of UREKA – A Grid Enabled Educational Multimedia Database. This CMF file implements the concept of reusability in a true sense, by providing facilities of full and partial integration of various SMUs and association of different presentational templates according to targeted context to support personalization. These loosely bounded presentational templates in SMIL (an XML based multimedia integration and
presentation standard) format are combined together with CMF file to generate presentation dynamically. The SMIL file generated dynamically for Learning Activity can be viewed in any SMIL supported media players.
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IEEE --- 2005 International Conference on Emerging Technologies September 17-18, Islamabad [5] IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee ©2005, http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12, IEEE Standards for Learning Object Metadata (1484.12.1) [6] Kowgel. J.F. et al.(1993). “HyOctane: A HyTime Engine for an MMIS”, Proceedings of First ACM International Conference on Multimedia, Anaheim, California, USA, Aug 1-6, pp. 129-136, 1993 [7] D.Bulterman et al., “GRiNS: an Authoring Environment for Web Multimedia” in Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Educational Telecommunications, Seattle, Washington, USA, 19-24, 1999 [8] P.Vuorimaa et al., “A Java based XML Browser for Consumer Devices” in the 17th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, Madrid, Spain, March 1013, 2002, pp.1094-1099 [9] J.Xia, S.Shim, and Y.Wang, “Design and Implementation of a SMIL Player” in Proceedings of SPIE, Vol.3648, San Jose, CA, USA,pp.382-389, 1999 [10] K.Pihkala and T.Lokki, “Design of a Dynamic SMIL Player”, in proceddings of the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo, Lausanne, Switzerland, August 26-29, pp 189-192, 2002 [11] K.Pihkala, P,Cesar, and P.Vuorimaa, “A Browser Framework for Hybrid XML Documents” in Proceedings of the 6th IASTED International Conference: Internet and Multimedia Systems, and Applications, Kauai, Hawaii, USA, August 12-14, pp. 164-169, 2002 [12] RealNetworks
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[14] QuickTime
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