R & D

Research and development in the OP4L project is conducted in several inter-related directions:

• Study of the concept of online presence, especially in the context of online learning environments. The project team is interested in how online presence data of learners can be used to improve their learning efficiency and what exactly are educational benefits of including the learners' online presence data in personal learning environments (PLEs). This study is conducted in the context of Social Semantic Web technologies and tools and their educational applications.
• Study of pedagogical issues underlying PLEs. As in using a PLE it is an individual (a learner) who organizes his or her own learning process, more active and collective-based forms of pedagogies are of interest, where the learners are exposed to higher levels of autonomy, creativity, and social connectedness. The PLE concept assumes an active learner who takes initiative in learning and is responsible for managing his/her knowledge and competences. Specifically, this study focuses on the following pedagogical assumptions of advanced online learning environments in general, and PLEs, in particular: interactivity, social learning, collaboration, learners’ autonomy, and self-regulation.
• Development of ICT models that raise learners’ awareness of each other’s (online) presence in online collaborative learning. By being aware of a learner’s online presence, a learning system can adapt the learner’s interactions with his/her online social environment (i.e. other learners and teachers) better. Furthermore, the availability of learners’ online presence data allows for more subtle personalization and higher quality recommendation (e.g., not recommending collaboration with a peer who is currently busy and does not want to be disturbed).
• Learning context modeling. Learning context is about the environment, tools, resources, people (in terms of social networking), and learning activities. More specifically, context in learning systems is mostly characterized by the learners, learning resources and a set of learning activities that are performed in the light of a specific pedagogical approach. In OP4l, this notion of learning context is extended with the notion of online presence, since in e-learning online presence cannot be isolated from the learning context – it is an integral part of any online learning situation (i.e., context). In modeling learning context, as well online presence itself, OP4L project develops and refines an advanced set of ontologies.
• Recommendation of relevant learning resources. Context-aware and online-presence-aware recommendation of relevant learning resources (both digital and human) is the major practical focus of OP4L. To this end, the project develops and demonstrates the use of specific algorithms for context-aware recommendation of learning resources. A specific PLE, called DEPTHS, developed for collaborative learning of software design patterns, is extended with the notion of online presence and is used to demonstrate how taking into account the learners' online presence helps in several learning scenarios when collaboration options would otherwise be greatly reduced.