Università di Bologna CITAM Centro Interfacoltà per le Tecnologie Didattico-Educative Teleaudiovisive “G. Marconi”

European Community Project VirtUE Virtual University for Europe

present DynamicSystem Identification

a project by Roberto Guidorzi on experimenting alternative distribution channels for specialistic and post-master courses

Contents This course describes the use of identification techniques i.e. of procedures that allow constructing mathematical models for dynamical processes on the basis of measures, affected by errors, performed on these processes.

Application areas Every aspect of the world around us is constituted by dynamical processes. Areas where identification techniques can be applied extend from macroeconomy to biology, from finance to ecology, control of industrial processes (chemical, electrical, mechanical, petrochemical etc.), medicine, meteorology etc.

Structure and educational targets The contents of the course are structured into four modules whose proper composition allows to obtain courses equivalent to traditional courses with lengths between 30 and 90 hours and with educational targets ranging from undergraduate to Ph.D. students.

Educational methodologies The learning path is based on three levels of interaction:  between students and course contents (hypertexts and video)  between students and their Tutor  between students and problems concerning real processes (situated learning)

Hypertexts All hypertexts have been composed using scalable vector fonts in a TeX environment and Adobe technology to generate PDF (Portable Document Format) hypertexts. All well-known TeX features are thus joined with the operative flexibility and platform independence of PDF. The use of vector fonts allows obtaining best results at any screen resolution.

Communicating with Tutors An high operational flexibility in accessing a course can be achieved avoiding the use of synchronous communication channels between Tutors and learners (video, audio etc.). The channel implemented inside this course relies on the asynchronous communication potentialities offered by Web servers; among the many advantages, also the possibility of getting real-time confirms of data reception.

Interactive identification laboratory The laboratory has been developed using only Java and relies on efficient implemen- tations of the identification algorithms described in the course. It allows students to perform locally and in a way completely independent from the hardware and software platform that they use, identification experiments on data concerning real processes belonging to several areas.

Process data base The purpose of the course is to make students capable of applying identification techniques in professional environments. This goal can be reached only working on real data; to this purpose the data base of the course contains data measured on real processes belonging to several areas, from finance to ecology, from macroeconomy to meteorology, chemical, petrochemical, electrical processes etc.

FAQ The well known effectiveness of FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) opens another way to integrate the contents of the course focusing the points where the students meet major difficulties. FAQ replies have been inserted on the server as short video clips.