Quality assurance has become an urgent necessity in all spheres of life, including education and ... more Quality assurance has become an urgent necessity in all spheres of life, including education and learning in all stages from primary school to higher education, since it constitutes the core of development in the new era of knowledge economy. The aim of this paper is to present a new methodology applied to ensure quality of learning process within virtual learning environments. Our case study focused on the model of quality control adopted by Syrian Virtual University (SVU), which is pioneer in the field of virtual learning in the Middle East and the Arab region. The methodology is based on SET methodology (Students Evaluation Test) and defined by the assessments of each of the four pillars of learning process: (1) Assessment of tutors performed by learners; (2) Assessment of tutors performed by the administration; (3) Assessment of tutors performed by their peers; (4) Self-assessment of tutors. The last two procedures have not been yet implemented within SVU, while other procedures are in continuous development in order to improve their results. The importance of this model comes from its flexibility, its appliance since 2018 in a virtual education establishment (Syrian Virtual University), its possible generalization to any similar environment with virtual academic programs.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 10, 1997
Dans cet article, nous proposons une technique de vérification des propriétés des systèmes symétr... more Dans cet article, nous proposons une technique de vérification des propriétés des systèmes symétriques à partir du graphe de marquages symboliques. Un Graphe de Marquages Symboliques (GMS) est une représentation condensée du graphe d'états construit automatiquement à partir d'une spécification en termes de réseaux colorés. La construction d'un tel graphe utilise les symétries structurelles du système pour agréger les états et les actions entre les états (les transitions) dans des classes d'équivalences en choisissant des représentant des classes pour décrire l'évolution du système. Notre technique consiste à adapter et à utiliser, dans un modèle opérationnel, l'approche formelle, de la vérification des propriétés exprimées en CTL* (computational Temporal Logic Star), proposée par Emerson & al [1]. Nous proposons une logique temporelle CPN-CTL* (computational Temporal Logic Star for Colored Petri Nets), dérivée de CTL* et adaptée syntaxiquement à nos spécifications en termes de réseaux bien formés. Nous montrons, comment la vérification des propriétés peut être réalisée directement, sur le graphe de marquages symboliques malgré sa construction à partir des représentants des classes d'équivalences des états et des transitions. En effet, dans une telle représentation, les identités des objets spécifiés par la formule n'apparaissent pas dans les marquages du graphe, seule une notion de groupe d'objets est préservée indiquant la nature des objets dans le groupe ainsi que sa cardinalité. Cette technique donne lieu à une nouvelle spécification du système permettant la vérification directe des propriétés sur le graphe de marquages symboliques. Cette vérification est équivalente à la vérification des mêmes propriétés sur le graphe d'états ordinaire (graphe d'accessibilité).
Chest diseases are a subgroup of respiratory system diseases. The symptoms of these diseases are ... more Chest diseases are a subgroup of respiratory system diseases. The symptoms of these diseases are similar and this makes the diagnosis process difficult. Therefore, to ease the diagnosis process we gathered Information about fourteen diseases, which attack the chest, with their symptoms and investigations about them. In this paper, we present an Arabic ontology-based approach for chest diseases diagnosis. We focus on ontology building process. This ontology can be used to help physicians and other users, determine the chest disease that a patient is suffering from and what are the investigations that should be applied. While experts can easily gather information from this data, lay users lack the expertise needed to deal with it. Most of the efforts to solve this problem focus on the English language. So also, in this paper, we present a new approach based on natural language processing to translate Arabic language query to SPARQL query
Evaluating Interactive Learning Content in an eLearning Environment
eLearn
The interaction between teacher and learner, as well as the interaction between learner and conte... more The interaction between teacher and learner, as well as the interaction between learner and content, has a significant impact on the effectiveness of any learning process. In this paper, we discuss interactivity in the context of eLearning and we focus on the interaction between the learner and the content. The objective is to provide clear metrics to measure learner-content interactivity from the design perspective and at the level of learning objects. A series of tests is performed using our metrics on a set of different learning objects from various university curricula.The article presents suggested metrics, and summarizes findings concerning their interest and applicability.
The evaluation of tutors using Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) is an important Mechanism for... more The evaluation of tutors using Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) is an important Mechanism for quality assessment of teaching either in traditional learning or in virtual learning. However, the main question that could be raised here: Is there any difference in student evaluation of teaching (which is done by means of well-organized questionnaires) between traditional and virtual environments? In this paper, we apply SET within virtual learning environment. This is performed by modifying and introducing new factors to a standard SET evaluation questionnaire used in traditional environment, in order to transform it to a new one compatible with virtual environment. Our aim is to prove, using an empirical methodology, the validity of the new SET evaluation questionnaire within virtual learning. Our results prove that many traditional factors such as: number of attendees, tutor gender, tutor age, tutor specialty, have no effect on students' evaluation in virtual learning environment, while new introduced factors such as: course success rate, learning management system organization, well organized on-line sessions, interactivity during on-line sessions, tutor's commitment, responding to students' questions out of the online sessions by mail or social media...etc. affect SET positively.
International Journal of Data Mining & Knowledge Management Process
The rapid developments in information and communication technologies taking place recent years, m... more The rapid developments in information and communication technologies taking place recent years, make it easy for people to pursue their education distantly. The development of new technologies helped to open spatial and temporal boundaries of learning toward virtual learning, and helped to transform education process from its classical form of courses within classrooms to a new virtual form within virtual environments; Consequently, lessons and lectures are delivered using information and communication technologies tools, and student's attendance is virtually performed via Internet. Moreover, the education process in its new form becomes a supervised process, rather than a fully controlled process since virtual learning changed the education process pattern represented by the triangle (student, teacher and content) by increasing the importance of both "student" and "content" factors and transforming the main task of the "teacher" from "Teaching" to "Tutoring". Consequently, many questions are raised concerning students' performance and concerning the adequacy of virtual learning process. These questions are related to the need of accreditation for virtual learning and virtual universities. Our work aims to use Educational Data Mining (EDM) in order to study academic indicators concerning a representative sample of students in a virtual learning environment within Syrian Virtual University-SVU (The students who are following Bachelor of Information Technology Diploma-BIT). Our main goal is to discover the main factors influencing students' academic trajectory and students' academic evolution within such environment. Our results indicate strong correlation-in this virtual learning environment-between student average and some factors like: student's English level (despite the fact that Arabic language is the teaching language), student's age, student's gender, student's over-stay and student's place of residence (inside /outside Syria). Our results indicate also a need to modify the academic trajectory of students by changing the prerequisites of few courses delivered as a part of BIT diploma like Advanced DBA II, Data Security. In this research, the results also highlight the effect of the Syrian Crisis on students. Finally, we've suggested some future recommendations based on our observations and results to develop the current information system in SVU in order to help us to deduce some indicators more easily.
Formal Methods for Distributed System Development, 2000
A new method of model checking is proposed based on the existence of symmetries in system. We sho... more A new method of model checking is proposed based on the existence of symmetries in system. We show how to fully handle the partial symmetries of both properties and systems. Our method does not depend on a particular formalism and a priori can be applied to any one. Wellformed Petri Nets are used as an illustration.
Automatic Transformation of Electronic Documents into Reusable Learning Objects: New Approach Based on Artificial Neural Networks
…, 2006
... Dr. Khalil Ajami**, Shadi Elias*, Victoria Aarar*, Manal Osman*, Waad Hejazi*, Hadeel Khayyat... more ... Dr. Khalil Ajami**, Shadi Elias*, Victoria Aarar*, Manal Osman*, Waad Hejazi*, Hadeel Khayyat* ... Therefore, there have been considerable efforts, in the last few years, to ... Moreover, each learning environment (technically presented under the name of Learning Management ...
A Symbolic Reachability Graph (SRG) is a highly condensed representation of system state space bu... more A Symbolic Reachability Graph (SRG) is a highly condensed representation of system state space built automatically from a specification of system in terms of Wellformed net. The building of such graph profits from the presence of object symmetries to aggregate either states or actions within symbolic representatives. In this paper, we show how to make operational the CTL* formal checking system presented in [ 1 ]. Our technique consists in exploiting the SRG by taking into account the object symmetries only if they leave the formula invariant. The difficulty to bypass is that SRG does not preserve explicitly the behavior of the objects specified within formulas. This leads to a new specification of system, from which we can prove that model checking through a state space is equivalent to model checking through the symbolic teachability graph.
Model checking is a useful technique to verify properties of dynamic systems but it has to cope w... more Model checking is a useful technique to verify properties of dynamic systems but it has to cope with the state explosion problem. By simultaneous exploitation of symmetries of both the system and the property, the model checking can be performed on a reduced quotient structure [2,6,7]. In these techniques a property is specified within a temporal logic formula (CTL*) and the symmetries of the formula are obtained by a syntactical checking. We show here that these approaches fail to capture symmetries in the LTL path subformulas. Thus we propose a more accurate method based on local symmetries of the associated Biichi automaton. We define an appropriate quotient structure for the synchronized product of the Biichi automaton and the global state transition graph. We prove that model checking can be performed over this quotient structure leading to efficient algorithms. Topic: Formal Methods.
Quality assurance has become an urgent necessity in all spheres of life, including education and ... more Quality assurance has become an urgent necessity in all spheres of life, including education and learning in all stages from primary school to higher education, since it constitutes the core of development in the new era of knowledge economy. The aim of this paper is to present a new methodology applied to ensure quality of learning process within virtual learning environments. Our case study focused on the model of quality control adopted by Syrian Virtual University (SVU), which is pioneer in the field of virtual learning in the Middle East and the Arab region. The methodology is based on SET methodology (Students Evaluation Test) and defined by the assessments of each of the four pillars of learning process: (1) Assessment of tutors performed by learners; (2) Assessment of tutors performed by the administration; (3) Assessment of tutors performed by their peers; (4) Self-assessment of tutors. The last two procedures have not been yet implemented within SVU, while other procedures are in continuous development in order to improve their results. The importance of this model comes from its flexibility, its appliance since 2018 in a virtual education establishment (Syrian Virtual University), its possible generalization to any similar environment with virtual academic programs.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 10, 1997
Dans cet article, nous proposons une technique de vérification des propriétés des systèmes symétr... more Dans cet article, nous proposons une technique de vérification des propriétés des systèmes symétriques à partir du graphe de marquages symboliques. Un Graphe de Marquages Symboliques (GMS) est une représentation condensée du graphe d'états construit automatiquement à partir d'une spécification en termes de réseaux colorés. La construction d'un tel graphe utilise les symétries structurelles du système pour agréger les états et les actions entre les états (les transitions) dans des classes d'équivalences en choisissant des représentant des classes pour décrire l'évolution du système. Notre technique consiste à adapter et à utiliser, dans un modèle opérationnel, l'approche formelle, de la vérification des propriétés exprimées en CTL* (computational Temporal Logic Star), proposée par Emerson & al [1]. Nous proposons une logique temporelle CPN-CTL* (computational Temporal Logic Star for Colored Petri Nets), dérivée de CTL* et adaptée syntaxiquement à nos spécifications en termes de réseaux bien formés. Nous montrons, comment la vérification des propriétés peut être réalisée directement, sur le graphe de marquages symboliques malgré sa construction à partir des représentants des classes d'équivalences des états et des transitions. En effet, dans une telle représentation, les identités des objets spécifiés par la formule n'apparaissent pas dans les marquages du graphe, seule une notion de groupe d'objets est préservée indiquant la nature des objets dans le groupe ainsi que sa cardinalité. Cette technique donne lieu à une nouvelle spécification du système permettant la vérification directe des propriétés sur le graphe de marquages symboliques. Cette vérification est équivalente à la vérification des mêmes propriétés sur le graphe d'états ordinaire (graphe d'accessibilité).
Chest diseases are a subgroup of respiratory system diseases. The symptoms of these diseases are ... more Chest diseases are a subgroup of respiratory system diseases. The symptoms of these diseases are similar and this makes the diagnosis process difficult. Therefore, to ease the diagnosis process we gathered Information about fourteen diseases, which attack the chest, with their symptoms and investigations about them. In this paper, we present an Arabic ontology-based approach for chest diseases diagnosis. We focus on ontology building process. This ontology can be used to help physicians and other users, determine the chest disease that a patient is suffering from and what are the investigations that should be applied. While experts can easily gather information from this data, lay users lack the expertise needed to deal with it. Most of the efforts to solve this problem focus on the English language. So also, in this paper, we present a new approach based on natural language processing to translate Arabic language query to SPARQL query
Evaluating Interactive Learning Content in an eLearning Environment
eLearn
The interaction between teacher and learner, as well as the interaction between learner and conte... more The interaction between teacher and learner, as well as the interaction between learner and content, has a significant impact on the effectiveness of any learning process. In this paper, we discuss interactivity in the context of eLearning and we focus on the interaction between the learner and the content. The objective is to provide clear metrics to measure learner-content interactivity from the design perspective and at the level of learning objects. A series of tests is performed using our metrics on a set of different learning objects from various university curricula.The article presents suggested metrics, and summarizes findings concerning their interest and applicability.
The evaluation of tutors using Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) is an important Mechanism for... more The evaluation of tutors using Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) is an important Mechanism for quality assessment of teaching either in traditional learning or in virtual learning. However, the main question that could be raised here: Is there any difference in student evaluation of teaching (which is done by means of well-organized questionnaires) between traditional and virtual environments? In this paper, we apply SET within virtual learning environment. This is performed by modifying and introducing new factors to a standard SET evaluation questionnaire used in traditional environment, in order to transform it to a new one compatible with virtual environment. Our aim is to prove, using an empirical methodology, the validity of the new SET evaluation questionnaire within virtual learning. Our results prove that many traditional factors such as: number of attendees, tutor gender, tutor age, tutor specialty, have no effect on students' evaluation in virtual learning environment, while new introduced factors such as: course success rate, learning management system organization, well organized on-line sessions, interactivity during on-line sessions, tutor's commitment, responding to students' questions out of the online sessions by mail or social media...etc. affect SET positively.
International Journal of Data Mining & Knowledge Management Process
The rapid developments in information and communication technologies taking place recent years, m... more The rapid developments in information and communication technologies taking place recent years, make it easy for people to pursue their education distantly. The development of new technologies helped to open spatial and temporal boundaries of learning toward virtual learning, and helped to transform education process from its classical form of courses within classrooms to a new virtual form within virtual environments; Consequently, lessons and lectures are delivered using information and communication technologies tools, and student's attendance is virtually performed via Internet. Moreover, the education process in its new form becomes a supervised process, rather than a fully controlled process since virtual learning changed the education process pattern represented by the triangle (student, teacher and content) by increasing the importance of both "student" and "content" factors and transforming the main task of the "teacher" from "Teaching" to "Tutoring". Consequently, many questions are raised concerning students' performance and concerning the adequacy of virtual learning process. These questions are related to the need of accreditation for virtual learning and virtual universities. Our work aims to use Educational Data Mining (EDM) in order to study academic indicators concerning a representative sample of students in a virtual learning environment within Syrian Virtual University-SVU (The students who are following Bachelor of Information Technology Diploma-BIT). Our main goal is to discover the main factors influencing students' academic trajectory and students' academic evolution within such environment. Our results indicate strong correlation-in this virtual learning environment-between student average and some factors like: student's English level (despite the fact that Arabic language is the teaching language), student's age, student's gender, student's over-stay and student's place of residence (inside /outside Syria). Our results indicate also a need to modify the academic trajectory of students by changing the prerequisites of few courses delivered as a part of BIT diploma like Advanced DBA II, Data Security. In this research, the results also highlight the effect of the Syrian Crisis on students. Finally, we've suggested some future recommendations based on our observations and results to develop the current information system in SVU in order to help us to deduce some indicators more easily.
Formal Methods for Distributed System Development, 2000
A new method of model checking is proposed based on the existence of symmetries in system. We sho... more A new method of model checking is proposed based on the existence of symmetries in system. We show how to fully handle the partial symmetries of both properties and systems. Our method does not depend on a particular formalism and a priori can be applied to any one. Wellformed Petri Nets are used as an illustration.
Automatic Transformation of Electronic Documents into Reusable Learning Objects: New Approach Based on Artificial Neural Networks
…, 2006
... Dr. Khalil Ajami**, Shadi Elias*, Victoria Aarar*, Manal Osman*, Waad Hejazi*, Hadeel Khayyat... more ... Dr. Khalil Ajami**, Shadi Elias*, Victoria Aarar*, Manal Osman*, Waad Hejazi*, Hadeel Khayyat* ... Therefore, there have been considerable efforts, in the last few years, to ... Moreover, each learning environment (technically presented under the name of Learning Management ...
A Symbolic Reachability Graph (SRG) is a highly condensed representation of system state space bu... more A Symbolic Reachability Graph (SRG) is a highly condensed representation of system state space built automatically from a specification of system in terms of Wellformed net. The building of such graph profits from the presence of object symmetries to aggregate either states or actions within symbolic representatives. In this paper, we show how to make operational the CTL* formal checking system presented in [ 1 ]. Our technique consists in exploiting the SRG by taking into account the object symmetries only if they leave the formula invariant. The difficulty to bypass is that SRG does not preserve explicitly the behavior of the objects specified within formulas. This leads to a new specification of system, from which we can prove that model checking through a state space is equivalent to model checking through the symbolic teachability graph.
Model checking is a useful technique to verify properties of dynamic systems but it has to cope w... more Model checking is a useful technique to verify properties of dynamic systems but it has to cope with the state explosion problem. By simultaneous exploitation of symmetries of both the system and the property, the model checking can be performed on a reduced quotient structure [2,6,7]. In these techniques a property is specified within a temporal logic formula (CTL*) and the symmetries of the formula are obtained by a syntactical checking. We show here that these approaches fail to capture symmetries in the LTL path subformulas. Thus we propose a more accurate method based on local symmetries of the associated Biichi automaton. We define an appropriate quotient structure for the synchronized product of the Biichi automaton and the global state transition graph. We prove that model checking can be performed over this quotient structure leading to efficient algorithms. Topic: Formal Methods.
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