alexandra cristea 1 , craig stewart 2 , tim brailsford 2 and paul cristea 3

Department of Computer Science

TU/e

eindhoven university of technology

Evaluation of Interoperability of Adaptive Hypermedia Systems:

testing the MOT to WHURLE conversion in a classroom setting

Alexandra Cristea1, Craig Stewart2, Tim Brailsford2 and Paul Cristea3

1 - Information System Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Computing Science, Technical

University Eindhoven2 - School of Computer Science and IT, University of

Nottingham3 - Digital Signal Processing Laboratory,

“Politehnica” University of Bucharest


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Outline

• Introduction• MOT• WHURLE• MOT2WHURLE conversion• Student Evaluation

– Hypotheses– Results

• Conclusion


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Introduction

• Creation of adaptive hypermedia content:– Extremely time intensive– Complex– Platform lockdown– Lack of standard tools


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Introduction

• Ideal creation of adaptive hypermedia content:– Automated (this will aid with the time

and complexity factors)– Interoperable – Standardised


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Introduction

• Our answer:– Develop a series of tools that will allow

for interoperability between different systems

– We use MOT as an authoring system to author materials for:• AHA! (an AEH)• WHURLE (an AEH)• Blackboard (a non-adaptive commercial

system)


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Introduction

• Here we present an evaluation of the authoring process using MOT and WHURLE

• A class of 31 students were introduced to this new authoring paradigm


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MOT

• My Online Teacher• Based on the LAOS framework• Is a generic AEH delivery system• Also a powerful and simple

authoring system– Web-form, therefore a non-technical

author can easily use it– Very flexible, as it is easy to extend


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MOT

• Domain Maps


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MOT

• Goal and Constraint Maps– AND/OR– Weights– Labels


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WHURLE

• An adaptive XML learning environment

• Basic content building block: Chunk

• Structure applied using Lesson Plans


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MOT2WHURLE

• Currently a command line environment

• Conceptually maps the MOT Goal & Constraints map structure to the WHURLE Lesson Plan– A MOT Concept = WHURLE chunks(s)

• It does this using the MOT weights and labels.


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MOT2WHURLE


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MOT2WHURLE

• These rules are used to determine which MOT attributes are to be aggregated into WHURLE chunks.– ’35’ = visual– ’75’ = verbal– ‘0’ = common


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MOT2WHURLE


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Student Evaluation

• A class of 31 students in the 4th year of study for a technical Masters degree at the University of Bucharest, Romania

• All subjected to a week long intensive course on AH

• After initial lectures, they were given the following task:


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Student Evaluation1. Create 2-3 MOT Domain Concept Maps, with

approximately 5-10 concepts on the http://e-learning.dsp.pub.ro/mot/ MOT server

2. The attributes of each concept were: title; keywords; introduction; text; conclusion and figure. With limits placed on the type and amount of content in each one (this was done so as that each group would not spend their limited time creating a vast corpus of information).

3. Create a single MOT Lesson (Goal & Constraints Map) using their Concepts maps.

4. Alter the lesson so that the weights and labels of each concept agreed with those described in the second Table previoiusly.

5. Run the ‘mot2whurle’ conversion program and copy the files to WHURLE.


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Student Evaluation6. Check that the WHURLE XML files are well-formed.7. Run and login to WHURLE to check that the lesson

matches their design and make any necessary changes.

8. Finally at the end of the week, each student was asked to complete a series of questionnaires: three generic SUS (System Usability Scale) questionnaires, one for each system (MOT, mot2whurle and WHURLE) and a single specific questionnaire designed to determine their level of knowledge about each system, as well as to gather non-statistical information.


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Evaluation hypotheses• The hypotheses that we wished to examine were:

1. The systems (MOT, mot2whurle, WHURLE) are simple and intuitive to use, with a minimum amount of explanation.

2. The students understood the theoretical background (Adaptive Hypermedia, LAOS, Adaptive Strategies) of these systems.

3. The students understood the connection between LAOS and MOT.

4. The students used MOT purely for authoring adaptive hypermedia, and perceived it as such.

5. The students used WHURLE solely for delivering adaptive hypermedia, and perceived it as such.

6. Students consider automatic conversion between one-to-many or many-to-many adaptive hypermedia systems useful.


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Evaluation Results

• SUS scores:– MOT

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

4,5

5

use frequently

complex

easy

need support

well integrated

inconsistency

learn quickly

cumbersome

confident to use

need to learn a lot to use


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• WHURLE

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

4,5

5

use frequently

complex

easy

need support

well integrated

inconsistency

learn quickly

cumbersome

confident to use



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• MOT2WHURLE

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

4,5

5

use frequently

complex

easy

need support

well integrated

inconsistency

learn quickly

cumbersome

confident to use



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Conclusion

alexandra cristea 1 , craig stewart 2 , tim brailsford 2 and paul cristea 3

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