004 Datenverarbeitung; Informatik
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Institute
Die Orientierung am Outcome eines Lernprozesses stellt einen wichtigen Pfeiler einer kompetenzorientierten Informatiklehre dar. Im Beitrag werden Konzeption und Erfahrungen eines Projekts zur outcome-orientierten Neuausrichtung der Informatiklehre unter Berücksichtigung der Theorie des Constructive Alignment beschrieben. Nach der theoretischen Fundierung der Kompetenzproblematik wird anhand eines Formulierungsmodells ein Prozess zur Erarbeitung beobachtbarer Lernergebnisse dargestellt. Die Diskussion der Projektziele und Erfahrungen in der Umsetzung und Evaluierung unterstreichen die Chancen und Herausforderungen für eine Steigerung der Studienqualität.
Zur Unterstützung von Studierenden in der Studieneingangsphase wurde an der RWTH Aachen ein neuartiger und motivierender Einstieg in den Vorkurs Informatik entwickelt und zum Wintersemester 2011/12 erprobt. Dabei wurde die grafische Programmierung mittels App Inventor eingeführt, die zur Umsetzung anwendungsbezogener Projekte genutzt wurde. In diesem Beitrag werden die Motivation für die Neugestaltung, das Konzept und die Evaluation des Testlaufs beschrieben. Diese dienen als Grundlage für eine vollständige Neukonzeption des Vorkurses für das Wintersemester 2012/2013.
The Semantic Web provides information contained in the World Wide Web as machine-readable facts. In comparison to a keyword-based inquiry, semantic search enables a more sophisticated exploration of web documents. By clarifying the meaning behind entities, search results are more precise and the semantics simultaneously enable an exploration of semantic relationships. However, unlike keyword searches, a semantic entity-focused search requires that web documents are annotated with semantic representations of common words and named entities. Manual semantic annotation of (web) documents is time-consuming; in response, automatic annotation services have emerged in recent years. These annotation services take continuous text as input, detect important key terms and named entities and annotate them with semantic entities contained in widely used semantic knowledge bases, such as Freebase or DBpedia. Metadata of video documents require special attention. Semantic analysis approaches for continuous text cannot be applied, because information of a context in video documents originates from multiple sources possessing different reliabilities and characteristics. This thesis presents a semantic analysis approach consisting of a context model and a disambiguation algorithm for video metadata. The context model takes into account the characteristics of video metadata and derives a confidence value for each metadata item. The confidence value represents the level of correctness and ambiguity of the textual information of the metadata item. The lower the ambiguity and the higher the prospective correctness, the higher the confidence value. The metadata items derived from the video metadata are analyzed in a specific order from high to low confidence level. Previously analyzed metadata are used as reference points in the context for subsequent disambiguation. The contextually most relevant entity is identified by means of descriptive texts and semantic relationships to the context. The context is created dynamically for each metadata item, taking into account the confidence value and other characteristics. The proposed semantic analysis follows two hypotheses: metadata items of a context should be processed in descendent order of their confidence value, and the metadata that pertains to a context should be limited by content-based segmentation boundaries. The evaluation results support the proposed hypotheses and show increased recall and precision for annotated entities, especially for metadata that originates from sources with low reliability. The algorithms have been evaluated against several state-of-the-art annotation approaches. The presented semantic analysis process is integrated into a video analysis framework and has been successfully applied in several projects for the purpose of semantic video exploration of videos.
Organizations try to gain competitive advantages, and to increase customer satisfaction. To ensure the quality and efficiency of their business processes, they perform business process management. An important part of process management that happens on the daily operational level is process controlling. A prerequisite of controlling is process monitoring, i.e., keeping track of the performed activities in running process instances. Only by process monitoring can business analysts detect delays and react to deviations from the expected or guaranteed performance of a process instance. To enable monitoring, process events need to be collected from the process environment. When a business process is orchestrated by a process execution engine, monitoring is available for all orchestrated process activities. Many business processes, however, do not lend themselves to automatic orchestration, e.g., because of required freedom of action. This situation is often encountered in hospitals, where most business processes are manually enacted. Hence, in practice it is often inefficient or infeasible to document and monitor every process activity. Additionally, manual process execution and documentation is prone to errors, e.g., documentation of activities can be forgotten. Thus, organizations face the challenge of process events that occur, but are not observed by the monitoring environment. These unobserved process events can serve as basis for operational process decisions, even without exact knowledge of when they happened or when they will happen. An exemplary decision is whether to invest more resources to manage timely completion of a case, anticipating that the process end event will occur too late. This thesis offers means to reason about unobserved process events in a probabilistic way. We address decisive questions of process managers (e.g., "when will the case be finished?", or "when did we perform the activity that we forgot to document?") in this thesis. As main contribution, we introduce an advanced probabilistic model to business process management that is based on a stochastic variant of Petri nets. We present a holistic approach to use the model effectively along the business process lifecycle. Therefore, we provide techniques to discover such models from historical observations, to predict the termination time of processes, and to ensure quality by missing data management. We propose mechanisms to optimize configuration for monitoring and prediction, i.e., to offer guidance in selecting important activities to monitor. An implementation is provided as a proof of concept. For evaluation, we compare the accuracy of the approach with that of state-of-the-art approaches using real process data of a hospital. Additionally, we show its more general applicability in other domains by applying the approach on process data from logistics and finance.
The objective and motivation behind this research is to provide applications with easy-to-use interfaces to communities of deaf and functionally illiterate users, which enables them to work without any human assistance. Although recent years have witnessed technological advancements, the availability of technology does not ensure accessibility to information and communication technologies (ICT). Extensive use of text from menus to document contents means that deaf or functionally illiterate can not access services implemented on most computer software. Consequently, most existing computer applications pose an accessibility barrier to those who are unable to read fluently. Online technologies intended for such groups should be developed in continuous partnership with primary users and include a thorough investigation into their limitations, requirements and usability barriers. In this research, I investigated existing tools in voice, web and other multimedia technologies to identify learning gaps and explored ways to enhance the information literacy for deaf and functionally illiterate users. I worked on the development of user-centered interfaces to increase the capabilities of deaf and low literacy users by enhancing lexical resources and by evaluating several multimedia interfaces for them. The interface of the platform-independent Italian Sign Language (LIS) Dictionary has been developed to enhance the lexical resources for deaf users. The Sign Language Dictionary accepts Italian lemmas as input and provides their representation in the Italian Sign Language as output. The Sign Language dictionary has 3082 signs as set of Avatar animations in which each sign is linked to a corresponding Italian lemma. I integrated the LIS lexical resources with MultiWordNet (MWN) database to form the first LIS MultiWordNet(LMWN). LMWN contains information about lexical relations between words, semantic relations between lexical concepts (synsets), correspondences between Italian and sign language lexical concepts and semantic fields (domains). The approach enhances the deaf users’ understanding of written Italian language and shows that a relatively small set of lexicon can cover a significant portion of MWN. Integration of LIS signs with MWN made it useful tool for computational linguistics and natural language processing. The rule-based translation process from written Italian text to LIS has been transformed into service-oriented system. The translation process is composed of various modules including parser, semantic interpreter, generator, and spatial allocation planner. This translation procedure has been implemented in the Java Application Building Center (jABC), which is a framework for extreme model driven design (XMDD). The XMDD approach focuses on bringing software development closer to conceptual design, so that the functionality of a software solution could be understood by someone who is unfamiliar with programming concepts. The transformation addresses the heterogeneity challenge and enhances the re-usability of the system. For enhancing the e-participation of functionally illiterate users, two detailed studies were conducted in the Republic of Rwanda. In the first study, the traditional (textual) interface was compared with the virtual character-based interactive interface. The study helped to identify usability barriers and users evaluated these interfaces according to three fundamental areas of usability, i.e. effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. In another study, we developed four different interfaces to analyze the usability and effects of online assistance (consistent help) for functionally illiterate users and compared different help modes including textual, vocal and virtual character on the performance of semi-literate users. In our newly designed interfaces the instructions were automatically translated in Swahili language. All the interfaces were evaluated on the basis of task accomplishment, time consumption, System Usability Scale (SUS) rating and number of times the help was acquired. The results show that the performance of semi-literate users improved significantly when using the online assistance. The dissertation thus introduces a new development approach in which virtual characters are used as additional support for barely literate or naturally challenged users. Such components enhanced the application utility by offering a variety of services like translating contents in local language, providing additional vocal information, and performing automatic translation from text to sign language. Obviously, there is no such thing as one design solution that fits for all in the underlying domain. Context sensitivity, literacy and mental abilities are key factors on which I concentrated and the results emphasize that computer interfaces must be based on a thoughtful definition of target groups, purposes and objectives.
The term Linked Data refers to connected information sources comprising structured data about a wide range of topics and for a multitude of applications. In recent years, the conceptional and technical foundations of Linked Data have been formalized and refined. To this end, well-known technologies have been established, such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF) as a Linked Data model or the SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) for retrieving this information. Whereas most research has been conducted in the area of generating and publishing Linked Data, this thesis presents novel approaches for improved management. In particular, we illustrate new methods for analyzing and processing SPARQL queries. Here, we present two algorithms suitable for identifying structural relationships between these queries. Both algorithms are applied to a large number of real-world requests to evaluate the performance of the approaches and the quality of their results. Based on this, we introduce different strategies enabling optimized access of Linked Data sources. We demonstrate how the presented approach facilitates effective utilization of SPARQL endpoints by prefetching results relevant for multiple subsequent requests. Furthermore, we contribute a set of metrics for determining technical characteristics of such knowledge bases. To this end, we devise practical heuristics and validate them through thorough analysis of real-world data sources. We discuss the findings and evaluate their impact on utilizing the endpoints. Moreover, we detail the adoption of a scalable infrastructure for improving Linked Data discovery and consumption. As we outline in an exemplary use case, this platform is eligible both for processing and provisioning the corresponding information.
Nowadays, software systems are getting more and more complex. To tackle this challenge most diverse techniques, such as design patterns, service oriented architectures (SOA), software development processes, and model-driven engineering (MDE), are used to improve productivity, while time to market and quality of the products stay stable. Multiple of these techniques are used in parallel to profit from their benefits. While the use of sophisticated software development processes is standard, today, MDE is just adopted in practice. However, research has shown that the application of MDE is not always successful. It is not fully understood when advantages of MDE can be used and to what degree MDE can also be disadvantageous for productivity. Further, when combining different techniques that aim to affect the same factor (e.g. productivity) the question arises whether these techniques really complement each other or, in contrast, compensate their effects. Due to that, there is the concrete question how MDE and other techniques, such as software development process, are interrelated. Both aspects (advantages and disadvantages for productivity as well as the interrelation to other techniques) need to be understood to identify risks relating to the productivity impact of MDE. Before studying MDE's impact on productivity, it is necessary to investigate the range of validity that can be reached for the results. This includes two questions. First, there is the question whether MDE's impact on productivity is similar for all approaches of adopting MDE in practice. Second, there is the question whether MDE's impact on productivity for an approach of using MDE in practice remains stable over time. The answers for both questions are crucial for handling risks of MDE, but also for the design of future studies on MDE success. This thesis addresses these questions with the goal to support adoption of MDE in future. To enable a differentiated discussion about MDE, the term MDE setting'' is introduced. MDE setting refers to the applied technical setting, i.e. the employed manual and automated activities, artifacts, languages, and tools. An MDE setting's possible impact on productivity is studied with a focus on changeability and the interrelation to software development processes. This is done by introducing a taxonomy of changeability concerns that might be affected by an MDE setting. Further, three MDE traits are identified and it is studied for which manifestations of these MDE traits software development processes are impacted. To enable the assessment and evaluation of an MDE setting's impacts, the Software Manufacture Model language is introduced. This is a process modeling language that allows to reason about how relations between (modeling) artifacts (e.g. models or code files) change during application of manual or automated development activities. On that basis, risk analysis techniques are provided. These techniques allow identifying changeability risks and assessing the manifestations of the MDE traits (and with it an MDE setting's impact on software development processes). To address the range of validity, MDE settings from practice and their evolution histories were capture in context of this thesis. First, this data is used to show that MDE settings cover the whole spectrum concerning their impact on changeability or interrelation to software development processes. Neither it is seldom that MDE settings are neutral for processes nor is it seldom that MDE settings have impact on processes. Similarly, the impact on changeability differs relevantly. Second, a taxonomy of evolution of MDE settings is introduced. In that context it is discussed to what extent different types of changes on an MDE setting can influence this MDE setting's impact on changeability and the interrelation to processes. The category of structural evolution, which can change these characteristics of an MDE setting, is identified. The captured MDE settings from practice are used to show that structural evolution exists and is common. In addition, some examples of structural evolution steps are collected that actually led to a change in the characteristics of the respective MDE settings. Two implications are: First, the assessed diversity of MDE settings evaluates the need for the analysis techniques that shall be presented in this thesis. Second, evolution is one explanation for the diversity of MDE settings in practice. To summarize, this thesis studies the nature and evolution of MDE settings in practice. As a result support for the adoption of MDE settings is provided in form of techniques for the identification of risks relating to productivity impacts.
Die Studieneingangsphase stellt für Studierende eine Schlüsselphase des tertiären Ausbildungsabschnitts dar. Fachwissenschaftliches Wissen wird praxisfern vermittelt und die Studierenden können die Zusammenhänge zwischen den Themenfeldern der verschiedenen Vorlesungen nicht erkennen. Zur Verbesserung der Situation wurde ein Workshop entwickelt, der die Verbindung der Programmierung und der Datenstrukturen vertieft. Dabei wird das Spiel Go-Moku1 als Android-App von den Studierenden selbständig entwickelt. Die Kombination aus Software (Java, Android-SDK) und Hardware (Tablet-Computer) für ein kleines realistisches Softwareprojekt stellt für die Studierenden eine neue Erfahrung dar.
Erstsemester-Studierende sind mit den Anforderungen des Lehr-/ Lernprozess einer Universität oder Fachhochschule noch nicht vertraut. Ihre Erwartungen orientieren sich vielmehr an ihrer bisherigen Lerngeschichte (Abitur, Fachabitur, o. ä.). Neben den fachlichen Anforderungen des ersten Semesters müssen die Studierenden also auch Veränderungen im Lehr-/Lernprozess erkennen und bewältigen. Es wird anhand einer Output-orientierten
informatischen Lehrveranstaltung aufgezeigt, dass sich aus deren strengen Anforderungen der Messbarkeit klare Kompetenzbeschreibungen ergeben, die besonders dem Orientierungsbedürfnis Erstsemester-Studierender entgegenkommen.
Auf der Grundlage der Planung, Durchführung, Evaluation und Revision eines gemeinsamen Seminars von Medienpädagogik und Didaktik der Informatik stellen wir in diesem Aufsatz dar, wo die Defizite klassischer Medienbildung in Bezug auf digitale bzw. interaktive Medien liegen und welche Inhalte der Informatik für Studierende aller Lehrämter – im allgemeinbildenden Sinne – aus dieser Perspektive relevant erscheinen.
Der folgende Artikel beschreibt die Evaluation eines Lehrvideos zum informatischen Problemlösen, welches auf der Grundlage einer Vergleichsstudie mit starken und schwachen Problemlösern entwickelt wurde. Beispielhaft wird in dem Film ein Färbeproblem durch einen fiktiven Hochleister unter lautem Denken gelöst, die einzelnen Arbeitsschritte werden abschnittsweise kommentiert und erklärt. Ob dieses Lernkonzept von Studenten akzeptiert wird und sich durch Anschauen des Videos tatsächlich ein Lerneffekt einstellt, wurde durch eine Befragung und eine erste Vergleichsstudie untersucht.
In der Lehre zur MCI (Mensch-Computer-Interaktion) stellt sich immer wieder die Herausforderung, praktische Übungen mit spannenden Ergebnissen durchzuführen, die sich dennoch nicht in technischen Details verlieren sondern MCI-fokussiert bleiben. Im Lehrmodul „Interaktionsdesign“ an der Universität Hamburg werden von Studierenden innerhalb von drei Wochen prototypische Interaktionskonzepte für das Spiel Neverball entworfen und praktisch umgesetzt. Anders als in den meisten Grundlagenkursen zur MCI werden hier nicht Mock-Ups, sondern lauffähige Software entwickelt. Um dies innerhalb der Projektzeit zu ermöglichen, wurde Neverball um eine TCP-basierte Schnittstelle erweitert. So entfällt die aufwändige Einarbeitung in den Quellcode des Spiels und die Studierenden können sich auf ihre Interaktionsprototypen konzentrieren. Wir beschreiben die Erfahrungen aus der
mehrmaligen Durchführung des Projektes und erläutern unser Vorgehen bei der Umsetzung. Die Ergebnisse sollen Lehrende im Bereich MCI unterstützen, ähnliche praxisorientierte Übungen mit Ergebnissen „zum Anfassen“ zu gestalten.
Es wird ein Informatik-Wettbewerb für Schülerinnen und Schüler der Sekundarstufe II beschrieben, der über mehrere Wochen möglichst realitätsnah die Arbeitswelt eines Informatikers vorstellt. Im Wettbewerb erarbeiten die Schülerteams eine Android-App und organisieren ihre Entwicklung durch Projektmanagementmethoden, die sich an professionellen, agilen Prozessen orientieren. Im Beitrag werden der theoretische Hintergrund zu Wettbewerben, die organisatorischen und didaktischen Entscheidung, eine erste Evaluation sowie Reflexion und Ausblick dargestellt.
The growing impact of globalisation and the development of
a ‘knowledge society’ have led many to argue that 21st century skills are
essential for life in twenty-first century society and that ICT is central
to their development. This paper describes how 21st century skills, in
particular digital literacy, critical thinking, creativity, communication
and collaboration skills, have been conceptualised and embedded in the
resources developed for teachers in iTEC, a four-year, European project.
The effectiveness of this approach is considered in light of the data
collected through the evaluation of the pilots, which considers both the
potential benefits of using technology to support the development of
21st century skills, but also the challenges of doing so. Finally, the paper
discusses the learning support systems required in order to transform
pedagogies and embed 21st century skills. It is argued that support is
required in standards and assessment; curriculum and instruction; professional
development; and learning environments.
In the project MoKoM, which is funded by the German
Research Foundation (DFG) from 2008 to 2012, a test instrument
measuring students’ competences in computer science was developed.
This paper presents the results of an expert rating of the levels of
students’ competences done for the items of the instrument.
At first we will describe the difficulty-relevant features that were
used for the evaluation. These were deduced from computer science,
psychological and didactical findings and resources. Potentials and
desiderata of this research method are discussed further on. Finally
we will present our conclusions on the results and give an outlook on
further steps.
BugHunt
(2015)
Competencies related to operating systems and computer
security are usually taught systematically. In this paper we present
a different approach, in which students have to remove virus-like
behaviour on their respective computers, which has been induced by
software developed for this purpose. They have to develop appropriate
problem-solving strategies and thereby explore essential elements of
the operating system. The approach was implemented exemplarily in
two computer science courses at a regional general upper secondary
school and showed great motivation and interest in the participating
students.
The objectives of this study were to examine (a) the effect
of dynamic assessment (DA) in a 3D Immersive Virtual Reality
(IVR) environment as compared with computerized 2D and noncomputerized
(NC) situations on cognitive modifiability, and (b) the
transfer effects of these conditions on more difficult problem solving
administered two weeks later in a non-computerized environment. A
sample of 117 children aged 6:6-9:0 years were randomly assigned
into three experimental groups of DA conditions: 3D, 2D, and NC, and
one control group (C). All groups received the pre- and post-teaching
Analogies subtest of the Cognitive Modifiability Battery (CMB-AN).
The experimental groups received a teaching phase in conditions similar
to the pre-and post-teaching phases. The findings showed that cognitive
modifiability, in a 3D IVR, was distinctively higher than in the two
other experimental groups (2D computer group and NC group). It was
also found that the 3D group showed significantly higher performance
in transfer problems than the 2D and NC groups.
This article shows a discussion about the key competencies
in informatics and ICT viewed from a philosophical foundation presented
by Martha Nussbaum, which is known as ‘ten central capabilities’.
Firstly, the outline of ‘The Capability Approach’, which has been presented
by Amartya Sen and Nussbaum as a theoretical framework of
assessing the state of social welfare, will be explained. Secondly, the
body of Nussbaum’s ten central capabilities and the reason for being
applied as the basis of discussion will be shown. Thirdly, the relationship
between the concept of ‘capability’ and ‘competency’ is to be
discussed. After that, the author’s assumption of the key competencies
in informatics and ICT led from the examination of Nussbaum’s ten
capabilities will be presented.
This paper originated from discussions about the need for
important changes in the curriculum for Computing including two focus
group meetings at IFIP conferences over the last two years. The
paper examines how recent developments in curriculum, together with
insights from curriculum thinking in other subject areas, especially mathematics
and science, can inform curriculum design for Computing.
The analysis presented in the paper provides insights into the complexity
of curriculum design as well as identifying important constraints and
considerations for the ongoing development of a vision and framework
for a Computing curriculum.
IT EnGAGES!
(2015)
Durch den Einsatz von Spielen und Spielelementen in Lernkontexten wird versucht, Lernende zur Beschäftigung mit den Lerninhalten zu motivieren. Spielerische Elemente haben allerdings nicht nur positive motivationale Effekte: Sie können sich beispielsweise negativ auf die intrinsische Motivation auswirken, und auch nicht jeder Lernende spielt gerne. Um negativen Einflüssen von Gamification entgegenzuwirken, wurde ein Toolkit für adaptierbare Lernumgebungen entwickelt. Damit erzeugte Lernumgebungen erlauben es Studierenden, den Grad der Gamification selbst zu bestimmen, indem Spielelemente an- und abgeschaltet werden. Im Rahmen einer Anfängerprogrammiervorlesung wurden Lernspielaufgaben aus den existierenden, optionalen interaktiven eTests entwickelt und Studierenden als zusätzliche Lerngelegenheit angeboten. Eine erste explorative Studie bestätigt die Vermutung, dass die Akzeptanz des adaptierbaren Lernspiels sehr hoch ist, es aber dennoch Studierende gibt, welche die Lernumgebung ohne Spielelemente durcharbeiten. Somit bietet adaptierbare Gamification verschiedenen Studierenden die Möglichkeit, sich zusätzliche motivationale Anreize durch Zuschalten von Spielelementen zu verschaffen, ohne dabei zum Spielen „genötigt“ zu werden.
Peer Assessment ist eine Methode, bei der die Teilnehmer eine gestellte Aufgabe nicht nur bearbeiten und einreichen, sondern – in einer zweiten Phase – diese auch gegenseitig überprüfen, kommentieren und bewerten. Durch diese Methode wird, auch in sehr großen Veranstaltungen, das Üben mit individuellen Bewertungen und individuellem Feedback möglich.
Im Wintersemester 2013/14 wurde dieser Ansatz in der Erstsemesterveranstaltung Programmieren an der Technischen Hochschule Nürnberg mit 340 Studierenden als semesterbegleitendes Online-Pflichtpraktikum erprobt. Bei gleichen Leistungsanforderungen wurde bei Studierenden, die erfolgreich am Praktikum teilnahmen, eine Reduzierung der Durchfallquote um durchschnittlich 60 % und eine Verbesserung der Durchschnittsnote um 0,6 – 0,9 Notenstufen erzielt. Zudem lernten die teilnehmenden Studierenden kontinuierlicher, bereiteten Lerninhalte besser nach und gelangten zu einer überwiegend positiven Einschätzung des Praktikums und der Methode. Im E-Learning System Moodle kann Peer Assessment, mit moderatem Umsetzungs- und Betreuungsaufwand, mit der Workshop-Aktivität realisiert werden. Im Beitrag wird auf die Schlüsselelemente des erfolgreichen Einsatzes von Peer Assessment eingegangen.
Es wird ein umfassendes Mentoring Konzept im Studiengang Informatik an der RWTH Aachen vorgestellt, das den Übergang von der Schule zur Universität unterstützt und gleichzeitig beim Auftreten von Schwierigkeiten im Verlauf des Studiums effiziente und kompetente Beratung bietet. Das Programm erreicht durchgängig hohe Akzeptanzwerte bei den Studierenden trotz verpflichtender Teilnahme im ersten Semester. Die Wirksamkeit des Programms ist durch die zahlreichen einflussgebenden Variablen zwar rein quantitativ kaum messbar, die Möglichkeit auf organisatorische und fachliche Probleme eines Jahrgangs reagieren zu können sowie einen Einblick auf die Gründe für einen Studienabbruch zu bekommen, bestätigt aber die Notwendigkeit der Maßnahme.
Der Beitrag stellt das Konzept des Semantischen Positionierens als eine Möglichkeit vor, Grundformen des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens und elementare Formen der diskursiven Auseinandersetzung zu vermitteln, ohne dass die Studierenden sich inhaltlich an der aktuellen Forschung beteiligen müssten. Die Umsetzung dieses Konzepts im Bachelorstudium der Informatik verdeutlicht, dass mit diesem Ansatz sowohl die Kompetenzen für den Übergang in den mehr forschungsgetriebenen Masterstudiengang als auch für die berufliche Wissensarbeit erworben werden können.
Computational thinking is a fundamental skill set that is learned
by studying Informatics and ICT. We argue that its core ideas can
be introduced in an inspiring and integrated way to both teachers and
students using fun and contextually rich cs4fn ‘Computer Science for
Fun’ stories combined with ‘unplugged’ activities including games and
magic tricks. We also argue that understanding people is an important
part of computational thinking. Computational thinking can be fun for
everyone when taught in kinaesthetic ways away from technology.
As a result of the Bologna reform of educational systems in
Europe the outcome orientation of learning processes, competence-oriented
descriptions of the curricula and competence-oriented assessment
procedures became standard also in Computer Science Education
(CSE). The following keynote addresses important issues of shaping
a CSE competence model especially in the area of informatics system
comprehension and object-oriented modelling. Objectives and research
methodology of the project MoKoM (Modelling and Measurement
of Competences in CSE) are explained. Firstly, the CSE competence
model was derived based on theoretical concepts and then secondly the
model was empirically examined and refined using expert interviews.
Furthermore, the paper depicts the development and examination of
a competence measurement instrument, which was derived from the
competence model. Therefore, the instrument was applied to a large
sample of students at the gymnasium’s upper class level. Subsequently,
efforts to develop a competence level model, based on the retrieved empirical
results and on expert ratings are presented. Finally, further demands
on research on competence modelling in CSE will be outlined.
Regardless of what is intended by government curriculum
specifications and advised by educational experts, the competencies
taught and learned in and out of classrooms can vary considerably.
In this paper, we discuss in particular how we can investigate the
perceptions that individual teachers have of competencies in ICT,
and how these and other factors may influence students’ learning. We
report case study research which identifies contradictions within the
teaching of ICT competencies as an activity system, highlighting issues
concerning the object of the curriculum, the roles of the participants and
the school cultures. In a particular case, contradictions in the learning
objectives between higher order skills and the use of application tools
have been resolved by a change in the teacher’s perceptions which
have not led to changes in other aspects of the activity system. We look
forward to further investigation of the effects of these contradictions in
other case studies and on forthcoming curriculum change.
The paper presents two approaches to the development of
a Computer Science Competence Model for the needs of curriculum
development and evaluation in Higher Education. A normativetheoretical
approach is based on the AKT and ACM/IEEE curriculum
and will be used within the recommendations of the German
Informatics Society (GI) for the design of CS curricula. An empirically
oriented approach refines the categories of the first one with regard to
specific subject areas by conducting content analysis on CS curricula of
important universities from several countries. The refined model will be
used for the needs of students’ e-assessment and subsequent affirmative
action of the CS departments.
The paper discusses the issue of supporting informatics
(computer science) education through competitions for lower and
upper secondary school students (8–19 years old). Competitions play
an important role for learners as a source of inspiration, innovation,
and attraction. Running contests in informatics for school students
for many years, we have noticed that the students consider the contest
experience very engaging and exciting as well as a learning experience.
A contest is an excellent instrument to involve students in problem
solving activities. An overview of infrastructure and development
of an informatics contest from international level to the national one
(the Bebras contest on informatics and computer fluency, originated
in Lithuania) is presented. The performance of Bebras contests in 23
countries during the last 10 years showed an unexpected and unusually
high acceptance by school students and teachers. Many thousands of
students participated and got a valuable input in addition to their regular
informatics lectures at school. In the paper, the main attention is paid
to the developed tasks and analysis of students’ task solving results in
Lithuania.
Social networks are currently at the forefront of tools that
lend to Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). This study aimed to
observe how students perceived PLEs, what they believed were the
integral components of social presence when using Facebook as part
of a PLE, and to describe student’s preferences for types of interactions
when using Facebook as part of their PLE. This study used mixed
methods to analyze the perceptions of graduate and undergraduate
students on the use of social networks, more specifically Facebook as a
learning tool. Fifty surveys were returned representing a 65 % response
rate. Survey questions included both closed and open-ended questions.
Findings suggested that even though students rated themselves relatively
well in having requisite technology skills, and 94 % of students used
Facebook primarily for social use, they were hesitant to migrate these
skills to academic use because of concerns of privacy, believing that
other platforms could fulfil the same purpose, and by not seeing the
validity to use Facebook in establishing social presence. What lies
at odds with these beliefs is that when asked to identify strategies in
Facebook that enabled social presence to occur in academic work, the
majority of students identified strategies in five categories that lead to
social presence establishment on Facebook during their coursework.
Teaching Data Management
(2015)
Data management is a central topic in computer science as
well as in computer science education. Within the last years, this topic is
changing tremendously, as its impact on daily life becomes increasingly
visible. Nowadays, everyone not only needs to manage data of various
kinds, but also continuously generates large amounts of data. In
addition, Big Data and data analysis are intensively discussed in public
dialogue because of their influences on society. For the understanding of
such discussions and for being able to participate in them, fundamental
knowledge on data management is necessary. Especially, being aware
of the threats accompanying the ability to analyze large amounts of
data in nearly real-time becomes increasingly important. This raises the
question, which key competencies are necessary for daily dealings with
data and data management.
In this paper, we will first point out the importance of data management
and of Big Data in daily life. On this basis, we will analyze which are
the key competencies everyone needs concerning data management to
be able to handle data in a proper way in daily life. Afterwards, we will
discuss the impact of these changes in data management on computer
science education and in particular database education.
The Student Learning Ecology
(2015)
Educational research on social media has showed that
students use it for socialisation, personal communication, and informal
learning. Recent studies have argued that students to some degree use
social media to carry out formal schoolwork. This article gives an
explorative account on how a small sample of Norwegian high school
students use social media to self-organise formal schoolwork. This
user pattern can be called a “student learning ecology”, which is a
user perspective on how participating students gain access to learning
resources.
This paper discusses results from a small-scale research
study, together with some recently published research into student
perceptions of ICT for learning in schools, to consider relevant skills
that do not appear to currently being taught. The paper concludes by
raising three issues relating to learning with and through ICT that need
to be addressed in school curricula and classroom teaching.
How Things Work
(2015)
Recognizing and defining functionality is a key competence
adopted in all kinds of programming projects. This study investigates
how far students without specific informatics training are able to identify
and verbalize functions and parameters. It presents observations
from classroom activities on functional modeling in high school chemistry
lessons with altogether 154 students. Finally it discusses the potential
of functional modelling to improve the comprehension of scientific
content.
Computational Thinking
(2015)
Digital technology has radically changed the way people
work in industry, finance, services, media and commerce. Informatics
has contributed to the scientific and technological development of our
society in general and to the digital revolution in particular. Computational
thinking is the term indicating the key ideas of this discipline that
might be included in the key competencies underlying the curriculum
of compulsory education. The educational potential of informatics has
a history dating back to the sixties. In this article, we briefly revisit this
history looking for lessons learned. In particular, we focus on experiences
of teaching and learning programming. However, computational
thinking is more than coding. It is a way of thinking and practicing interactive
dynamic modeling with computers. We advocate that learners
can practice computational thinking in playful contexts where they can
develop personal projects, for example building videogames and/or robots,
share and discuss their construction with others. In our view, this
approach allows an integration of computational thinking in the K-12
curriculum across disciplines.
The Technology Proficiency Self-Assessment (TPSA) questionnaire
has been used for 15 years in the USA and other nations as a
self-efficacy measure for proficiencies fundamental to effective technology
integration in the classroom learning environment. Internal consistency
reliabilities for each of the five-item scales have typically ranged
from .73 to .88 for preservice or inservice technology-using teachers.
Due to changing technologies used in education, researchers sought to
renovate partially obsolete items and extend self-efficacy assessment to
new areas, such as social media and mobile learning. Analysis of 2014
data gathered on a new, 34 item version of the TPSA indicates that the
four established areas of email, World Wide Web (WWW), integrated
applications, and teaching with technology continue to form consistent
scales with reliabilities ranging from .81 to .93, while the 14 new items
gathered to represent emerging technologies and media separate into
two scales, each with internal consistency reliabilities greater than .9.
The renovated TPSA is deemed to be worthy of continued use in the
teaching with technology context.
How does the Implementation of a Literacy Learning Tool Kit influence Literacy Skill Acquisition?
(2015)
This study aimed at following how teachers transfer skills
into results while using ABRA literacy software. This was done in
the second part of the pilot study whose aim was to provide equity to
control group teachers and students by exposing them to the ABRACADABRA
treatment after the end of phase 1. This opportunity was
used to follow the phase 1 teachers to see how the skills learned were
being transformed into results. A standard three-day initial training and
planning session on how to use ABRA to teach literacy was held at the
beginning of each phase for ABRA teachers (phase 1 experimental and
phase 2 delayed ABRA). Teachers were provided with teaching materials
including a tentative ABRA curriculum developed to align with the
Kenyan English Language requirements for year 1 and 3 students. Results
showed that although there was no significant difference between
the groups in vocabulary-related subscales which include word reading
and meaning as well as sentence comprehension, students in ABRACADABRA
classes improved their scores at a significantly higher rate
than students in control classes in comprehension related scores. An
average student in the ABRACADABRA group improved by 12 and
16 percentile points respectively compared to their counterparts in the
control group.
In this paper we describe the recent state of our research
project concerning computer science teachers’ knowledge on students’
cognition. We did a comprehensive analysis of textbooks, curricula
and other resources, which give teachers guidance to formulate assignments.
In comparison to other subjects there are only a few concepts
and strategies taught to prospective computer science teachers in university.
We summarize them and given an overview on our empirical
approach to measure this knowledge.
The study reported in this paper involved the employment
of specific in-class exercises using a Personal Response System (PRS).
These exercises were designed with two goals: to enhance students’
capabilities of tracing a given code and of explaining a given code in
natural language with some abstraction. The paper presents evidence
from the actual use of the PRS along with students’ subjective impressions
regarding both the use of the PRS and the special exercises. The
conclusions from the findings are followed with a short discussion on
benefits of PRS-based mental processing exercises for learning programming
and beyond.
Mentoring in a Digital World
(2015)
This paper focuses on the results of the evaluation of the first
pilot of an e-mentoring unit designed by the Hands-On ICT consortium,
funded by the EU LLL programme. The overall aim of this two-year
activity is to investigate the value for professional learning of Massive
Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and Community Online Open Courses
(COOCs) in the context of a ‘community of practice’. Three units in the
first pilot covered aspects of using digital technologies to develop creative
thinking skills. The findings in this paper relate to the fourth unit
about e-mentoring, a skill that was important to delivering the course
content in the other three units. Findings about the e-mentoring unit
included: the students’ request for detailed profiles so that participants
can get to know each other; and, the need to reconcile the different
interpretations of e-mentoring held by the participants when the course
begins. The evaluators concluded that the major issues were that: not all
professional learners would self-organise and network; and few would
wish to mentor their colleagues voluntarily. Therefore, the e-mentoring
issues will need careful consideration in pilots two and three to identify
how e-mentoring will be organised.
A project involving the composition of a number of pieces
of music by public participants revealed levels of engagement with and
mastery of complex music technologies by a number of secondary student
volunteers. This paper reports briefly on some initial findings of
that project and seeks to illuminate an understanding of computational
thinking across the curriculum.
Think logarithmically!
(2015)
We discuss here a number of algorithmic topics which we
use in our teaching and in learning of mathematics and informatics to
illustrate and document the power of logarithm in designing very efficient
algorithms and computations – logarithmic thinking is one of the
most important key competencies for solving real world practical problems.
We demonstrate also how to introduce logarithm independently
of mathematical formalism using a conceptual model for reducing a
problem size by at least half. It is quite surprising that the idea, which
leads to logarithm, is present in Euclid’s algorithm described almost
2000 years before John Napier invented logarithm.
Current curricular trends require teachers in Baden-
Wuerttemberg (Germany) to integrate Computer Science (CS) into
traditional subjects, such as Physical Science. However, concrete guidelines
are missing. To fill this gap, we outline an approach where a
microcontroller is used to perform and evaluate measurements in the
Physical Science classroom.
Using the open-source Arduino platform, we expect students to acquire
and develop both CS and Physical Science competencies by using a
self-programmed microcontroller. In addition to this combined development
of competencies in Physical Science and CS, the subject matter
will be embedded in suitable contexts and learning environments,
such as weather and climate.
The poster and abstract describe the importance of teaching
information security in school. After a short description of information
security and important aspects, I will show, how information security
fits into different guidelines or models for computer science educations
and that it is therefore on of the key competencies. Afterwards I will
present you a rough insight of teaching information security in Austria.
Let’s talk about CS!
(2015)
To communicate about a science is the most important key
competence in education for any science. Without communication we
cannot teach, so teachers should reflect about the language they use in
class properly. But the language students and teachers use to communicate
about their CS courses is very heterogeneous, inconsistent and
deeply influenced by tool names. There is a big lack of research and
discussion in CS education regarding the terminology and the role of
concepts and tools in our science. We don’t have a consistent set of
terminology that we agree on to be helpful for learning our science.
This makes it nearly impossible to do research on CS competencies as
long as we have not agreed on the names we use to describe these. This
workshop intends to provide room to fill with discussion and first ideas
for future research in this field.
Participants of this workshop will be confronted exemplarily
with a considerable inconsistency of global Informatics education at
lower secondary level. More importantly, they are invited to contribute
actively on this issue in form of short case studies of their countries.
Until now, very few countries have been successful in implementing
Informatics or Computing at primary and lower secondary level. The
spectrum from digital literacy to informatics, particularly as a discipline
in its own right, has not really achieved a breakthrough and seems to
be underrepresented for these age groups. The goal of this workshop
is not only to discuss the anamnesis and diagnosis of this fragmented
field, but also to discuss and suggest viable forms of therapy in form of
setting educational standards. Making visible good practices in some
countries and comparing successful approaches are rewarding tasks for
this workshop.
Discussing and defining common educational standards on a transcontinental
level for the age group of 14 to 15 years old students in a readable,
assessable and acceptable form should keep the participants of this
workshop active beyond the limited time at the workshop.
A lot has been published about the competencies needed by
students in the 21st century (Ravenscroft et al., 2012). However, equally
important are the competencies needed by educators in the new era
of digital education. We review the key competencies for educators in
light of the new methods of teaching and learning proposed by Massive
Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and their on-campus counterparts,
Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs).
Die Wahl des richtigen Studienfaches und die daran anschließende
Studieneingangsphase sind oft entscheidend für den erfolgreichen Verlauf eines Studiums. Eine große Herausforderung besteht dabei darin, bereits in den ersten Wochen des Studiums bestehende Defizite in vermeintlich einfachen Schlüsselkompetenzen zu erkennen und diese so bald wie möglich zu beheben. Eine zweite, nicht minder wichtige Herausforderung ist es, möglichst frühzeitig für jeden einzelnen Studierenden zu erkennen, ob er bzw. sie das individuell richtige Studienfach gewählt hat, das den jeweiligen persönlichen Neigungen, Interessen und Fähigkeiten entspricht und zur Verwirklichung der eigenen Lebensziele beiträgt. Denn nur dann sind Studierende ausreichend stark und dauerhaft intrinsisch motiviert, um ein anspruchsvolles, komplexes Studium erfolgreich durchzuziehen. In diesem Beitrag fokussieren wir eine Maßnahme, die die Studierenden an einen Prozess zur systematischen Reflexion des eigenen Lernprozesses und der eigenen Ziele heranführt und beides in Relation setzt.
Ziel einer neuen Studieneingangsphase ist, den Studierenden bis zum Ende des ersten Semesters ein vielfältiges Berufsbild der Informatik und Wirtschaftsinformatik mit dem breiten Aufgabenspektrum aufzublättern und damit die Zusammenhänge zwischen den einzelnen Modulen des Curriculums zu verdeutlichen. Die Studierenden sollen in die Lage versetzt werden, sehr eigenständig die Planung und Gestaltung ihres Studiums in die Hand zu nehmen.
Die Arbeitswelt im Fokus
(2015)
Für Bachelor-Studierende der Wirtschaftsinformatik im zweiten Semester an der Fachhochschule Kiel werden im Modul Informationsmanagement neben klassischen didaktischen Ansätzen in einer seminaristischen Unterrichtsform so genannte „Aktivbausteine“ eingesetzt: Studierende erhalten zum einen die Gelegenheit, sich im Kontakt mit Fach- und Führungskräften aus der Industrie ein konkretes Bild vom Beruf der Wirtschaftsinformatikerin bzw. des Wirtschaftsinformatikers zu machen; zum anderen erarbeiten sie innovative Ansätze der Prozessverbesserung aus Sicht der IT oder mit Nutzenpotenzial für die IT und präsentieren ihre Ergebnisse öffentlich im Rahmen des Kieler Prozessmanagementforums. Diese Aktivbausteine dienen insbesondere der Berufsfeldorientierung: Durch die Informationen, die die Studierenden über die Anforderungen und Tätigkeiten von im Beruf stehenden Menschen erhalten, werden sie in die Lage versetzt, fundierte Entscheidungen bzgl. ihrer Studiengestaltung und Berufswahl zu treffen. Im Beitrag wird die Konzeption der Bausteine vorgestellt und deren Grad der Zielerreichung durch aktuelle Evaluationsergebnisse erläutert. Zudem wird die motivationale Wirkung der Aktivbausteine anhand der Theorie der Selbstbestimmung von Deci und Ryan [DR1985, DR1993, DR2004] erläutert.
Dieser Beitrag diskutiert die Konzeption eines Software-Projektpraktikums im Bereich E-Learning, welches Lehramts- und Fachstudierenden der Informatik ermöglicht, voneinander zu profitieren und praxisrelevante Ergebnisse generiert. Vorbereitungen, Organisation und Durchführung werden vorgestellt und diskutiert. Den Abschluss bildet ein Ausblick auf die Fortführung des Konzepts und den Ausbau des Forschungsgebietes.
Das „Startprojekt“
(2016)
Absolventinnen und Absolventen unserer Informatik-Bachelorstudiengänge benötigen für kompetentes berufliches Handeln sowohl fachliche als auch überfachliche Kompetenzen. Vielfach verlangen wir von Erstsemestern in Grundlagen-Lehrveranstaltungen fast ausschließlich den Aufbau von Fachkompetenz und vernachlässigen dabei häufig Selbstkompetenz, Methodenkompetenz und Sozialkompetenz. Gerade die drei letztgenannten sind für ein erfolgreiches Studium unabdingbar und sollten von Anfang an entwickelt werden. Wir stellen unser „Startprojekt“ als einen Beitrag vor, im ersten Semester die eigenverantwortliche, überfachliche Kompetenzentwicklung in einem fachlichen Kontext zu fördern.
Der Unterricht großer Studierendengruppen im wissenschaftlichen Schreiben birgt vielfältige organisatorische Herausforderungen und eine zeitintensive Betreuung durch die Dozenten. Diese Arbeit stellt ein Lehrkonzept mit Peer-Reviews vor, in dem das Feedback der Peers durch eine automatisierte Analyse ergänzt wird. Die Software Confopy liefert metrik- und strukturbasierte Hinweise für die Verbesserung des wissenschaftlichen Schreibstils. Der Nutzen von Confopy wird an 47 studentischen Arbeiten in Draft- und Final-Version illustriert.
Dieser Beitrag diskutiert den Einsatz von interaktiven und automatischen Theorembeweisern in der universitären Lehre. Moderne Theorembeweiser scheinen geeignet zur Implementierung des dialogischen Lernens und als E-Assessment-Werkzeug in der Logikausbilding. Exemplarisch skizzieren wir ein innovaties Lehrprojekt zum Thema „Komputationale Metaphysik“, in dem die zuvor genannten Werkzeuge eingesetzt werden.
Die Unterrichtsmethode Stationsarbeit kann verwendet werden, um Individualisierung und Differenzierung im Lernprozess zu ermöglichen. Dieser Beitrag schlägt Aufgabenformate vor, die in einer Stationsarbeit über das Klassendiagramm aus der Unified Modeling Language verwendet werden können. Die Aufgabenformate wurden bereits mit Studierenden erprobt.
In order to evade detection by network-traffic analysis, a growing proportion of malware uses the encrypted HTTPS protocol. We explore the problem of detecting malware on client computers based on HTTPS traffic analysis. In this setting, malware has to be detected based on the host IP address, ports, timestamp, and data volume information of TCP/IP packets that are sent and received by all the applications on the client. We develop a scalable protocol that allows us to collect network flows of known malicious and benign applications as training data and derive a malware-detection method based on a neural networks and sequence classification. We study the method's ability to detect known and new, unknown malware in a large-scale empirical study.
Die Vermittlung von Modellierungsfähigkeiten in der Softwaretechnik-Ausbildung konzentriert sich meist auf Modellierungskonzepte, Notationen und Entwicklungswerkzeuge. Die Betrachtung der Modellierungsaktivitäten, etwa die Entwicklung und Gegenüberstellung alternativer Modellvorschläge, steht weniger im Vordergrund. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht zwei Formen des kollaborativen Modellierens am Tabletop in Bezug auf ihren Einfluss auf die Modellierungsaktivitäten in kleinen Gruppen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sowohl selbstorganisierte als auch moderierte Modellierungssitzungen das Entwickeln eines gemeinsamen Modellverständnisses fördern. In moderierten Sitzungen wurden zudem mehr alternative Lösungsideen entwickelt und in stärkerem Maße diskutiert.
Seit Jahren ist der Mangel an Informatiklehrkräften bekannt und wird fachdidaktisch und politisch diskutiert. Aufgrund der geringen Anzahl von Studierenden mit dem Berufsziel Informatiklehrkraft ist eine Vergrößerung des Mangels vorhersehbar. Es stellt sich die Frage, warum so wenige Studierende sich für das Studienziel Lehramt Informatik entscheiden.
Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, die Berufswahl von Informatiklehrkräften aus der individuellen, biographischen Perspektive der Beteiligten zu erforschen und dabei Faktoren zu identifizieren, die die Berufswahl Informatiklehrkraft positiv oder negativ beeinflussen. Der Forschungsschwerpunkt liegt auf der qualitativen empirischen Untersuchung des Berufswahlprozesses, während eine quantitative Befragung aktiver Informatiklehrkräfte zu berufswahlrelevanten Aspekten des Berufsbildes diese ergänzt. Das Forschungskonzept der qualitativen Untersuchung orientiert sich an der Grounded Theory. Es wurden angehende Informatiklehrkräfte zu ihrem Berufswahlprozess befragt, wobei die Daten durch mündliche Interviews, Gruppendiskussionen und schriftliche Berufswahlbiographien erhoben wurden. Die Datenauswertung orientiert sich zudem methodisch an der dokumentarischen Methode nach Ralf Bohnsack.
Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigen, dass der Berufswahlprozess von angehenden Informatiklehrkräften häufig mit Umwegen in Form von Studienzielwechseln verbunden ist. Neben dem eigenen Bild der Informatik und dem Informatikselbstkonzept kommt dem Informatikunterricht der eigenen Schulzeit eine wichtige Rolle in diesem Prozess zu. Von der Lehrerforschung werden die Unterrichtserfahrungen während der eigenen Schulzeit im später studierten Fach als entscheidend für die Fachwahl identifiziert. Dies bestätigt sich in den Berufswahlbiographien derjenigen angehenden Informatiklehrkräfte, die den Informatikunterricht ihrer eigenen Schulzeit positiv erinnern. Diese streben meist direkt in ihrem ersten Studium das Berufsziel Informatiklehrkraft an. Sie hatten zur Schulzeit ein positives Bild der Informatik und ein hohes Informatikselbstkonzept. Der Informatiklehrkraft ihrer Schulzeit bescheinigen sie oft eine berufliche Vorbildfunktion. Allerdings hatten die meisten der befragten angehenden Informatiklehrkräfte selbst keinen Informatikunterricht oder erinnern diesen negativ. Der Weg zum Studium Informatiklehrkraft führt bei diesen Befragten häufig über den Umweg von zunächst anderen Studienentscheidungen, meistens über ein Lehramtsstudium mit anderen Fächern oder ein Informatikstudium. Die Informatikstudierenden haben zum Zeitpunkt ihrer ersten Studienwahl ein positives Bild der Informatik und ein hohes Informatikselbstkonzept aber kein positives Berufsbild Informatiklehrkraft. Ihr Wechsel von einem Informatikstudium zum Studium mit dem Berufsziel Informatiklehrkraft wird in der Regel durch den Wunsch nach einer stärkeren sozialen Komponente im späteren Berufsalltag ausgelöst. Bei den Lehramtsstudierenden, die häufig zunächst ein niedriges Informatikselbstkonzept und/oder ein negatives Bild der Informatik haben, kann es zu einer Umorientierung hin zum Studienziel Informatiklehrkraft kommen, wenn diese Vorstellungen sich während des ersten Studiums – z. B. durch den Besuch von universitären Lehrveranstaltungen zu informatischen Inhalten – ändern. Die letztliche Entscheidung für den Beruf Informatiklehrkraft wird von denjenigen, die ihr Studienziel wechselten, mit Recht als durch Zufälle bestimmt empfunden.
Die Veröffentlichung eines global frei verfügbaren Onlinekurses abseits der großen MOOC Plattformen bringt spezielle Herausforderungen mit sich. Neben technischen Herausforderungen sind eine effiziente Wissensvermittlung und die Erhaltung der Lernmotivation zentral. Der folgende Beitrag stellt Techniken zur Steigerung der Lerneffizienz und -motivation anhand des ARCS Modells vor. Er zeigt auf, wie die verschiedenen Techniken in der Entwicklung des Onlinekurses „Designing Sustainable Food Systems“ umgesetzt wurden und inwieweit sie erfolgreich waren.
Einsatz einer mobilen Lern-App - Ein Werkzeug zur Verbesserung von klinisch-praktischem Unterricht
(2018)
Der Unterricht am Krankenbett ist im Medizinstudium eine wertvolle Möglichkeit klinisch-praktische Fertigkeiten zu erlernen. Eine optimale Vorbereitung der Studierenden ist dabei Voraussetzung. Eine mobile Lern-App wurde entwickelt, die den Studierenden, neben Lernzielen, Kursinhalte und Anleitungen zu Untersuchungstechniken bietet, um die Vorbereitung auf einen klinisch-praktischen Kurs zu fördern und Kurzinformationen auch während des Kurses zur Verfügung zu stellen. 175 Studierende hatten die Möglichkeit die App parallel zu einem klinischen Untersuchungs-Kurs im Semester zu nutzen. Im Anschluss beantworteten die Studierenden einen Fragebogen zur Nützlichkeit und Vielseitigkeit der App und zur Zufriedenheit mit der App unter Verwendung eine 5-Punkt-Likert-Skala und zwei offenen Fragen. In diesem Beitrag wird das Kurskonzept zusammen mit der Lern-App, die Ergebnisse aus dem Fragebogen und unsere Schlussfolgerungen daraus vorgestellt. Studierende bewerteten die App grundsätzlich als hilfreich. Sie sollte dabei gründlich eingeführt werden. Patienten sollten über die Nutzung von Smartphones im Studentenunterricht zu Lernzwecken informiert werden.
Der vorliegende Beitrag berichtet auf der Grundlage von Erfahrungen mit dem Audience Response System (ARS) „Auditorium Mobile Classroom Service“ von Erfolgsfaktoren für den Einsatz in der universitären Lehre. Dabei werden sowohl die technischen Rahmenbedingungen und Herausforderungen der Anwendungen berücksichtigt, als auch die unterschiedlichen didaktischen Konzepte und Ziele der beteiligten Akteure (Studierende, Lehrende und Institution). Ziel ist es, Einflussfaktoren für den erfolgreichen Einsatz sowohl für die Praxis als auch die wissenschaftliche Untersuchung und Weiterentwicklung der Systeme zu benennen und ein heuristisches Framework für Chancen und Herausforderungen beim Einsatz von ARS anzubieten.
Der Beitrag skizziert ein Modell, das die Entwicklung digitaler Kompetenzen im Lehramtsstudium fördern soll. Zwar wird das Kompetenzmodell aus der Deutschdidaktik heraus entwickelt, nimmt aber auch fachübergreifende Anforderungen in den Bereichen Informationskompetenz, medientechnischer Kompetenzen, Fähigkeiten der Medienanalyse und -reflexion sowie Sprachhandlungskompetenz in den Blick. Damit wird das Ziel verfolgt, die besonderen Anforderungen angehender Lehrkräfte als Mediator*innen digitaler Kompetenzen darzustellen. Das beschriebene Modell dieser Vermittlungskompetenz dient der Verankerung digitaler Lehr-Lernkonzepte als wesentlicher Bestandteil der modernen Lehrer*innenbildung.
Um beim Berufseinstieg erfolgreich als Informatiker wirken zu können, reicht es oft nicht aus nur separierte Kenntnisse über technische und theoretische Grundlagen, Programmiersprachen, Werkzeuge und Selbst- und Zeitmanagement zu besitzen. Vielmehr sollten Absolventen diese Kenntnisse praktisch miteinander verzahnt einsetzen können. An der Universität wird Studierenden leider selten die Möglichkeit geboten, diese verschiedenen Bereiche der Informatik miteinander integriert auszuüben. Dafür entwickeln wir seit über zwei Dekaden ein Lehr- und Lernkonzept zur Unterstützung praktischer Softwareentwicklungsveranstaltungen und setzen dieses um. Dadurch bieten wir angehenden SoftwareentwicklerInnen und ProjektmanagerInnen eine Umgebung, in der sie neues, praktisch relevantes Wissen erwerben können, sich selbst praktisch erproben und ihr Wissen konkret einsetzen können. Hier legen wir einen Schwerpunkt auf das Arbeiten im Team. Das hier vorgestellte Konzept kann auf ähnliche Lehrveranstaltungen übertragen und aufgrund seiner Modularisierung verändert und erweitert werden.
Im Rahmen eines Informatikstudiums wird neben theoretischen Grundlagen und Programmierfähigkeiten auch gezielt vermittelt, wie moderne Software in der Praxis entwickelt wird. Dabei wird oftmals eine Form der Projektarbeit gewählt, um Studierenden möglichst realitätsnahe Erfahrungen zu ermöglichen. Die Studierenden entwickeln einzeln oder in kleineren Teams Softwareprodukte für ausgewählte Problemstellungen. Neben fachlichen Inhalte stehen durch gruppendynamische Prozesse auch überfachliche Kompetenzen im Fokus. Dieser Beitrag präsentiert eine Interviewstudie mit Dozierenden von Softwareprojektpraktika an der RWTH Aachen und konzentriert sich auf die Ausgestaltung der Veranstaltungen sowie Förderung von überfachlichen Kompetenzen nach einem Kompetenzprofil für Softwareingenieure.
Empirische Untersuchungen von Lückentext-Items zur Beherrschung der Syntax einer Programmiersprache
(2018)
Lückentext-Items auf der Basis von Programmcode können eingesetzt werden, um Kenntnisse in der Syntax einer Programmiersprache zu prüfen, ohne dazu komplexe Programmieraufgaben zu stellen, deren Bearbeitung weitere Kompetenzen erfordert. Der vorliegende Beitrag dokumentiert den Einsatz von insgesamt zehn derartigen Items in einer universitären Erstsemestervorlesung zur Programmierung mit Java. Es werden sowohl Erfahrungen mit der Konstruktion der Items als auch empirische Daten aus dem Einsatz diskutiert. Der Beitrag zeigt dadurch insbesondere die Herausforderungen bei der Konstruktion valider Instrumente zur Kompetenzmessung in der Programmierausbildung auf. Die begrenzten und teilweise vorläufigen Ergebnisse zur Qualität der erzeugten Items legen trotzdem nahe, dass Erstellung und Einsatz entsprechender Items möglich ist und einen Beitrag zur Kompetenzmessung leisten kann.
Was ist Data Science?
(2018)
In Zusammenhang mit den Entwicklungen der vergangenen Jahre, insbesondere in den Bereichen Big Data, Datenmanagement und Maschinenlernen, hat sich der Umgang mit Daten und deren Analyse wesentlich weiterentwickelt. Mittlerweile wird die Datenwissenschaft als eigene Disziplin angesehen, die auch immer stärker durch entsprechende Studiengänge an Hochschulen repräsentiert wird. Trotz dieser zunehmenden Bedeutung ist jedoch oft unklar, welche konkreten Inhalte mit ihr in Verbindung stehen, da sie in verschiedensten Ausprägungen auftritt. In diesem Beitrag werden daher die hinter der Data Science stehenden informatischen Inhalte durch eine qualitative Analyse der Modulhandbücher etablierter Studiengänge aus diesem Bereich ermittelt und so ein Beitrag zur Charakterisierung dieser Disziplin geleistet. Am Beispiel der Entwicklung eines Data-Literacy-Kompetenzmodells, die als Ausblick skizziert wird, wird die Bedeutung dieser Charakterisierung für die weitere Forschung expliziert.
In diesem Artikel werden die Ergebnisse einer explorativen Datenanalyse über die Studierendenperformance in Klausur- und Hausaufgaben eines Einführungskurses der Theoretischen Informatik vorgestellt. Da bisher empirisch wenig untersucht ist, welche Probleme Studierenden in den Einführungskursen haben und die Durchfallquoten in diesen Kursen sehr hoch sind, soll auf diesem Weg ein Überblick gegeben werden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass alle Studierenden unabhängig von ihrer Klausurnote die niedrigste Performance in den Klausur- und Hausaufgaben aufweisen, in denen formale Beweise gefordert sind. Dieses Ergebnis stärkt die Vermutung, dass didaktische
Ansätze und Maßnahmen sich insbesondere auf das Erlernen formaler Beweismethoden fokussieren sollten, um Informatik-Studierende nachhaltiger dabei zu unterstützen, in Theoretischer Informatik erfolgreich zu sein.
Die Lehre von wissenschaftlichem Arbeiten stellt einen zentralen Aspekt in forschungsorientierten Studiengängen wie der Informatik dar. Trotz diverser Angebote werden mittel- und langfristig Mängel in der
Arbeitsqualität von Studierenden sichtbar. Dieses Paper analysiert daher das Profil der Studierenden, deren Anwendung des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens, und das Angebot von Proseminaren zum Thema „Einführung in das wissenschaftliche Arbeiten“ einer deutschen Universität. Die Ergebnisse mehrerer Erhebungen zeigen dabei diverse Probleme bei Studierenden auf, u. a. bei dem Prozessverständnis, dem Zeitmanagement und der Kommunikation.
Um für ein Leben in der digitalen Gesellschaft vorbereitet zu sein, braucht jeder heute in verschiedenen Situationen umfangreiche informatische Grundlagen. Die Bedeutung von Informatik nimmt nicht nur in immer mehr
Bereichen unseres täglichen Lebens zu, sondern auch in immer mehr Ausbildungsrichtungen. Um junge Menschen auf ihr zukünftiges Leben und/oder ihre zukünftige berufliche Tätigkeit vorzubereiten, bieten verschiedene Hochschulen Informatikmodule für Studierende anderer Fachrichtungen an. Die Materialien jener Kurse bilden einen umfangreichen Datenpool, um die für Studierende anderer Fächer bedeutenden Aspekte der Informatik mithilfe eines empirischen Ansatzes zu identifizieren. Im Folgenden werden 70 Module zu informatischer Bildung für Studierende anderer Fachrichtungen analysiert. Die Materialien – Publikationen, Syllabi und Stundentafeln – werden zunächst mit einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse nach Mayring untersucht und anschließend quantitativ ausgewertet. Basierend auf der Analyse werden Ziele, zentrale Themen und Typen eingesetzter Werkzeuge identifiziert.
Students of computer science studies enter university education with very different competencies, experience and knowledge. 145 datasets collected of freshmen computer science students by learning management systems in relation to exam outcomes and learning dispositions data (e. g. student dispositions, previous experiences and attitudes measured through self-reported surveys) has been exploited to identify indicators as predictors of academic success and hence make effective interventions to deal with an extremely heterogeneous group of students.
Vorlesungs-Pflege
(2018)
Ähnlich zu Alterungsprozessen bei Software degenerieren auch Vorlesungen, wenn sie nicht hinreichend gepflegt werden. Die Gründe hierfür werden ebenso beleuchtet wie mögliche Indikatoren und Maßnahmen – der Blick ist dabei immer der eines Informatikers. An drei Vorlesungen wird erläutert, wie der Degeneration von Lehrveranstaltungen
gegengewirkt werden kann. Mangels hinreichend großer empirischer Daten liefert das Paper keine unumstößlichen Wahrheiten. Ein Ziel ist es vielmehr Kollegen, die ähnliche Phänomene beobachten, einen ersten Anker für einen
inneren Diskurs zu bieten. Ein langfristiges Ziel ist die Sammlung eines Katalogs an Maßnahmen zur Pflege von Informatikvorlesungen.
In der dualen IT-Ausbildung als Verbindung von beruflicher und akademischer Qualifikation werden die berufstypischen Werkzeuge, wie z. B. Laptops, ebenso in den Lehr-Lern-Prozessen der akademischen Unterrichtseinheiten eingesetzt. Im Prüfungswesen wird oft auf klassische Papierklausuren zurückgegriffen. Unterrichtseinheiten mit hohem Blended-Learning-Anteil ohne E-Prüfung werden dabei als „nicht konsistent“ wahrgenommen. In diesem Artikel wird eine empirische Studie dargelegt, die untersucht, welche Einflüsse aus der persönlichen Lernbiografie bei den Lehrenden in einer dualen IT-Ausbildung dazu führen können, die Möglichkeiten eines E-Assessments als summative Modulprüfung anzunehmen oder abzulehnen. Beispielhaft wurden in der dargelegten Studie Interviews mit Dozenten geführt und diese hinsichtlich der Verbindung zwischen Lernbiografie, Gestaltung der Didaktik der Lehr-Lern-Prozesse, Zufriedenheit und Veränderungsbereitschaft untersucht.
Berufsbegleitende Studiengänge stehen vor besonderen Schwierigkeiten, für die der Einsatz von Blended Learning-Szenarien sinnvoll sein kann. Welche speziellen Herausforderungen sich dabei ergeben und welche Lösungsansätze dagegen steuern, betrachtet der folgende Artikel anhand eines Praxisberichts aus dem Studiengang M. P. A. Wissenschaftsmanagement an der Universität Speyer.
MOOCs have been produced using a variety of instructional design approaches and frameworks. This paper presents experiences from the instructional approach based on the ADDIE model applied to designing and producing MOOCs in the Erasmus+ strategic partnership on Open Badge Ecosystem for Research Data Management (OBERRED). Specifically, this paper describes the case study of the production of the MOOC “Open Badges for Open Science”, delivered on the European MOOC platform EMMA. The key goal of this MOOC is to help learners develop a capacity to use Open Badges in the field of Research Data Management (RDM). To produce the MOOC, the ADDIE model was applied as a generic instructional design model and a systematic approach to the design and development following the five design phases: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation. This paper outlines the MOOC production including methods, templates and tools used in this process including the interactive micro-content created with H5P in form of Open Educational Resources and digital credentials created with Open Badges and issued to MOOC participants upon successful completion of MOOC levels. The paper also outlines the results from qualitative evaluation, which applied the cognitive walkthrough methodology to elicit user requirements. The paper ends with conclusions about pros and cons of using the ADDIE model in MOOC production and formulates recommendations for further work in this area.
Clustering in education is important in identifying groups of objects in order to find linked patterns of correlations in educational datasets. As such, MOOCs provide a rich source of educational datasets which enable a wide selection of options to carry out clustering and an opportunity for cohort analyses. In this experience paper, five research studies on clustering in MOOCs are reviewed, drawing out several reasonings, methods, and students’ clusters that reflect certain kinds of learning behaviours. The collection of the varied clusters shows that each study identifies and defines clusters according to distinctive engagement patterns. Implications and a summary are provided at the end of the paper.
The COVID-19 pandemic emergency has forced a profound reshape of our lives. Our way of working and studying has been disrupted with the result of an acceleration of the shift to the digital world. To properly adapt to this change, we need to outline and implement new urgent strategies and approaches which put learning at the center, supporting workers and students to further develop “future proof” skills. In the last period, universities and educational institutions have demonstrated that they can play an important role in this context, also leveraging on the potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which proved to be an important vehicle of flexibility and adaptation in a general context characterised by several constraints. From March 2020 till now, we have witnessed an exponential growth of MOOCs enrollments numbers, with “traditional” students interested in different topics not necessarily integrated to their curricular studies. To support students and faculty development during the spreading of the pandemic, Politecnico di Milano focused on one main dimension: faculty development for a better integration of digital tools and contents in the e-learning experience. The current discussion focuses on how to improve the integration of MOOCs in the in-presence activities to create meaningful learning and teaching experiences, thereby leveraging blended learning approaches to engage both students and external stakeholders to equip them with future job relevance skills.
In this paper, we take a closer look at the development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) in Norway. We want to contribute to nuancing the image of a sound and sustainable policy for flexible and lifelong learning at national and institutional levels and point to some critical areas of improvement in higher education institutions (HEI). 10 semistructured qualitative interviews were carried out in the autumn 2020 at ten different HE institutions across Norway. The informants were strategically selected among employees involved in MOOC-technology, MOOCproduction and MOOC-support over a period of time stretching from 2010–2020. A main finding is that academics engaged in MOOCs find that their entrepreneurial ideas and results, to a large extent, are overlooked at higher institutional levels, and that progress is frustratingly slow. So far, there seems to be little common understanding of the MOOC-concept and the disruptive and transformative effect that MOOC-technology may have at HEIs. At national levels, digital strategies, funding and digital infrastructure are mainly provided in governmental silos. We suggest that governmental bodies and institutional stake holders pay more attention to entrepreneurial MOOC-initiatives to develop sustainability in flexible and lifelong learning in HEIs. This involves connecting the generous funding of digital projects to the provision of a national portal and platform for Open Access to education. To facilitate sustainable lifelong learning in and across HEIs, more quality control to enhance the legitimacy of MOOC certificates and micro-credentials is also a necessary measure.
In the context of the Fostering Women to STEM MOOCs (FOSTWOM) project, we present here the general ideas of a gender balance Toolkit, i.e. a collection of recommendations and resources for instructional designers, visual designers, and teaching staff to apply while designing and preparing storyboards for MOOCs and their visual components, so that future STEM online courses have a greater chance to be more inclusive and gender-balanced. Overall, The FOSTWOM project intends to use the inclusive potential of Massive Open Online Courses to propose STEM subjects free of stereotyping assumptions on gender abilities. Moreover, the consortium is interested in attracting girls and young women to science and technology careers, through accessible online content, which can include role models’ interviews, relevant real-world situations, and strong conceptual frameworks.
If taking a flipped learning approach, MOOC content can be used for online pre-class instruction. After which students can put the knowledge they gained from the MOOC into practice either synchronously or asynchronously. This study examined one such, asynchronous, course in teacher education. The course ran with 40 students over 13 weeks from February to May 2020. A case study approach was followed using mixed methods to assess the efficacy of the course. Quantitative data was gathered on achievement of learning outcomes, online engagement, and satisfaction. Qualitative data was gathered via student interviews from which a thematic analysis was undertaken. From a combined analysis of the data, three themes emerged as pertinent to course efficacy: quality and quantity of communication and collaboration; suitability of the MOOC; and significance for career development.
In an attempt to pave the way for more extensive Computer Science Education (CSE) coverage in K-12, this research developed and made a preliminary evaluation of a blended-learning Introduction to CS program based on an academic MOOC. Using an academic MOOC that is pedagogically effective and engaging, such a program may provide teachers with disciplinary scaffolds and allow them to focus their attention on enhancing students’ learning experience and nurturing critical 21st-century skills such as self-regulated learning. As we demonstrate, this enabled us to introduce an academic level course to middle-school students. In this research, we developed the principals and initial version of such a program, targeting ninth-graders in science-track classes who learn CS as part of their standard curriculum. We found that the middle-schoolers who participated in the program achieved academic results on par with undergraduate students taking this MOOC for academic credit. Participating students also developed a more accurate perception of the essence of CS as a scientific discipline. The unplanned school closure due to the COVID19 pandemic outbreak challenged the research but underlined the advantages of such a MOOCbased blended learning program above classic pedagogy in times of global or local crises that lead to school closure. While most of the science track classes seem to stop learning CS almost entirely, and the end-of-year MoE exam was discarded, the program’s classes smoothly moved to remote learning mode, and students continued to study at a pace similar to that experienced before the school shut down.
Developing highly skilled researchers is essential to accelerate the economic progress of developing countries such as Cambodia in South East Asia. While there is continuing research investigating Cambodia’s potential to cultivate such a workforce, the circumstances of undergraduate students in public provincial universities do not receive ample attention. This is crucial as numerous multinational corporations are participating via foreign direct investments in special economic zones at the border provinces and need talented human resources in Cambodia as well as in neighboring Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam. Student’s research capability growth starts with one’s belief in their capacity to use the necessary information tools and their potential to succeed in research. In this research paper, we look at how such beliefs, specifically research self-efficacy and information literacy, can be developed through a short-term intervention that uses MOOCs and assess their long-term effects. Our previous research has shown that short-term training intervention has immediate positive effects on the undergraduate students’ self-efficacies in Cambodian public provincial universities. In this paper, we present the follow-up study results conducted sixteen months after the said short-term training intervention. Results reveal that from follow-up evaluations that while student’s self-efficacies were significantly higher than before the short-term intervention was completed, they were lower than immediately after the intervention. Thus, while perfunctory interventions such as merely introducing the students to MOOCs and other relevant research tools over as little as three weeks can have significant positive effects, efforts must be made to sustain the benefits gained. This implication is essential to developing countries such as Cambodia that need low-cost solutions with immediate positive results in developing human resources to conduct research, particularly in areas far from more developed capital cities.
The goal of this paper is to study the demand factors driving enrollment in massive open online courses. Using course level data from a French MOOC platform, we study the course, teacher and institution related characteristics that influence the enrollment decision of students, in a setting where enrollment is open to all students without administrative barriers. Coverage from social and traditional media done around the course is a key driver. In addition, the language of instruction and the (estimated) amount of work needed to complete the course also have a significant impact. The data also suggests that the presence of same-side externalities is limited. Finally, preferences of national and of international students tend to differ on several dimensions.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation, which has forced people to quickly adapt to working and collaborating online. Learning in digital environments has without a doubt gained increased significance during this rather unique time and, therefore, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have more potential to attract a wider target audience. This has also brought about more possibilities for global collaboration among learners as learning is not limited to physical spaces. Despite the wide interest in MOOCs, there is a need for further research on the global collaboration potential they offer. The aim of this paper is to adopt an action research approach to study how a hybrid MOOC design enables learners’ global collaboration. During the years 2019–2020 together with an international consortium called Corship (Corporate Edupreneurship) we jointly designed, created and implemented a hybrid model MOOC, called the “Co-innovation Journey for Startups and Corporates”. It was targeted towards startup entrepreneurs, corporate representatives and higher education students and it was funded by the EU. The MOOC started with 2,438 enrolled learners and the completion rate for the first four weeks was 29.7%. Out of these 208 learners enrolled for the last two weeks, which in turn had a completion rate of 58%. These figures were clearly above the general average for MOOCs. According to our findings, we argue that a hybrid MOOC design may foster global collaboration within a learning community even beyond the course boundaries. The course included four weeks of independent learning, an xMOOC part, and two weeks of collaborative learning, a cMOOC part. The xMOOC part supported learners in creating a shared knowledge base, which enhanced the collaborative learning when entering the cMOOC part of the course.
The MITx MicroMasters Program in Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) based program that aims to impart quantitative and qualitative knowledge to SCM enthusiasts all around the world. The program that started in 2014 with just one course, now offers 5 courses and one final proctored exam, which allows a learner to gain a MicroMasters credential upon completion. While the courses are delivered in the form of pre-recorded videos by the faculty members of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the questions and comments posted by learners in discussion forums are addressed by a group of Community Teaching Assistants (CTAs) who volunteer for this role. The MITx staff carefully selects CTAs for each run of the individual courses as they take on a co-facilitator’s role in the program. This paper highlights the importance of community teaching, discusses the profile of CTAs involved with the program, their recruitment, training, tasks and responsibilities, engagement, and rewarding process. In the end we also share a few recommendations based on the lessons learned in community teaching during the last five years of running more than 45 MOOC courses, that could help other MOOC teams deliver a high-touch experience.
Learning During COVID-19
(2021)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, learning in higher education and beyond shifted en masse to online formats, with the short- and long-term consequences for Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms, learners, and creators still under evaluation. In this paper, we sought to determine whether the COVID-19 pandemic and this shift to online learning led to increased learner engagement and attainment in a single introductory biology MOOC through evaluating enrollment, proportional and individual engagement, and verification and performance data. As this MOOC regularly operates each year, we compared these data collected from two course runs during the pandemic to three pre-pandemic runs. During the first pandemic run, the number and rate of learners enrolling in the course doubled when compared to prior runs, while the second pandemic run indicated a gradual return to pre-pandemic enrollment. Due to higher enrollment, more learners viewed videos, attempted problems, and posted to the discussion forums during the pandemic. Participants engaged with forums in higher proportions in both pandemic runs, but the proportion of participants who viewed videos decreased in the second pandemic run relative to the prior runs. A higher percentage of learners chose to pursue a certificate via the verified track in each pandemic run, though a smaller proportion earned certification in the second pandemic run. During the pandemic, more enrolled learners did not necessarily correlate to greater engagement by all metrics. While verified-track learner performance varied widely during each run, the effects of the pandemic were not uniform for learners, much like in other aspects of life. As such, individual engagement trends in the first pandemic run largely resemble pre-pandemic metrics but with more learners overall, while engagement trends in the second pandemic run are less like pre-pandemic metrics, hinting at learner “fatigue”. This study serves to highlight the life-long learning opportunity that MOOCs offer is even more critical when traditional education modes are disrupted and more people are at home or unemployed. This work indicates that this boom in MOOC participation may not remain at a high level for the longer term in any one course, but overall, the number of MOOCs, programs, and learners continues to grow.
There are a plethora of ways to guide and support people to learn about MOOC (massive open online course) development, from their first interest, sourcing supportive resources, methods and tools to better aid their understanding of the concepts and pedagogical approaches of MOOC design, to becoming a MOOC developer. This contribution highlights tools and methods that are openly available and re-usable under Creative Commons licenses. Our collection builds upon the experiences from three MOOC development and hosting teams with joint experiences of several hundred MOOCs (University of Applied Sciences in Lübeck, Graz University of Technology, University of Glasgow) in three European countries, which are Germany, Austria and the UK. The contribution recommends and shares experiences with short articles and poster for first information sharing a Monster MOOC assignment for beginners, a MOOC canvas for first sketches, the MOOC design kit for details of instructional design and a MOOC for MOOC makers and a MOOC map as introduction into a certain MOOC platform.
Aside from providing instructional materials to the public, developing massive open online courses (MOOCs) can benefit institutions in different ways. Some examples include providing training opportunities for their students aspiring to work in the online learning space, strengthening its brand recognition through courses appealing to enthusiasts, and enabling online linkages with other universities. One such example is the monozukuri MOOC offered by the Tokyo Institute of Technology on edX, which initially presented the Japanese philosophy of making things in the context of a mechanical engineering course. In this paper, we describe the importance of involving a course development team with a diverse background. The monozukuri MOOC and its revision enabled us to showcase an otherwise distinctively Japanese topic (philosophy) as an intersection of various topics of interest to learners with an equally diverse background. The revision resulted in discussing monozukuri in a mechanical engineering lesson and how monozukuri is actively being practiced in the Japanese workplace and academic setting while juxtaposing it to the relatively Western concept of experiential learning. Aside from presenting the course with a broader perspective, the revision had been an exercise for its team members on working in a multicultural environment within a Japanese institution, thus developing their project management and communication skills.
CoFeeMOOC-v.2
(2021)
Providing adequate support to MOOC participants is often a challenging task due to massiveness of the learners’ population and the asynchronous communication among peers and MOOC practitioners. This workshop aims at discussing common learners’ problems reported in the literature and reflect on designing adequate feedback interventions with the use of learning data. Our aim is three-fold: a) to pinpoint MOOC aspects that impact the planning of feedback, b) to explore the use of learning data in designing feedback strategies, and c) to propose design guidelines for developing and delivering scaffolding interventions for personalized feedback in MOOCs. To do so, we will carry out hands-on activities that aim to involve participants in interpreting learning data and using them to design adaptive feedback. This workshop appeals to researchers, practitioners and MOOC stakeholders who aim to providing contextualized scaffolding. We envision that this workshop will provide insights for bridging the gap between pedagogical theory and practice when it comes to feedback interventions in MOOCs.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer online courses at low cost for anyone with an internet access. At its early days, the MOOC movement raised the flag of democratizing education, but soon enough, this utopian idea collided with the need to find sustainable business models. Moving from open access to a new financially sustainable certification and monetization policy in December 2015 we aim at this change-point and observe the completion rates before and after this monetary change. In this study we investigate the impact of the change on learners from countries of different development status. Our findings suggest that this change has lowered the completion rates among learners from developing countries, increasing gaps that already existed between global learners from countries of low and high development status. This suggests that more inclusive monetization policies may help MOOCs benefits to spread more equally among global learners.
This paper aims to present the results of a higher education experience promoted by the research centres INTELLECT (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) and CDM (University of Roma Tre), as part of difference master’s degrees programme of the academic years 2018/2019, 2019/2020, and 2020/2021. Through different online activities, 37 students attended and evaluated a MOOC on museum education content, such promoting their professionals and transverse skills, such as critical thinking, and developing their knowledge relative to OERs, within culture and heritage education contexts. Moreover, results from the online evaluation activities support the implementation of the MOOC in a collaborative way: during the academic years, evaluation data have been used by researcher to make changes to the course modules, thus realizing a more effective online path from and educational point of view.
Confidence Counts
(2021)
The increasing reliance on online learning in higher education has been further expedited by the on-going Covid-19 pandemic. Students need to be supported as they adapt to this new learning environment. Research has established that learners with positive online learning self-efficacy beliefs are more likely to persevere and achieve their higher education goals when learning online. In this paper, we explore how MOOC design can contribute to the four sources of self-efficacy beliefs posited by Bandura [4]. Specifically, we will explore, drawing on learner reflections, whether design elements of the MOOC, The Digital Edge: Essentials for the Online Learner, provided participants with the necessary mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and affective regulation opportunities, to evaluate and develop their online learning self-efficacy beliefs. Findings from a content analysis of discussion forum posts show that learners referenced three of the four information sources when reflecting on their experience of the MOOC. This paper illustrates the potential of MOOCs as a pedagogical tool for enhancing online learning self-efficacy among students.
Universitat Politècnica de València’s Experience with EDX MOOC Initiatives During the Covid Lockdown
(2021)
In March 2020, when massive lockdowns started to be enforced around the world to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, edX launched two initiatives to help students around the world providing free certificates for its courses, RAP, for member institutions and OCE, for any accredited academic institution. In this paper we analyze how Universitat Poltècnica de València contributed with its courses to both initiatives, providing almost 14,000 free certificate codes in total, and how UPV used the RAP initiative as a customer, describing the mechanism used to distribute more than 22,000 codes for free certificates to more than 7,000 UPV community members, what led to the achievement of more than 5,000 free certificates. We also comment the results of a post initiative survey answered by 1,612 UPV members about 3,241 edX courses, in which they communicated a satisfaction of 4,69 over 5 with the initiative.
The MOOC-CEDIA Observatory
(2021)
In the last few years, an important amount of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) has been made available to the worldwide community, mainly by European and North American universities (i.e. United States). Since its emergence, the adoption of these educational resources has been widely studied by several research groups and universities with the aim of understanding their evolution and impact in educational models, through the time. In the case of Latin America, data from the MOOC-UC Observatory (updated until 2018) shows that, the adoption of these courses by universities in the region has been slow and heterogeneous. In the specific case of Ecuador, although some data is available, there is lack of information regarding the construction, publication and/or adoption of such courses by universities in the country. Moreover, there are not updated studies designed to identify and analyze the barriers and factors affecting the adoption of MOOCs in the country. The aim of this work is to present the MOOC-CEDIA Observatory, a web platform that offers interactive visualizations on the adoption of MOOCs in Ecuador. The main results of the study show that: (1) until 2020 there have been 99 MOOCs in Ecuador, (2) the domains of MOOCs are mostly related to applied sciences, social sciences and natural sciences, with the humanities being the least covered, (3) Open edX and Moodle are the most widely used platforms to deploy such courses. It is expected that the conclusions drawn from this analysis, will allow the design of recommendations aimed to promote the creation and use of quality MOOCs in Ecuador and help institutions to chart the route for their adoption, both for internal use by their community but also by society in general.
TransPipe
(2021)
Online learning environments, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), often rely on videos as a major component to convey knowledge. However, these videos exclude potential participants who do not understand the lecturer’s language, regardless of whether that is due to language unfamiliarity or aural handicaps. Subtitles and/or interactive transcripts solve this issue, ease navigation based on the content, and enable indexing and retrieval by search engines. Although there are several automated speech-to-text converters and translation tools, their quality varies and the process of integrating them can be quite tedious. Thus, in practice, many videos on MOOC platforms only receive subtitles after the course is already finished (if at all) due to a lack of resources. This work describes an approach to tackle this issue by providing a dedicated tool, which is closing this gap between MOOC platforms and transcription and translation tools and offering a simple workflow that can easily be handled by users with a less technical background. The proposed method is designed and evaluated by qualitative interviews with three major MOOC providers.
Information technology and digital solutions as enablers in the tourism sector require continuous development of skills, as digital transformation is characterized by fast change, complexity and uncertainty. This research investigates how a cMOOC concept could support the tourism industry. A consortium of three universities, a tourism association, and a tourist attraction investigates online learning needs and habits of tourism industry stakeholders in the field of digitalization in a cross-border study in the Baltic Sea region. The multi-national survey (n = 244) reveals a high interest in participating in an online learning community, with two-thirds of respondents seeing opportunities to contributing to such community apart from consuming knowledge. The paper demonstrates preferred ways of learning, motivational and hampering aspects as well as types of possible contributions.