Roberto Perez-Rodriguez

I have got a Telecommunications Engineering Degree by the University of Vigo, Spain. I have participated in several research and development projects. I am currently a Research and Development Engineer with the Telematics Department, where I am pursuing my doctorate. My research interests include the use of service-oriented architectures and workflow technologies for the provision of e-learning services.

1. E-learning
2. Research
3. J2EE
4. Java
5. Linux
6. JavaScript
7. MySQL
8. HTML
9. PHP
10. Teaching
11. Web Development
12. SQL

• Orchestrating Groupware in Engineering Education

  • IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference 2010
  • October 29, 2010
  Authors: Roberto Perez-Rodriguez, Manuel Caeiro-Rodriguez, Jorge Fontenla-Gonzalez, Luis Anido-Rifon

  Engineering Education usually involves a big amount of practical work, such as simulations, programming, circuits design, etc, that may be carried out individually or in groups. Usually, laboratories count with materials and equipment, including theoretical books in a shelf, and an experiment is proposed to students organised in pairs/groups, who must compose a report of the experiment/practice. In regard to ICT support of Engineering Education scenarios, a plethora of online simulators, e-books, wikis and other social software are usually scattered in multiple web sites. To solve this issue, we present an architectural approach based in two main points: a central EML engine, and a middleware for the integration of third-party tools.

• Supporting Exception Handling in Scripted Collaborative Courses

  • ICALT 2010
  • July 5, 2010
  Authors: Roberto Perez-Rodriguez, Manuel Caeiro-Rodríguez, Luis Anido-Rifon

  Contemporary approaches to ICT use in educational settings vary from simple scenarios of content management to highly structured learning processes supported by process engines. The latter approach is that of Educational Modeling Languages, which structure learning processes as a flow of tasks that are assigned to a certain user/group. From an extensive literature review, the main drawback that is hindering the adoption of this approach is that of the adaptation: learning processes are previously designed to be posteriorly enacted by a process engine. A simple change in the process definition due to a non foreseen situation entails to stop and enact it again. This is a mayor flaw of this kind of approaches, because of its excessive rigidity. In this paper we make a review of current state-of-the-art in process engines that support learning processes, and we propose an execution semantics that supports exception handling in learning scenarios.

• Adaptation in a PoEML-based E-learning Platform

  • EDUCON 2010
  • April 16, 2010
  Authors: Roberto Perez-Rodriguez, Manuel Caeiro-Rodriguez, Luis Anido-Rifon

  In EML-based e-learning platforms for engineering education, adaptation can be focused whether in the EML metamodel or in the run-time environment. In the approach centered in the EML meta-model, adaptation is carried out by advanced modeling and late modeling. In the approach based on the runtime system, it is the run-time system the one that supports the change types that are allowed. This paper presents a conceptual framework and software architecture aimed to support late modeling in an e-learning system based on PoEML (Perspective-oriented Educational Modeling Language).

• Adding Process-Driven Collaboration Support in Moodle

  • 39th IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
  • October 20, 2009
  Authors: Roberto Perez-Rodriguez, Manuel Caeiro-Rodriguez, Luis Anido-Rifon

  Moodle is a well-known open-source LMS. Moodle approach to collaborative learning is just limited to 'putting people around a table'. It provides a means for participants to interact with other participants (other people around the same table) and with learning contents (the objects on the table). In this scenery, by no means it can be guaranteed that collaboration will occur. In order to assure that real collaboration will take place, we define workflow-like collaboration structures which we name learnflows. In this paper, we present a conceptual architecture and a concrete implementation for the support of learnflows in Moodle. We design a Learnflow Engine on top of a generic-purpose workflow engine, just by using out-of-the-box workflow functionality. This Learnflow Engine is exposed as a Web service, enabling the consumption of Learnflow Web service methods from the Moodle integration code, which is designed following aspect-oriented software development techniques.

• Towards a PoEML-Based Architecture for E-Learning Systems

  • IEEE RITA
  • August 2009
  Authors: Roberto Perez-Rodriguez, Manuel Caeiro-Rodriguez, Luis Anido-Rifon

  The current panorama of Learning Technologies is composed of not interoperable technological domains. Thus, there are web-based systems, m-learning systems, and the recent concept of t-learning systems. In this paper we present a proposal of architecture to support the interoperability of e-learning
  systems, independently of the access technologies used by
  participants. That architecture enables the collaboration between
  participants in the same learning process, which is formalized by
  using the PoEML Educational Modeling Language.

• Execution Model and Authoring Middleware Enabling Dynamic Adaptation in Educational Scenarios Scripted with PoEML

  • Journal of Universal Computer Science (J.UCS)
  • October 1, 2010
  Authors: Roberto Perez-Rodriguez, Manuel Caeiro-Rodriguez, Luis Anido-Rifon, Martin Llamas-Nistal

  The design of adaptive e-learning systems has been approached from different points of view. Adaptive Educational Hypermedia (AEH) conceptual frameworks, usually decompose this problem into separate concerns: a User Model (UM), an Adaptation Model (AM), and a Domain Model (DM). Regarding Educational Modelling Languages (EMLs), they provide adaptation mechanisms such as the modelling of participants following conditional learning paths over a common content structure. The design of adaptive learning paths in EMLs (the Adaptation Model) is predefined during design-time, and no changes on it are allowed during run-time. In this paper we describe the support of dynamic adaptation features (run-time changes on models) using PoEML (Perspective-oriented EML) as modelling language, with focus on the execution model of the PoEML engine and on a SOA-based middleware used by authoring tools to invoke change primitives.

• An Execution Semantics to Support Flexibility in Collaborative Learning Scripts

  • CSCL 2011
  • July 6, 2011
  Authors: Roberto Perez-Rodriguez, Manuel Caeiro-Rodriguez

  Flexibility is a key concern on the adoption of model-based solutions to computationally support collaborative learning. These solutions address the structuring of collaborative activities in pre-specified ways, maximizing the chance of occurrence for certain desirable interactions. Nevertheless, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to be able to predict the unfoldment of collaborative learning activities. Therefore, a flexible solution that allows changes during the run-time is a basic requirement. This paper presents a solution to this problem by following an object-oriented modelling approach. It also involves an execution semantics based on hierarchical finite state machine networks. Together, these two approaches enable to manage the enactment of collaborative learning models and to perform changes in a non-disruptive way. The paper uses a typical JIGSAW activity to illustrate the need for this kind of solution.

Interests:

Learning Technologies, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, Learning Management Systems, Moodle, Process-Driven Collaboration, Web Services,

Groups and Associations:

• 
  Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
• 
  E-Learning 2.0