PAMM · Proc. Appl. Math. Mech. 7, 1170403–1170404 (2007) / DOI 10.1002/pamm.200700586

Cooperative work in an e-learning environments: the COMSON case

Eleonora Bilotta1, Pietro Pantano1, and Valerio Talarico1,*

1 ESG, Universita della Calabria, Ponte Pietro Bucci, Cubo 17B, Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy.

Coupled Multiscale Simulation and Optimization in Nanoelectronics project is a Marie Curie RTN supported by the EuropeanCommission within the 6th Framework Research Programme of the EU. The COMSON project is run by a Consortiumwhose multiple aims are: to build an experimental software Demonstrator Platform (DP) for coupled simulation of devices,interconnects, circuits, EM fields and thermal effects (one single framework for simulation tool, optimisation in compounddesign space); to provide an e-learning platform to be used as an inter and extra consortium transfer of knowledge (ToK)infrastructure; to provide a collaborative virtual work environment (CWE) to be used both for industrial activities and training.

© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

1 Introduction

COMSON merges the know-how of the three major European semiconductor industries with the combined expertise of spe-cialized university groups for developing adequate mathematical models and numerical schemes and realizing them in acollaborative work environment (CWE) [1] leveraging a demonstrator platform [2]. On the one hand, one of the main activi-ties of the Consortium is to test mathematical methods and approaches, so as to assess whether they are capable of addressingindustrial problems while leveraging a CWE; on the other hand, the focus is in adequately educating young researchers byproviding immediate hands-on experience for state-of-the-art problems through the e-learning and CWE platform.

2 The Virtual Working Place and the e-Learning platform

The COMSON CWE has been designed as a Virtual Working Place [3] (VWP) where each inter-actor can access different toolsand facilities, based upon his/her level of expertise and role. The main effort, while developing a concept for a virtual workingplace (VWP), has been put into trying to benefit, as much as possible, from current existing technologies while concentratingdesign and development on integration. Innovative aspects of the concept were treated evaluating the need for developmentof new technologies.The general requirements set by the consortium pushed the VWP concept to support information andknowledge exchange, communication and collaboration. Information and knowledge exchange processes where implementedusing a combination of a web application front-end, which is used by several services to provide institutional information andmultimedia rich dynamic contents. The service infrastructure for information and knowledge exchange has been mainly set upon a Content Management System (CMS), on a Streaming Server (SS), a Wiki server (WS), a versioning system (CVS) anda and a Database Management System (DBMS). Eventually, this service infrastructure has been complemented by a MailingList Management System (ML), a Forum Service (FS) and a Mail Server (MS). Such an infrastructure is illustrated in fig.1.The infrastructure has enabled the activation of simple as well as complex knowledge processes such as: content authoringand providing, collaborative content creation, maintenance and management, information search and retrieval, support andcommunication. Another objective of the VWP is to allow easy sharing of knowledge between interactors by providing anintegrated environment that permits natural communication between participants as well as intuitive exploration, discoveryand use of tools based on manipulatory interfaces. It is indeed evident that traditional applications, providing traditional userinterfaces, do not support life-like interaction, communication and collaboration. For this reason, a set of brand new interactiontools and environments have been outlined that enable more manipulatory and natural experience within the VWP [3]. Suchtools and interfaces do not substitute, but rather integrate traditional interfaces, thus offering to the users the possibility tointeract with the systems and with other users selecting the way they consider more appropriate. The components that enablea more natural use of the VWP and enhance the user experience are: a 3D representation of a virtual world based on themuseum metaphor used to gain access to the various subsystems (see fig. 2); a fully featured communication facility allowingvoice, video and text instant messaging everywhere in the VWP; collaboration tools for knowledge sharing (e-learning),cooperative design and experiment (see fig. 3); and an intelligent multi agent management system to support exploration. Asa final step to the construction of an infrastructure dedicated to the support of industry-academia ToK processes, the VWP hasbeen interfaced with a standardized open source Learning Content Management System (LCMS). This allows to give propersupport in organizing information and knowledge into learning paths, thus providing support to learning experiences [4].Contents can be built into standard SCORM 1.2 portable packages using different authoring environments. As in the case ofthe VWP, the e-learning platform supports the use of multimodal interfaces, embodied into virtual 3D agents, which produceattractive interaction with the user in order to improve and scaffold learning. According to the educational and industrialneeds, these environments are designed in order to integrate different systems which improve the student skills in each specific

∗ Corresponding author: e-mail: valerio.talarico@gmail.com

© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Fig. 1 The VWP’s main building blocks:Information, Communication and Collabo-ration, all connected to e-Learning.

Fig. 2 The Virtual Museum can beused to access more naturally the Vir-tual Working Place.

Fig. 3 Example of specialized graphicaluser interface adopted to manipulate intu-itively complex mathematical objects re-gardless of the implementation details. Inthis figure a non linear differential equationis treated using a visual hierarchical repre-sentation and a visual numerical algorithm.

field. This environment is an effective approach for obtaining skills in microelectronics by using different learning situations(ranging from video lessons to hands-on experiences controlling the DP) in which professional training can be activated alsofor non-specialists. Another important aspect of the e-Learning platform is experimentation. Experiments involving numericalsimulation within CoMSON are mostly carried out using the DP. So it was a natural choice to design an integration layer [5]that made it possible for users within the e-Learning platform to interact with simulation in order to develop some practicalunderstanding of modelling and simulation of micro and nanoelectronics problems. This consideration condensed eventuallyinto the design of a Virtual Laboratory, an environment allowing users to design, share, experiment and manipulate modelsand systems. Such an environment, provided with several interfaces, each characterised by a different level of complexity,promises to be an invaluable tool both for learning and for collaboration, answering twice the needs inherent to ToK processes.

3 Conclusions and further development: towards a Virtual Campus approach

The Virtual Campus approach [6] seems promising in order to enhance the ToK experience at any level of expertise, althoughless experienced students/researchers/professionals seem to be the categories mostly attracted by a life-like user interfaceapproach. More experienced user may still prefer to sacrifice usability in the name of faster interaction. This trend is justifiedby the fact that, most of the time, experienced users know already rather exactly what they want in terms of information,knowledge and/or functionality and how to access them properly. The same is generally not true for less experienced people,who greatly benefit from guided approaches that do not confuse them with technical details of complex interfaces, ratherfocusing their attention on the subject of their research or study [7]. Future work will be dedicated to implement and testwithin the e-learning environment several specialized interfaces dedicated to user experimentation and manipulation. Theywill be built on a general abstraction layer specifically designed to control shell based, scriptable simulation tools such as theDP.

References

[1] G. Alı, E. Bilotta, L. Gabriele and P. Pantano, An e-learning platform for academy and industry networks, Proceedings of the FourthAnnual IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (PERCOM-W06), (IEEE ComputerSociety, 2006), 231-234.

[2] C. de Falco, G. Denk and R. Schultz, A Demonstrator Platform for Coupled Multiscale Simulation. In: Scientific Computing inElectrical Engineering, edited by G. Ciuprina, D. Ioan (Springer, Berlin, 2007), pp. 62-71.

[3] E. Bilotta, P. Pantano, S. Rinaudo, R. Servidio and V.Talarico, Use od a 3D Graphical User Interface in Microelectronics Learningand Simulation of and Industrial Application, In: Eurographics Italian Chapter Proceedings, edited by R. De Amicis and G. Conti,(Eurographics Association, Aire-La-Ville, 2007), pp. 217-224.

[4] G. Alı, L. Gabriele and R. Servidio, An e-learning system for applications of mathematics to microelectronic industry. In: Progress inIndustrial Mathematics at ECMI 2006, edited by L. L.Bonilla, L.L., M. Moscoso, G. Platero and J. M.Vega, Mathematics in Industry,Springer, Berlin, 12, 736-740 ( 2007).

[5] G. Alı, J. M. L. Maubach and V. Talarico, The design of the interconnection between the E-Learning platform and the DemonstratorPlatform: Graphical and textual web browser access for a remote matlab-like process, Internal report, Universita della Calabria,Evolutionary Systems Group.

[6] G. Alı, E. Bilotta, P. Pantano, R. Servidio, V. Talarico: E-Learning Strategies in Academia-Industry Knowledge Exchange. To appearin Proceedings of ICL2007Conference, Villach, Austria (2007).

[7] J. L. Encarnacao, Edutainment and Serious Games Games Move into Professional Applications, In: Technologies for E-Learning andDigital Entertainment, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Springer, Berlin, 2007).

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