Abstract
E-Learning frameworks are conceptual tools to organize networks of e-learning services. Most frameworks cover areas that go beyond the scope of e-learning, from course to financial management, and neglects the typical activities in everyday life of teachers and students at schools such as the creation, delivery, resolution and evaluation of assignments. This paper presents the Ensemble framework - an e-learning framework exclusively focused on the teaching-learning process through the coordination of pedagogical services. The framework presents an abstract data, integration and evaluation model based on content and communications specifications. These specifications must base the implementation of networks in specialized domains with complex evaluations. In this paper we specialize the framework for two domains with complex evaluation: computer programming and computer-aided design (CAD). For each domain we highlight two Ensemble hotspots: data and evaluations procedures. In the former we formally describe the exercise and present possible extensions. In the latter, we describe the automatic evaluation procedures.

Abstract
Currently, the teaching-learning process in domains, such as computer programming, is characterized by an extensive curricula and a high enrolment of students. This poses a great workload for faculty and teaching assistants responsible for the creation, delivery, and assessment of student exercises. The main goal of this chapter is to foster practice-based learning in complex domains. This objective is attained with an e-learning framework-called Ensemble-as a conceptual tool to organize and facilitate technical interoperability among services. The Ensemble framework is used on a specific domain: computer programming. Content issues are tacked with a standard format to describe programming exercises as learning objects. Communication is achieved with the extension of existing specifications for the interoperation with several systems typically found in an e-learning environment. In order to evaluate the acceptability of the proposed solution, an Ensemble instance was validated on a classroom experiment with encouraging results. © 2015, IGI Global.

Abstract
The research presented in this paper is part of an ongoing work to define semantic relatedness measures to any given semantic graph. These measures are based on a prior definition of a family of proximity algorithms that computes the semantic relatedness between pairs of concepts, and are parametrized by a semantic graph and a set of weighted properties. The distinctive feature of the proximity algorithms is that they consider all paths connecting two concepts in the semantic graph. These parameters must be tuned in order to maximize the quality of the semantic measure against a benchmark data set. From a previous work, the process of tuning the weight assignment is already developed and relies on a genetic algorithm. The weight tuning process, using all the properties in the semantic graph, was validated using WordNet 2.0 and the data set WordSim-353. The quality of the obtained semantic measure is better than those in the literature. However, this approach did not produce equally good results in larger semantic graphs such as WordNet 3.0, DBPedia and Freebase. This was in part due to the size of these graphs. The current approach is to select a sub-graph of the original semantic graph, small enough to enable processing and large enough to include all the relevant paths. This paper provides an overview of the ongoing work and presents a strategy to overcome the challenges raise by large semantic graphs.

Abstract
The research presented in this paper builds on previous work that lead to the definition of a family of semantic relatedness algorithms. These algorithms depend on a semantic graph and on a set of weights assigned to each type of arcs in the graph. The current objective of this research is to automatically tune the weights for a given graph in order to increase the proximity quality. The quality of a semantic relatedness method is usually measured against a benchmark data set. The results produced by a method are compared with those on the benchmark using a nonparametric measure of statistical dependence, such as the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. The presented methodology works the other way round and uses this correlation coefficient to tune the proximity weights. The tuning process is controlled by a genetic algorithm using the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient as fitness function. This algorithm has its own set of parameters which also need to be tuned. Bootstrapping is a statistical method for generating samples that is used in this methodology to enable a large number of repetitions of a genetic algorithm, exploring the results of alternative parameter settings. This approach raises several technical challenges due to its computational complexity. This paper provides details on techniques used to speedup the process. The proposed approach was validated with the Word Net 2.1 and the Word Sim-353 data set. Several ranges of parameter values were tested and the obtained results are better than the state of the art methods for computing semantic relatedness using the Word Net 2.1, with the advantage of not requiring any domain knowledge of the semantic graph.

Abstract

Abstract
The aim of the research presented in this paper is the development of a novel approach to predict programming aptitude. The existing programming aptitude tests rely on the past academic performance of students, on their psychological features or on a combination of both. The novelty of the proposed approach is that it attempts to measure student capabilities to manipulate abstract concepts that are related with programming, namely time, state and causality. These concepts were captured in Oh Balls - a physical simulation of the path taken by a sequence of balls through an apparatus of conveyor belts and levers. An engine for this kind of simulation was implemented and deployed as a web application, creating a self-contained test. that was applied to a cohort of first-year undergraduate students to validate the proposed approach. This paper describes the proposed type of programming aptitude test, a software engine implementing it, a validation experiment, discusses the results obtained so far and points out future research.