Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web maps José Bouzo, Helena Batlle, Toni Navarrete, Josep Blat (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) TENCompetence Open Workshop on Current research on IMS Learning Design and Lifelong Competence Development Infrastructures Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Introduction  Humans have used maps since the Stone Age to represent parts of the Earth Catal Hyük, Turkey (6200 BC) Source: Cartographic Images Map of Ga-Sur (2300 BC) Original and reconstruction Source: Cartographic Images

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Introduction  Maps are the most widely used tool to represent those features and phenomena that have a spatial component  Widely used in  Our everyday life  Geography  Other disciplines  History  Economics and Business  Sociology  Politics  Biology  Environmental Science ...

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Maps in education  Maps play a key role in education  Learning how maps work  Scale  Orientation  Distances ...  Understanding the local and global environment, and how human activities take place in these environments

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Maps in eLearning  Maps as static images  Web map services offer the possibility of incorporating more elaborated maps in the learning process  More interactivity  New learning possibilities

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Maps in the assessment process  Maps are often needed to evaluate the acquisition of competences in Geography and related fields  Objective of our work: integration of interactive maps in an eAssessment platform  Visualisation of maps (and typical interaction operations)  Answer questions by  clicking on key elements on the map  sketching points, lines or polygons on the map to represent geographic elements

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 General view AssessmentWeb maps

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Assessment specifications  QTI (Question & Test Interoperability) is the IMS specification for assessment  Last versions:  QTI 2.0: items (questions)  QTI 2.1: tests

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 QTI tools  Engine/player:  APIS (Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments)  Original version by University of Strathclyde, supporting a few types of QTI 2.0 interactions (types of questions)  Largely upgraded by UPF to support:  More interactions types (types of questions)  More data types and more types of expressions (to obtain the corresponding result)  Assessment tests (QTI 2.1):  Internal structure of tests: sections and parts  Processing the outcome for the whole test  Lack of editors

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Google Maps  Google Maps is a simple web-based map viewer  Google Earth is a richer desktop application that provides 3D visualization  They are very popular because  Provide free cartography  Enable non-expert users to visualise their own data (KML files)  Google Maps has a simple API (JavaScript and AJAX)

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Examples of Google Maps

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Connecting APIS and Google Maps Assessment engine/player Web map services MIDDLEWARE APISGoogle Maps

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Connecting APIS and Google Maps: the middleware  It generates the Google Maps JavaScript functions to show a map  It also processes the actions of the user on the map and converts them into QTI responses that can be processed by APIS  The middleware encapsulates all the Google Maps code, and consequently the APIS engine does not need changes  Providing support for WMS would require modifications in the middleware, but not in APIS

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Inserting a map in a question

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Inserting a map in a question … Look at the map and answer the question below; Which is the peninsula that you can see on the map: Italian Peninusula Iberian Peninusula Balkan Peninusula Kola Peninusula... Choice

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Processing answers through the map

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Processing answers through the map Barcelona … Look at the map and answer the question below; Which is the largest city in Catalonia?

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Processing answers through the map Choice "OpcioA.gif" Girona "OpcioB.gif" Barcelona …

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Other ways of interacting with the map

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Other ways of interacting with the map  Map interaction: how the user interacts with the map to produce the response  In the example:  Interaction type (type of question): simple choice question, Italy or outside Italy  Map interaction: pointIntoPolygon  The middleware has to check whether the user has clicked on a polygon containing Italy (defined in the xml file) or not  Depending on the case, it passes to APIS one of the two choices Italy or outside Italy  Other types of map interactions:  Drawing lines, compared to a valid response consisting in a line widened up to a certain distance  Dragging elements, to fit inside polygons ...

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Other ways of interacting with the map

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Conclusions  The use of interactive maps in assessment introduce the possibility of new ways of interacting with questions  Clicking  Drawing  Dragging elements  The middleware approach enables the definition of mapping services for assessment that involve just minor changes to the APIS QTI engine  First step towards:  Combination of different specifications to provide richer contents and interactions in eLearning  A collaborative and multimedia assessment

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Future work  Editor, enabling authors to graphically create map-enabled questions and map interactions  Definition of more new types of map interactions, supporting more spatial operators  Support to OGC Web Map Service specification

Enhancing IMS QTI assessment with web mapsTenCompetence Open Workshop, Barcelona, 21st-22nd June 2007 Thanks for your attention