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2016 ITU Kaleidoscope Academic Conference

Figure 4. Capturing end-to-end QuaSE [7] Figure 5. Horizon 2020 NEWTON Project and Partners

3. INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED The last two listed innovative technologies are some of the
LEARNING INITIATIVE: NEWTON PROJECT main novelties of NEWTON project and represent the
focus in this particular work. NEWTON aims to employ
Networked Labs for Training in Sciences and Technologies adaptive solutions for the delivery of multimedia content.
This involves monitoring and content adjustment based on
1
for Information and Communication (NEWTON ) project
is a Horizon 2020 funded project that brings together the combined effect of dynamic variation of network
academia and industry partners from 7 different European conditions, user device characteristics and user profile.
countries (Figure 5). NEWTON aims to provide a pan- Mulsemedia is considered a new type of multimedia that
European learning platform that facilitates the delivery of unlike classic multimedia that usually involves two senses
STEM subjects to learners from a variety of backgrounds: (audio/video), involves three or more human senses
secondary and vocational schools, third level education, (olfactory, haptic, etc.). NEWTON project aims to provide
people with disabilities. This pan-European platform will the learners with mulsemedia experience in order to
integrate a set of distributed labs: existing state-of-the-art enhance their learning experience. Additionally a highly
2
teaching labs (e.g. FabLabs ) and newly created teaching innovative solution for multiple-sensorial content
labs as a result of the project. Moreover, the platform will adaptation is envisaged to be proposed and used.
be designed to be open to extension: the platform will allow NEWTON platform will be validated through European-
for an easy integration of other new teaching labs created wide pilots carried out in secondary and vocational schools
by different third-parties. The purpose is to facilitate the and universities from 5 European countries, including
access of a large audience, including people with learners with special needs.
disabilities, to a large database of learning content that will
be experienced in novel manners in order to enhance their 4. NOVEL STANDARDIZATION PROPOSALS FOR
STEM education. QOE EVALUATION IN TEL
Consequently, one of the main focuses of NEWTON
project is to develop innovative TEL methods that will be As identified in the review presented in section 2, there is
integrated in the platform. The purpose of employing these an important lack of standardized methodologies for the
novel methods is to increase learner QoE, improve learning evaluation of the learner QoE, in TEL context. Nowadays,
process and increase learning outcome. TEL can be supported by a large plethora of technologies,
Such TEL methods that are aimed to be developed in the from traditional digital technologies, like web-based
context of NEWTON project relates to: technologies or streaming multimedia systems, to other
- learner model-based personalisation next generation technologies, like mulsemedia,
- gamification gamification or augmented reality. Therefore, defining a
framework and methodology for the evaluation of the
- self-directed and independent learning learner QoE in such a complex scenario is a big challenge.
- augmented reality In this section, a novel proposal for the QoE evaluation and
- multimedia and multi-sensorial (mulsemedia) standardization in TEL context is introduced that aims to do
content delivery some steps forward towards achieving the aforementioned
- adaptation of content delivery to learner goal. However, this work is in early stages and, although
operational environment: variation of network evaluating QoE has also theoretical dimensions, is the later
conditions, user device characteristics and user practical validation that will confirm the validity of the
profile. approach. At this point, some early guidelines to be
followed in order to define the proposed standards will be
described, only. These guidelines were defined based on
general QoE frameworks [44].
1 http://www.newtonproject.eu/
2
https://www.fablabs.io/

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