Enosha Hettiarachchi

• PhD
• Senior Lecturer at University of Colombo

Gamification has been presented as an interesting concept for reinforcing teaching and learning in virtual learning environments. From this new emerging research field, several studies report on the promising potential of gamified education, but also on pitfalls to avoid. At the same time as there have been discussions on the lack of motivation in...

There is a growing concern to find an effective teaching and learning methodology during a social distancing situation as well as to address the drawbacks in the current educational system of Sri Lanka for students in Key Stage 1. Gamification has proved to make a positive impact on the concentration level, motivation and educational capabilities o...

Improving the User Experience (UX) of mobile devices is of vital importance due to the advent of emerging technologies and the prevalence of using mobile devices. This research aims to develop a model for a mobile device that can suggest adaptive functionalities, based on the current user emotion and the context by changing the user's negative emot...

As more and more interactive technologies are being introduced into the educational setting as a result of online learning, it is vitally important to know the benefits they offer to both teachers as well as students. When designing learning activities, they have to be aligned with the learning outcomes to provide maximum benefits to the students....

During the COVID-19 pandemic period, all the Sri Lankan universities delivered lectures in fully online mode using Virtual Learning Environments. In fully online mode, students cannot track their performance level, their progress in the course, and their performances compared to the rest of the class. This paper presents research work conducted at...

A university is a center of knowledge creation, and industry can be a vibrant place for innovation. This paper examines the key factors influencing university-industry collaboration (UIC) innovation catalysts in Sri Lanka. The study employed a systematic procedure based on the Grounded Theory to investigate the factors contributing to the success o...

A framework that can adjust and blend its activities or setups to satisfy users’ needs continuously in real-time by considering the status of the user and the status of the system based on the present properties can be defined as an adaptive framework. Proposing an adaptive framework which can suggest functions by considering user emotions and cont...

Affective computing is an imperative topic for Human-Computer Interaction, where user emotions and emotional communication can be utilized to improve the usability of a system. Several strategies are available to detect user emotions but it is questionable when identifying the most suitable and compatible strategy which can be used to detect emotio...

In large classrooms, keeping students active for a prolonged period is a difficult task. Studies have shown that students can keep their attention active for a shorter duration such as 15-20 minutes. Thus, the importance of introducing active learning techniques to classrooms has arisen. Active learning will ultimately lead to students being deep l...

Availability of various geospatial data has increased with the recent growth of geospatial information on the web. Integrating or conflating multiple geospatial datasets have become an important aspect in modern geographic information processing as it can provide insights that are not capable to obtain from an individual dataset. However, positiona...

The use of blended learning environments in higher education has rapidly increased in the 21st century. Tools and techniques that initially were used in experimental distance education courses are today part of mainstream education with blended learning as a continuum between traditional face-to-face teaching and pure online courses. In this wide v...

The use of blended learning environments in higher education has rapidly increased in the 21st century. Tools and techniques that initially were used in experimental distance education courses are today part of mainstream education with blended learning as a continuum between traditional face-to-face teaching and pure online courses. In this wide v...

This chapter presents a literature review of e-assessment in online higher education with a special focus on skill acquisition in engineering education. Skill acquisition is important in engineering education, especially skills involving practical problem solving to cater to the demands of a rapidly changing industry. Therefore, knowledge and under...

E-assessment is the process where technologies are used for the management of the end-to-end assessment process. It involves the use of any technology-based method that allows systematic inferences and judgments to be made about the student's skills, knowledge and capabilities acquisition. In online learning, technology is used to facilitate the im...

Student-Centred Learning in a Blended Environment – Case Study based on a Final Year Undergraduate Course

Introducing e-assessment in high-level cognitive courses is still a difficult issue, especially when adapting theoretical models and systems to real courses. One of the challenges is that most of the e-assessment tools offer simple types of questions such as Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ), which does not allow proper assessment for skills. Another...

E-assessment has become increasingly interesting in higher education. However, it is not an easy matter. It does not work to transfer, directly, face-to-face assessment models to online education. Indeed, the nature of such assessments has often been limited to automatically corrected quizzes, compounds of simple type of questions such as 'multiple...

A student's performance in high cognitive level courses, like the case of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects, is directly related with engagement and motivation. Practice and formative assessment are key elements to engage learners in this kind of courses. However, it is still an open issue, especially in distance...

Advancements in technology offer new challenges and opportunities for online education. The interaction design of digital learning and assessment tools directly influence the learning experience. The aim of this work is to show the process of user-centered design and development of an online assessment tool that allows setting, monitoring and displ...

This paper presents the experience of designing and launching an online HCI certificate program. The program was opened in March 2011 and it is currently in its fourth edition. It is a one-year certificate program addressed to practitioners and people working in user experience related fields. The data collected about our students confirm that ther...

This paper presents a technology-enhanced assessment system that can be used for both skill and knowledge learning. For this purpose, a general technology-enhanced assessment system is designed and developed for an online logic course at a fully online university, taking into account e-learning standards and specifications, which can be easily adap...

Technology-Enhanced Assessment (TEA) has become increasingly attractive in higher education. However, the nature of such assessments has often been limited to simple type of questions such as MCQs, which are usually knowledge-based. Cognitive skills and practical abilities cannot be assessed via simple types of questions. This raised the need to in...

This paper presents an architecture for a technology-enhanced assessment system for assessing both skill and knowledge acquisition in online higher education while adhering to standards and specifications. This technological requirement is achieved through designing a system which allows the integration of existing partially effective tools with co...

This paper describes the iterative development process of a Learning Object Repository (LOR), named eNOSHA. Discussions on a project for a LOR started at the e-Learning Centre (eLC) at The University of Colombo, School of Computing (UCSC) in 2007. The eLC has during the last decade been developing learning content for a nationwide e-learning bachel...

eNOSHA is an open source Learning Object Repository (LOR) developed at the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) in a collaboration between UCSC in Sri Lanka, and two universities from Sweden during 2009 and 2010. eNOSHA is a system where content developers and instructional designers can store and reuse learning objects on 4 different a...

This paper describes the development of an open source Learning Object Repository (LOR), named eNOSHA (eLearning Neutral Object Storage with a Holistic Approach.), at University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), Sri Lanka. The e-Learning Centre (eLC) at UCSC has been developing learning content for a nationwide e-Learning Bachelor of Informati...

e-Assessment which is most commonly known as online assessments has become a very integral part of e-learning based study programmes, offered by educational Institutes. One of the main reasons why educational institutes prefer online assessments is because it facilitates immediate feedback through automated marking and therefore it is possible to l...

This paper describes the development of an open source Learning Object Repository (LOR), named eNOSHA (eLearning Neutral Object Storage with a Holistic Approach.), at University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), Sri Lanka. The e-Learning Centre (eLC) at UCSC has been developing learning content for a nationwide e-learning bachelor of informati...