Anwar Us Saaed
email: anwar.ussaeed@student.tugraz.at

Alexander Stocker
email: astocker@know-center.at

Patrick Hoefler
email: phoefler@know-center.at

Klaus Tochtermann

Di

Learning with the Web 2.0: The Encyclopedia of Life

Keywords: Web 2.0, Encyclopedia of Life, Wikipedia, learning, e-learning, knowledge transfer

teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers.

Introduction

Technology has played a major role for learning, knowledge creation and knowledge transfer in the modern age -beginning with Gutenberg's printing technology and more recently leading to digital publishing on the web and mass production of user-generated content as a result of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. New social web tools and applications enable users to be the masters of the information. The unbound number of content creators have spurred a new age of information, leading to a revolutionized experience of learning. In the Web 2.0 era of collaborative technologies, the mass production of blogs, wikis, podcasts and websites brings in mountains of partly redundant information and demands a great effort to develop an accumulative understanding on a topic. Therefore, a need for the encyclopedic aggregation of knowledge has never been felt stronger than in the Web 2.0 age, even in the presence of 'googling' technologies. Wikipedia [16] was the first to take up this challenge and with the enthusiasm of 'social text' gathered more than 5,5 million entries up to now (September 2007), achieving a milestone in this regard. Wikipedia serves well for informal learning and building a basic understanding of a given topic, but for scientific purposes, it remains unsatisfactory [START_REF] Blog | Why does Wikipedia Suck on Science[END_REF]. Furthermore, the need for an authentic, authoritative and comprehensive source of knowledge on a particular topic has not been satisfied. Although many initiatives like Citizendum [1] or Scholarpedia [13] have tried to fill this gap, they usually only provide an overview and do not cover a field of knowledge in depth. The desire to understand life forms on our planet is not new. The success of the Genome project, 'one of the most significant achievements of modern science' [START_REF]National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure: Archives[END_REF] and the technological advancement in biology and informatics provide the foundation for 'a leap for all life' [START_REF]Encyclopedia of Life[END_REF] -the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) [START_REF]Encyclopedia of Life[END_REF]. It is envisioned as the first major encyclopedia of the Web 2.0 that will cover the breadth and depth of authentic and comprehensive information as 'a macroscope for biodiversity and an entry point into virtually all of biological knowledge' [START_REF] Patterson | EOL Biodiversity Informatics: Designing for a Living Encyclopedia of Life, eolinformatics[END_REF]. It also aims to 'combine the authority of a traditional print behemoth with the collaborative spirit of the Web's user-created Wikipedia' [START_REF]Extreme Encyclopedia: Every living thing will get its own page[END_REF] to create a separate web page for each species on earth. In section 2, this paper introduces the concept of Web 2.0 and learning while collaborating on the web. Section 3 introduces the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) as a global knowledge repository for the domain of biology, developed with a user-centered approach using Web 2.0 technologies. Section 4 compares the concept of the EOL with the successful online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Section 5 concludes with a summary and an outlook for future developments and research.

Effects of the Web 2.0 on Learning

The term Web 2.0, which has attracted a lot of attention in the Internet world, has been coined to describe the changes that the Web is currently going through [START_REF] O'reilly | Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software[END_REF]. Most of them are caused by the vast growth of the web together with the rise of new collaborative technologies, reaching out for a richer user experience. Web 2.0 is, at the same time, a social phenomenon, causing users to interweave their communication and interaction processes with the web. Users have continually begun to assemble in new types of online communities which are emerging all over the web [START_REF] Kolbitsch | The Transformation of the Web: How Emerging Communities Shape the Information we Consume[END_REF], accompanied by changing their traditional role from mainly using the Internet as a source of information to actively participating in the content creation process. The social phenomenon is enabled by the technical revolution, where new rising technologies including content syndication, semantic annotation and richer user interfaces are tempting social interaction, thus resulting in the emergence of new types of collaborative knowledge structures on the web. Social entities [START_REF] Stocker | The Three Pillars of Coporate Web 2.0: A Model for Definition[END_REF] act as a resource for collaborative knowledge where the web in total can be seen as a collaborative learning environment. Entry barriers of using the web as a medium for learning have been reduced mainly due to, amongst others, the radical simplification of interactive user interfaces and easy access to huge pools of knowledge. This has changed the way the individual knowledge workers are gaining their context-specific knowledge. Google.com, not only because of its simple user interface, has been one of the precursors of an information aggregator, allowing the learner to search quickly and easily for proper learning resources. Due to the nature of the web, theme specific niche communities emerge. The voluntarily conducted knowledge transfer between members in the respective communities is embedded in the social structures, enhancing the communities. The Web 2.0 provides, amongst other features, the possibility of instant communication without the requirement of any additional tools or plug-ins. Technological advances like folksonomies and semantic annotation facilitate the process of finding users with similar interests or problems. Because of the socializing nature of these Web 2.0 knowledge communities, the knowledge seeker will get an answer to his or her questions straightforward, compared to monotonous e-learning platforms where the motivation of the users to contribute and participate may be much lower. Web 2.0 furthermore enhances the learning skills while practicing learning by doing, e.g. writing a blog about a specific topic of interest and getting feedback from the audience, thereby increasing the knowledge of the blog author and all of its readers. 'Traditional' e-learning systems often lack the consideration of social factors like trust and motivation [START_REF] Fisman | Is trust a historical residue? Information flows and trust levels[END_REF]. Rollet [START_REF] Rollett | The Web 2.0 way of learning with technologies[END_REF] gave an overview on the implications of Web 2.0 to knowledge transfer and investigated the potential of lightweight Web 2.0 applications like blogs and wikis for the purpose of facilitating self-directed collaborative responsible learning in educational settings.

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)

Introduction

In this section, the authors of this paper give an overview of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) [START_REF]Encyclopedia of Life[END_REF], a comprehensive knowledge repository for the domain of life sciences. Concept, features, stakeholders and underlying technologies are discussed. At this time, the development of the EOL is still in progress, and the first species pages will be made accessible in the mid of 2008. Documents concerning the design, the work-plan, technological issues and vision along with mock-ups of the user interface are available to the public and are the main source of information for the following analysis. The vision of the EOL is not a new one: Already in the 1990s, Daniel Janzen from the University of Pennsylvania was among the first to address species pages. More than 10 years later, E.O Wilson articulated Janzen's idea in his essay "The Encyclopedia of Life" [START_REF] Wilson | The Encyclopedia of Life[END_REF] and became one of the leading proponents of the EOL. As stated, the goal of the EOL is to serve as an online reference source and database for each and every of the 1.8 million species that are known and named today, and for those who are still to be discovered. The EOL aims to be used as a teaching and learning tool for scientists, students, educators and everyone interested in the domain of biology. Students and educators will find a variety of tools to use the already available information and feed their own knowledge back into the EOL. The emergence of the EOL is mainly caused by three factors: First, the necessary consortium has been brought together, inspired by E.O. Wilson's vision at the TED conference in March 2007 [START_REF] Wilson | TED Prize wish: Help build the Encyclopedia of Life[END_REF]. Second, due to the rapid deterioration of the ecological system on earth and the environment resulting in the extinction of countless species, there is a strong need for a repository to document all kinds of life. This repository could help preserving life forms before they are gone forever as there is no comprehensive database of every species available today. Third, in the recent years, crucial tools like semantic technologies and wiki-style editing have proven mature enough to be used on a grand scale. By harnessing the work of scientists from all over the world, the EOL aims to become the global resource for information regarding all life on earth. A comparable knowledge pool has never been available to the scientific community or society before. Today, there are many information resources both online and offline -however, even the smartest searcher is exposed to information overload resulting in lost time and energy. The creation of the EOL is a collaborative effort, tens of thousands of experts from all over the world are responsible for its constructing, led by a steering committee of experts from renowned institutions in the field of biology such as Harvard University, Smithsonian Institute and Biodiversity Heritage Consortium. The Encyclopedia of Life continues the historical practice of sharing knowledge to advance scientific innovation and learning and is envisioned as a computer-based, ever-expanding unified and structured chronicle of all life forms. The content in the EOL is brought together from a wide variety of sources and will be authenticated by scientists and biologists to provide a quality-assured information resource. The EOL and its board will work with scientists all around the globe, securing that the people who are involved are experts in their respective field. To ensure that information on the EOL stays current, regular and continued contributions are necessary. Software tools are created to mine the scientific literature. The scientific community will use EOL-developed tools for their scientific purposes to easily submit updates. At the moment, the EOL is working on three major challenges: First, accommodation of the diverse demands of the different stake-holders involved needs a lot of conceptual work. Second, the realization of a user-friendly tool for all audiences needs a lot of effort on the part of the technologists. Finally, the intellectual property rights issues are always a big challenge for technology-based knowledge sharing and will have to be resolved.

Key technologies within the EOL

The EOL has planned a very flexible and end-user focused information architecture [START_REF] Patterson | EOL Biodiversity Informatics: Designing for a Living Encyclopedia of Life, eolinformatics[END_REF] that can be perceived in three major steps: aggregation, authentication and atomization. Knowledge about many species is already available in pieces, in different forms and from different sources. The aggregation will bring all the pieces from libraries and websites together to establish a more structured and comprehensive repository. The major technologies used for the aggregation will be APIs, semantic tools for editing and annotating content, and scanning and OCR technologies for digitizing analog content. These technologies will be customized in the form of 'Taxonomic Intelligence' [START_REF] Patterson | EOL Biodiversity Informatics: Designing for a Living Encyclopedia of Life, eolinformatics[END_REF] and GUIDs to resolve problems with synonyms and homonyms using conciliation and disambiguation techniques. The EOL intends to add semantic intelligence to biology for metadata standardization of the content, so that information can be identified, retrieved and cached as required, distributed and made accessible through an index. The 'Taxonomic Name Recognition' (TNR) tools use name discovery and name recognition algorithms for the indexing systems and gather previously undiscovered names for NameBank (a registry for all the recorded taxon names), holding the global name repository, and facilitating dynamic taxonomic navigation of RSS-Feed, Databases or web-pages. The whole structure of the EOL is linked by the species name which is the only field common to virtually all biological databases.

Figure 1: Assembling a species [START_REF] Patterson | EOL Biodiversity Informatics: Designing for a Living Encyclopedia of Life, eolinformatics[END_REF] Content is aggregated from a wide variety of resources. The content gathered from different resources receives authentication from scientists, ensuring the learner have authoritative information. EOL will secure the involvement of the scientists and scientific institutions that are established experts on each species. The EOL will provide editing tools and a semantic wiki environment to engage the scientists around the globe for maturing of the content. The EOL provides new ways of mining, visualizing and interpreting data using workbench tools and modules which is termed as atomization of gathered data fulfilling the needs of customized views. The EOL provides customization of the data in three different ways: First, the web interface of the EOL provides static fundamental information about the species. The dynamic part of the content presentation changes according to the level of the learner reaching from novice to expert. These content components are automatically obtained and structured by the machine using a big set of information from a wiki-type environment. Second, the myEOL customization can use workbench tools for the custom view of the information on a species along with some widgets, bookmarking and tagging tools. Third, the workbench tools 5 [START_REF]National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure: Archives[END_REF] as the main source of atomization are developed according to the open source ideology using the community aiming to develop the consumer driven products for the future use of the information.

Learning dimension of the EOL

The EOL presents the content and the multimedia data set in a way to engage learners from school level to the highest level of expertise achieved by scientists in a particular topic. Usability combined with latest technology ensure a high motivation of the learner to work with the EOL. When using the Web as a learning medium, learners are facing the problem, that content which is appropriate for his or her particular skill level, is hard to retrieve. When the skill level of the learner increases, he or she must search for new appropriate learning resources on the particular topic. Wikipedia holds scientific articles which are under most conditions not understandable by the ordinary learner [START_REF] Blog | Why does Wikipedia Suck on Science[END_REF]. When using the EOL as a learning resource, the learner may adjust the content presented to him or her according to his or her skill level. The learner can benefit from a comprehensive learning resource on the topic of quality, making further searches for content obsolete. Content in the EOL is valid from a scientific point of view, allowing the learner to use it (if permitted) without scrutinising source or the learning material itself.

Interfaces for mobile devices allow the usage of the EOL in many situations including field studies, which are especially important for biologists. Learners may use the existing webservices or even create their own web-services, thereby enjoying the benefits of EOL's openness. By doing this, a greater impact on informal learning is achieved. Schools and Universities enrich their courses and seminars by using Learning Management Systems (LMS) conducting blended learning. Most of the data in the EOL can be integrated in these learning environments, combining the functionalities and learning concepts underlying the Learning Management Systems with the ever fresh content in the EOL.

Comparison: Wikipedia vs EOL

In this section, the concept of the EOL will be compared with the concept of the Wikipedia. Wikipedia is chosen mainly because of two reasons: It is freely available and uses a similar authoring environment. Although both EOL and Wikipedia claim to be encyclopedias, they strongly differ in their goals. In general Wikipedia aims to build a widespread base of knowledge, in contrast EOL focuses to gather all the knowledge in the field of biology, creating a repository of the expert knowledge. As a result, articles in Wikipedia are numerous covering the breath of knowledge, but most of the time missing a detailed level, while EOL focuses on a particular topic, hence articles are expected to be on a consistently detailed level covering the depth in that topic. The comparison focuses on the three aspects content, stakeholder and technologies.

Wikipedia is a grown encyclopedia, addressing the phenomenon of mass authoring to the area of content creation in a wiki environment. Everybody may contribute to any subject in the Wikipedia regardless of his knowledge in the particular field. Wikipedia is suitable for providing an overview of a topic of interest towards a knowledge-seeker who can be anybody, including scientists. However, the usage of the content of the Wikipedia for scientific purposes is very limited, because of the lack of validity from the scientific community. In Wikipedia, plain text is dominating, multimedia content is scarce. Due to the collaborative nature of content creation, quality of content in Wikipedia is inconsistent and can easily be vandalized or falsified. Wikipedia lacks a workflow for quality assurance. A wiki-based discussion forum is aimed to support the collaboration of the authors and changes may be (but do not necessarily have to be) discussed there before they are conducted. Wikipedia also lacks personalization features and a bulk of content has to be browsed to find the relevant information on a topic. Contrary to Wikipedia, the EOL uses a well defined workflow for information structuring and validation of content. Furthermore, EOL is enriched with personalization features to facilitate end-users to organize the content in the form they like it. For scientists, motivation of publishing within the EOL is high because, unlike Wikipedia, EOL holds the potential for reputation for the content creator. Due to the peer reviewed nature, EOL may even become a major platform for scientific publishing in biology in future.

The EOL incorporates pre-authenticated content as well as fresh content, which has to be peer reviewed by scientists, before being accessible to the public. The peer review is a formal authentication process, conducted by scientists, who are experts in the respective species. The pre-authenticated content is drawn from data-providers consisting of well-established research organizations from all over the world. Contributors for the fresh content may range from scientists to anybody with an interest in the domain of biology and biodiversity. Content in EOL will differ from content in Wikipedia regarding multimedia enrichments including images, audio and video.

Both Wikipedia and EOL use a wiki-like environment for the creation and usage of the content. Wikipedia supports the collaborative content creation with technologies like discussion wikis for each article and a revision control to counteract vandalism. Wikipedia offers no tools for reusing its content in different environments, except a simple option to download the whole Wikipedia in a huge file. Wikipedia lacks in current technologies including Tagging, Ajax or semantic ones. The Semantic Media Wiki [START_REF]Semantic Media Wiki[END_REF] tries to enhance the Media Wiki, which is the underlying wiki for the Wikipedia, with Semantics.

The set of technologies in the EOL is very broad and has been introduced partly in chapter three. The EOL presents itself in an aesthetically pleasing way, offering vast multimedia support for the learner, out-rivaling the Wikipedia in the way the information is presented. The EOL is based on an interactive wiki-like environment. In the front-end the content elements are dynamically structured depending on the knowledge level of the learner by using a skill slider to select the expertise level. The pre presented figure 1 shows that the content in the novice level is more compact and easier to understand than in the expert level. When the slider is moved, both the available subtopics and the content of the article itself change according to the new skill level. News-feeds (RSS), podcasts and expert chats are provided to build a better understanding and up to date information on the topics of interest e.g. the latest scientific publications on a particular species. The EOL allows personalization of the content regarding the special needs of the learner by using bookmarking, tagging and widgets.

The EOL search is different to common search tools in the web, providing fine tuned semantic search mechanisms to cater for large and diverse set of end users. Due to the semantic algorithms, based on the underlying biological taxonomy, search is smarter and more relevant search results are retrieved. As an example, if one searches for the term 'habitat polar bear' the search result presented will be the corresponding content on the habitat of the polar bear. A taxonomic map visualized as a graph will show links between the polar bear and its related species.

Different to Wikipedia, the content cannot only be dumped to a file, but EOL provides sophisticated tools for reuse and mash-up of content. Based on the EOL content, modules can be developed allowing interested parties like research facilities or learning institutions to customize the interfaces or to conduct data mining according to their respective needs.

Conclusion

The EOL as described and in its status-quo is well planned and indeed revolutionary, using latest web technologies. Services will be available on a global basis to all the researchers and the learners using mobile and desktop devices. Learners may profit from a comprehensive knowledge pool in biology. To make the content of the EOL freely available to the learners, will be a crucial milestone. Schools and universities along with research institutions may use the EOL as a future platform for their projects fostering collaborative learning, hence not only using the content but also enhancing and expanding it. Expert-chat and data-mining facilities will be useful features in this regard.

Figure 2 :

 2 Figure 2: Novice and expert view [2]

The authors of this paper cannot propose, whether the EOL will be a success, or not. Nevertheless, a key success-factor for wiki-like environments is to reach the critical mass of both authors and articles. The EOL has planned to overcome this obstacle by focusing on an organized way of engaging the necessary stakeholders as data providers and authenticators. From the perspective of the authors, other knowledge repositories for authenticated content

did not succeed because they simply tried to copy the success patterns of Wikipedia without being innovative enough to attract a critical mass of authors. The EOL, being well focused, has engaged an expert-community from the beginning to achieve a critical mass of authors, offering the latest technologies to serve to the purpose of learning.

The authors of this paper furthermore assume that the popularity of Wikipedia as a whole will not decrease because of the EOL. However, an interesting topic will be the interplay between the EOL on the one side and the biological part of the Wikipedia and Wikispecies [START_REF]Wikispecies[END_REF] on the other.


Giovanni Adorni
email: adorni@unige.it

Mauro Coccoli
email: mauro.coccoli@unige.it

Giovanni

Full Professor Adorni

Coccoli Mauro

Implementation of e-Portfolio for Sports Physiotherapy Experts

Keywords: e-learning, e-portfolio, LMS

design and implementation of eportfolio functionality into an existing LMS, in the framework of the SPA Project, sponsored by the IFSP (International Federation of Sports Physiotherapy).

Introduction

SPA is the acronym for "Sports Physiotherapy for All" and it is a Leonardo Project ended in 2006. The SPA project activity is devoted to:

1. Set core competencies through benchmarking and core standards of proficiency, against which each national member organisation can measure its provision. 2. Develop an audit toolkit to evaluate the adoption of the standards at European level. 3. Develop procedures for accreditation of education (both formal and non formal learning) and professional qualifications for the Sports Physiotherapy profession. 4. Develop a user friendly web site, which will be an Internet Gateway, an educational portal and a platform for communication and exchange of information.

According to the guidelines of the project, the SPA e-portfolio functionality is tailored to the needs of the participants (Sport Physiotherapists) who want to be audit by an audit committee of the IFSP. Within the SPA Project a specific Learning Management System has been developed and the portfolio has been made part of the SPA Educational Portal. A set of basic information on the users of the Educational Portal are already stored in a suited "user profile" area. Such information is collected at the time of the registration and corresponds to the personal details such as name, address, date of birth, city, country, picture, telephone number, e-mail address, contacts (ICQ, IRC, messenger, skype), related web sites (personal site, personal blog). Within the Educational Portal framework different roles with different capabilities, privileges, and access level are possible for the users that is being just a visitor, a student, a teacher, a member of the committee who will judge whether the portfolio will suffice or not. For the members of the committee as well, personal information is stored so that social activity, communication, and data circulation is made easy in through the SAP Educational Portal.

The aim of the SPA e-portfolio is to collect information about the specific competencies in Sports Physiotherapy and to compile a list of the participants who may want to know how to master their competencies. This will be referred to the behaviours. Information about the behaviours shows a list of the behaviours and to which competencies these behaviours belong. The behaviours are built on standards and if possible, participants/committee/people will be referred to these standards. Information about the standards shows a list of the standards and to which behaviours and competencies these standards belong.

From a technical point of view, functionality of the portfolio allows users uploading supporting evidence and reflection documents, selecting and add/update/delete the properties (competencies, behaviours and standards) of the document, browsing documents in different views (name, date, competency, behaviour, and standard), navigating through competences or behaviours or standards. The e-portfolio supports multimedia documents so that the participants will be able to upload any kind of documents with which they can prove they master the relevant competencies, behaviours or standards. These documents can vary substantially. The following documents can be expected in a digital portfolio:

• video of a specific sports physiotherapeutic treatment,

• personal reflection,

• feedback from sports physiotherapy colleagues,

• patient feedback,

• case report,

• development of a guideline for treatment,

• article for a scientific or professional journal,

• plan for supervision,

• quality case plan,

• action plan to encourage interdisciplinary working.

Next to these documents the following documents will be in the digital portfolio:

• the competencies,

• the behaviours,

• the standards,

• the audit toolkit.

The SPA Educational Portal

In the Spa Project the education of physiotherapists is a crucial moment in order to achieve the goal of a standardised set of rules to validate the individual knowledge, skills, and competencies in the specific field.

A virtual environment where to learn, to practice, to share knowledge, and to discuss with other physiotherapists engaged in the common path to the certification, may efficiently support a process characterised by the following moments:

• acquiring knowledge/skills/competencies;

• practicing by means of exercise, the discussion with other, self evaluation tests;

• build a portfolio of the individual best practice;

• test and validate the individual level of preparation.

In the virtual environment it is possible to activate not only a process strictly finalised to the achievement of the certification. The nature of the virtual environment makes it possible to build an international community among European physiotherapists, where participants, sharing experiences and knowledge, may assure a constant level of updated knowledge in the field, and start the process of continuous learning in the perspective of life long learning. European physiotherapists supported by a virtual environment may build a community of practice.

A community of practice may be defined as "a group that learn". Usually we refer to such a type of community as communities of practice, groups of people who share similar goals and interests and that in pursuit of these goals and interests, they:

• employ common practices,

• work with the same tools,

• use a common language.

Through such common activity, participants to a community of practice develop and come to hold similar beliefs and value systems. In the perspective of building a common and standardised set of rules to identify a European physiotherapist, it is full of meaning the existence of a place (even virtual) where European physiotherapists can meet and where they can build together knowledge.

The SPA Educational Portal (http://portal.sportsphysiotherapyforall.org) is based on the Open Source e-learning platform EifFE-L (available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/eiffe-l) and is designed to fully support this scenario. Figure 1 shows the home page of the SPA Educational Portal. Digital learning materials have to be designed taking into account the distance that will separate the teacher and the students: they have to be auto-coherent and produced in a format that is usable from the students. The didactic strategy has also to be designed according to the goal of the course, the span time of the course, the technological competencies of the students, and other factors. The added value of distance learning is in the availability of the teacher online and in the possibility to perform some collaborative work among students. In pursuit of this the facilitators that will manage the class activity, have to be trained. Digital learning materials have to be developed. The international standards in e-learning recommend developing Learning Objects which have the characteristic to be highly usable and durable over time.

The SPA Educational Portal supports a variety of didactic strategies. It is possible to design a "simply" behaviourist didactic strategy where students are provided with learning materials and at the end of the course they are requested to fill in a test; it is possible to design a more cognitivistic didactic strategy with the request for the students to perform individual exercises in order to develop competencies; it is possible, following a costructivistic approach, to design a didactic strategy that see in the interaction the principal moment of learning.

Behaviouristic approach

Behaviourists are particularly interested in measurable changes in behaviour. Behaviourism is an approach which sees in learning the result of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a process that refers to the way in which behaviour 'operates on the environment'. Briefly, behaviours may result either in reinforcement, which increases the likelihood of that behaviour occurring again; or punishment, which decreases the likelihood of the same behaviour recurring in the future [START_REF] Skinner | The science of learning and the art of teaching[END_REF]. For example, teachers can improve student behaviour by systematically rewarding students who follow classroom rules with praise, stars, or tokens exchangeable for sundry items. In e-learning a didactic strategy inspired to behaviourism, is suitable when:

• there is a limited life span for the course;

• the goal is the acquisition of knowledge;

• participants have a limited knowledge on the arguments of the course;

• participants have poor competencies in ICT.

Cognitivistic approach

The cognitive perspective is more widely held than the behavioural perspective perhaps because it flexibly admits causally related mental constructs such as traits, beliefs, memories, motivations and emotions. Cognitive theories posit memory structures that are thought to determine how information is perceived, processed, stored, retrieved and forgotten.

5(8)

The aim of training, in a cognitivistic perspective, is to facilitate the exploration of disciplinarian issues by the students. Teachers have to guide students through concepts with the aim of increasing their competencies in learning and transform/interpreter what they learn [START_REF] Bruner | The process of education[END_REF].

The didactic strategy based on a cognitivistic approach is based on the process of learning. Such a type of strategy is suitable when:

• the aim is to develop individual skills;

• there is lack of resources to manage working groups;

• there is a limited life span for the course;

• participants are in a limited number;

• there is lack of interest and motivation from participants working in team;

• participants have a limited knowledge on the arguments of the course.

Constructivistic approach

Constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge. In other words, "learning involves constructing one's own knowledge from one's own experiences" [START_REF] Ormrod | Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, Fourth Edition[END_REF].

Students are not blind boxes that have to be filled, but agents that research actively and proactively knowledge that can explain what they experiment in daily (professional) life.

In literature we have two stands for constructivism: the personal constructivism of Piaget [START_REF] Piaget | Intelligence and Affectivity[END_REF] and the social constructivism of Vygotskij [START_REF] Vygotskij | Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes[END_REF].

Piaget claims that knowledge can't be merely transfer from teacher to student, but every person constructs his own world in an original way. Vygotskij put the focus on the interaction among language, social context and the subject that learns. In this perspective the student learns by means of the discussion and dialog in which individuals may negotiate conceptual changes [START_REF] Boudourides | Cultural studies of Science; Complexity, and the Internet[END_REF].

The didactic strategy based on the costructivistic approach puts emphasis on a project oriented model of learning. Such a kind of strategy result appropriate when:

• the life span of the course allow time to the development of collaborative dynamics among participants; • there is a adequate availability of resource to manage the virtual class-room;

• there is availability of ICT tools;

• participants have adequate ICT knowledge and skills.

Implementation in the SPA Educational Portal

The SPA Educational Portal may support all the three approaches to training. It will be the specific course and context that will suggest the more appropriate didactic strategy.

The functions that the portal supports are (see Figure 2):

• course programme,

• private messages,

• traditional learning materials,

• tests,

• exercises,

• course programme,

• forum,

• chat,

• groups,

• messages,

• learning objects,

• tests, • exercises. The SPA Educational Portal allows the user to manage a personal portfolio. The portfolio can be accessed through the personal profile of a user then it is possible to add documents in any format to the Portfolio by uploading documents to the user's personal repository. After the publishing of a document, it is available to everybody or to a selection of users (e.g., teachers or students), as shown in Figure 3.

Validate and certificate the competencies

The Audit Toolkit is the instrument to validate the knowledge/skills/competencies of European physiotherapists. In order to support what participants will declared in the audit, participants are requested to build a personal portfolio. Within the Spa project the audit toolkit and the procedure that bring to the development of the individual portfolio will be validate.

In this perspective, inside the SPA Educational Portal, participants may follow the following procedure:

• the audit is uploaded as "test" on the Resources > Teaching materials area of the portal (see Figure 2); • participants fill in the test; • participants upload "files" on the portfolio for each checked item following the procedure described in previous section; • participants discuss in the forum strengths and weakness of the audit toolkit through the forum created on Activities > Forum area of the portal (see next section); • participants discuss in the Forum issues related to realise electronic documents that certificate their abilities for the e-portfolio.

Start the community

Starting to share in the forum issues, problems, ideas on the audit toolkit filling in or on the issues related to the development of digital documents to insert them in the Portfolio, participants in the Spa Project may start the community of practice, by means of the activation of a discussion board. This can be done through the Function: Activities > Forum available on the left menu of the portal (see Figure 2).

They will put in evidence the strengths and weakness of an international community with languages, cultural, timeliness potential problems, but also characterised by the value of being a large and intercultural group of people that may put in evidence and solve together specific or general issues in the field.

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: The SPA Educational Portal

Figure 2 :

 2 Figure 2: Page of a course in the SPA Educational Portal

Figure 3 :

 3 Figure 3: Personal portfolio in the SPA Educational Portal


J Lapuh Bele

J Rugelj

Providing feedback in web-based learning

Keywords: distance learning, web-based learning, e-course, feedback

In distance learning supported by LMS, it is extremely important to provide automated or partially automated feedback about learning outcomes to students as well as feedback about the efficiency and quality of teaching and learning to teachers and to management of the institution that provides web-based learning courses. In this article, we present the solutions implemented in the LMS eCampus that are theoretically grounded and have been proved in praxis.

Introduction

Many researchers in the field of usability evaluation of computer software or human computer interaction (HCI) agree that providing feedback is one of the essential facilities of appropriately designed systems [START_REF] Ardito | An approach to usability evaluation of e-learning applications[END_REF][START_REF] Nielsen | Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity[END_REF][START_REF] Norman | Things that make us smart: defending human attributes in the age of the machine[END_REF][START_REF] Squires | Predicting quality in educational software: Evaluating for learning, usability and the synergy between them[END_REF]. The system should always keep users informed about what is going on through appropriate feedback within reasonable time. However, feedback is crucial to the designers of the system as well. Focus groups of representative students can provide feedback on a given instructional design and help designers to improve usability and user-friendliness of the system [START_REF] Nielsen | Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity[END_REF][START_REF] Notess | Usability, User Experience, and Learner Experience[END_REF]. In the field of web-based learning, the system is usually called learning management system (LMS). LMS should enable content (e.g. learning objects, e-courses) creation and delivery, and should provide learning environment with the tools for collaboration and communication, assessment, evaluation and for preparation of various surveys to teachers and to students. As feedback is the word that is emphasised in modern education, the LMS's tools created to provide feedback are meaningful to the teachers (e.g. tutors, facilitators, mentors) and to the students. Consequently, providing feedback is important for application design as well as from a pedagogical perspective. However, the focus of this article is on the pedagogical aspects of feedback and implementation of tools to collect it in the LMS eCampus. Dringus [7,[START_REF] Dringus | An iterative usability evaluation procedure for interactive online courses[END_REF] and Squieres [START_REF] Squires | Predicting quality in educational software: Evaluating for learning, usability and the synergy between them[END_REF] propose that usability heuristics summarized by Nielsen [START_REF] Nielsen | Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity[END_REF] can be applied to evaluate e-learning application interfaces as well as the other application interfaces. Providing informative feedback is one of these heuristics. According to Nielsen, the mechanism for providing "public" and "private" feedback to users should be implemented in the system [START_REF] Nielsen | Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity[END_REF]. Squieres [START_REF] Squires | Predicting quality in educational software: Evaluating for learning, usability and the synergy between them[END_REF] states that the environment should provide the student with intrinsic feedback, which represents the effects of the student's action on the system, environment or artefact.

Feedback in web-based learning

Application design perspective

Pedagogical perspective

Chickering and Gamson [START_REF] Chickering | Seven Principles for Good Practise in Undergraduate Education[END_REF] state seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education that are frequently cited in the literature:

-encourage student-faculty contact, -encourage cooperation among students, -encourage active learning, -give prompt feedback, -emphasize time on task, -communicate high expectations, and -respect diverse talents and ways of learning Chickering and Ehrmann [START_REF] Chickering | Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever[END_REF] argue that implementing these principles is also essential in technology based education. [START_REF] Laurillard | Rethinking University Teaching. A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies[END_REF] analyses how students gain knowledge. The essential steps are active learning, feedback, and reflection [START_REF] Laurillard | Rethinking University Teaching. A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies[END_REF]. Piaget (cited in [START_REF] Woolfolk | Educational psychology[END_REF]), the protagonist of constructivist theory, states that students build new knowledge on previously acquired knowledge and experiences. Therefore, students should proceed learning a new subject on already assimilated knowledge. Furthermore, formative evaluation of knowledge and knowledge consolidation could be an effective learning strategy. This strategy can be supported automatically in WBL. When the students learn via web, they can receive fast and simultaneous feedback to verify gained knowledge, if the learning objects and/or the LMS system are appropriately designed. Therefore we can conclude that in learning objects, as well as in e-courses, formative online questions that give instant feedback are highly recommended, as they allow students to check comprehension and gained knowledge. After studying learning material, students need to evaluate gained knowledge and verify if assimilated knowledge meets teacher's expectations. One of the options to do this is summative knowledge evaluation via test. Barron (2007) represents top ten secrets of effective e-learning in his qualitative research. Giving constructive and meaningful feedback is one among them. Barron found out that although the quantitative data derived from a numerical score from a summative knowledge evaluation (e.g. online test) was helpful, students demanded narrative feedback as well. In addition to automatic feedback, they wanted their work to be thoughtfully critiqued by the facilitator (e.g. teacher, tutor). Barron mentions that "if there is one thing that students agree upon vehemently, it is the desire for timely, detailed, meaningful feedback". In this study students also report that they need public as well as private feedback. In addition to public forum with all students, students want an opportunity to communicate one-to-one with the facilitator throughout the course. The facilitator can handle this via e-mail or provides private discussion space for each student that is only accessible to an individual student. In addition to expecting facilitators to respond to their online discussion posts and assignments, students appreciate regular summaries where the teacher pulls ideas together, to illustrate strategic points in the course as the discussions progress [START_REF] Barron | Top ten secrets of effective e-learning, Industrial and commercial training[END_REF]. Students should also receive feedback through evaluations and reflective discussion questions in the course from the teacher and from other students. According to Vygotski, students achieve more if they are supported and guided. Student's potential development determined through the problem solving under guidance or, in collaboration with more capable peers, is higher than the level determined by independent problem solving. This concept is known as the zone of proximal development [START_REF] Vygotsky | Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes[END_REF]. Feedback clarifies the questions arising in communication and increases the possibility to complete the learning task.

Therefore, LMS should have integrated tools that enable private conversation (e.g. email, skype) and group communication or collaboration (e.g. via forums, chat, videoconference system) to provide private and public feedback. In many e-courses, students need to complete tasks and send them to the teacher. Addressing the principle of prompt feedback, two types of feedback are required. The system should give immediate acknowledgement feedback upon receipt of an assignment since the student lacks the assurance of physically handing the assignment. Prompt information feedback regarding the content of the student's work is required as well [START_REF] Achtemeier | Considerations for developing evaluations of online courses[END_REF]. Teachers and course designers also need feedback. In user centric design, "iterate" is one of the major principles. We cannot expect to build something perfect the first time. Therefore, the advice is: "Build a prototype and evaluate it; then fix what doesn't work; evaluate and redesign until it is good enough to release" [START_REF] Notess | Usability, User Experience, and Learner Experience[END_REF]. In the design of web-based courses this is even more important. Furthermore, in web-based learning we should search for new teaching strategies. If the educational practice is developed strictly on the basis of an existing practice, the implementation of new technologies will result in a remediation of the existing learning activities i.e. a transfer of the existing learning activities from physical locations to a virtual environment. In order to develop e-learning or distance learning from a pedagogical point of view, it is necessary to have an understanding of theoretical principles of the learning process [START_REF] Dalsgaard | Pedagogical quality in e-learning: Designing e-learning from a learning theoretical approach[END_REF]. Researchers suggest implementation of constructivist learning and teaching strategies that enhance learning (e.g. scaffolding, collaboration, cooperation). In searching for optimal ecourse design, the use of the "iterate" principle is essential. Therefore, course designers (e.g. teachers) also need feedback.

Using eCampus to provide feedback

The eCampus is a web-based application, designed for creating web-based learning contents, different kinds of courses, and carrying out web-based and blended learning. eCampus enables the use of web-based pedagogical tools as scaffolds for self regulated learning (SRL), such as collaborative and communication tools, content creation and delivery tools, administrative tools and assessment tools. Key SRL processes, such as goal setting, selfmonitoring, self-evaluating, help seeking and time management, which affect students' achievements and motivational beliefs, are implemented. Learning with the help of eCampus is an active process where the strategy of "learning by doing" leads the student to cognitively approach and work through the learning material and to create links between experiences, existing knowledge and new knowledge. The learning contents created in eCampus are interactive, rich on multimedia and adjusted to different learning styles of students (e.g. visual, audio or kinaesthetic). The student's activity is furthermore stimulated by simultaneous on-line questions, where the student receives feedback information regarding the understanding of the subject and can eventually get a tip for further learning. eCampus provides an interactive on-line evaluation of knowledge at the beginning of learning, during the learning process and after the learning unit is completed. Different tools that give automatic feedback to students are available, e.g. online questions that give instant feedback and various types of tests. The teacher can offer non-automated or partially automated feedback using collaborative and communication tools (e.g. forums, personal massages, skype, chat). Furthermore, tools that provide feedback to the teacher and/or other responsible persons are also integrated in the system. By using the eCampus system, we can create (not just import) hypermedia learning objects in SCORM format.

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Enabling feedback to students and teachers

The author can use the content editor. Figure 1 shows how the author creates a learning page and appends the online question. The question has to be previously prepared in the question editor. The author of hypermedia learning content (e.g. learning object) can put interactive questions on any learning page. Various types of questions can be used, such as one-choice, multiplechoice, gap-fill and open questions. The author chooses the question among previously created questions. After answering, the student gets the answer. The default feedback is correct or false. However, the author can set more detailed expressions (e.g. well done, read the text carefully try again). A feedback message (e.g. correct, false) appears in green colour bar if the answer is correct or in red colour bar, if the answer is false. The tool allows generating static feedback or dynamic feedback, dependent on the answers submitted by students. Using this option, the author can create different learning paths. This option enables creation of interactive and visually attractive learning materials that enforce student's activity and therefore learning effectiveness. After answering the question, the student is informed if the answer is correct. If the author specified so, the student's answer is used for the selection of the next learning page. Figure 3 shows the question editor. The author should define the level of difficulty (e.g. low, medium, high), type of question (e.g. one-choice, multiple-choice, gap-fill, open) and whether the question is intended for formative or summative (e.g. test) evaluation. Furthermore, he/she has to define the question and the answers. The editor for creating and formatting the question and the answers is also available. The author can use multimedia elements (e.g. text, visual and audio images) and hyperlinks in questions. The teacher can also use the tool for creating tests for summative evaluation of knowledge. The test may be part of a learning object or self-dependent and can be used for self-evaluation or external evaluation of knowledge. However, various types of questions can be used for creation of tests: one-choice, multiple-choice, gap-fill and open questions. There are many options that can be selected for a test. The author can set parameters on which the test will be evaluated. The students get marks from the system instantly and can see the correct answers. Furthermore, for test creation we can also use Hot Potatoes or other open source applications that produce output in SCORM format.

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Fig. 3 Learning contents, that are part of the course enable students to achieve basic skills. After adopting basics, students can work on various assignments. The feedback can be provided by the teacher and by the peers using forums. Various tools are used to assess the process, contents and the system. Errors in the system or in the learning contents should be eliminated as soon as they are discovered and students are expected to take part in this process. As they have problems to clearly describe an error or problems with comprehension, the student can send his/her message from a specific learning page. The tutor receives the message as well as the URL address of the web page that caused the problem to the student and forwards it to the right address (e.g. to the author of the content, to the teacher, or to software maintenance staff). Figure 2 shows how student's can communicate with the teacher or with the tutor from the learning page. The teacher receives the post on his/her mail, together with the URL address of the learning page where the question or comment was created. As can be seen in the data collected by the portal, less than 10% students have ever used this opportunity. Data from the questionnaires show that most of the students were not acquainted with this option.

Feedback tools for teachers and the school

eCampus furthermore supports design of questionnaires and opinion polls that are created in the form of scaled answers (e.g. 5-point Lickert scale), one-choice or multiple-choice answers and answers to open questions, to obtain users' opinions and satisfaction.

As self-evaluation is an important principle of learner centred and user centred design, assessment tools are essential in LMS systems. Therefore, in eCampus some innovative and effective solutions are implemented to enable -efficient learning, -permanent improvement of courses and -constant development of the system

Research Participants

We observed 52 students from vocational high school in blended learning mode of delivery in our research.

The procedure All participants studied Business mathematics course and followed the same scheme of the learning process. They started with a conventional lesson in classroom where they met the teacher and continued the learning-process using the web-based learning contents on the learning portal, powered by eCampus, which enabled them to collaborate and communicate with each other and with the teacher. The teacher guided students and motivated them to take part in the assessments. The results were captured by means of an online questionnaire. We analysed the results of the students' responses obtained from questionnaires. Students found online questions and implemented tests very effective and important for their motivation. They were also satisfied with the tests. Unfortunately, most of them participate in forum debates if they have to.

Results

Statement about knowledge evaluation

Conclusion

Provision of feedback to students is one of the essential features of a LMS system. The authors of the e-courses and e-contents use it to enforce learning and to increase the learning outcomes of their students.

The system has to provide tools for creating feedback and the authors use them for creating efficient learning materials. Automated feedback, generated by the system, as well as partially automated feedback, where tutors or teachers are engaged in its creation, represent substitution for live interaction in the traditional classroom. On the other hand, feedback on learning materials and on the process of learning from students can be captured by the system. It is very importrant for tutors, authors of learning materials and for the institution running a course in order to improve both, the learning materials and the process of learning.

Fig. 1

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Figure 2

 2 Figure2shows the student's view of the same learning page.

Fig. 2

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September 26 -28, 2007 Villach, Austria 3[START_REF] Dringus | An iterative usability evaluation procedure for interactive online courses[END_REF]

Author(s):