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This paper presents work-in-progress regarding the definition and deployment of a pilot case study, which aims at supporting lifelong learning through the use of Blockchain technology. This pilot case study uses Blockchain technology in order to provide lifelong learners with transparent and immutable educational accreditation in the form of Smart Blockchain Badges. Additionally, within this pilot case study lifelong learners are provided with personalised recommendations that help them reach their personal and professional learning goals. This paper presents the latest findings from piloting Smart Blockchain Badges with stakeholders from the education community in the context of this pilot case study.

Open Educational Resources (OERs), now available in large numbers, have a considerable potential to improve many aspects of society, yet one of the factors limiting this positive impact is the difficulty to discover them. This study investigates and proposes strategies to better support educators in discovering OERs, mainly focusing on secondary education. The literature suggests that the effectiveness of existing search systems could be improved by supporting high-level and domain-oriented tasks. Hence a preliminary taxonomy of discovery-related tasks was developed, based on the analysis of the literature, interpreted through Information Foraging Theory. This taxonomy was empirically evaluated with a few experienced educators, to preliminary identify an interesting class of Query By Examples (QBE) expansion by similarity tasks, which avoids the need to decompose natural high-level tasks in a complex sequence of sub-tasks. Following the Design Science Research methodology, three prototypes to support as well as to refine those tasks were iteratively designed, implemented, and evaluated involving an increasing number of educators in usability oriented studies. The resulting high-level and domain-oriented blended search/recommendation strategy, transparently replicates Google searches in specialized networks, and identifies similar resources with a QBE strategy. It makes use of a domain-oriented similarity metric based on shared schema.org/LRMI alignments to educational frameworks, and clusters results in expandable classes of comparable degree of similarity. The summative evaluation shows that educators appreciate this exploratory-oriented strategy because – balancing similarity and diversity – it supports their high-level tasks, such as lesson planning and personalization of education.

This paper explores machine learning algorithms that can be used to predict student results in an assignment of a Software Engineering course, based on weekly cumulative average source code submissions to GitLab. GitLab is a source code version control system, commonly used in Software Engineering courses in Higher Education. The aim of this work is to create models that can be used to predict if a group of students in a team will pass or fail an assignment. In this paper, we present results from Decision Tree, Random Forest, Extra Trees, Ada Boost and Gradient Boosting machine learning models. These models were evaluated using cross-validation, with Ada Boost achieving the highest average score.

Blockchain technology provides a decentralised peer-to-peer infrastructure, supporting openness, transparency, accountability, identity management and trust. As such, the Blockchain has the potential to revolutionise education in a number of ways. Blockchain technology offers opportunities to thoroughly rethink how we find educational content and training services online, how we register and pay for them, as well as how we get accredited for what we have learned and how this accreditation affects our career trajectory. This paper explores a case study on the decentralisation of lifelong learning using Blockchain technology. In particular, we investigate the different scenarios and requirements for making online education and lifelong learning more open and decentralised, while placing lifelong learners in control of their learning process and its associated data. Additionally, we discuss various approaches to the Semantic Blockchain and the applications of these approaches on education.

Personal Learning Environments have recently emerged as a novel approach to learning, putting learners in the spotlight and providing them with the tools for building their own learning environments according to their specific learning needs and aspirations. This approach enables learners to take complete control over their learning, thus becoming self-regulated and independent. This paper introduces a European initiative for supporting and enhancing inquiry-based learning via a personal and social toolkit. This approach aims at supporting students in developing their self-regulated learning skills by conducting scientific inquiries in collaboration with their peers.

Cloud Education Environment

weweSPOT is a new European initiative proposing a novel approach for personal and social inquiry-based learning in secondary and higher education. weSPOT aims at enabling students to create their mash-ups out of cloud-based tools and services in order to perform scientific investigations. Students will also be able to share their inquiry accomplishments in social networks and receive feedback from the learning environment and their peers. This paper presents the research framework of the weSPOT project, as well as the initial inquiry-based learning scenarios that will be piloted by the project in real-life educational settings.SPOT is a new European initiative proposing a novel approach for personal and social inquiry-based learning in secondary and higher education. weSPOT aims at enabling students to create their mash-ups out of cloud-based tools and services in order to perform scientific investigations. Students will also be able to share their inquiry accomplishments in social networks and receive feedback from the learning environment and their peers. This paper presents the research framework of the weSPOT project, as well as the initial inquiry-based learning scenarios that will be piloted by the project in real-life educational settings.

The ROLE project (Responsive Open Learning Environments) is focused on the next generation of Personal Learning Environments (PLE). In this paper, we first describe the engineering process used to create either a new widget bundle, a group of applications or service widgets. The widgets integrated in a ROLE PLE consist of two cloud-based services, a social networking and a mind-mapping tool, where learners can perform and collaborate on learning activities. We also modified other widgets to create a complete learning experience. The whole platform is running on a cloudcomputing infrastructure and one of the services is using a cloud-based database. Additionally, we describe the initial experiences from using this cloud education environment in Galileo University, Guatemala, in a web-based course with students from three different Latin-American countries. We measured emotional aspects, motivation, usability and attitudes towards the environment. The results demonstrated the readiness of cloud-based education solutions, and how ROLE can bring together such an environment from a PLE perspective.

This study presents an exploratory approach to identify the main factors of Personal Learning Environment (PLE) adoption and diffusion within commercial organisations. Utilising an inductive investigative approach via the use of Grounded Theory methodology, relevant adoption factors were identified and their resulting influence during various stages of the innovation diffusion process were proposed. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews followed by systematic analysis using a three-staged coding process. The results revealed 10 factors affecting the adoption of PLEs influencing the innovation diffusion process at various stages. Informed by the Technology Acceptance Model and Innovation Diffusion Theory, the proposed model could have important implications for key decision makers within commercial organisations, while adopting, rejecting and assimilating new technological innovations (e.g. PLE) for learning delivery.

This paper presents the initial implementation, deployment and evaluation of a pilot case study, aiming at supporting lifelong learning through the use of Blockchain technology. This pilot case study uses Blockchain technology for decentralising lifelong learning and providing lifelong learners with transparent and immutable educational accreditation in the form of Smart Blockchain Badges. At the same time, lifelong learners are provided with personalised recommendations that help them reach their personal and professional learning goals. This paper presents a web-based prototype implementing the main scenario of this pilot case study, as well as the initial deployment and evaluation phases conducted with stakeholders from the education community.

The aim of this qualitative study is to investigate how young citizens engage with urban inquiries activities on Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). This work analyses how educators can design and assess short inquiry activities as well as how students use a PLE to interact and collaborate for creating scientific questions. Participants of this qualitative study were 5 researchers from Higher Education, 2 science teachers and a class with 26 teenagers of a secondary school in the UK. The outcomes indicate the most popular pedagogical tools used by teachers and researchers, the most used co-inquiry components by learners, difficulties and recommendations for implementing urban inquiries through two open platforms: weSPOT and nQuire.

In the following paper, we present Noracle, a tool for creating representational artefacts of metacognitive thinking in a collaborative, social environment. The tool uses only question asking, rather than the typical question/answer paradigm found in threaded discussions, as a mechanism for supporting awareness and reflection on metacognitive activity, and for supporting self- regulated learning. The weblike artefact produced by learner contributions is intended to support learners in mapping a given domain, identifying points of convergence and recognizing gaps in the knowledge representation. In this paper, the authors present the model of the tool, a use case scenario and a discussion of the opportunities and limitations related to this approach.

The EUCLID project is developing an educational curriculum about Linked Data, supported by multimodal Open Educational Resources (OERs) tailored to the real needs of data practitioners. The EUCLID OERs facilitate professional training for data practitioners, who aim to use Linked Data in their daily work. The EUCLID OERs are implemented as a combination of living learning materials and activities (eBook, online courses, webinars, face-to-face training), produced via a rigorous process and validated by the user community through continuous feedback.

The ROLE project (Responsive Open Learning Environments, EU 7th Framework Programme, grant agreement no.: 231396, 2009-2013) was focused on the next generation of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). A ROLE PLE is a bundle of interoperating widgets - often realised as cloud services - used for teaching and learning. In this paper, we first describe the creation of new ROLE widgets and widget bundles at Galileo University, Guatemala, within a cloud-based infrastructure. We introduce an initial architecture for cloud interoperability services including the means for collecting interaction data as needed for learning analytics. Furthermore, we describe the newly implemented widgets, namely a social networking tool, a mind-mapping tool and an online document editor, as well as the modification of existing widgets. The newly created and modified widgets have been combined in two different bundles that have been evaluated in two web-based courses at Galileo University, with participants from three different Latin-American countries. We measured emotional aspects, motivation, usability and attitudes towards the environment. The results demonstrated the readiness of cloud-based education solutions, and how ROLE can bring together such an environment from a PLE perspective.

This demo shows work in progress on a Web 2.0 infrastructure for mathematical problem solving. Our aim is to make undergraduate-level mathematics easier to learn: our strategy is to link problems and solved examples to prerequisite material drawn from an existing free/open mathematical knowledge repository, the encyclopedia at PlanetMath.org.

The Forging Online Education through FIRE (FORGE) initiative provides educators and learners in higher education with access to world-class FIRE testbed infrastructure. FORGE supports experimentally driven research in an eLearning environment by complementing traditional classroom and online courses with interactive remote laboratory experiments. The project has achieved its objectives by defining and implementing a framework called FORGEBox. This framework offers the methodology, environment, tools and resources to support the creation of HTML-based online educational material capable accessing virtualized and physical FIRE testbed infrastruc- ture easily. FORGEBox also captures valuable quantitative and qualitative learning analytic information using questionnaires and Learning Analytics that can help optimise and support student learning. To date, FORGE has produced courses covering a wide range of networking and communication domains. These are freely available from FORGEBox.eu and have resulted in over 24,000 experiments undertaken by more than 1,800 students across\ud 10 countries worldwide. This work has shown that the use of remote high- performance testbed facilities for hands-on remote experimentation can have a valuable impact on the learning experience for both educators and learners. Additionally, certain challenges in developing FIRE-based courseware have been identified, which has led to a set of recommendations in order to support the use of FIRE facilities for teaching and learning purposes.

Self-regulated learning (SRL) competences are crucial for lifelong learning. Their cultivation requires the right balance between freedom and guidance during the learning processes. Current learning systems and approaches, such as personal learning environments, give overwhelming freedom, but also let weak learners alone. Other systems, such as learning management systems or adaptive systems, tend to institutionalise learners too much, which does not support the development of SRL competences. This chapter presents possibilities and approaches to support SRL by the use of technology. After discussing the theoretical background of SRL and related technologies, a formal framework is presented that describes the SRL process, related competences, and guidelines. Furthermore, a variety of methods is presented, how learners can be supported to learn in a self-regulated way.

Learning Analytics Dashboards (LAD) provide a means to leverage data to support learners, teachers, and counselors. This paper reports on an in-depth analysis of how learners interact with a LAD. N=1,406 first-year students in 12 different study programs were invited to use a LAD to support them in their transition from secondary to higher education. The LAD provides actionable feedback about five of the learning skills assessed by the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI): concentration, anxiety, motivation, test strategies, and time management. We logged access to and behavior within the LAD and analyzed their relationship with these learning skills. While eight out of ten students accessed the LAD, students with lower time management scores tend to have a lower click-trough rate. Once within the LAD, students with lower scores for specific learning skills are accessing the corresponding information and remediation possibilities more often. Regardless of their scores for any of the other learning skills, learners with higher motivation scores are reading the remediation possibilities for the other four learning skills more often. Gender and study program have an influence on how learners use the LAD. Our findings may help both researchers and practitioners by creating awareness about how LAD use in itself may depend on the context and profile of the learner. ispartof: CEUR Workshop Proceedings ispartof: Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Awareness and Reflection in Technology Enhanced Learning co-located with the 12th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2017) vol:1997 ispartof: ARTEL Workshop @ EC-TEL 2017 location:Tallin, Estonia status: published

In this chapter, the concept of Personal Learning Environment is first refined taken into account recent advances and the experience gathered in a European research project dedicated to responsive open learning environments. A prototypal implementation of a Web 2.0 platform enabling the construction, the sharing, and the repurposing of personal learning environments is then introduced. Participatory design and validation activities carried out in the framework of higher education test beds aiming at understanding the benefits of personal learning environments in academic institutions are presented. Finally, the broaden applica- tion framework for the deployment and the adoption of open user-centric environ- ments for learning and knowledge management is tackled with perspectives in terms of supporting inquiry learning at school with online laboratories, implementing connectivist massive open online courses or enabling agile informa- tion systems for nongovernmental organizations