Author: Ana Elena Guerrero Roldán
Programme: Doctoral Programme on the Information and Knowledge Society
Language: Catalan
Supervisors: Dr Julià Minguillón and Dr Josep Prieto
Faculty / Institute: Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3)
Subjects: Higher Education, Universities, Engineering, Technologies
Key words: IMS-LD, Adaptive learning, Adaptive learning pathways, e-learning
+ Link to project
Summary
The inclusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the field of education has made possible the creation of new environments for education that facilitate the processes of teaching and learning, adding new tools and features and making training possible for any individual using a distance and asynchronous model. The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) is a university arising from the information society that has its own virtual learning environment, a unique laboratory for educational innovation. Following the "Bologna Declaration" and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the UOC's educational model is centred on the concept of activity as a means for the student to achieve new competences and, as a distance learning institution, the UOC is increasingly committed to flexibility and adaptability of the learning process.
In this context, this thesis tries to facilitate the learning process of each student by means of ICT. The work presented proposes adaptive learning paths using IMS-learning design (IMS-LD) in order to achieve adaptive learning. Adaptive learning provides students at all times with activities and resources that best fit their profile, giving each student a specific learning path. Consequently, there is a constant adaptation to the progression of the students that can facilitate their learning process, thus becoming a first step towards personalization, one of the EHEA main objectives.
Our proposal describes the conceptual design of adaptive learning paths as well as their creation and implementation using IMS-LD. It also analyses the edition and run-time processes of the adaptive learning paths using the selected tools (ReCourse and CopperCore) showing their limitations when this adaptive scenario is taken into account and providing solutions to the encountered shortcomings. Finally, as a proof of concept, we present two different experiments performed with subjects of the department of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications of the UOC. In these experiments, different adaptive learning paths have been implemented and tested using IMS-LD, providing the basis for a first step towards the introduction of adaptive learning paths in higher education.