WHURLE - an adaptive remote learning framework - Semantic Scholar

WHURLE - an adaptive remote learning framework Authors: Adam Moore, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, Notts., NG7 2RD [email protected] Craig Stewart, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham, Notts., NG8 1BB [email protected] Mohamed Ramzy Zakaria, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham, Notts., NG8 1BB [email protected] Tim Brailsford, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham, Notts., NG8 1BB [email protected]

Abstract  WHURLE (Web-Based Hierarchical Universal Reactive Learning Environment) is an adaptive virtual learning environment. Here we describe WHURLE – it’s framework, implementation and process flow. Index Terms  adaptive learning, virtual learning environments, WHURLE INTRODUCTION Increasingly the WWW is seen as a good delivery vehicle and transmission medium for educational content. This may be to facilitate in-house support of teaching, to allow distributed teaching collaborations or for an institution to emplace distance learning in ts curricular provision. As well as all of these models, WWW delivery has also been touted as a cost-saving mechanism for educational institutions. Integrated learning environments are essential for cost effective web-based learning. This is because the development costs of multimedia are usually high. Maintenance and updating costs are often high and your matrerial starts to “age” as soon as it is created, both through software rot, where your delivery platform does not keep pace woth current technology, and through content rot, where your learning material does not include the latest theories, results and so on. A diverse skill set is required for the effective development of TBL – content authoring, pedagogic development and a degree of technical expertise – although the last varies widely from system to system. TBL must therefore be professionally mass produced, and not remain the domain of the “amateur enthusiast”. The following are the requirements for an ILE that addresses the above issues and provides a useful platform for electronic teaching: • Support of separated levels of authoring: Technical, content & content implementation • Facilitation of the repurposing of content • Open standards • Navigation and linking capabilities: Both automated and authored • Pedagogically informed • Adaptation to learner needs

THE WHURLE FRAMEWORK The WHURLE (Web-based Hierarchical Universal Reactive Learning Environment)[1] framework was created to address rthe above issues and requirements. Content is stored as conceptually discrete “Chunks” of information. Lessons are stored as hierarchical “Lesson Plans”. Adaptation is performed at the chunk level based upon user profiles, which are stored in a database. Finally, a navigational overlay creates the “Virtual Document”. This process model is shown in Figure 1. WHURLE Chunks A WHURLE chunk may be regarded as an atomic unit of content. They are conceptually self contained pieces of information, such as a paragraph or two of text, a single media item or a small group of related media items. It is, of course, important to not that size is not relevant per se, foir example a large legal document may not be further divisible, and would therefore be a single chunk. They are written by subject specialists or converted from legacy content. WHURLE chunks are defined using WHURLE Chunk Markup Language (WCML), an XML [2] dialect containing structural tags derived from XHTML, and meta-information. A wide range of information can also be represented by using existing XML dialects, for example, graphics can be represented using SVG [3], and mathematics by MathML [4]. WHURLE Lesson Plan International Conference on Engineering Education

July 21–25, 2003, Valencia, Spain. 1

WHURLE creates an apparent docuverse - called a “lesson”. These lessons are defined by Lesson Plans, written in WHURLE Lesson Plan Markup Language (WLPML), an XML dialect. A lesson describes a hypermedia pathway through the available chunks (melange). Lesson are created by teachers, who may, or may not, have created the content (chunks, links, etc.) of the lesson. The “Virtual Document” The virtual document is the visualisation of the content provided by WHURLE to the learners, that is the end users view over a part of the content. It also contains the link overlay - navigational links generated automatically from the structure of the Lesson Plan and authored links defined in the linkbase. It’s presentation is set by the skin overlay, which introduces the cosmetic interface components. Autonavigation Structural links are generated from the position of pages in the lesson plan. This means that each page in the virtual document has a contextualised navigational cue, so that the learner can place themsleves within the material and • Linear paging (next / previous) • Subtopics • Parent (up) • Home (top)

ADAPTATION AND NARRATIVE Adaptation is performed by filtering the default narrative using a “pluggable” user model. There are two main types of user model inexistence – the WHURLE system uses a hybrid of both. The overlay model measures users’ knowledge within a given domain, the stereotype model groups users according to their background and abilities. The current implementation uses three stereotypes in any given domain: beginner, intermediate and advanced. Different users will have different experiences. A teacher defines a default narrative in the lesson plan - this is then informed by the user profile to create a unique virtual document. The learner’s actions then modify their user profile. Narrative is thus dynamic and adaptive, as can be seen in the conceptual model shown in Figure 2.

WHURLE IMPLEMENTATION WHURLE is currently implemented as XSLT Stylesheets [5], processed server-side by Cocoon [6], a free, open source XML/XSLT publishing engine, with adaptation implemented by node selection in a plugable “adaptation filter” (as part of the XSLT pipeline). The user profiles are stored in a MySQL database [7]. User interface and navigation are implemented by the “display engine” (again a part of the XSLT pipeline). Cosmetic aspects of the user interface are defined in the “skin”, a small, XML configuration file. WHURLE is an Open Source project, and the code is freely available from http://whurle.sf.net. An example of the current implementation, showing a page from a civil engineering lesson, is shown in Figure 3.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors would like to thank the Nottingham Web Technology Group for their many helpful contributions to this document and related works.

REFERENCES [1]

Moore, A.; Brailsford, T.J. and Stewart, C.D, “Personally tailored teaching in WHURLE using conditional transclusion”, The Twelfth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, August 14-18, 2001, pp 163-164

[2]

Bray, Tim; Paoli,Jean; Sperberg-McQueen, C. M.; Maler, Eve “Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Second Edition)”, W3C Recommendation, 6 October 2000,

[3]

Andersson, Ola; Armstrong, Phil; Axelsson, Henric; Berjon, Robin; Bézaire,Benoît, et al, “Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Specification”, W3C Recommendation, 14 January 2003

[4]

Ausbrooks, Ron; Buswell,Stephen; Dalmas, Stéphane; Devitt, Stan; Diaz, Angel; Hunter; Roger, et al, “Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0”, W3C Recommendation, 21 February 2001

[5]

Clark, James, “XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0”, W3C Recommendation, 16 November 1999

[6]

Cocoon Homepage. http://xml.apache.org/cocoon

International Conference on Engineering Education


[7]

MySQL Homepage - http://www.mysql.com/

FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURE. 1 WHURLE SYSTEM DIAGRAM. THE CHUNKS AND LINKS ARE COMBINED ACCORDING TO THE LESSON PLAN, PUT THROUGH THE ADAPTATION FILTER (WHICH IS INFORMED BY THE USER MODEL) AND RENDERED BY THE DISPLAY ENGINE (CONTROLLED BY THE SKIN) TO GENERATE THE VIRTUAL DOCUMENT WHICH APPEARS ON THE BROWSER



FIGURE. 2 WHURLE CONCEPTUAL SYSTEM MODEL. THE MELANGE IS A COLLECTION OF ALL CHUNKS AND LINKS, TOGETHER WITH THE DEFAULT NARRATIVES, THIS COMPRISES AN ASSEMBLAGE. THE DEFAULT NARRATIVE IS FILTERED THROUGH THE USER PROFILE TO PRODUCE A VIRTUAL DOCUMENT TO SHOW TO A USER (LEARNER). EACH USER PROFILE AND/OR DEFAULT NARRATIVE PRODUCES A DIFFERENT VIRTUAL DOCUMENT.



FIGURE. 3 AN EXAMPLE WHURLE LESSON. THE AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED NAVIGATION IS SHOWN NEAR TOP LEFT. NEAR TOP RIGHT CAN BE SEEN A POP-UP, PROVIDING ADDITIONAL, IN-CONTEXT INFORMATION.

