Maurice Hendrix CS411 seminar, 22/10/2009 Adaptation languages for learning: the CAM meta-model

Outline Why personalisation (in educational systems)? Adaptive Hypermedia (AH) Course creation (authoring) by non-technical users Proposed solution Try it for yourself

Why personalisation (in educational systems)? Students benefit from personalised attention Teachers are unable to provide this for every student Systems that can offer this could improve the learning outcomes

Adaptive Hypermedia Hypermedia Set of nodes and links, e.g. web page Adaptive What to adapt : presentation, navigation What to adapt to : user (e.g. preference, knowledge), environment (e.g. device, connection) Can deliver personalised attention Has potential to improve learning outcome

Course creation (authoring) by non-technical users AH course creation more complex than normal web-sites; involves writing adaptation strategy Trade off between expressivity and ease of use by teachers crucial for success of AH Re-usability often limited

Solutions up to now System specific (XML) formats Graph based e.g. AHA! Graph author, without separation into layers (conceptual domain, adaptation strategy, course) Layers based e.g. MOT with LAG. But based on tree structure and separate strategy ‘program’

Proposed solution: Conceptual Adaptation Model Graph based (hypermedia are nodes and links) Concept Adaptation Model Domain model Concept Relation Types User Model

Implications for Adaptation Languages Visual language for DM, (CRT) and CAM XML language for internal repr. DM, CRT, CAM

Visual language DM visual language

Visual language CAM visual language

XML language Common header, with name, description, creation date and date last updated DM: IMS-VDEX based CRT: UM variables in use, constraints on combining CRTs, adaptive behaviour in adaptation language e.g. LAG CAM: contains DM and CRT and instantiation or CRTs with Concepts from DM

CAM based authoring tool

Try it for yourself Grapple Authoring tool (GAT) available at: Your honest (anonymous) opinion is appreciated, let us know at