The integrated online seminar system: An architecture and implementation of a media-centric environment for web-based collaborative e-learning.

摘要

Web-enabled applications support both collaboration and electronic learning. However, despite the web's support for multimedia interactions, collaborative e-learning has remained primarily a textual endeavor. When systems attempt to provide media-centric support, the mechanisms often interfere with both the social and usability considerations of the system. The goal of this dissertation is to develop better designs, architectures, and implementations for media-centric web-based collaborative e-learning environments. The dissertation addresses the problem from technical, social, and usability perspectives and concludes that these factors can be balanced through architectural solutions, resulting in an environment that encompasses the needs of users.; From a technical perspective, the dissertation proposes solutions for supporting media-centric collaboration. First, the dissertation develops an architectural solution for supporting the submission and integration of multimedia content as well as media-centric discourse within web-based e-learning environments. Second, the dissertation presents an architecture for asynchronous media boards, which allow users to manipulate media content as part of discourse. Third, the dissertation presents an architecture for media-based assessment, in which media-centric interactions play a vital role in online testing.; From a social perspective, the dissertation proposes an architectural solution for integrating and using social indicators within web-based collaborative e-learning environments. The dissertation observes how indicators affect both interaction and collaboration. First, the dissertation examines name-based, status-based, activity-based, and image-based identity and identification indicators. Second, the dissertation investigates the role of content rating and evaluation indicators for developing trust and reputation. Third, the dissertation examines the role of awareness and notification mechanisms for stimulating user participation and regulating information overload.; From a usability perspective, the dissertation proposes solutions for detecting and correcting usability problems within web-based collaborative e-learning environments. First, the dissertation explores the problem of session expiration and how it manifests as a usability defect. Second, the dissertation discusses how to build better data logging systems, capable of integrating information from a variety of server-based and browser-based sources. Third, the dissertation explores visualizing data captured from the logging system.; Concepts presented within the dissertation are demonstrated through the implementation of the Integrated Online Seminar (IOS) system, a comprehensive media-centric web-based collaborative e-learning research platform.