UM Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

In this paper we are going to show how to discover interesting prediction rules from student usage information to improve adaptive web courses. We have used AHA! to make courses that adapt both the presentation and the navigation... more

In this paper we are going to show how to discover interesting prediction rules from student usage information to improve adaptive web courses. We have used AHA! to make courses that adapt both the presentation and the navigation depending on the level of knowledge that each particular student has. We have performed several modifications in AHA! to specialize it and power it in the educational area. Our objective is to discover relations between all the picked-up usage data (reading times, difficulty levels and test results) from student executions and show the most interesting to the teacher so that he can carry out the appropriate modifications in the course to improve it.

Web 2.0 has emerged as the business ideology and development paradigm for the next generation of web applications. This paper proposes the use of personalisation techniques to enhance the functionality of web mashups, one of the most... more

Web 2.0 has emerged as the business ideology and development paradigm for the next generation of web applications. This paper proposes the use of personalisation techniques to enhance the functionality of web mashups, one of the most popular Web 2.0 applications. A prototype of a personalised travel assistant which combines interactive maps with public data pulled from the Internet is presented. An experimental study with the prototype points at opportunities and challenges mashups bring to personalisation research.

Abstract. In this paper we explore findings from three experiments that use minimally invasive sensors with a web based geometry tutor to create a user model. Minimally invasive sensor technology is mature enough to equip classrooms of up... more

Abstract. In this paper we explore findings from three experiments that use minimally invasive sensors with a web based geometry tutor to create a user model. Minimally invasive sensor technology is mature enough to equip classrooms of up to 25 students with four sensors at the same time while using a computer based intelligent tutoring system. The sensors, which are on each student's chair, mouse, monitor, and wrist, provide data about posture, movement, grip tension, arousal, and facially expressed mental states. This data ...

In this paper we explore findings from three experiments that use minimally invasive sensors with a web based geometry tutor to create a user model. Minimally invasive sensor technology is mature enough to equip classrooms of up to 25... more

In this paper we explore findings from three experiments that use minimally invasive sensors with a web based geometry tutor to create a user model. Minimally invasive sensor technology is mature enough to equip classrooms of up to 25 students with four sensors at the same time while using a computer based intelligent tutoring system. The sensors, which are on each student’s chair, mouse, monitor, and wrist, provide data about posture, movement, grip tension, arousal, and facially expressed mental states. This data may provide adaptive feedback to an intelligent tutoring system based on an individual student’s affective states. The experiments show that when sensor data supplements a user model based on tutor logs, the model reflects a larger percentage of the students’ self-concept than a user model based on the tutor logs alone. The models are further expanded to classify four ranges of emotional self-concept including frustration, interest, confidence, and excitement with over 78% accuracy. The emotional predictions are a first step for intelligent tutor systems to create sensor based personalized feedback for each student in a classroom environment. Bringing sensors to our children’s schools addresses real problems of students’ relationship to mathematics as they are learning the subject.

Adaptive scaffolding has been proposed as an efficient means for supporting self-directed learning both in educational as well as in adaptive learning systems research. However, the effects of adaptation on self-directed learning and the... more

Adaptive scaffolding has been proposed as an efficient means for supporting self-directed learning both in educational as well as in adaptive learning systems research. However, the effects of adaptation on self-directed learning and the differential contributions of different adaptation models have not been systematically examined. In this paper, we examine whether personalized scaffolding in the learning process improves learning. We conducted a controlled lab study in which 29 students had to solve several tasks and learn with the help of an adaptive learning system in a within-subjects control condition design. In the learning process, participants obtained recommendations for learning goals from the system in three conditions: fixed scaffolding where learning goals were generated from the domain model, personalized scaffolding where these recommendations were ranked according to the user model, and random suggestions of learning goals (control condition). Students in the two experimental conditions clearly outperformed students in the control condition and felt better supported by the system. Additionally, students who received personalized scaffolding selected fewer learning goals than participants from the other groups.

... 10 we expand on the single-catchment developments for mul-tiple cascading catchments. ... A case study is also presented to illustrate the severity of stormwater management problems from both ... arch-aeological excavations of... more

... 10 we expand on the single-catchment developments for mul-tiple cascading catchments. ... A case study is also presented to illustrate the severity of stormwater management problems from both ... arch-aeological excavations of settlements in the Indus and Tigris river basins have ...

This PhD Thesis develops an optimal recommender. First of all, users accessing to a Web site are clustered. If a user belongs to a cluster, the system offers services which are usually accessed by users from the same cluster in a... more

This PhD Thesis develops an optimal recommender. First of all, users accessing to a Web site are clustered. If a user belongs to a cluster, the system offers services which are usually accessed by users from the same cluster in a collaborative filtering scheme. A novel approach based on a users simulator and a dynamic recommendation system is proposed. The simulator is used to create the situations that one can find in a Web site. Introduction of dynamics in the recommender allows to change the clusters and in turn, the decisions which are taken. Since the system is based both on supervised and unsupervised learning whose borders are not too clear in our approach, we talk about a pseudo-supervised learning.

This research paper presents the positive effect of incorporating individuals’ working memory (WM) span as a personalization factor in terms of improving users’ academic performance in the context of adaptive educational hypermedia. The... more

This research paper presents the positive effect of incorporating individuals’ working memory (WM) span as a personalization factor in terms of improving users’ academic performance in the context of adaptive educational hypermedia. The psychological construct of WM is robustly related to information processing and learning, while there is a wide differentiation of WM span among individuals. Hence, in an effort to examine the role of cognitive and affective factors in adaptive hypermedia along with psychometric user profiling considerations, WM has a central role in the authors’ effort to develop a user information processing model. Encouraged by previous findings, a larger scale study has been conducted with the participation of 230 university students in order to elucidate if it is possible through personalization to increase the performance of learners with lower levels of WM span. According to the results, users with low WM performed better in the personalized condition, which involved segmentation of the web content and aesthetical annotation, while users with medium/high WM span were slightly negatively affected by the same techniques. Therefore, it can by supported it is possible to specifically address the problem of low WM span with significant results.

Abstract. We investigate the utility of an eye tracker for providing information on users' affect and reasoning. To do so, we conducted a user study, results from which show that users' pupillary responses differ significantly... more

Abstract. We investigate the utility of an eye tracker for providing information on users' affect and reasoning. To do so, we conducted a user study, results from which show that users' pupillary responses differ significantly between positive and negative affective states. As far as reasoning is concerned, while our analysis shows that larger pupil size is associated with more constructive reasoning events, it also suggests that to disambiguate between different kinds of reasoning, additional information may be needed. Our results show that pupillary ...