A Software Suite for Efficient Use of the European Qualifications Framework in Online and Blended Courses

Abstract

Since introduction of the European qualifications framework (EQF) as one instrument to bridge from learning institutions to competence driven lifelong learning, it remains a challenge for instructors and teachers in higher education to make efficient use of this framework for designing, monitoring, and managing their lessons. This paper presents a software suite for enabling teachers to make better use of EQF in their teaching. The software suite extends course design based on well-defined learning outcomes, monitoring performance and competence acquisition according to the EQF levels, assessment using scoring rubrics of EQF levels and competences in a 360-degree feedback, as well as visualizations of learning analytics and open student models in dashboards for different social perspectives in social planes. This paper includes a case study with 20 teachers who used the software suite in all phases of the course lifecycle for three programming courses. The results show that integrated applications for adopting the EQF in teaching practice are strongly needed. These results also show that the suite can assist teachers in creating contextual awareness, kindling reflection, understanding students and course progress, and inferring patterns of success and failure in competences development.

Multimodal data capabilities for learning: What can multimodal data tell us about learning?

“…Although most of the studies were not in the space of digitally mediated learning, we found a few studies, such as those by Di Mitri et al . ( 2017 ) and Florian-Gaviria et al . ( 2013 ), that focused on blended and online learning, respectively.…”

“…Second, research has considered both sides of instruction: for students by predicting their learning task performance (Kaklauskas et al ., 2015 ) and for teachers in order to understand their classroom orchestration strategies and needs (Prieto, Sharma, Dillenbourg, & Jesús, 2016 ;Prieto et al ., 2018 ). Third, researchers have focused on the learning scenarios: face-to-face, to understand how teachers manage the classroom (Prieto et al ., 2016(Prieto et al ., , 2018 and online learning scenarios, to predict students' learning-task performance (Florian-Gaviria, Glahn, & Gesa, 2013 ).…”

Research on Personalized and Secured E-Learning Systems using Data Mining Technique

“…Based on decision given by authentication system, the authorization follows the users or system.In order to access the resource, identity of the users is monitored. Confidentiality [15] is the main factor of security services in untrusted communication networks.Encryption mechanisms are mainly deployed for securing the data.The fig.2.2 presents the security model of the e-learning portals.…”

Monitoring, awareness and reflection in blended technology enhanced learning: a systematic review

“…Learners can monitor themselves (self-monitoring) or learners can be monitored by another person, usually by a teacher or an administrator. Monitoring can be activity-centred (process) or outcome-centred (product) (Florian-Gaviria et al, 2013). Monitoring can take place in real-time or post-hoc.…”

“…Among the rest, there were two studies performing controlled or usability evaluations (in the case of Park & Jo (2015), to complement an authentic setting evaluation), and two other studies only reported evaluations informally. The scale and duration of the system evaluations performed in authentic settings was relatively uniform: 13 out of the 14 authentic setting evaluation studies gathered data from students (ranging from n students = 11 to n students = 300, mean value of n students = 93, with a standard deviation of σ = 78.5); on the other hand, 10 of these 14 studies involved teachers in the evaluation (normally, between one and four of them, with the exception of Florian-Gaviria et al (2013), in which n teachers = 20). All of the authentic setting evaluations were performed over one to three courses, and the length of the interventions ranged from one week to a full semester (per course).…”