Iván Ruiz-Rube

• Professor (Assistant) at Universidad de Cádiz

This paper introduces NAVI Assistant, a tool designed to enhance learning in an End-User Development (EUD) environment. NAVI Assistant integrates a chatbot that uses natural language understanding (NLU) and machine learning (ML) technologies for intent recognition and context management. The tool comprises components within both a browser extension...

El aumento de las actividades virtuales ha evidenciado la necesidad de mejorar las experiencias en línea, como la ̃enseñanza de idiomas. Los Entornos de Aprendizaje Virtual (EVA) han avanzado gracias a tecnologías como la Realidad Virtual (RV) y los chatbots, pero su desarrollo requiere habilidades de programación avanzadas. Este trabajo introduce...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to face-to-face activities being developed in a virtual format that often offers a poor experience in areas such as education. Virtual Learning Environments have improved in recent years thanks to new technologies such as Virtual Reality or Chatbots. However, creating Virtual Learning Environments requires advanced pro...

This chapter aims to analyse some of the most popular contemporary end-user development tools for designing learning games with a special focus on foreign language learning. To this end, we first describe different authoring tools (e.g., Scratch, AppInventor, CoSpaces, Alice, GameSalad, GameMaker and Gamelearn) that can be easily used by teachers a...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an imposed acquisition of digital skills. End-user development tools have demonstrated their potential, enabling non-expert users without an advanced knowledge of programming languages to create their own software artifacts. Moreover, advances in natural language processing and understanding have enabled the emergen...

Learning the SQL language for working with relational databases is a fundamental subject for future computer engineers. However, in distance learning contexts or unexpected situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, where students had to follow lectures remotely, they may find it hard to learn. Chatbots are software applications that aim to have conver...

Systematic reviews are powerful methods used to determine the state-of-the-art in a given field from existing studies and literature. They are critical but time-consuming in research and decision making for various disciplines. When conducting a review, a large volume of data is usually generated from relevant studies. Computer-based tools are ofte...

SQL es un lenguaje ampliamente usado, siendo uno de los pilares fundamentales en la formación de los ingenieros en informática. Sin embargo, su aprendizaje suele presentar dificultades para los estudiantes, sobre todo cuando gran parte del estudio de la materia se realiza de manera autónoma. En este trabajo, se desarrolla un agente conversacional (...

The global irruption of ‘shared-accommodation platforms’ has ignited debate regarding the implications of the unprecedented growth of the short-term rental market. While some argue that they have generated new business, work and wealth others, highlight their wider societal, economic and legal effects. Short-term rental removes long-term housing fr...

This paper aims to encourage teachers from all areas, with a special focus on the area of language teaching, to explore the possibilities of creating virtual learning environments using technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR). Through the current work, the authors intend to share with other teachers their experience with the design and implementa...

This paper describes the design and validation of a game based on a platform for easy deployment of collaborative educational games, named BECO Games platform. As an example of its potential, a learning experience for an Economics subject was created through a collaborative game to understand the concept of common goods. The effectiveness of the ga...

Designing visual models to describe and conceptualize objects and systems requires abstraction skills and a predisposition for visual interactions. Readily available modeling tools rely on the users’ logical-mathematical and visual-spatial abilities to support modeling design. However, they fall short of mechanisms to tap into the users’ bodily-kin...

Homo Economicus behaves rationally, maximizing his own utility over that of the group. The relationship with non-prosocial behavior seems clear. This behavior, typical of people with high psychoticism, could affect their decision-making. Therefore, not only the situation will be critical when making a decision, but also stable variables related to...

Video game development is still a difficult task today, requiring strong programming skills and knowledge of multiple technologies. To tackle this problem, some visual tools such as Unity or Unreal have appeared. These tools are effective and easy to use, but they are not entirely aimed at end-users with little knowledge of software engineering. Cu...

The use of code quality control platforms for analysing source code is increasingly gaining attention in the developer community. These platforms are prepared to parse and check source code written in a variety of general-purpose programming languages. The emergence of domain-specific languages enables professionals from different areas to develop...

Se describen las líneas de investigación del grupo Mejora del Proceso Software y Métodos Formales de la Universidad de Cádiz, en relación a las tecnologías del aprendizaje e informática educativa. Palabras clave: Computación creativa, desarrollo centrado en el usuario, wikis, analítica del aprendizaje, juegos aplicados, aprendizaje móvil de idiomas...

The Internet of Things enables experts of given domains to create smart user experiences for interacting with the environment. However, development of such experiences requires strong programming skills, which are challenging to develop for non-technical users. This paper presents several extensions to the block-based programming language used in A...

The theme selected for the 2019 EuroCALL conference held in Louvain-la-Neuve was ‘CALL and complexity’. As languages are known to be intrinsically and linguistically complex, as are the many determinants of learning (additional) languages, complexity is viewed as a challenge to be embraced collectively. The 2019 conference allowed us to pay tribute...

Organizations need employees who perform satisfactorily in generic skills, such as teamwork, leadership, problem solving or interpersonal abilities, among others. In organizational environments, employees perform work that is not always visible for supervisors and, thus, they can hardly assess their performance in generic skills. By using a knowled...

A visual programming language allows users and developers to create programs by manipulating program elements graphically. Several studies have shown the benets of visual languages for learning purposes and their applicability to robot programming. However, at present, there are not enough comparative studies on the suitability of textual and visua...

Systematic literature reviews and mapping studies are useful research methods used to lay the foundations of further research. These methods are widely used in the Health Sciences and, more recently, also in Computer Science. Despite existing tool support for systematic reviews, more automation is required to conduct the complete process. This pape...

In recent years, 360º videos combined with virtual reality (VR) techniques have been used to recreate highly interactive and immersive environments, allowing its users to directly experience and interact with its content and environment. Unlike traditional video recordings, which usually provide a very restrictive perspective of an object, person o...

The appropriate categorisation of written information by health professionals is very important to guarantee its accessibility. Unfortunately, the information technology tools that support professionals on that task imply a heavy workload, so that the responsibility for categorising the written content is often delegated to administrative staff. We...

The incorporation of mobile applications in educational environments generates a large amount of information resulting from the interaction of students with these applications. The analysis of this information can be of significant importance. The teacher may find it useful, as it can help them to make decisions or to assess the process of teaching...

The performance in generic skills is increasingly important for organizations to succeed in the current competitive environment. However, assessing the level of performance in generic skills of the members of an organization is a challenging task, subject to both subjectivity and scalability issues. Organizations usually lay their organizational le...

A Higher Education degree is composed by courses which can be organized in areas or modules. Over last years, time invested by students to complete Higher Education degrees has increased. This increment can be caused by the existence of bottlenecks in the courses of academic programs. We aim to carry out an analysis of students’ performance to dete...

Pseudocode is one of the recommended methods for teaching students to design algorithms. Having a tool that performs the automatic translation of an algorithm in pseudocode to a programming language would allow the student to understand the complete process of program development. In addition, the introduction of quality measurement of algorithms d...

The incorporation of mobile applications in diverse environments generates a large amount of information resulting from the interaction of users with these mobile applications. The analysis of this information can facilitate decision-making or evaluation of the process for the professionals, allowing for improved results or the detection of certain...

The representation of musical information through notation systems is a process of multidimensional nature, of high complexity , and which is subject to a practically infinite level of casuistry. The translation of these processes into the digital domain has meant an unprecedented revolution for the recording and dissemination of musical informatio...

The incorporation of specific mobile applications in various disciplines can be very useful. However, the content of these applications may be subject to updates that the developer should perform manually. The use of linked data sources can be a possible solution to this problem, making the content of the applications dynamically updated. Neverthel...

One of the most valuable skills for teachers is the ability to produce their own digital solutions, translating teaching concepts into end-user computer systems. This often requires the involvement of computing specialists. As a result, the development of educational programming environments remains a challenge. Learning experiences based multimoda...

The acquisition of foreign language competencies has become one of the main concerns of current ICT educational policies. Mobile smart devices allow teachers to provide students with personalized learning environments in line with their needs. However, most of the available apps, especially in the area of foreign language learning, still focus on f...

In recent years, several visual programming languages and tools are emerging, which allow young students to easily program applications. Particularly, the block-based language used by Scratch has been the standard in most school initiatives to introduce Computational thinking (CT) in courses unrelated to computing. However, CT competences are not s...

La incorporación de aplicaciones móviles en entornos educativos genera una gran cantidad de información resultante de la interacción de los estudiantes con estas aplicaciones. El análisis de esta información puede ser de gran utilidad para el docente, ya que le puede facilitar la toma de decisiones o la valoración del proceso de enseñanza/aprendiza...

Una de las competencias específicas de la asignatura de Dibujo Técnico en primero de los grados de ingeniería hace referencia al desarrollo de la capacidad de visión espacial. En este sentido, la comprensión del Sistema Diédrico por parte del alumno permite el desarrollo de la misma y proporciona las bases para una inmersión más sencilla en otros á...

Virtual Worlds (VWs) have been widely used to support learning processes. One main advantage is providing valuable data on student behaviour and interaction. Nonetheless, most platforms provide only limited access to student logs. Moreover, accessing logs usually requires technical skills most teachers do not have. In this context, the authors pres...

Augmented Reality (AR) technology allows the inclusion of virtual elements on a vision of actual physical environment for the creation of a mixed reality in real time. This kind of technology can be used in educational settings. However, the current AR authoring tools present several drawbacks, such as, the lack of a mechanism for tracking the stud...

Learning experiences based on multimodal interactive applications are becoming common at all educational levels. Designing assessments for learning applications is often addressed through learning analytics. Multimodal interactive applications generate a large amount of data about students' interaction that can provide insights about their profile,...

Purpose In a project-based learning experience, the detailed monitoring of the activities in which team members participate can be useful to evaluate their work. However, the project activity produces a large amount of data that can be hardly assessed by a single project supervisor. This poses an scalability issue if the number of users or projects...

Technology of Augmented Reality (AR) has been successfully applied to create technical manuals that guide operators during the supervision, control and maintenance of industrial processes. These manuals using visual elements overlapping the image of the real world captured by a camera, manage to improve the industrial process reducing economic cost...

Las interacciones de los estudiantes con dispositivos y aplicaciones móviles con propósitos educativos generan una gran cantidad de información que puede ser tratada con técnicas analíticas y de minería de datos para que el profesor pueda tomar decisiones relacionadas con el aprendizaje. No obstante, el desarrollo de aplicaciones móviles que sean c...

Domain specific languages (DSLs) based on textual notations are useful to describe the semantics of a given problem. Software frameworks, such as Xtext, enable to easily design and develop textual DSLs. The use of interactive quality platforms for analysing source code such as SonarQube is increasing. For evaluating the quality of a program written...

With increasing globalization, foreign language skills have become one of the main requirements when applying for a job in leading ICT companies. Due to their ubiquity and multi-functionality, mobile devices allow teachers to provide technology-friendly students with highly dynamic learning contents in line with their lifestyle. Unfortunately, most...

Slides from presentation of VEDILS

With increasing globalization, foreign language skills have become one of the main requirements when applying for a job in leading ICT companies. Due to their ubiquity and multi-functionality, mobile devices allow teachers to provide technology-friendly students with highly dynamic learning contents in line with their lifestyle. Unfortunately, most...

El uso de mundos virtuales en la enseñanza se ha extendido en los últimos años. La descontextualización en que se sumergen los alumnos y la capacidad de registro de las interacciones que se producen (movimientos, intercambio de mensajes, acciones, etc.) son algunas de las características que las hacen especialmente interesantes para el aprendizaje...

En el presente trabajo se describe Vary, un entorno de desarrollo basado en Eclipse, el cual permite escribir algoritmos en pseudocódigo y posteriormente, ejecutar los programas obtenidos mediante la transformación de dichos algoritmos en código fuente. En este caso, el entorno realiza la transformación automática desde pseudocódigo a código C/C++....

En las experiencias de aprendizaje basadas en proyectos, la monitorización detallada de las actividades de los miembros de cada equipo puede resultar de utilidad para la evaluación de su trabajo. Mediante procedimientos de evaluación, los supervisores pueden evaluar las capacidades de trabajo en equipo con una finalidad formativa. Suelen aplicarse...

Virtual worlds (VWs) have become increasingly popular to support students’ foreign language learning, especially beyond the classroom. Unfortunately students’ interaction in VWs is not always available for the supervisor and thus is not easy to analyse. Nonetheless, it provides interesting information not only in terms of assessment, but also to de...

Aunque los mundos virtuales se llevan usando en la enseñanza de idiomas desde hace décadas, su uso no se ha generalizado debido a diversas causas como su esfuerzo de desarrollo, las complicaciones de su administración y gestión, los requisitos tecnológicos necesarios para su ejecución, el escaso valor que tienen determinadas experiencias al repetir...

Learning outcomes in higher education are defined as competencies, which are either specific or generic. The former refers to those skills specific to the subject studied. The latter, also known as transferable skills, refer to other capabilities that a capable professional has to put into practice to work in real-world. Generic competencies are us...

Context: Software Process Engineering promotes the systematic production of software by following a set of well-defined technical and management processes. A comprehensive management of these processes involves the accomplishment of a number of activities such as model design, verification, validation, deployment and evaluation. However, the deploy...

Nowadays, virtual learning environments are developed as digital ecosystems based on existing resources, applications, and web services. Even if they are not hosted in a centralized course management system, they are usually highly coupled. In this paper, we show how semantic technologies can help decoupling them. We build an e-learning web ecosyst...

Automating the evaluation of a software process is complex due to the absence of interoperability mechanisms between the tools that are used to manage, develop or maintain software projects. This work presents an approach to facilitate the construction of mechanisms to evaluate software projects. Based on information integration principles and Link...

The widespread adoption of computers and Internet in our life has reached the classrooms, where computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) based on wikis offers new ways of collaboration and encourages student participation. When the number of contributions from students increases, traditional assessment procedures of e-learning settings suff...

Semantic web technologies are all the more relevant in modern e-learning environments that are built upon existing web resources, applications and services, which cannot be completely hosted and managed by a centralised web-based system. This paper shows how semantic web and linked data technologies can improve the interoperability between virtual...

The focus on assessment of learning experiences has shifted from knowledge to competences. Unfortunately, assessing certain competences is mainly a subjective task, being problematic for both the evaluators and the evaluated. Additionally, when the learning process is computer-supported and the number of students increases, traditional assessment p...

The focus on assessment of learning experiences has shifted from knowledge to competences. Unfortunately, assessing certain competences is mainly a subjective task, being problematic for both the evaluators and the evaluated. Additionally, when the learning process is computer-supported and the number of students increases, traditional assessment p...

Virtual learning environments are developed nowadays as digital ecosystems based on existing resources, applications and web services. Even if they are not hosted in a centralized course management system, they usually are highly coupled. In this paper we show how semantic technologies can help decoupling them. We build an elearning web ecosystem e...

Software process engineering is a discipline, which aims to study and improve software development and maintenance processes. The explicit definition of software processes is essential. To this end, the Object Management Group consortium proposed the Software & Systems Process Engineering Meta-Model (SPEM) that exploits the benefits of the Model Dr...

In a project-based learning experience, the detailed monitoring of the activities in which team members participate can be useful to evaluate their work. Using learning-oriented assessment procedures, supervisors can assess the teamwork abilities with a formative purpose. Evaluation strategies such as self-assessment, peer assessment and co-assessm...

The World Wide Web is a space prepared for the exchange of information among networked systems. However, the current web is mainly designed for human consumption, so its contents are not readily understandable by computers. This issue emerges in diverse applications of the Web and becomes especially relevant in the cultural institutions’ domain. Th...

Learning Design is a framework of elements that are used for the formal specification of learning courses. Learning Design languages have been defined to facilitate the editing of online courses, usually including a number of technical formalisms that have proved to be scarcely comprehensible to non-technical staff. In this work we describe a model...

Son muchos los centros educativos a todos los niveles que utilizan cursos virtuales como herramienta de apoyo a la docencia. Los profesores han de planificar estos cursos con anterioridad al inicio de los mismos, y como norma general, sitúan un documento estático informativo con la planificación en la zona superior del curso virtual. A posteriori,...

Wikis are common systems to support collaborative learning experiences. When the number of students and the amount of information stored in a wiki system increases, assessing each student’s work is difficult. Wikis keep a registry with differences between consecutive revisions of wiki articles that can be used for learning assessment. This informat...

Research Information Systems (RIS) play a critical role in the sharing of scientific information and provide researchers, professionals and decision makers with the required data for their activities. Existing RIS standards have proposed data models to represent the main entities for storage and exchange. These account for the needs of multiple sta...

In this paper, we describe how to design learning activities that dynamically provide thematic Web resources from a linked-data repository. The aim is to enable teachers to share a variable set of resources related to a given subject and postpone the actual resource delivery to the deployment or enactment of the course. We have proposed a Learning...

CERIF (the Common European Research Information Format) is a formal conceptual model to support the management of Research Information, including the set up of and the interoperation between Research Information Systems. Research Information is information about research entities such as people, projects, organisations, publications, patents, produ...

Web Science is emerging as an interdisciplinary field that views the Web as a relevant source of information to be analysed for diverse scientific purposes. Semantic and linked data techniques and standards have been used to integrate existing Web information developing e-research e_orts. Web applications and sources have to publish enriched inform...

In this paper we present a proposal of designing learning activities to dynamically provide thematic web resources enriched with linked data from a semantic repository. The approach has been implemented as a tool for Learning Activity M anagement System (LAM S) that provides an interface to automatically select the related resources that are to be...

The extension of regular web applications with linked data and the provision of specific web services to exploit their datasets is still a challenge. In this paper we describe a method to generate linked data and reveal them in a controlled manner for open source web applications. Revelation is carried out either at the controller or the model comp...

In this paper, we describe the issues found during the development of LinkedBlog, a Linked Data extension for WordPress blogs. This extension enables to enrich text-based and video information contained in blog entries with RDF triples that are suitable to be stored, managed and exploited by other web-based applications. The issues have to do with...

The eCultura project aims to provide a complete set of services and applications to access and integrate diverse web-based contents of the cultural domain. Semantic web technologies have enabled sharing information such services, as well as providing interoperability within external applications. The goal is to extend over the web the knowledge bas...