LIFE (Learning in an Interactive Framework to Experience)
INTRODUCTION
• The design of the environment LIFE has been inspired by the idea that education/training is an EXPERIENCE that should be satisfactory and culturally fulfilling.
• The object around which LIFE has been designed and developed is the COMMUNITY.
All other more popular environments (eg Moodle, A-Tutor, Claroline, ILIAS, Sakai, etc. ...) usually called CMS, or platforms, are built around another object: the CONTENT.
Within the traditional CMS the content is 'transmitted'; in LIFE it can be also but the environment is designed to foster its co-construction.
For this reason LIFE pays great attention to the cultural stratification of what is produced or, better, co-produced. Such stratification is also the element that distinguishes LIFE by PLEs (Personal Learning Environment), since these latter, in their original formulation did not considered as key element the collective memory
• LIFE is designed also to balance social development and promotion of the individuals.
For this reason, while from one hand a special attention is deserved to the development of tools able to support and monitor the development of the social interaction, from the other, as for the PLE, LIFE offers to the individuals personal spaces that can accommodate widget and be organized in a flexible manner.
Also the look and feel is customizable to favor the development of a full person-environment empathy.
ARCHITECTURE
LIFE is completely modular. The environment includes a core administration module (called SUPERUSER) and a set of modules whose activation/deactivation is handled on two levels: LIFE instance and community instance.
Each module has its own:
a) switch for enabling/disabling those functions that for several reasons should be designed and developed as separable;
b) the privilege to administer the use of these features;
c) possible API to interact with other modules or to expose services to the outside world.
LIFE offers also the possibility to enhance the modules' functionality through the activation of connectors to open source libraries or modules not included in the basic installation of the environment.
ADMINISTRATION
In LIFE the administration of functionalities related to the definition and management of multiple instances of objects COMMUNITY are separated for those that are specific to each community (regardless of the level to which you want to set the object community: e.g. company, department, course, etc. ..).
This avoids having to create a new instance of the environment LIFE for each community that you wish to activate.
The internal administration module allows to act on three different objects: individuals, groups, courses/activities that can be created and reciprocally assigned to each other.
You can create an unlimited number of groups, although you make take advantage of a certain number of groups defined by default.
You can manage the assignment of privileges at both group and individual levels. The privileges are combined according to the 'or' logic. Enabled administrators can propagate privileges' configuration from one community to another.
You can create an unlimited number of courses/activities to which a folder in the content repository is automatically assigned. It is also possible to create folders not assigned to any specific course/activity.
A specific functional area allows to activate/deactivate LIFE's modules at level of each individual community and, as well, to activate/deactivate privileges and, therefore, functionalities offered by a given module.
ENVIRONMENT ORGANIZATION
The internal organization of the modules in menu' is completely free and, currently, can only be determined at the level of administration SUPERUSER
WORKING SESSIONS
LIFE enables to define the expiration time of the working session in a very detailed manner, module by module. At present only at superuser level.
The appearance of a tab indicates the expiration time; the session may be refreshed by the user. Data on duration of the duration of the working sessions are stored into the db and used for statistical analysis and graphical representation.
LOGIN PAGE
You can login, as usual, by entering username and password and, possibly, by selecting community of reference. Authentication can be executed on both internal or external databases.
The login page allows you to select the language you want to use.
From the login page you can access the form to ask for a forgotten password and one for register as new user, either as a person or as company/institution (new user are should accept the privacy policy and the netiquette).
THE HOMEPAGE/DASHBOARD
LIFE entry page allows you to control in a single webpage (small enough to not require scrolling for most of screens available today) the access to all modules of LIFE, to modify your language choice, to check the bulletin board for notices, for latest news on thread of the forum that have been subscribed, for events, for last private messages received, for the list of users currently online and the area of LIFE in which they are, the birthdays of the day and of the month.
On the dashboard is also possible to leave post-it notes.
Administrators have the privilege, if authorized, to switch from one community to another.
BACK OFFICE/SECRETARIAT (MAINLY INSTITUTIONAL)
a back office/secretary module is avilable; it can be activated/deactivated depending on the type of community and process one intends to develop; among the available functionalities: the request of registration to courses/modules, the reservation for intermediate assessment and examinations, CV evaluation, etc...
CONTENT MANAGEMENT/DELIVERY
To each course is associated automatically a content folder in which you can upload various types of materials. It is possible to create an unlimited amount of different categories of materials (subfolders) and/or use of the categories provided by default. The subfolder enclosing a given type of material is created automatically when you upload a file of such category.
The content archive can host also additional folders to uplod material for activities other those foreseen by a given course.
All materials can be defined as public or private and their visibility can be limited to a specific time window. All choices can be updated.
Access to the contents related to a course/activity can also be structured also on the basis of the course/activity description.
CONTENT PRODUCTION
The forum is the most suitable place to produce collaborative and multimedia contents (within a post, in a very simple manner, user can place images, links to internal documents, links to external documents such as movies, links to sites such as Wikipedia, youtube, etc. for searches on outlined keywords). All the content produced in the forum can be appropriately renamed, filtered and placed in an archive (cultural stratification). A dedicated search engine make easier to find the archived content.
Although the forum allows to organize small-group working sessions, LIFE offers also an another tool, called co-writing, that like google docs (albeit with a reduced number of functionalities) allows to share an collaboratively process documents with the maintenance of previous versions.
People may publish advanced version of the document on the forum in order to broaden the discussion and gathering opinions.
Posts written in the forum by individuals can be stored/published (if considered of interes), in the author blog (see functionalities offered by the personal space)
Descriptive cards of concepts/topics can be created and continuously updated within Life-PEDIA, a module that works as an atomic content aggregator for the text, images, links, etc. .. The cards can be produced collaboratively and content can be validated by tutors (if needed). The cards offers also links to operate a search on the concept on sites like wikipedia, google, youtube, etc..
CONCEPT MAPS (at present under reconstruction)
Life offers a tool for design and quantitatively evaluate concept maps.
The maps can be drawn individually or collaboratively.
The maps can be defined as private or public and, thus, available for further modifications.
The concepts of a map can be correlated with the LIFE-PEDIA cards, search engines like google or other inner modules involved in the development of a training process like the content archive and/or the assessment module.
The evaluation submodule allows to assign concepts used to compose maps to given categories and/or super-categories, from which it is possible to obtain also radar representations (mental print) and correlation matrices.
ASSESSMENT
LIFE provides a module that allows you to design flexibly self-assessment/intermediate/final tests.
For each module, you can populate the database with questions (also importable in a format Gift) characterized by context, subcontext, level, type of application, language and weight to be associated to the question. When not available you can add by yourself new contexts and/or subcontexts. You can also attach pictures to questions.
Types of questions currently available includes: short answer, true/false, multiple choice, completion, numerical with a variable tolerance, open.
The attributes of each question can be changed at any time.
Tests can be generated by randomly choosing a given set of questions from those available with the desired characteristics, or selecting 'by hand' questions to be used. A mixed choice mechanism is also provided.
In defining tests, you can enter: test name, short description, language, available time, repeatability specifying number of attempts and interval between attempts, visibility of results, with/without feedback, available time window to execute the test, percentage of correct answers needed to pass the test, sentences to display depending on the result of the tests.
The test module allows you to activate, if deemed appropriate, a peer-review process and to assign the weight to be associated with the evaluation of the teacher/tutor and peers.
The reviewed tests are always available for further analysis.
MONITORING
LIFE provides a module that perform statistical analysis of the activities carried by the members of the community.
It is possible to monitor, as a function of the time activities carried on by the whole community, given groups of individuals (log, session times, pages visited, activities, etc ...)
A subsection of this module allows to perform more sophisticated analysis including an analysis of the interactions.
Currently, you can perform such analysis on the forum/newsgroup (public interaction) either of the the posts (answers) and to the comments, on the private messaging (one to one private asynchronous interaction) and on chats (one to one private synchronous interaction)
In carrying out the analysis one can use filters that allow you to study the behavior of a single individual, a given group, or the community as a whole.
You can create various types of planar graphs and select/deselect the use of certain graphical features (eg, arrows, line thickness, etc. ...). Some of the available graphs can be shown also as a function of time and the analyst is allowed to choose the time step (among them graphs of relations and density of the network).
All graphics are anonymous; all users, indeed, are represented by their ID (known only to administrators).
This module allows also for the examination of the log file, to be used in case of problems or malfunctions of any kind.
EVALUATIONS
LIFE offers a module that allows to create evaluation forms on specific process or course/module.
One can specify starting time and deadline to evaluate. It is possible to assign to the evaluation only those individuals to whom you intend to take part in it. Currently you can use the following categories of answer: ratings scale (Likert-type - 6 levels), yes/no, intensity scale: low/satisfactory/excessive, numerical scale, from No to Yes (4 values scale), interest scale (3 levels: low/reasonable/high). For each question, you can activate a field to enter comments.
Forms can be always reused for future evaluation sessions.
Results are presented by means of histograms. Comments are analyzed by means of text analysis aimed at identifying the frequency of the words used.
The module allow to carry out anonymously evaluations: answers are separated from the list of users who have carried out the assessment. A special list allows you to identify those who have not yet filled the card in order to send a solicitation.
SUPPORT TO THE COMMUNITY
1. FORUM
Recognizing the importance that is usually associated with the forum in all the non-transmissive educational processes, in the Forum of LIFE unique features, in addition to more traditional, ones has been implemented.
As usual one can create new macro-areas within which you can publish new discussion threads. For each macroarea, area or thread it is possible to define access privileges and associate moderators.
You can visualize the last posts published in a last few days, or search the thread by keywords.
The thread can be marked by icons that indicate their category; readers can express their agreement/disagreement with the content of the post.
Answers can be compiled and sent by using a fully editor or by using the quick replica function with a simplified editor.
You can subscribe threads to receive news via newsletters.
Among the less traditional functions:
areas of discussion can be shared among multiple communities;
it is possible to store the most interesting discussion in a forum archive.
You cans publish your own post, if meaningful, in your personal space MyLife.
If very relevant, the title of a thread can be published on the bulletin board (two days maximum for members of the community, potentially unlimited time window for the administrator of the community).
In the LIFE forum beside the possibility to reply to a post you can also comment on portions of text (up to single words). The comments are important because they determine different styles of social interaction that can be analyzed in a detailed manner through the analysis of the interactions (see monitoring activities).
It is also possible to mark portions of text, mostly single words, with tags that allow you to launch searches on engines and external repositories available on the web (eg google, youtube, ...)
The post, if not very long, can be instantly translated using the translation services provided by the Web (since recently it would be possible only upon the payment of a fee).
When you use the full editor to reply, you can populate your personal LIFE archives/folders with images and documents. The images, once have been uploaded, can be directly included in the post with a click, while for the documents you can create links. It is also possible to include in the post, with a simple click, pictures stored in the gallery of your MyLife. As usual, then you can add links to external images, videos and documents.
2. CHAT
LIFE offers a textual chat that allows only a one to one interaction, however it is possible to activate multiple chats simultaneously.
The user can activate/deactivate the chat service and make her/himself visible/invisible to other community members.
A bar shows on all pages users that are currently online and have the chat active. Through this same bar, you can invite to chat.
The activity carry on in the chat cam be analyzed through the analysis of the interactions (see monitoring activities).
3. PRIVATE MESSAGES
Private messaging service allows you to exchange messages on a confidential basis with individuals members of the community. You can also send messages to groups or categories of users.
Lists of messages received, sent, archived are available.
4. POLLS
The poll module allows you to create surveys by entering the title, description (visible to those who participate in the survey, category (with the possibility to add new categories, if not already available), time window (the survey may also not expire). It is possible to open the survey to everybody or to reserve it to a limited group of users. It is possible to carry on anonymous surveys and it is also possible to open the survey to the web (i.e. make it accessible from outside). It is possible to indicate a selected number of professions/categories/targets. It is also possible to perform aptitude tests by assigning appropriate values to the answers along predefined axis of evaluation (it is also possible to define such axes of evaluation).
Questions can be added, in succession, one after the other and their order changed.
It is possible to use open-ended questions or multiple choice with the option to select one or more answers; it is also possible to attach to eac question or answer a field to insert comments.
It is possible to make the results of the survey visible to the community members.
The results are presented in the form by means of histograms (with the possibility to separate participants from outside/inside the community). It is also possible to filter the results by age, occupation/category/target, sex, type of response.
It is also possible to correlate the responses to two multiple choice questions to create cluster representations.
The comments are analyzed by means of text analysis aimed at identifying the frequency of use of words.
5. NEWSLETTER
Allows to receive via email notifications on post published in the forum thread that have been subscribed and on new private messages.
It is possible to choose the email to which you wish to receive notifications (by default is the one inserted during registration), the frequency and/or the minimum number of news that activate the email sending, the start date of the service.
AGENDA
It allows to add to the calendar events characterized by the title, short description, type, possible relevance to a course/module/educational activity, occupation of physical or virtual halls, time-window.
You can add also personal events.
It is also possible to add periodic events, i.e. events that are repeated weekly within a given period.
PERSONAL SPACES
To each community member LIFE assigns, at the time of registration, a personal space - called MyLife - which currently hosts a blog and a photo gallery. Multiple views of MyLife are available. All texts published on the blog and all pictures uploaded in the gallery can be inserted into thematic folders that can be defined as public/private and, eventually made visible on the outside (feature under implementation). It is also possible to mark texts and pictures with appropriate tags.
Blog texts, if public, can be commented.
On the blog you can publish the post you wrote on the forum (public area), if considered significant and worthy of being included in your own personal diary to describe your own personal trajectory within the community.
In addition to searching by keywords, community members can have also a look to the tag cloud and to list of latest news (articles, images, comments). The articles of the blogs are searchable by date and theme of the folder.
You can define lists of bookmarks and personal friends (among the members of the community).
The contents published in your personal space allow you to create your own e-portfolio, that can be exported.
The space i-MyLife accessible through MyLife is a customizable aggregator of service offered by the web, eg. videos from youtube, google search, access to Flickr images, BlockNote, translations, etc. ..
The available and active widgets can be organized freely in the three column page.
Another personal space is the module that allow you to manage your personal data. Through the form made available by the module you can also upload your own avatar and image.
The fields that should be mandatory filled and visible are defined by your community manager. For non-mandatory fields the visibility of the field is still defined by the user community manager, while the visibility of information is up to the user.
The mandatory fields are used to build the information cards available to the members of the community through the inner info area.
CUSTOMIZED LOOK AND FEEL
LIFE presents a look and feel that is empathetic with the daily time and seasons and the year. In addition to a set of default templates, LIFE provides some additional templates that can be chosen by the user to customize the look and feel of the environment through MyVisual module.
A special panel allows to personalize also the default templates letting you choose colors of text, graphic elements, etc. ..
INNER COMMUNICATION
LIFE allow to search and display relevant information that describes members of given categories of the community (eg, teachers, tutors, students) and, as well courses/modules/activity.
As far as the members of the community data are taken from those that have been inserted in the database through 'personal data' module, according to the qualifications therein assigned (compulsory, private or public data). The descriptive cards of the community's member provide access also to the time history of personal avatars and photographs that were used in the past.
The information on courses and modules are presented according to those views that are considered the most appropriate for the specific context, selected among those made available by the environment.
EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION
LIFE provides a webeditor that allows you to realize in limited amount of time the community's website. Besides the usual functionalities that allow to define menus and submenu', to include contents (text and images), the webeditor offers also the possibility to publish news/RSS, functional blocks such as image galleries, pages devoted to the description of community members (usually teachers and students) and, as well, courses/modules/activity. It is also possible to preview the website development.
MULTILINGUALISM
Life allows you to select the language you want to use either before and after the logg in.
All languages, including Italian, are 'translations' of the labels used by the software engine environment.
The inclusion of language occurs in three ways and on two different databases;
ways:
via automatic translation of web applications that expose specific APIs;
by entering translations by means of a dedicated LIFE's module;
contextually, through pop-ups activable by clicking on an icon placed next to each label; the icon is visible to those who have the translator privilege;
database:
you can insert translations in an external database, that shared by all communities, the use of eternal database should be granted by the developing team,
you can insert translations in the internal databases of each community; the translations included in this database have a greater priority with respect to those contained by the external database for the community of reference.
The inclusion of new languages in the list of those already available is possible only at the level of SUPERUSER
HELP
From all pages you may access a generic help on-line divided by subject; additionally you may use a contextual help specific to the module you are currently using, accessible from an icon placed next to the name of the module.
