Trace-based Collaborative Learning System

Abstract

The users of any educational software may leave traces which concern all their activities. In collaborative learning context, these traces are very voluminous and very heterogeneous. They are the results of various interactions between the actors themselves, and between the actors and the system. Hence, first, they must be collected and filtered. Then, these traces must be analyzed to help or support the actors. In fact, the analysis process has positive effect on the role of human actors. It helps the tutor in his task of monitoring learners, the teacher (author) in his task of creating educational courses and the learner in his task of viewing his previous actions with more details. It is this context that defines our research work, which is focused on implementing a collaborative learning system based on traces called SYCATA (which is the French acronym of: SYstème pour la Collecte et l'Analyse des Traces d'Apprentissage collaboratif). This system collects all traces of actors' activities (especially learners) and groups them into five categories. It offers a multitude of forms (graphical, numerical or mixed) to show these traces to the tutors and the authors. Some traces may be viewed by learners to promote their pedagogical activities and raise their awareness. SYCATA was implemented and experimented with a sample of university students where good results were obtained.

Clustering and Combinatorial Optimization Based Approach for Learner Matching in the Context of Peer Assessment

“…The process of allocating assessment tasks uses assessors' profiles represented by the indicators as inputs. These profiles are established based on the traces that constitute records of the learners' behaviors and interactions with the learning environment (Lafifi et al, 2010). We obviously use the implementation of the proposed system to carry out the matching process.…”

PETRA: Process Evolution using a TRAce-based system on a maintenance platform

“…The trace model used in the ITHACA 6 project is also applied to the kTBS platform [Clauzel et al, 2009]. Lafifi et al proposed a different trace model concentrated on the architecture of the collaborative learning system [Lafifi et al, 2010]. From a different viewpoint, the model introduced by Sehaba [2011] deals with the transformation process for the adaptation of shared traces in accordance with the user's profile.…”

Facilitating Experience Sharing in Groups - Collaborative Trace Reuse and Exploitation

“…The trace model that was proposed by Clauzel and his colleagues (Clauzel et al, 2009) for the project ITHACA represents and visualizes traces in the context of synchronous collaborative learning platforms. To address similar issues, Lafifi (Lafifi et al, 2010) and his colleagues introduced a trace model for the project SYCATA that they concentrated on the whole architecture of the collaborative learning system. In a different approach, the trace model was proposed by Sehaba (Sehaba, 2011) and deals with the transformation process for the adaptation of the shared trace in accordance with the user's profile.…”