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{{Paper
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|title=DiLibS Platform for a Virtual Education Space
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1427/paper2.pdf
|volume=Vol-1427
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==DiLibS Platform for a Virtual Education Space==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1427/paper2.pdf
DiLibS Platform for a Virtual Education Space
A. Stoyanova-Doycheva E. Doychev V. Ivanova
Faculty of Mathematics and Faculty of Mathematics and Faculty of Mathematics and
Informatics Informatics Informatics
University of Plovdiv, University of Plovdiv, University of Plovdiv,
Bulgaria Bulgaria Bulgaria
astoyanova@uni-plovdiv.net e.doychev@uni-plovdiv.net v.ivanova@uni-plovdiv.net
V. Valkanova S. Stoyanov
Secondary School “Sofronij Vrachanski”, Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics
Plovdiv, University of Plovdiv
Bulgaria Bulgaria
veselina_viva@abv.bg stani@uni-plovdiv.net
Abstract the first projects, called Virtual Education Space
(VES), belongs to the Massachusetts University. It is
The Distributed eLearning Centre (DeLC) an educational intranet for educators and students
developed at the Faculty of Mathematics and which provides a secure and personalized portal with
Informatics aims at the delivery of electronic a set of online tools and resources designed to support
education services and teaching content, preK-12 standards-based education [2]. The primary
personalized and customized for each objective of the system is to improve student learning
individual user. In this paper are presented by collaboratively designing and implementing an
some general characteristics and the educational information management system that
architecture of VES (Virtual Education provides for the effective use and exchange of
Space), a successor to DeLC. In addition, the information among educators and school systems. In
core of a space called DiLibS platform is accordance with [3] learning spaces are: physical,
considered. blended or virtual learning environments that enhance
Keywords as opposed to constrain learning; physical, blended or
virtual ‘areas’ that motivate a user to participate for
eLearning, Virtual Education Space, DeLC, learning benefits; spaces where both teachers and
eLearning Platform, Intelligent Agents. students optimize the perceived and actual
affordances of the space; spaces that promote
1. Introduction authentic learning interactions.
In recent years the interest towards electronic As a result, many universities have developed and
education has been growing stronger. Higher implemented their own systems for electronic and
education is facing a renaissance in terms of its
long-distance education. In line with this trend, a
approaches to teaching and learning and the use of Distributed eLearning Centre (DeLC) project was
physical and virtual spaces. Universities are no longer implemented at the Faculty of Mathematics and
defined by the physical boundaries of their traditional
Informatics at the University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria,
campus but are closely connected to virtual aiming at the development of an infrastructure for
environments [1]. It is expected that a virtual context-aware delivery of electronic education
education space, integrating physical and virtual
services and teaching content, personalized and
worlds and supporting various learning approaches, customized for each individual user [4,5]. DeLC is a
styles and forms will contribute to the achievement of reference architecture, supporting a reactive,
any-time, any-where and any-how education. One of
proactive and personalized provision of education
Copyright © 2015 for the individual papers by the papers' authors.
Copying permitted only for private and academic purposes.
In: A. Bădică, M. Colhon (eds.): Proceedings of the 2015 Balkan
Conference on Informatics: Advances in ICT
10
services and electronic content. The DeLC services offered by it. The reorganization does not
architecture is modeled as a network which consists disturb the function of other nodes (as nodes are
of separate nodes, called eLearning Nodes. Nodes autonomous self-sufficient educational units
model real units (laboratories, departments, faculties, providing one or more integral educational services).
colleges, and universities), which offer a complete or Wired and wireless access to the eLearning services
partial educational cycle. Each eLearning Node is an and teaching content has been implemented in DeLC.
autonomous host of a set of electronic services. The The current DeLC infrastructure consists of two
configuration of the network edges is such as to separate education clusters [6]. The first one, known
enable the access, incorporation, use and integration as MyDeLC, delivers educational services and
of electronic services located on the different teaching content through an educational portal. The
eLearning Nodes. The eLearning Nodes can be second one provides mobile access to services and
isolated or integrated in more complex virtual content over an extended local network called
Education Portal
Operatives
DiLib
Guards
Personal Assistants
Admin
Figure 1. Virtual Education Space
structures, called clusters. Remote eService activation InfoStations.
and integration is possible only within a cluster. In the The Virtual Education Space (VES) is developing
network model we can easily create new clusters, as a successor to DeLC and it accounts for two
reorganize or remove existing clusters (the important tendencies in the development of the
reorganization is done on a virtual level, it does not Internet and the Web. The first tendency is the
affect the real organization). For example, the transformation of the Internet into Internet of Things
reorganization of an existing cluster can be made not [7] stimulating the origin of cyber-physical social
by removing a node but by denying access to the systems which will lead to essential technological,
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economical and sociological consequences in the The personal assistants operate as typical
following years. This type of systems can introduce entry points while the education portal of
new approaches and scenarios for solving complex DeLC is a specialized entry point; a user has
problems in the field of electronic education. The to be in possession of a personal assistant or
second tendency is the rise and growth of the to use the portal to be able to work in the
Semantic Web [8, 9]. Some ideas for the usage of the space.
semantic web in electronic education are presented in The VES architecture contains different types of
[10]. At the current moment using the capabilities of components. Assistants play an important role in the
the Semantic Web in electronic education is the space. Three types of assistants are supported in the
subject of strong scientific interest. space (Figure 1.). The personal assistants have to
In thе first section, a general overview of the VES perform two main functions providing the needed
architecture is presented. The second section “entry points” of the space. Firstly, they operate as an
examines the core of the virtual education space, interface between their owners and the space and, if
known as the DiLibS platform. Two use cases are necessary, carry out activities related to
discussed in the third section. personalization and adaptation. Secondly, they
interact with other assistants in the space in order to
2. VES Architecture start and control the execution of the generated plans.
Our goal is to develop the virtual space with the In certain cases they operate as an intermediary for
following features: the activation of scenarios or services. The personal
• Intelligent – it can continuously monitor assistants will usually be deployed over the users’
what is happening in it, can communicate mobile devices. The specialized assistants are usually
with its inhabitants and neighbourhoods, can located on the server nodes of the VES, known as
make related inferences and decisions and operatives. They support the execution of the plans
act on these decisions [11, 12]; generated by the personal assistants; therefore they
• Context-aware – the ability to find, identify implement suitable interfaces to the available
and interpret the changes (events) in the electronic services and data repositories. Operatives
space [13] and, depending on their nature, to serve two subspaces, known as DiLibs-Subspace and
undertake compensating actions. The main Admin-Subspace respectively. Guards are special
compensating actions (attributes for context- assistants which are responsible for the safety and
dependency) are personalization and efficient execution of the plans in the space. These are
adaptation; usually intelligent devices that react to various
• Scenario-oriented – from a user’s point of physical quantities in the environment, e.g. smoke,
view, the space is a set of separate e-learning temperature, humidity. The guards act as an interface
services and educational scenarios provided between the physical and the virtual world in the
for use through the education portal DeLC or space.
personal assistants. Scenarios are VES is “populated” only by active components
implemented by corresponding workflows known as assistants. Each assistant has to play a role
rendering an account of the environment’s in accordance with its delegated responsibilities. The
state. Thus it is possible to take into account responsibilities (tasks) are implemented or delivered
various temporal characteristics (duration, by electronic services. The electronic services
repetition, frequency, start, or end) of the themselves cannot be separate operational
educational process or events (planned or components of the space because they are suitable for
accidental) which can impede or alter the the implementation of business functionality but are
running of the current educational scenario. static without having the properties to be context-
To deal with emergencies (such as an aware and intelligent. The assistants themselves
earthquake, flood, or fire) there are defined implemented as bounded rational agents are active
emergency scenarios which are executed context-aware intelligent components that support the
with the highest priority; planning, organization and implementation of the
• Controlled infrastructure – access to the educational process.
space’s information resources is only Two subspaces are maintained in the VES:
possible through the so-called "entry points."
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• Digital Library Subspace (DiLibS) – the pure HTTP requests, RESTful services and Web
digital libraries are specialized repositories Sockets. An application in the browser consists of a
where mainly educational content is stored. pure HTML 5 and CSS 3 implementation combined
Furthermore, the operatives of that subspace with dynamics provided by JQuery and
realize interfaces to three components responsiveness delivered by Bootstrap.
supplied to the space by DeLC – SCORM At the server side, the core services provided by
2004 Engine, Test Engine (QTI 2.1. the platform include the minimal functionality needed
compliant) and Event Engine. for the majority of the current web applications:
• Admin-Subspace – it supports all activities • Security – it implements the security
related to the organization, control and mechanism with per roles, per groups and
documentation of the education process. In per users’ rules;
the administrated database is stored all the • Web Content – it allows a definition of static
necessary useful information for planning, web content;
organizing, protocoling and documenting the • Control Panel – the management of the
educational process such as school plans, above services, the plugins, and so on.
programs and schedules, protocols of There are also two additional services that are
examinations, and gradebooks. provided by the platform at a lower level:
The two subspaces are supported by a common • Message Queue – it is used by all the plugins
platform known as DiLibS platform briefly presented and core services as a message bus for
in the next section. asynchronous communication between the
different components;
3. DiLibS Platform • ORM Layer – an object-relational
The platform is built as a dynamic web application transformation layer that is used by all
distributed in two main areas – an education portal components for communication with the
operating as a specialized user interface and server database.
side (Figure 2.). Both areas communicate by using
Application @ Browser
ExtJS JQuery Bootstrap
HTTP REST Web Socket
Application @ Server Side
SCORM Test Teacher Grade P/O/D …
Engine Engine Notebook Book
Hibernate
Message Queue
DB
Figure 2. DiLibS Platform
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That platform is open for extension by using the The data model (Figure 3) allows storage of static
so-called plugins. Each plugin provides unique and dynamic content in the library. The static content
functionality which is integrated in the portal is actually references to real files in the file system. In
seamlessly. Currently, several plugins in a different this way the database is not affected by the size of the
state of completion are supported by the platform. static files. The dynamic content consists of the
The core of the platform is Digital Library which SCORM packages deployed in the system and the
stores educational content. Basically, the content is QTI content, which is related to the assessment
prepared in accordance with the SCORM 2004 subsystem.
standard, but storage in other formats is also possible The content of the current version of the Digital
(.pdf, .ppt, .doc). Library is organized in a hierarchical structure
Figure 3. Digital Library UI & Data Model
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composed by sections. Each section can have mixed platform is used partially in the teaching at the
content – other sections (subsections) and/or undergraduate programs in Informatics at FMI at
resources (static and dynamic). In addition, the Plovdiv University, in the Master program of
Digital Library provides a flexible security Business Informatics and English, and the Master’s
mechanism. It allows the definition of cascading degree program of Software Engineering at the Free
access rules per users, roles and/or role groups. There University in Burgas. At present, more than 2100
are three different access rights: view, download and students and 18 teachers are using the platform.
manage, each of which with several access levels. DiLibS provides educational content in 13 subjects of
The access rules can be defined for a section and the Master program and 7 subjects of the Bachelor’s
cascade down to all subsections in the subtree of that degree program.
section. The final set of access rules for a section is The basic educational services supported by the
composed by a union of the cascaded rules, set by its platform are the following:
supersection, with its own rules (if any). This model • Self-Paced Learning – This service delivers
allows providing the users only with the resources educational content for self-study of
that are relevant for them (based on roles, role groups students, usually in the form of SCORM
or a person) and swipe the rest of the content, which 2004 electronic packages. The SCORM
is part of the personalization concept. Engine, consisting of SCORM Player,
SCORM Manager and SCORM Statistics
4. DiLibS in Practice modules, is implemented according to the
The whole education of students in the Master's ADL’s SCORM 2004 R4 specification [14].
degree program of Software Engineering is planned SCORM was developed to support the
and conducted in accordance with DiLibS. The creation and portable delivery of reusable
Figure 4. Course in Software Technology
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teaching content for self-spaced computer- We will demonstrate the practical use of the
based training. In our case, the teaching system with two examples – the Software
material is stored in a digital library that can Engineering course and the English language course.
be accessed by the students during their self- One of the SCORM e-learning content packages is
study. The SCORM Engine traces the in Software engineering (Figure 4). This package is
progress of the students actually working organised in different sections that cover a specific
with the content. The collected information pedagogical model. After each part of the e-learning
is delivered to the teacher for analysis and content students have to pass a test. When the
evaluation of the students' performance. students have passed the specific test, the next section
• E-testing – The Test Engine is the most of the package is opened. This structure is realized by
commonly used service in the real teaching sequencing and navigation technology in the SCORM
process at the Faculty of Mathematics and standard. Based on the students’ results some
Informatics at Plovdiv University. The statistics are collected – how many students have
access to the functionalities of the engine is passed the package, what percentage of the content
provided by web services for managing, has been covered, etc.
assessing and analyzing digital assessment
content. These services are in direct
communication with multi-agent content and
an assessment management system that is
responsible for providing the digital
information resources requested by users via
the web services from the service layer of
the Test Engine. The Assessment Agent
System manages the digital content by using
the provided REST web services for
• database access to acquire it and cooperative
Figure 5. An example of open and closed questions
work between the existing agents for its
processing. The digital assessment content on a self-study test
that the engine manages is designed as a
final specification fully compliant with the DeLC is integrated in the English language
QTI 2.1 [15]. Defining in such a way the education at the Faculty of Mathematics and
architecture and its provided services Informatics at Plovdiv University by means of the E-
facilitates a wide range of opportunities for testing system. This system is used both for
integrating the proposed Test Engine in the summative assessment in the classroom during the
space. term and at the end of the course, and for formative
• Grade book – the student’s grade-book stores assessment in the foreign language outside the
and analyzes information on the success rate classroom. The medium of self-study tests allows for
of students in all the studied courses. It is acquisition and reinforcement of knowledge and skills
currently being developed in accordance in a relaxed atmosphere in the students’ own homes.
with the Grade Book specification, which is Self-study tests are administered online – they are
included in the Common Cartridge standard published on the DeLC website to help learners to
[16]. practice what they have learned in the classroom
• Teachеr’s notebook – it is designed for the within a validity framework and a time limit set by
analysis of the success rate of students in a the teacher. Their content is relevant to the most
particular course of studies. In addition, it recent study materials and activities performed during
helps the teacher to organize his/her duties the academic classes. In order to gain maximum
during the current education period (it is benefit from the self-study tests and achieve best
being developed at present); results, students are allowed to redo them as many
• Services for planning, organizing and times as needed, in case they are not happy with their
documenting the learning process, including performance. The E-testing system makes use of
different registration services, etc. multiple-choice questions (MCQs) with one correct
answer, MCQs with more than one correct answer,
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strict matching (where the number of questions • DeLC offers the option to set a time limit
corresponds exactly to the number of answers), non- and different validity periods for every test.
strict matching (the number of questions does not • Self-study tests are done online from the
correspond to the number of answers), and open comfort of students’ homes at a convenient
questions (Figure 5.). time within the framework of the test
All self-study tests have the same structure and validity.
method of scoring. The grades that students are given • All questions are placed on one and the same
(from the lowest grade of Poor 2 to the highest of page which facilitates scrolling through the
Excellent 6) correspond to the number of points that various tasks to review, edit and correct
they obtain from all test questions (Figure 6.). Closed items.
questions are graded automatically while long-answer • Students obtain their test results immediately
open questions are evaluated by the teacher and those except for the open question scores which
points are added later to form the student’s final are added after the teacher has evaluated the
grade. Self-study tests are activated on a regular texts.
weekly basis in immediate succession of the • Students can check the grades they have
academic classes at university which allows students obtained on previous tests from their
to become well acquainted with the types of activities accounts.
used for their final course assessment. They provide
educators with essential information which can be 5. Conclusion
used to make decisions about instruction and student In this paper is presented an intelligent, context-
grades. aware, scenario-oriented and controlled infrastructure
known as Virtual Education Space. The kernel of the
space, the DiLibS platform, is implemented for the
provision of teaching material and eLearning services
according to the SCORM 2004 and Common
Cartridge (QTI 2.1., Grade Book) standards. The
DiLibS platform is created through re-engineering of
the existing environment DeLC. Currently, our effort
is focused on expanding and strengthening the
platform with intelligent assistants. In addition, a
workplace for teachers is developed providing
specialized editors for the preparation of teaching
material and electronic tests.
6. Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge the partial support
Figure 6. An illustration of the scoring system and the of the NPD – Plovdiv University under Grant No. NI-
test results obtained from a group of students on a FMI-004 “Innovative Basic and Applied Research in
self-study test Computer Science, Mathematics and Pedagogy
Training”, 2015-2016 and Grant No. IT15-HF-001
Below are some of the advantages of using the “Improving the Access to Educational Services in the
Distributed E-Learning Centre as a medium for self- Context of Lifelong Learning”, 2015-2016.
study tests:
• It is very user-friendly. It allows for various 7. References
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