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A model for flexibly editing CSCL scripts

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International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article presents a model whose primary concern and design rationale is to offer users (teachers) with basic ICT skills an intuitive, easy, and flexible way of editing scripts. The proposal is based on relating an end-user representation as a table and a machine model as a tree. The table-tree model introduces structural expressiveness and semantics that are limited but straightforward and intuitive. This approach is less expressive and introduces less semantics than approaches based on workflow representations and complex meta-models. However, it may be enhanced to represent complex features such as by-intention grouping mechanisms, constraint checking or configuration of enactment frameworks. A usability test suggests that the model/interface is easy to use and that teachers avail themselves of the flexibility available to model scripts according to their perspectives.

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Notes

  1. If such an editor is used when integrated with a LMS, some of these items may be downloaded from the LMS database.

  2. Of course, interface subtleties could be imagined to locally overcome this constraint, but this is of little interest and would contradict the simplicity principle. See further discussions in “Management of the table-tree representation and interface variants”.

  3. Technical frameworks are to be measured with respect to their design rationale and specifications, i.e., in this case, ease of use. They are not to be analyzed in terms of the quality of the produced scripts or learning outcomes, since representations or operationalization frameworks may be used to implement a broad variety of collaboration scripts, including ineffective or detrimental ones (Wecker et al. 2010).

  4. As a matter of fact, when analyzing these 25 scripts collected from the literature, we noticed that complex mechanism scheduling was not that frequent and, in most cases, could easily be implemented by duplicating a limited number of rows or items. This is in line with the conclusions of Haake and his colleague who developed a language (based on Petri nets) allowing management of complex mechanisms, but noticed that in many cases simple sequences are sufficient (Haake and Pfister 2007).

  5. Such graphs, if any, denote the fact that branches have common values, and can be deployed as trees via automated duplications. This is not to be confused with using a graph modeling to represent cycles as in a workflow representation.

  6. Creating a column limited to some of the rows is not in the model’s scope as it does not comply with the homogeneity principle and the interface principle.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LIG – Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France

    Péricles Sobreira & Pierre Tchounikine

  2. DCET – Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Ilhéus, Brazil

    Péricles Sobreira

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  1. Péricles Sobreira
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  2. Pierre Tchounikine
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Correspondence to Pierre Tchounikine.

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Sobreira, P., Tchounikine, P. A model for flexibly editing CSCL scripts. Computer Supported Learning 7, 567–592 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-012-9157-9

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