Mikel Larrañaga

• University of the Basque Country

In the era where digital technologies are becoming increasingly prevalent, it is anticipated that a majority of the global population will have at least a basic understanding of informatics. However, empirical evidence suggests that a significant portion of the global population remains digitally illiterate. This phenomenon is particularly pronounc...

Augmented reality applications can be used in an educational context to facilitate learning. In particular, augmented reality has been successfully used as a tool to boost students’ engagement and to improve their understanding of complex topics. Despite this, augmented reality usage is still not common in schools and it still offers mostly individ...

The large number of scientific publications around the world is increasing at a rate of approximately 4%–5% per year. This fact has resulted in the need for tools that deal with relevant and high-quality publications. To address this necessity, search and reference management tools that include some recommendation algorithms have been developed. Ho...

Although there are some experiences that demonstrate the validity of the use of augmented reality in schools to help students understand and retain complex concepts, augmented reality has not been widely adopted in the education sector yet. This is in part because it is hard to use augmented reality applications in collaborative learning scenarios...

Augmented reality is a technology that enhances human perception with additional, artificially generated sensory inputs. This creates new experiences enriching human vision by combining natural with digital elements. Augmented reality development dates back to the early sixties but it is only in the last decade, thanks to improvements to hardware a...

In a concept learning scenario, any technology-supported learning system must provide students with mechanisms that help them with the acquisition of the concepts to be learned. For the technology-supported learning systems to be successful in this task, the development of didactic material is crucial—a hard task that could be alleviated by means o...

Recommender Systems provide users with content or products they are interested in. The main purpose of Recommender Systems is to find, among the vast amount of information that is available or advertised on the Internet, content that meets the user’s needs i.e., a product or content that satisfies his or her wishes. These systems are being used mor...

Several educational institutions routinely recommend and use Augmented Reality in learning and teaching, for its potential benefits regarding an increase in the students’ motivation and attention as well as their knowledge retention. Most of the time, though, augmented reality applications consist of rather static, single-user experiences which do...

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-021-00245-3

In order to be effective, a learning process requires the use of valid and suitable educational resources. However, measuring the quality of an educational resource is not an easy task for a teacher. The data of the performance of the students can be used to measure how appropriate the didactic resources are. Besides this data, adequate metrics and...

The goal of the research here presented is to identify which aspects of Wikipedia can be exploited to support the process of automatically building Multilingual Domain Modules from textbooks. First, we have defined a representation formalism for Multilingual Domain Modules that is essential for Technology Supported Learning Systems which aim to ser...

Las principales tendencias actuales en la educación universitaria implican la integración de aprendizaje presencial, de aprendizaje en línea y el uso de tecnologías que den soporte a diversos aspectos del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Uno de los principales aspectos que tienen en cuenta todas las tendencias educativas son los procesos de evalua...

The evaluation or assessment of student performance and knowledge is a central element of most instructional design models, as it provides the information required to take remediation actions and improve the learning process. However, the assessment contexts present such a diverse range of cases due to course, teacher and student idiosyncrasies tha...

Este artículo presenta el grupo de investigación GaLan (Entornos de Aprendizaje Adaptativos) del Dpto. de Lenguajes y Sistemas Informáticos de la Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU. La labor investigadora del grupo se centra en aplicar la inteligencia artificial y las tecnologías de la información y comunicación al desarrollo de entornos de aprendi...

Educational Ontologies describe learning domains by specifying the topics to be learned together with the relationships among the topics. Any technology supported learning system could take advantage of an educational ontology in the process of guiding students during their learning processes. This paper presents LiReWi, a system for the elicitatio...

Competence-based Learning has become more and more popular in the last few years and some researchers have claimed that formative assessment should be followed to improve the learning processes. In order to achieve the mastery of competencies, many lecturers have been required to adopt various and diverse applications in their courses to work on th...

A good assessment process entails analyzing students' results in order to detect anomalies and be able to provide adequate feedback to solve them. The analysis of the results becomes harder when the amount of information and its heterogeneity increases. Current education tendencies (for example blended learning), face this kind of problem as they h...

Introductory programming modules are challenging for both lecturers and students. In previous works, the authors have introduced educational innovations to mitigate these challenges and facilitate learning. This paper presents a further step forward, proposing a learning process enriched with formative feedback. To this end, visual programming envi...

The implementation of the Bologna Process has introduced continuous assessment processes, primarily formative assessment, in many Spanish universities. In such kind of scenarios, rubrics provide many benefits that can remarkably be improved using Visual Learning Analytics techniques. This paper presents EvalVis, a system that enhances feedback base...

Assessment is a key aspect of any instructional process, as it is the main mean of determining the competences of the students. Nowadays, the assessment and scoring carried out by groups of reviewers, namely evaluation of final year project or thesis works or even peer evaluation, are becoming more and more frequent. However, the assessment and sco...

Assessment is a key element in the teaching-learning process. Every formal education implies some kind of assessment, and the results of this assessment contribute to the quality improvement in that process. Currently, most assessment scenarios are very complex and require tools to support them. Establishing a good assessment approach requires cont...

Harriaren portaera artezketa eragiketan hein handi batean bere egitura granularraren naturatik datorkio. Gaur egungo harriak, aglomeratzaileak batzen dituen ale urratzaile gogorrez osatutako diseinuzko konglomeratu porotsuak dira. Alearen ezaugarriek, aglomeratzailearen erresistentziak eta, poroekin batera, hiruen arteko proportzioak harriaren izae...

This paper presents an experiment in which visual programming environments have been used in programming courses aiming at helping students to acquire the competencies of a course on Object Oriented Programming. The study presented is centred on the analysis of the acceptance by the students of this type of environment, as well as its effect on the...

Carrying out and monitoring Final Year Projects are challenging processes for all the actors involved: lecturers and students. Those projects exhibit problems regarding their evaluation, supervision and the lack of appropriate communication channels between the actors. The use of information and communication technologies can help to overcome those...

The dramatic eruption of Information and Communication Technology has had a remarkable effect on modern life, including the capacity to help older adults improve their quality of life and remain independent longer. However, while technology use is generally widespread, there is an observable underutilisation by older people. There is sound evidence...

We are living the end of a first wave of transformation of education caused by the incorporation of ICT to educational processes. In the time of MOOCs, informal and social learning, gamification, game-based learning, etc., we are facing a second wave of transformation. This time the wave is cross-technological, and focuses on the study, understandi...

The implementation of the Bologna Process has implied, in many Spanish universities, the introduction of continuous evaluation processes, in which formative assessment has a great relevance. In such kinds of scenarios, rubrics provide many benefits that can remarkably be improved using Visual Learning Analytics techniques. This paper presents some...

Rubrics are scoring tools that lay out the specific expectations for an assignment. They are very appropriate tools for formative assessment as they have proved to be adequate to reduce subjectivity in the evaluation process. When the evaluation entails several tasks, a rubric for each task should be defined. However, computing the final score usin...

Introductory programming courses are very challenging both for students and teachers. Several authors propose incorporating either educational robots or visual programming environments as a means to ease learning of programming. This paper presents three experiences that use these kinds of tools with the aim of applying Kolb’s experiential learning...

Lan honetan LiDom Builder tresnaren analisi, diseinu eta ebaluazioa aurkezten dira. Domeinu Modulu Eleaniztunak testuliburu elektronikoetatik era automatikoan erauztea ahalbidetzen du LiDom Builderek. Ezagutza eskuratzeko, Hizkuntzaren Prozesamendurako eta Ikaste Automatikorako teknikekin batera, hainbat baliabide eleaniztun erabiltzen ditu, bestea...

Basic Programming is a mandatory course that covers the fundamentals of programming in Computer Engineering degrees. During the last years, the authors have experimented different approaches to improve the course. For example, they have included Lego Mindstorms robots and visual programming environments in their lectures. However, the heterogeneity...

DOM-Sortze is a framework for the semiautomatic generation of Domain Modules from textbooks. It identifies not only topics and relationships between topics but also Learning Objects (e.g., definitions, examples, problem-statements) included in an electronic document. ArikIturri is a NLP-based system designed to automatically generate test-based exe...

Major efforts have been conducted on ontology learning, that is, semiautomatic processes for the construction of domain ontologies from diverse sources of information. In the past few years, a research trend has focused on the construction of educational ontologies, that is, ontologies to be used for educational purposes. The identification of the...

After the implementation of the Bologna Process, the Final Year Project (FYP) is a mandatory course in all bachelor degrees in Spanish higher education system. Although the FYP is new for many degrees, it was already established in the previous education system for engineering degrees. The authors of this paper are lecturers in a bachelor degree in...

Basic Programming is a first year mandatory course of the Computer Engineering degree. Both students and teachers face difficulties in this course, which has high failure and drop-out rates. Several authors have proposed the use of visual programming environments and robots to overcome the difficulties of this course, some of which have been succes...

Authors report on a study using the concept mapping technique in computer engineering education for learning theoretical introductory database topics. In addition, the learning of multilingual technical terminology by means of the collaborative drawing of a concept map is also pursued in this experiment. The main characteristics of a study carried...

In this paper, the language independence of DOM-Sortze for creating Educational Ontologies from electronic textbooks is tested. DOM-Sortze has been designed to be language and domain independent. Initially, it was tested with documents written in the Basque language. In this work, DOM-Sortze has been enhanced to deal with the English language. In a...

Technology-supported learning systems have proved to be helpful in many learning situations. These systems require an appropriate representation of the knowledge to be learned, the Domain Module. The authoring of the Domain Module is cost and labor intensive, but its development cost might be lightened by profiting from semiautomatic Domain Module...

This paper presents a project that aims to develop a collaborative Concept Map Editor that will provide the necessary functionality to be used by multicultural teams.

Students on Basic Programming courses often have difficulties with program design tasks. This problem mainly arises from their lack of program solving skills. To overcome this lack, students' need to practice. Manipulating real entities can be a useful and motivating strategy to engage students in such endeavor. In this context, several authors hav...

This paper presents a questionnaire based intercultural study carried out to identify the differences observed in people when individually interact with the CM-ED Concept Map Editor. Each participant interpreted and localised to his/her own culture a Concept Map (CM) about a sensitive topic. The aim of the study was to identify what visible element...

Due to the impact that Information and Communication Technologies have in the current society in general, and in academic institutions in particular, there is a growing need for effective creation and management of digital content. But content authoring is known to be an effort and time consuming task. Digital contents used inside Technology Suppor...

Inside the globalisation era in which society is immersed, one of the current challenges for any educational system is to provide quality education. While some countries are linguistically homogeneous, many countries and regions display a wealth of linguistic diversity and it is essential to adapt the educational system to those realities. In addit...

Content reuse is one of the major concerns in the Technology Enhanced Learning community. ErauzOnt is a system that uses Natural Language Processing techniques, heuristic reasoning, and ontologies to generate Learning Objects from textbooks. It has been tested with several textbooks written in the Basque language in order to evaluate the automatic...

Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge. The fundamentals of concept mapping are in Ausubel's learning theory which is based on the assumption that meaningful learning occurs when the new concepts are linked to familiar concepts existing in the learner's cognitive structure. Creativity can be seen as a very high l...

Retrieving and reusing Learning Objects can lighten the workload of constructing new on-line courses or Technology Supported Learning Systems. The paper presents ErauzOnt, a framework for the automatic generation of new Learning Objects from electronic documents using domain ontologies and Natural Language Processing techniques.

The aim of this study is to test collaborative concept mapping activities using computers in a classroom scenario and to evaluate the possibilities that Elkar-CM offers for collaboratively learning non-technical topics. Elkar-CM is a multi-lingual and multi-media software program designed for drawing concept maps (CMs) collaboratively. Concept mapp...

This paper presents a study carried out at Hirubide Secondary School in the Basque Country with the aim of evaluating whether the use of the CM-ED Concept Map EDitor increases student motivation and engagement in the learning process. During the last decades, motivating students has increasingly become a problem for educators even more in multicult...

In order to face the problems that people with disabilities find in their occupational integration in a very competitive market, one of the keys are the solutions that new technologies offer through what is called "Support Technologies". Nowadays the specific devices and products offering are reduced, especially in fields as cognitive disabilities...

The development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) based on mobile platforms offers new perspectives for a better integration of people with intellectual disabilities. The LAGUNTXO System aims to achieve the performance of human tutors. Due to the wide diversity related to a person with disabilities, an intelligent structure that may achieve a c...

In order to face the problems that people with disabilities find in their integration into social and working environments, one of the key issues is the implementation of solutions offered by new technologies by using what experts call 'support technologies'. The development of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) based on mobile platforms offers new...

In order to face the problems that people with disabilities find in their integration into working environments, one of the key issues is the implementation of solutions offered by new technologies by using what experts call “Support Technologies”. The development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) based on mobile platforms offers new perspectiv...

Along this paper Idea Map Editor is presented, a brainstorming tool based on Concept Maps valid for promoting reflection. Applied to the act of learning, reflection is a mental process that allows participants to use critical thinking to examine presented information, question its validity, and draw conclusions based on the resulting ideas.

The development of Computer Supported Learning Systems is a hard task and, therefore, they are not as broadly used as expected yet. Some authors have claimed that tools for generating learning material in automatic or semiautomatic way are needed. This paper describes how didactic resources can be semi automatically generated from electronic docume...

Nowadays, the integration of people with cognitive disabilities, especially in the work environment in a growing competitive market, is a difficult task. The TUTOR project is addressed to the development and testing of an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). The ITS runs on a handheld device and its aim is to increase the autonomy of people with cogn...

Tools for generating learning material in automatic or semiautomatic way are needed in order to lighten the development of Computer Supported Learning Systems. This paper describes an approach to semi automatic generation of didactic resources from electronic documents using ontologies and Natural Language Processing techniques.

The integration into social and work environments of people with disabilities is a fact nowadays. Tutoring systems are intended for helping this community in their life. These tools are very helpful; although at the moment don't completely meet their needs. This work presents a robust and intelligent tutor system that will cover several new aspects...

Technology supported learning systems have proved to be useful in many learning situations. However, the development of such systems is still a hard task. Ontologies and learning object technologies, as they improve the knowledge reuse, can lighten the content authoring process. This paper presents Elkar-DOM, a collaborative domain module authoring...

Computer supported learning systems such as Intelligent Tutoring Systems, web-based learning systems, etc. gather data from students’ interaction. Teachers and students may find useful a medium to inspect information of students and student groups in an intuitive way. This paper presents DynMap+, an approach to generate and visualize Group Student...

Along this paper Elkar-CM, a multilingual collaborative concept map editor is presented. The paper starts explaining the main characteristics of CM-ED, the kernel in which Elkar-CM is based on. Next, the paper describes the main characteristics and functionalities offered by Elkar-CM. Finally some conclusions are pointed out

Throughout this paper TOKA, a Web-based computer assisted assessment system is described. TOKA is valid for generating and automatically evaluating multilingual test exercises. It has been designed with the aim of providing teachers and students with an automatic assessment tool. A case study of how TOKA has been used for continuous assessment in a...

In this paper the authors make a brief introduction to the YADBrowser project which includes the educational browser YADBrowser and its script language, OPScript. The authors expose also some features added to it, with them the author of an educational application can achieve more functionality and adaptation with less code. Also the YADBrowser red...

In this paper CM-DOM, a concept map based graphical tool, is described. CM-DOM allows the supervision of the Domain Module acquisition from documents in a semi automatic way. This tool facilitates the inspection and refinement of the results of the acquired knowledge.

This paper describes the process followed for visualizing, using DynMap, the student's evolution through the learning process in a Computer Security course at the University. DynMap is a system based on Concept Maps developed with the aim of providing the education community with a tool that facilitates the inspection student data. After a brief in...

IkaStat is a tool for managing the marks of the students in a teaching institution. It has been conceived with the aim of providing teachers, academic inspectors and administration staff with facilities for collecting and managing the marks of the students and for visualizing and inspecting them. The tool allows a flexible definition of the curricu...

Domain Module is essential for many different kinds of Technology Supported Learning Systems. Some authors have pointed out the need of tools that may develop the domain module in an automatic or semi-automatic way. Nowadays, a lot of information of any domain, which can be used as the source for the target domain module, can be easily found in dif...

This paper describes a study conducted with the aim of validating DynMap, a system based on Concept Maps, as a mechanism to visualize the evolution of the students through the learning process of a particular subject. DynMap has been developed with the aim of providing the educational community with a tool that facilitates the inspection of the stu...

In this paper a general purpose tool for editing Concept Maps (CM-ED) is presented. This tool exhibits the following features: templates, views and facilities for multilingual concept maps. The tool has been used in different tasks of the Computer Aided Teaching/Learning area. Concretely: domain representation, exercise design and student model vis...

El objetivo principal de este trabajo es proveer a profesores y alumnos de una herramienta (DynMap+) que proporciona una representación gráfica tanto de modelos de alumnos individuales como de grupos de alumnos. A través de DynMap+ el usuario tendrá una visión global y particular del conocimiento y la progresión de los alumnos. La aplicación va a s...

Today's world culture wealth is based on the diversity of language and cultures that are an inherent part of the identity of its countries and regions. Education has a preeminent responsibility to preserve world's cultural heritage. Computer-based learning tools among other issues must also take into account the variety of languages. Some issues ab...

CM-ED is a concept map editor developed with the aim of being useful in different contexts and uses of the educational agenda. This paper describes the use of CM-ED to create graphical exercises based on Concept Maps. CM-ED integrated in an intelligent tutoring system authoring tool will allow teachers to include this new set of exercises in the ne...

A b s t r a c t: The work here presented aims to acquire semi-automatically the domain module of Teaching Learning Systems. This paper focus on acquiring the domain module structure by analysing the index of existing documents. The system uses Natural Language Processing techniques and Heuristic Reasoning in order to identify the domain topics and...

In this paper an ontology-based knowledge acquisition tool is presented. This work is focused on the incremental development of ontologies and aims to help with the creation and maintenance of knowledge-based systems. The tool uses the version concept to implement the evolution of the ontologies. IKAT facilitates the development of ontologies throu...

In this paper, a proposal for automating the acquisition of the domain for the ITSs is presented. Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques will be used to gather from books and electronic material the Domain Module Structure in a semi-automatic way and to build the ontology that describes it. Main domain topics and relationships among topics wi...

Resumen El objetivo principal de este trabajo es proveer a profesores y alumnos de una herramienta (DynMap +) que proporciona una representación gráfica tanto de modelos de alumnos individuales como de grupos de alumnos. A través de DynMap + el usuario tendrá una visión global y particular del conocimiento y la progresión de los alumnos. La aplicac...

This paper describes DynMap, a system based on Concept Maps for dynamically visualizing the Learner Model of an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). The aim is to facilitate learners and teachers to better understand ITS outcomes. The paper, first, describes some domain issues of IRIS authoring tool. Then, the main characteristics of Concept Map EDit...

In this paper, a proposal for automating the acquisition of the domain for the Teaching-Learning Systems is presented. Nowadays, in the Information Age, a lot of information of any domain can be easily found in different electronic formats: handbooks, technical reports, web pages, etcetera. All this information can be used in order to build the des...

El objetivo principal de este trabajo es proveer a profesores y alumnos de una herramienta (DynMap+) que proporciona una representación gráfica tanto de modelos de alumnos individuales como de grupos de alumnos. A través de DynMap+ el usuario tendrá una visión global y particular del conocimiento y la progresión de los alumnos. La aplicación va a s...