Gridcole

Draft

Definition

Gridcole is grid-based CSCL system.

Description

Gridcole is a new system that can be easily tailored by educators in order to support the realization of scripted collaborative learning situations. To do so, educators can provide a script specifying the sequence of activities to be performed by learners as well as the tools and documents required to support them. Gridcole can then search for these tools in a service-oriented grid in order to integrate them so that they are available for users during the realization of the situation.
Significantly, Gridcole has two features that are not supported by other tailorable systems. First, it allows the integration of tools that use supercomputing capabilities or specific hardware resources, thus enabling the possibility of supporting many situations in which this type of tools is required. Besides, Gridcole can guide learners during the realization of collaborative learning situations according to the sequences of activities specified in the scripts. This way, learners can benefit from the advantages of scripted collaborative learning. Gridcole has been evaluated using three collaborative learning situations conceived for real courses at university level. The results of the evaluation show that Gridcole does provide the desired properties concerning tool integration and activity guidance as well as that the proposed system can provide adequate support for a wide range of collaborative learning situations.

(Bote-Lorenzo et al., 2008:Abstract)

Implementation principles and status

Gridcole is a prototype and work in progress.

According to the "GRID based services for flexible design of applications" project home page, some recent objectives were to solve several problems that arise in educational software and especially in distributed systems that support computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). Among them:

• Software reuse, as well as tailorability to particular educator's requirements,
• The opportunity for creating new scenarios requiring the use of specific hardware or with supercomputational needs,
• The design of structured activities with the support of collaborative learning flow pattern (CFLP)s,
• The use of standards, both in the educational software (IMS-LD for learning designs) and in the field of service-based technologies (OGSA, Web Services).

Links

• Intelligent & Cooperative Systems Research Group (GSIC), University of Valladolid

References

• Bote-Lorenzo, Miguel L.; Yannis A. Dimitriadis and Eduardo G. Gómez-Sanchez, (2003). Preprint to appear in School of Telecommunications Engineering, University of Valladolid. PDF, retrieved 12:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC).

• Bote-Lorenzo, M.L., Dimitriadis, Y., Gómez-Sánchez (2004), E. Grid characteristics and uses: a grid definition (Postproceedings extended and revised version) Proceedings of the First European Across Grids Conference, ACG'03, Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2970, 291-298, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, February 2004. PDF, retrieved 12:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC).

• Bote-Lorenzo, M.L., Gómez-Sánchez, E., Vega-Gorgojo, G., Dimitriadis, Y., Asensio-Pérez, J.I., Jorrín-Abellán, I.M. (2008). Gridcole: a tailorable grid service based system that supports scripted collaborative learning. Computers & Education 51(1):155-172,, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2007.05.004.

• Bote-Lorenzo, M.L., Hernández-Leo, D., Dimitriadis, Y., Asensio-Pérez, J.I., Gómez-Sánchez, E., Vega-Gorgojo, G., Vaquero-González, L.M. (2004). Towards Reusability and Tailorability in Collaborative Learning Systems Using IMS-LD and Grid Services, Advanced Technology for Learning. 1(3):129-138, September 2004. PDF, http://dx.doi.org/10.2316/Journal.208.2004.3.208-0810.