Adaptive Educational Hypermedia Content Creation: A Web Service Based Architecture

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Adaptive Educational Hypermedia Content Creation
A Web Service Based Architecture

• Maram Meccawy Dr. Helen Ashman,
• School of Computer Science and IT,
• University of Nottingham
• mzm, hla_at_cs.nott.ac.uk
• Craig Stewart,
• Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary,
• University of London
• Craig.Stewart_at_elec.qmul.ac.uk

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Outline

• Problem
• Ideal Solutions
• Web Services
• Case Study MOT2WHURLE Conversion
• MOT
• WHURLE
• old MOT2WHURLE conversion
• New MOT2WHURLE Web Service approach
• Discussion Conclusions
• Future Work
• Questions

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Problem

• Many AEH systems ( WHURLE, AHA, MOT, Interbook..)
• BUT Why is the penetration of AEHS into the
  mainstream educational culture has been poor so
  far?
• Complexity of authoring process
• Content creation is time consuming
• Lake of interoperability
• Short life time of AEH content
• Lack of standards

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Ideal Solutions

• Automated content creation (time and complexity
  factors)
• Interoperability between systems (conversion,
  common language)
• Standardised approaches

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Proposed Solution

• Using open Web Services standards to overcome
  interoperability problems
• A teacher can pick up a system to use for
  authoring adaptive content without worrying about
  the delivery system.

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Web Services

• A Web Service is an application, which is
  identified by a URL like ordinary websites but
  can be accessed remotely by another application.
• Next evolution of the web
• Provides interoperability solutions
• All communications are in XML

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Web Services' Technologies

• XML
• WSDL XML Document that is used for describing
  the available service
• SOAP XML based protocol which is used to
  transfer the data (exchanging information between
  computers).
• UDDI lists what services are available for the
  customer to use or buy (acts as a directory for
  services).

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Case Study Old MOT2WHURLE Conversion

• MOT My Online Teacher
• Developed at the TU/e
• Based on the LAOS framework (DM,GM,UM,PM,AM)
• Web-form, therefore a non-technical author can
  easily use it
• For the conversion process
• Domain Maps (Concept Maps)
• Goal and Constraint (Lessons)

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MOT
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Case Study MOT2WHURLE Conversion

• WHURLE (Web-based Hierarchical Universal
  Reactive Learning Environment)
• Developed at the University of Nottingham
• An adaptive XML learning environment
• Basic content building block Chunk
• Structure applied using Lesson Plans

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WHURLE
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Case Study Old MOT2WHURLE conversion

• A command line environment (Java / Perl)
• Conceptually maps the MOT Goal Constraints map
  structure to the WHURLE Lesson Plan
• A MOT Concept WHURLE chunk(s)
• MOT ConceptMap non-adaptive WHURLE Lesson Plan
  (structure)
• MOT lesson adaptive WHURLE lesson Plan

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New MOT2WHURLE Web Services Approach

• Creating the WSDL file
• Defining the WSDL abstract part DataTypes
  definitions (finding the communalities between
  MOT and WHURLE in terms of (concepts lessons),
  Messages, Operations and PortTypes.
• Defining the WSDL concert part Binding, Port and
  Services.
• Creating SOAP files
• Few MOT2WHURLE SOAP examples for
• future compatibility although functionality
• not currently implemented

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Discussion Conclusions 1-2

• Attempt to address the authoring complexity.
• Extension of previous work on conversions between
  systems
• Web services approach address two problems of
  previous work
• conversion system will be available online
• by using web based standards we open up the
  conversion system (WSDL semantic layer).

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Discussion Conclusions 2-2

• Any system conversion engineer can add additional
  AEH system data input and output streams
• We still do not remove the initial cost of
  authoring
• we can ensure that authors only have to go
  through this process once
• Interoperable AEH systems will be future-proof
  plus allowing more flexibility for teachers and
  students
• Our one-way MOT2WHURLE is conversion is limited

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Future Work

• Continue working on the implementation process
• Examine the ease of extending this web service by
  implementing a WHURLE2MOT conversion as well as
  other conversions
• Lay the groundwork for a middleware service that
  will offer an API
• More research on the usability of authoring
  systems in order to simplify the creation and
  re-use of the AEH learning materials.

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Thank you!

• Questions?