E-learning is a distance learning process supported by information and
telecommunication technologies, as defined in target terminology. It exists as a standalone
process of remote learning or as a complementation of a regular learning process. In both
cases e-learning is settled as an interactive process supported by learning management
systems. Those in majority offer suitable services to support the e-learning process
execution. However, support for communication processes is limited due to a lack of
adequate communication tools.
Web based social networks are public platforms which offer various communication
tools and options of public expressions for related individuals and groups. Users are offered
to use diverse mechanisms to publish a custom content which is accessible to other users
according to the social graph connections. A feedback to a published content is directly
possible by publishing another content or indirectly by sharing the content with other users,
providing comments and expressing approval or disapproval. Therefore, social networks
implement diverse notification mechanisms and tools, which enable and boost the interaction among users. Social networks prioritize content according to potential fields of users interests. They share a common feature of providing the possibility of social impact for every single individual.
This work spots on lacks of learning management systems in context of support for
users’ interaction. It is well known that communication tools of learning management systems are inefficient and outdated, missing the support for real time communication and mobile devices. The use of such tools is therefore limited. On the contrary, social networks offer modern and easy to use communication tools. Furthermore, there is a big number of web users, who are as well users of social networks and are already familiar with the usage of those tools.
The objective of this thesis and other related research works is to apply the users’
interaction experience from the field of social networks to the field of e-learning. Elemental
option is to implement social networks like communication tools within learning management systems. A more efficient way is to use social networks tools inside learning management systems. This is possible as a majority of social networks implement ways of integration with external systems. Furthermore, there are existing examples of integration of social networks with learning management systems.
There is a pool of over a billion of regular users of social networks. A number of regular
users of learning management systems is significantly lower. Therefore, due to mainly
simplified access, the integration of both systems has the potential to gain the number of elearning users. In case of integration there are communication features exploited from
general context to the e-learning context. By reason of users’ familiarity with the
communication tools this could lead to a higher level of interactions among users. However,
there are known drawbacks in fields of publicly available learning materials and decreased
privacy.
The divergence of systems of both types results in technical issues of integration.
There are no existing regulations addressing a such integration. In field of e-learning major
systems implement the learning tools interoperability standard which defines the way of
integration of external tools to learning management systems and specifies the rules for the
development of tools to be used in external systems. Differently, there are no such standards
in field of social networks. There are recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) which are mainly ignored. In practice social networks implement multiple proprietary
solutions of interconnection with external systems.
The proposed approach to the solution of integration of social networks and learning
management systems is to define general integration rules based on the features of existing
social networks with the biggest reach of users and most important learning management
systems. This works presents the design patterns as examples of good practice of problem
solving in general. Additionally, based on the debate pattern and the synchronous interactive
learning pattern, one of possible models of social activities in e-learning is defined.
Service oriented framework to support the integration of e-learning processes with
social networks processes offers one of the possible model-based theoretical solutions of the
integration of systems of both types. The definition of the framework is based on previously
introduced social learning activities model and determinates the integration in context of
services which are required to be supported on both types of systems. It is defined according
to known limitations of existing systems although it is independent of the systems selection.
However, there are considerable diversities among existing systems, preventing the
framework to be implemented using all custom combinations of systems available. The
framework definition is supplemented with recommendations explaining the use of
standardized solution in field of learning management systems and required implementation
flexibility related to the use of social networks. Use of web plugins complied with the learning tools interoperability standard are proposed as the best solution.
Service framework definition was verified with practical implementations using the
Facebook as the social network and systems called Coome and E-cho as learning
management systems. Test users included into the analysis of the impact of the two-way
integration qualified the solution as appropriate with positive education potential.
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