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CALL FOR PAPERS

1st International Workshop on Visual Design Languages and Applications for Technology-Enhanced Learning (VIDLATEL '08)

http://elearn.pri.univie.ac.at/vidlatel/

held in conjunction with the

3rd European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 08)
Maastricht, The Netherlands, September 17-19, 2008

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OVERVIEW

Many human activities are supported by the use of visual representations, which enable us to manage the complexity of real work problems by facilitating the use of our (commonly very limited) cognitive capabilities. Architects, musicians, surgeons or engineers use visual artifacts in their daily practice to plan, design and carry out their endeavors. Visuals can support imagination, creative thinking, communication, discussion, and organization of the work to be performed. Similarly, the difficult process of creation and provision of learning environments could be supported by the use of appropriate visual artifacts.

The achievement of learning is pursued by the performance of activities using learning objects, resources and tools. The ever increasing number of existing Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) tools and applications (e.g., Moodle, dotLRN, RELOAD, LAMS) provide academic staff with lots of useful functionalities to design their TEL enviro nments. Past research has focused mostly on the computational aspects of TEL environments. There are a number of specifications that allow computational representation of processes and contents (e.g., SCORM, IMS-LD, IMS-CP, IMS-QTI) intended to facilitate reuse and interoperability of solutions. Nevertheless, these specifications provide only limited help and hints about how such learning environments can be developed by the average user (i.e., the instructor, the teacher).

Despite the need for sound and user-friendly instructional design approaches to TEL, there is still a lack of cooperation and integration between the fields of TEL and instructional design. The workshop is intended to explore this integration through the use of visual design artifacts (languages, notation systems, tools, applications). These can support and enhance the quality of TEL systems, facilitate sharing ideas, collaboration, reuse, and learning from experience.

TOPICS

The workshop intends to bring together researchers and practitioners from relevant communities (instructional design, instructional development, educational multimedia, technology-enhanced learning, learning design, etc.) to share their knowledge, ideas, results, expertise and research about interdisciplinary approaches to visual design for TEL. The workshop solicits original papers that present promising approaches and applications in the following areas:

- Visual TEL design languages and notation systems
- Visual TEL design applications and authoring tools
- Narrative design for TEL
- User studies and case studies involving visual design languages and applications in TEL
- Computational modeling in TEL design
- Human factors in visual design for TEL
- Pattern-based visual design for TEL
- Meta-models for TEL design
- Integration of TEL design languages and metadata, including standards
- Other topics of relevance to the workshop theme

SUBMISSIONS

All submissions should be original and not published elsewhere or intended to be published during the review period. They must correspond to the EC-TEL conference format requirements (max. 15 pages in Springer LNCS format), as they are described at the conference web site (http://www.ectel08.org/node/14).

Each accepted paper must be presented by one of the authors. Workshop attendees need to register for the main EC-TEL conference.

The workshop proceedings will be published on-line with free access, as part of the CEUR Workshop proceedings series. This ensures efficient and wide dissemination of the workshop papers. CEUR-WS.org is a recognized ISSN publication series, ISSN 1613-0073. The two best papers of the workshop will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL).

All submissions should be sent by e-mail to any member of the organizing committee.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

- Michael Derntl, University of Vienna, Austria
(michael.derntl@univie.ac.at)
- Manuel Caeiro Rodríguez, University of Vigo, Spain
(manuel.caeiro@det.uvigo.es)
- Luca Botturi, University of Lugano, Switzerland
(luca.botturi@lu.unisi.ch)
- Eddy W. Boot, TNO Human Factors, The Netherlands
(eddy.boot@tno.nl)

PROGRAM COMMITTEE (tentative)

Eddy W. Boot, TNO Human Factors, The Netherlands
Luca Botturi, University of Lugano, Switzerland
Daniel Burgos, Open University of the Netherlands, The Netherlands
Manuel Caeiro Rodríguez, University of Vigo, Spain
Michael Derntl, University of Vienna, Austria
Andy Gibbons, Brigham Young University, USA
Rob Koper, Open University of the Netherlands, The Netherlands
Martin Llamas Nistal, University of Vigo, Spain
Renate Motschnig, University of Vienna, Austria
Susanne Neumann, University of Vienna, Austria
Todd Stubbs, Brigham Young University, USA
Colin Tattersall, Open University of the Netherlands, The Netherlands

IMPORTANT DATES

- July 4, 2008: PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE
- July 21, 2008: Notification of paper acceptance
- July 31, 2008: Registration deadline
- August 17, 2008: Camera-ready paper deadline
- September 17-19, 2008: EC-TEL conference (VIDLATEL will be on one of these three days)

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This call in PDF:
http://elearn.pri.univie.ac.at/vidlatel/vidlatel-cfp.pdf