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Edited by Gordon Davies & Charles Owen
Proceedings of WebNet 2000 – World Conference on the WWW and Internet
San Antonio, Texas; October 30-November 4, 2000
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Steering Committee:
John Boot, Motorola (USA) Gary Marks, AACE (USA) Hermann Maurer, Graz Univ. of Technology (Austria) Charles Owen, Michigan State Univ. (USA)
Program Committee:
Co-Chairs: Gordon Davies, Open Univ. (UK) Charles Owen, Michigan State Univ. (USA) Tutorial/Workshop Chair: Samuel Rebelsky, Grinnell College (USA) Adel Abunawass, Univ. of West Georgia (USA) Kenneth Anderson, Univ. of Coloradob (USA) Liliana Ardissono, Univ. of Torino (Italy) Claire Bélisle, LIRE-CNRS (France) Frances Brazier, Vrije Universiteit (The Netherlands) Peter Brusilovsky, Carnegie Mellon Universit (USA) John Buford, GTE Laboratories (USA) Licia Calvi, Trinity College (Ireland) SeJin Chung, State of Michigan (USA) Moon Jung Chung, Michigan State Univ. (USA) Betty Collis, Univ. of Twente (The Netherlands) Paul De Bra, Eindhoven Univ. of Tech. (The Netherlands) Serge Demeyer, Univ. of Berne (Switzerland) Erik Duval, K. U. Leuven (Belgium) Scott Dynes, Executive Perspectives (USA) John Eklund, Access Online Pty Ltd. (Australia) Allan Ellis, Southern Cross Univ. (Australia) Richard Enbody, Michigan State Univ. (USA) Abdol-Hossein Esfahanian, Michigan State Univ. (USA) Dieter Fellner, Univ. of Technology (Germany) Richard Furuta, Texas A&M Univ. (USA) Franca Garzotto, Politecnico di Milano (Italy) Peter Gloor, Deloitte Consulting (Switzerland) Gene Golovchinsky, FX Palo Alto Laboratory, Inc. (USA) Chetan Gopal, GTE Data Services (USA) Nuno Guimaraes, Univ. of Lisbon (Portugal) Joerg Haake, GMD-IPSI (Germany) Joachim Paul Hasebrook, Bank Academy (Germany) Colin Hensley, Toyota Motor Europe (Belgium) David Hicks, Aalborg Univ. Esbjerg (Denmark) Charles Chuck Kacmar, Florida State Univ. (USA) Martin Kersten, CWI (The Netherlands) Alfred Kobsa, Univ. of California, Irvine (USA) John Leggett, Texas A&M Univ. (USA) Jennifer Lennon, Univ. of Auckland (New Zealand) David Levine, St. Bonaventure Univ. (USA) David Lowe, Univ. of Technology (Australia) Paul Maglio, IBM Almaden Research Center (USA) Gary Marks, AACE (USA) Hermann Maurer, IICM, Graz Univ.of Technolgoy (Austria) Maria Teresa Molfino, Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche (Italy) Wendy Morgan, Queensland Univ. of Tech. (Australia) Max Muehlhaeuser, Univ. of Linz (Austria) Wolfgang Nejdl, Univ. of Hannover (Germany) Andrew Odlyzko, AT&T Labs – Research (USA) Harri Oinas-Kukkonen, Univ. of Oulu (Finland) Susana Pajares Tosca, Univ. Complutense de Madrid (Spain) Samuel Rebelsky, Grinnell College (USA) Vytautas Reklaitis, Kaunas Univ. of Technology (Lithuania) Antoine Rizk, Euroclid (France) Nick Scherbakov, IICM, Graz Univ. of Technology (Austria) Gunter Schlageter, Univ. of Hagen (Germany) Klaus Schmaranz, IICM, Graz Univ. of Tech. (Austria) Frank Shipman, Texas A&M Univ. (USA) Simeon Simoff, Univ. of Sydney (Australia) Marcus Specht, GMD (Germany) Daniel Suthers, Univ. of Hawaii (USA) Martin Svensson, Univ. of Stockholm/Swedish Institue of Computer Science (Sweden) Bruce Thomas, Univ. of South Australia (Australia) Daniel Tietze, GMD-IPSI (Germany) Klaus Tochtermann, FAW Ulm (Germany) Ivan Tomek, Jodrey School of Computer Science (Canada) Jan Treur, Vrije Universiteit (The Netherlands) Ellen Walker, Hiram College (USA) Martin Wessner, GMD-IPSI (Germany) Bebo White, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (USA) Jan Wibe, NTNU (Norway) Uffe K. Wiil, Aalborg Univ. Esbjerg (Denmark) Erik Wilde, Swiss Federal Institute of Tech. (Switzerland) Romain Zeiliger, CNRS-GATE (France)
Committee for Medical Applications of the Web
Steffen Achenbach, Philips Univ. (Germany) Clemens Chizzali-Bonfadin, Univ. of Vienna (Austria) Paul Compton, Univ. of New South Wales (Australia) Caroline M. Crawford, Univ. of Houston - Clear Lake (USA) Michael Criley, St. Johns Cardiovascular Research Center (USA) Kaye Cussen, Practicing Physician (Australia) Joan Freedman, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (USA) William Frederick Gaettinger, Univ. of Reno (USA) Günther Gell, Univ. of Graz (Austria) Kiyonari Inamura, Osaka Univ. (Japan) Monika P. Kuzminska, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (USA) Heinz Lemke, Technical Univ. of Berlin (Germany) John Lester, Massachusetts General Hospital (USA) Slawomir Lobodzinski, California State Univ. (USA) Rodger Marion, Univ. of Texas (USA) Herbert K. Matthies, Hannover Medical School (Germany) Eckhard Schneider, Practicing Physician (Germany) Claus Theisen, Practicing Physician (Germany) Gita Varagoor, Univ. of Texas (USA) Peter Waegeman, Medical Records Institute (USA) Jack Wilson, Scientific Software Solutions (USA)
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Revolution of Web-Based Education and Training .................................................................................. 2 Thomas Christel, Viviance New Education, Inc., USA Centre for Nursing and Health Studies an Online Perspective ............................................................... 3 James Fedorchuk & Joy Fraser, Athabasca University, Canada A definitive Online Distance Learning Model (ODL) for a Telecommunication Company: a Corporate showcase ............................................................................................................................... 4 Daniel Fink, Companhia Riograndense de Telecomunicações, Brazil; Juarez Sagebin, Companhia Riograndense de Telecomunicações, Brazil; Paulo Mendel, Companhia Riograndense de Telecomunicações, Brazil; Marcelo Leifheit, Companhia Riograndense de Telecomunicações, Brazil; Alexandre Sonntag, Companhia Riograndense de Telecomunicações, Brazil Media Analysis Tools Workshop ............................................................................................................... 5 William Lee, American Airlines Corporate FlagShip University, USA Tools for Online Interaction and Community Building .......................................................................... 11 Phillip McCarty, eCollege.com, USA From Desktop To Webtop: Achieving True Computing Freedom, Anytime, Anywhere ....................... 13 Ken Rhie, ThinkFree, USA E-Learning: A Strategic Weapon in the New Millennium ....................................................................... 14 Steve Zahm, DigitalThink, Inc., USA Let Someone Else Do It Better: the New Wave Of Outsourcing ............................................................ 15 Steve Zahm, DigitalThink, Inc., USA The Influence of Learning Style Preferences on Student Success in Online vs. Face-to-Face Environments ........................................................................................................................................... 17 Steven Aragon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; Scott Johnson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; Najmuddin Shaik, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA PhoneChannel: Using The Web and TV to Augment The Telephone ................................................... 23 Andrea Basso, AT&T Labs (research), USA; David Goldberg, AT&T Labs (research), USA; Steve Greenspan, AT&T Labs (research), USA; David Weimer, AT&T Labs (research), USA Effect of Streaming Video on the Decision Maker: An E-Commerce Case ........................................... 29 Barbara Beccue, Illinois State University, USA; Joaquin Vila, Illinois State University, USA Utilizing Interactive Instructional Strategies to Improve Teaching and Learning in Web-assisted Courses ............................................................................................................................. 33 John Bennett, Stephens College, USA Instructional Design Attributes of Web-Based Courses ........................................................................ 38 Joy Bi, Ohio University, USA Digitizing a Cultural Heritage - The Key Issue for Preservation and Electronic Publishing ............... 44 Manfred Bogen, GMD - IMK.VaS, Germany; Christian Bonkowski, GMD - IMK.VaS, Germany; Marion Borowski, GMD - IMK.VaS, Germany; Jobst Löffler, GMD - IMK.VaS, Germany; Enhancing Interactivity for Self-Evaluation in XML-based Courseware ............................................... 50 Florin Bota, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; Fulvio Corno, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; Laura Farinetti, Politecnico di Torino, Italy Using Multi-user Distributed Virtual Environments in Education ......................................................... 56 Christos Bouras, Computer Technology Institute, Greece; Alexandros Philopoulos, Univ. Of Patras, Greece; Thrasyvoulos Tsiatsos, Computer Technology Institute, Greece The Eurydices System: Objectives and Services ................................................................................... 63 Kostas Bovilas, University of Patras, Greece; Aspasia Kanta, University of Patras, Greece; Christos Makris, University of Patras, Greece; John Tsaknakis, University of Patras, Greece; Athanassios Tsakalidis, University of Patras, Greece; Jim Prentzas, University of Patras, Greece; Evaggelos Sakkopoulos, University of Patras, Greece;Spyros Sioutas,University of Patras,Greece;Bill Vassiliadis,University of Patras,Greece Concept-Based Courseware Engineering for Large Scale Web-based Education ............................... 69 Peter Brusilovsky, Carnegie Technology Education, USA Developing Web-based Tutoring Agents Using CORBA ....................................................................... 75 Lilian Cao, New Jersey Institue of Technology, USA; Goldgen Bengu, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA Complex Knowledge Representation in a Web Course ......................................................................... 81 Ana A. Carvalho, University of Minho, Portugal
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The Eurydices System: Objectives and Services
Kostas Bovilas, Aspasia Kanta, Christos Makris, Jim Prentzas, Evaggelos Sakkopoulos, Spyros Sioutas, Athanasios Tsakalidis, John Tsaknakis, Bill Vassiliadis Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics University of Patras, 26500 Patras Greece and Computer Technology Institute, Research Unit 5 P.O. Box 1122, 26110 Patras, Greece tsaknaki@ceid.upatras.gr
Abstract: In this paper, we present the objectives and the services of Eurydices, an extranet-based system aiming to teach virtual classes of geographically dispersed academic participants. Eurydices has unique features enabling it to cover efficiently all aspects of tele-training environments for the Greek Universities Network (GUNet). The system integrates an extranet with advanced distance learning applications offering on-line and off-line content delivery. In this way, the sense of collaboration among the participants is intensified. In total, compared to traditional distance learning tools the system's ultimate advantages will comprise its training efficiency as well as its ability to reach more students.
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Introduction
It is widely recognized that there is an increasing need to improve training in modern society, and especially in higher education. Network technology and especially the WWW provides the potential to revolutionize training and education to the same degree as it has revolutionized access to information and communications for users around the globe (Shaw et al. 1996). However, a number of issues need to be addressed if these technologies are to be applied successfully to deliver a positive and effective learning experience for students and learners in the academic context. New powerful and flexible solutions are required to deliver content and facilitate collaboration of University courses. The Intranet/ Extranet technology provides the potential to foster the sense of community that is lacking in current distance learning applications. The creation of a more learner centric environment is certain to increase student success. Such learning environments bridge the gap from simple course delivering applications to CSCW systems for collaboration and team working. Although there are plenty of tools in the market for delivering and managing course material, the specific needs of the Greek Universities Network (GUNet) imposed the development of a new application, the Eurydices system (Tsakalidis et al., 1999; Bovilas et al. 2000). Eurydices should be fully tailored to serve needs such as: • Efficient delivering of multimedia content, • Integration of horizontal (general) and vertical (course-specific) content, • Management of virtual classes, • Seamless collaboration through advanced services tailored to specific needs. Each of these areas presents its own challenges in defining practical approaches and solutions, but without complete coverage, these issues can degrade the performance and return on investment in training technology. In this work we present an overall description of the Eurydices system. Section 2 describes the objectives of the system while section 3 analyzes the offered services. Finally, in section 4 we describe the future directions of our work.
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Objectives
Our vision for distance learning is a seamless networked learning environment, which integrates all the advantages of an Extranet with an advanced distance learning application with on-line and off-line content delivery
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capability. The end user, GUNet is a large University network of 18 Greek Universities and 14 Technical Institutes connected through a high bandwidth line of about 34 Mbits. Members of this network have access to advanced telematic services ranging from Internet access to distance training with multimedia support. In the case of such a large academic network, partnership between institutions was offering a mutual benefit that could not be ignored. Additionally, the advanced network infrastructure made it possible to harness the potential of synchronous and asynchronous communication technologies to create powerful and learner-centered application for all members.
Figure 1: Service categorization
The Eurydices system was designed to be the prototype of a networked learning environment that could make education and training more accessible, convenient, focused and effective for virtual classrooms across the network. The idea of creating an educational Extranet would create the possibility not only to deliver content but also to efficiently administer both user groups (virtual classrooms) and services. More specifically, the objectives of the Eurydices system are to: • take advantage of synchronous communication technologies, such as desktop video teleconferencing to enable live, real-time interaction between instructors and students, • use asynchronous communication technologies, such as e-mail, databases, libraries, and the Internet, to support off-line interactions and access to information resources, • use extranet technology in order to administer user and network services. User services (see fig. 1) include: • Information sharing and management – an instructor should be able to easily create and publish the latest course material for immediate use by the students, • Navigation – finding information from any location within or from outside the network, • Communication and Collaboration - accessing online discussion groups,
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• Access through a mix of computer platforms and operating systems, by using a common user interface. Network Services include: • Directory - Administrators can centrally track and manage information about users and services, • Security - Using authentication, information can be shared or protected as needed. An administrator can issue privileges for a project to virtual classroom members while protecting information from unauthorized use. • Management - Administrators must be able to centrally and remotely manage all network resources. Especially, the concept of virtual classrooms is difficult to accomplish especially when participants originate from different academic institutions and sometimes have different study interests. A significant part of the educational process should be the interaction with the instructor and other students. Students and instructors are used to classrooms, and they need to adjust their learning and teaching styles, respectively. For example, in one class, two students who work at different institutions can both share resources of the Extranet for a specific course. Additionally, each student can individually access resources in his University intranet. Through collaboration services these students should be able to exchange this additional information between them or with the whole class.
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Main Features of the Application
The challenge was to implement the right combination of course delivery and extranet technologies to create an efficient networked learning environment (see fig. 2). This environment should be consistent with the mission of educational providers and learner expectations. The technology combination should also ensure that the strengths of one technology address the weaknesses of the other. We expect this ability to be improved in future versions of the system.
Figure 2: The front page of the system
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User Services
User services are divided into two categories namely synchronous and asynchronous services. Asynchronous Services • Information sharing and management. This service provides extensive mechanisms for delivering and authoring course content providing a user interface that fully facilitates the Greek language. It contains an environment which allows authors to construct courses on-line using a standard Web browser. Courses are
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constructed using tools, much like as documents are outlined in popular word processors. Additionally, courses can be modified, with entire new chapters added or removed. • Efficient course delivery through the use of hypertext and multimedia technologies. The navigation scheme follows the hierarchical model where content is distributed in chapters, sections and subsections. On-line help is available via messages, thus making use of the system as simple as possible even for novice users. • Fast Authoring. This feature allows authors to quickly and easily create courses. Courses can be refined over time, improving both the quality of course material and the content, and taking into account any changes in the subject matter. This provides a powerful and flexible system, which directly supports modularity, reusability and redundancy in course creation. Future versions will include the personalized course development feature. This feature will enable instructors to modify an individual student's coursework without affecting others in the class. For example, if a student is having difficulty in some area of a course and communicates this to an instructor, the instructor can assign additional background material to assist him. • Testing. Exercises or tests are an invaluable aid to both the learner and the instructor. The service allows courseware authors to create tests that can be graded by an instructor. • E-mail and multimedia announcements. Email is used primarily by instructors for broadcasting messages to class members, and by students sending out messages to their classmates. Multimedia announcements use video and audio messages which are posted in specific areas accessible only by class members. Synchronous Services Synchronous services are the key element for creating a sense of community to both students and instructors. The system provides a set of tools that enable user to interact with each other and share applications and resources. Synchronous services include videoconferencing, application sharing and chat tools. Especially, the videoconferencing support is the most effective mean of cooperation when used for lectures, student reports, and instructor-controlled discussion. The chat tools is used just like IRC. The application sharing is useful for presentations, both during class and project development and presentations. The whiteboard provides an easy way to sketch figures, just like a whiteboard would be used in a classroom lecture.
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Network Service
Network services include directory, security and remote management services. - Directory services: This service manages a number of shared workspaces, that is a repository for shared information, accessible to members of virtual classes or individuals. The system has the ability to manage workspaces for different classes and work groups, while a user may be member of more than one workspace (e.g. one workspace for each course a student is involved with). A shared workspace can contain different kinds of information such as documents, pictures, Web links to servers or FTP sites residing on the Internet etc. The contents of each workspace are represented as files arranged in folders (see fig.3). Each file is represented by an icon, which denotes the type of information contained in the file (e.g. file type, content description etc.). Access to information stored in a shared workspace is restricted to users who possess a valid login and password. The system uses an authentication server to obtain the identity of the user. Members of a shared workspace can also upload/download information from their computer to/from the workspace but cannot set rights to control which users have the permission to access this information or which operations (delete, modify) can be performed by them. - Security: The main objective was to achieve a balance between securing the system and making it easy to use for all categories of end users. Complicated security procedures may discourage users from using the system thus decreasing its value as a teaching tool. Although it was important for the system to be as open as possible to endusers a number of security measures had to be taken: • Confidentiality: verifying that parts of information is restricted to specific user groups and therefore accessed only by their members, • Authentication: identifying users to ensure that the party attempting to access a given area is a member of the appropriate group, • Integrity: verifying that information received (e.g. file upload) is the information that was put there by the originator, • Access control: verifying that resources are under the control of the authorized parties and ensuring that the person attempting to access/modify them has the authority to do so.
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Figure 3: Managing the shared workspace - Remote Management: this service enables the administrator of the system to grant /modify rights of users or user groups. The system addresses the following issues in relation with access rights: • Application-oriented access rights. Support for various levels of workspace sharing, • Flexibility and ease of use. Access rights depend on who is doing what and therefore are highly dynamic. The administrator can easily modify user or group rights depending on specific needs. • Roles. Authorization is given to roles (e.g. instructors, students), rather than to individual users.
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Conclusions and Future work
In this paper, we described the key features of Eurydices, an extranet-based system for course delivery and collaboration. This tool has some unique features, which are necessary in the demanding environment of Greek Universities. We plan to strengthen the services the system offers by incorporating techniques for discovering groups of students with similar interests or expertise. The techniques will make use only of the similarity between the accesses of the students to the web pages corresponding to different courses, ignoring the representation and the content of the information that is being accessed. This so called social recommendation approach is closely related to the collaborative filtering notion (see Goldberg et al. 1992) since it can be used to manipulate the flow of information from the system to the end-users in such a way that students being classified in the same group will get the same kind of information. We plan to implement the above service by using the spectral filtering method (see Chakrabarti 1998, Kleinberg 1998), a method that is closely related to the notion of a graph spectrum (see Chung 1998). Future versions will be enhanced with more data and user management capabilities such as advanced session control
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and synchronous network services. Our final target is to develop a framework that will cover efficiently all aspects of tele-training environments for the Greek Universities network.
References
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