Grindelwald, WBE 2005

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning

Communities in University Courses

Niels Pinkwart, Andreas Harrer, Steffen Lohmann, Stefan VetterUniversity of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Typical problems of University lectures with growing size:

• Loss of personal contact to students• Lack of individual support• Resources bound to management

Web based solutions?

WBE 2005 pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

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E-Learning commonalities…

• “Blended Learning” scenarios, combining presence elements with new technologies

• Availability of networking facilities (also on-campus)

• Web technologies for exchange of media resources

• Community support through portals (and their functions for learning!)

WBE 2005 pinkwart@collide.info

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Systematically… the requirements:

• Community support: “communication and collaboration”

• Organizational support: “management and co-ordination”

• Task support: “help and assessment”• (Learning) Process support: “blending

and smooth integration”

pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

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Architectural requirements/criteria

• Platform independency• Deployment• Portability

pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

Web based solutions

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Architectural requirements/criteria

• Platform independency• Deployment• Portability• Learnability (Transfer!)• User Management• Module libraries• Extensibility

pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

CMS technologies in Web Portal trameworks

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pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

iPAL Components:

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Community Support:Strength of Web Portals

• Wikis• Discussion Forum• Private Messages• Polls

pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

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Organizational Support:CMS as system base

• Users and groups • Mails & newsletters• Lab groups selection• Exercise management ( Task

support)pinkwart@collide.info

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Task Support:Extensions to CMS needed

• Dynamic provision of learning resources (links, up/downloads)

• Comments, Ratings of resources• Exercise distribution, assessment

and discussion of solutionspinkwart@collide.info

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assessment

solution

Learning Process Support:Weak Point of general CMS

• Links & Downloads• Authentic Lecture Content:

– Digital Whiteboards– Immediate Upload of Slides– Comments and Questions possible

pinkwart@collide.info

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...back to the chalkboard !?

WBE 2005

pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

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Course “Programming” - Subjective Impressions:

• ~180 presence participants• Immediate acceptance (first 30 registrations

during first lecture)• Highly positive polls (e.g. 86% consider portal

helpful for exercises)• Well received lecture notes integration• De facto replaced the established forum• Great reduction of management work

pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

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Usage Statistics:

• 340 users, 470.000 page views• 250 forum threads with 1500 articles

(75% content related)• Downloads per resource: Ø 200• Uploads rarely used• Comments on lecture slides seldom

pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

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Evaluation: Learning support?

• Real scenario no “control group”• High number of uncontrolled

variables

Approach: Correlation of system usage with exam scores

pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

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pinkwart@collide.info

Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

Spearman rank correlation:

ρ = 0.485 (p<0.01)

Medium positive correlation

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Only three students with high number of postings but low scoreWBE 2005

Further developments:

• Usage: four further lectures• Improvement of usage tracking • Enhanced analysis methods (to be

presented at Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning)

pinkwart@collide.info

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http://distsys.collide.info(english version)

Questions?

Niels Pinkwartpinkwart@collide.info

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Integrating Portal Based Support Tools to Foster Learning Communities in University Courses

WBE 2005