Self‐Summarized Videos in Adaptive Collaborative E‐Learning Environment

Journal of Information Technology and Application in Education Volume 4, 2015 www.jitae.org doi: 10.14355/jitae.2015.04.001

Self‐Summarized Videos in Adaptive Collaborative E‐Learning Environment Nouf Alzahrani*1, Paul Newbury2, and Phil L. Watten3 School of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom *1

n.m.alzahrani@sussex.ac.uk; 2 p.newbury@sussex.ac.uk; 3P.L.Watten@sussex.ac.uk

Abstract The purpose of this research is to design an adaptive collaborative eLearning environment using Self‐Summarized videos as learning media. This research aims to evaluate the outcome of the learning experience, coherence and motivation levels of the participants using user‐generated summary videos tools from video lectures provided by instructors in a social and collaborative learning environment. This paper outlines the system developed with the next stage of the research being a pilot study with the system. For this research, a collaborative environment has been built where students participate in a video sharing system allowing them to create their own summarized videos and share them on the system among other participants where they can be viewed, rated and commented on. Instructors will upload the original video content. The students are allowed to use these videos to summarize video lectures in form of summarized short video clips.

Keywords E‐Learning; Summarizing Videos; Virtual Collaboration; Collaborative Learning; Video Editing; Video‐Based Learning

Introduction E‐learning is playing an increasingly important role worldwide, particularly in higher education where universities and colleges have been offering online courses for some time [26]. The purpose of e‐learning is to support, enhance, or deliver learning materials to the learner using computer technology as a media [1]. This includes all educational activities carried out by individuals or groups working online or offline, via network, or standalone computers and other electronic devices. The broader extent offered by e‐learning helps students to have flexible access to the required materials and information with less time and place limitations. E‐learning provides a controlled environment for learners to manage and interact with the content [2]. Learners may forward, replay, and jump to different learning materials as many times as they want; a feature that is hard to replicate in a traditional classroom.

Improving the learning process is a continual process and goes hand in hand with technological advances. This research is based on several pedagogical trends and developments. The first is trying to understand the student learning styles. Many studies have been conducted in this area. Some researchers including [8],[9] and[10], have tried to interpret the learning styles in psychological and personality types perspective. However, providing an educational system that measures individual personas and psychology types is very complex and highly subjective. Therefore, a more objective trend has evolved.

The Visual‐Auditory‐Kinesthetic (VAK) theory proposed by Sarasin [12] has found that learning using a kinesthetic style is an efficient learning style where the student takes part in an activity rather than just watching or reading. This theory is also backed by constructivism learning theory that suggests learning can majorly occur by engagement and interaction with the problem [27] and not only by verbal interaction. Kinesthetic learning style has been correlated and deeply linked with the introduction of video [3] in e‐learning as videos promote user engagement and interaction [28]. Scholars have tried to test the effectiveness of learning materials on cognitive systems in term of interacting with multimedia information. This research is also backed by Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML) [4] and Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) [5]. Many researchers have conducted studies to prove the effectiveness of utilizing videos in education. The most notably [11], [6] and [7].

The CTML states [4] that learning occurs more from integrated multimedia information with text information in contrast to text information alone. Additionally CLT suggests [5] that in order to allow for greatest amount of

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mental resource to be dedicated to integrating new information with existing knowledge, the learning materials should have less extraneous load that is resulted from redundant information.

As implied from CLT and CTML, long videos may contain lots of redundant information, which has the potential of driving the learner attention away by increasing the extraneous load on the brain [4] [5]. Therefore, it is implied that shorter and subject‐aimed video clips [13 [29] [30] can enhance the learning coherence further as extraneous load is reduced. Studying the effectiveness of short video clips against long video clips Wen‐Chi [13] found that shorter video clips with straightforward content can provide better understanding and motivation than lengthy videos.

Converting lengthy videos to shorter version requires a summarization process that takes the most important content of lengthy videos and puts them all together in a new shorter video clip with reduced redundant information. Therefore, a summarization tool was needed to ease the process of summarizing by applying automatic summarization algorithms. Much research has taken place in this area as in [14], [15], [16] and [17].

However, the findings in this research showed that implementing of such technique without human interaction is problematic and leads to the production of low quality summary videos. This has suggested that a user‐based summarization tool might be a more effective way to summarize videos.

Collaborative learning is another trend taken by the industry to use education in social networks and collaboratively engage students in learning. This was backed by Vygotsky’s social development theory [18], and Banduraʹʹs social development theory [19]. Findings in [20] and [21] showed that the high level of interaction associated with collaborative learning in a virtual environment positively affects learner’s level of motivation. This is also backed by constructivism learning theory.

Video introduction in collaborative learning was the combination of the two different trends. The idea was discussed in [22], [23] and [24]. However some critical limitations were found in these studies including the following: 

The experimental study in [22] was not conducted in the educational domain and was more focused on the professional work environment. Therefore it could not be assumed that the system contributed to learning and understanding. In addition there was no data on individual learning behavior.

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The study in [23] lacked some ground evidence such as numerical data and survey results to support its idea and purpose.

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Although [24] provided an improved summarizing tool compared to previous studies, there was no empirical studies found to support the effectiveness of such tool in general.

These limitations drive this research to provide improved and better results.

System Overview Based on CLT and CTML, providing redundant or irrelevant information in visual and verbal channels will hinder the learning process as extraneous load is increased. Therefore, multimedia learning environment should be designed in a way that irrelevant sound or video should be eliminated in order for the learning to occur more efficiently. Using a summarizing tool to convert the lengthy videos to shorter ones can be a positive way of reducing extra information found in these lengthy videos.

In this paper, a self‐summarizing tool for video lectures is proposed that provides summarized video lectures with less irrelevant information and enables users to interact with them in a collaborative environment in order evaluate the learner’s engagement, coherence and motivation. Students engage with the material to such a level that they can not only understand the material, but edit it and summarize it in a way that brings out the relevant points for other students. The proposed system consists of two separate tools: one is a video summarizing tool and the other is a virtual collaborative tool.

Video Summarizing Tool This tool provides functionality to summarize videos allowing students to have a shorter version of lectures from

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diffferent relateed sources. Th he video sum mmarizing to ool will havee the followin ng four eleme ments: 1)

Origin nal Videos

The tool is initially pop pulated with a set of orig ginal video leectures. Orig ginal video leectures are tthe lectures tthat have not beeen edited no or summarized and are rrelatively lon ng. In this casse, the origin nal videos arre in the form m of 50 minutes lecture video os. These vid deos act as th he base of all summarized d videos thatt students in nteract with. IIt is important tto control thee content of original videeos to mainttain the educcational purp pose of the ssystem to av void incorrect orr inappropriiate flow of information to be includ ded in the system. s Alth hough a futu ure system with w tutor review w of videos could be env visioned, bu ut due to the time limitattion and to m minimize tuttors efforts, tthis feature is n not present in i this experimental stu udy. Therefo ore, original videos are oonly provided by teachers.

Students caan only makee summarized videos from m the provid ded original v videos.

2)

Scene H Holders

Students caan capture paarts of origin nal videos an nd save them m as a scene ffor later use. All the capttured scenes are saved in th he student’s scene holde er. Each creaated scene will w have the e following iinformation saved: startting capture tim me, ending cap pture time, u user entered label and oriiginal video reference.

3)

Summa arized Video os

Students caan create sum mmarized videos from saaved scenes by choosing g and re‐ordeering them iin the holderr to shape a new w summary v video. The su ummary tooll utilized herre is FFMPEG G [31]. This ttool providess functionalities to manipulaate and hand dle multimed dia in generaal. The FFMP PEG takes co ommands froom a shell orr any commaand line interpreter such as windows co ommand pro ompt or Linu ux bash. The e command ffor each scen ne will have the structure sh hown in Figu ure 1.

All scenes w will be saved d as a tempo orary file beffore combiniing them intto a single vi video clip. Th his is done b by a “concat” com mmand execcuted after crreating all th he scenes. Th he concat com mmand will h have the stru ucture shown n in Figure 2.

FIG 1: FF FMPEG TEMPO ORARY FILE GENERATING P PROCESS

FIG 2: FFMPEG CONCAT COMMAN ND TO CREATE THE FINAL S SUMMARIZED D VIDEO

ummary vid deo will hav ve a title and d a descripttion that willl be added by the stud dent during the The new su summarizattion process. The summa arized video os will store the original videos of eaach of its scenes so it can n be

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retrieved if needed. Wh hen paused d during any sscene, the sysstem will pro ompt to open en the scene’ss original vid deo in a light bo ox (Figure 3)). This will h help the stud dent to refer tto the origin nal video with thout navigating away frrom the summarrized video.

FIG 3: ORIGINAL VIDEO IN A PO OP_UP LIGHT BOX

4)

Scene C Comment

After creating summary y videos, stu udents can ad dd commentts on specificc parts of thee scenes from m a field box x in the video p page. The com mment time will be visu ualized on th he video time eline. These comments w will be availaable when the v video is bein ng played on n the intendeed scenes. Sccene comments function n works in a similar way y to subtitles as shown in Fig gure 4.

Figure 5 illu ustrates an ov verview of p process and ccomponents of summariz zed video.

FIG 4: SCEN NE COMMENTS S SHOWN AS SSUBTITLE AND D AS POPING T TEXT NEXT TO THE VIDEO. THE SMALL DOTS ON TH HE TIMELINE R REPRESENT A COMMENT.

FIG G 5: OVERVIEW W OF PROCESS A AND COMPON NENTS OF SUM MMARIZED VID DEO

Virrtual Collaborative Tooll Th his tool prov vides collabo orative functiionalities to increase stu udent motiva ation level. T This tool has the follow wing eleements: 1)

Sharing ng Summarized Video

The sharing g of the videeos is an auto omated proccess where sttudents can view a list oof latest summarized vid deos from their ffriends and subscribed subjects s in th heir homepa age. Howeve er, the owneer of the sum mmarized vid deo

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must set the video as public to be available for sharing. Students can change this option at any time from private to public and vice versa.

2)

Rating Summarized Video

The evaluation of video summaries is often overlooked by researchers due to the lack of standard measures to assess the quality of summary [25]. Moreover, the quality of a summary depends on its intended purpose as well as the application domain. Therefor a ranking tool has been introduced to the system to let the students rank the summarized videos. Students can evaluate the video and give a ranking point based on its usefulness in supporting their understanding. The average score of the video will provide an evaluation of the summary quality.

3)

Commenting on Summarized Video

To enhance the collaboration ability of the system, students are allowed to comment on each other videos. The comment box will be present in the summary page and loaded automatically with the video. Comment owner will be able to delete the comment if needed Methodology The methodology of this research will be an experimental study conducted at later point using the new learning environment that is proposed in this paper. The participation audience will be a group of students studying the “3D Modeling and Rendering” module. The module is offered by Informatics and Engineering School in University of Sussex.

The students will be using full features of the system including generating videos, participating in collaborative environments and using annotation and comments. The students must have significant understanding of how to use the system. Therefore a demo will be used to show the students how the system functions and the system will contain a tutorial section to support understanding. The other important note is that the students are chosen based on the relevance of original videos. As the original videos used in this system are related to “3D Modeling and Rendering” module, the participation audience will come from the students undertaking this module. This is because summarizing a video requires understanding of the subject itself at deep level rather than just regular viewers.

A mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches will be used in this study. A quantitative approach will be used to analyze results of pre and post study surveys and usage statistics to evaluate level engagement. A qualitative approach will be used to interview students to ascertain both motivation and engagement with the taught material and system.

A sample audience of at least 20 students will be provided by the university. The sample audience will be recruited voluntarily.

Conclusion As implied from constructivist learning theory, collaborative learning and video learning has the potential to improve the learning experience as they promote high levels of engagement and interaction. However, the challenge lays in how the system can be interacted with to provide the required framework to enhance learner’s engagement coherence and motivation. The statistical data of using this system will be presented at later point as this research is still in progress. The proposed system is expected to be a powerful summarizing tool, and the hypothesis of this research is that the system may provide positive results in terms of improved student engagement, coherence and motivation.

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Nouf M. Alzahrani was born in Medina, Saudi Arabia. She received her BSc degree in mathematics from College of Girls in Tyba University, Saudi Arabia, in 2005 majoring in general mathematics and MSc degree in information technology for e‐ commerce (ITEC) from University of Sussex, Brighton, UK in 2011. She has started her PhD in 2012 and currently is a full‐time student at University of Sussex where she is doing her PhD. Her research interests include adaptive and collaborative E‐ Learning 1

After obtaining her BSc degree, she worked in different private schools as a Mathematics Teacher in Medina, Saudi Arabia, before obtaining a government scholarship to pursue her education in 2009. She has also worked voluntarily as a Mathematics Teacher in Saudi school in Brighton, UK on various occasions from 2009 to 2014.

Dr Paul Newbury has a PhD. in Data Compression from the University of Bradford, U.K. (1999), an MSc in Intelligent Systems from the University of Plymouth, U.K. (1993) and a BEng (Hons) in Electronic Engineering from Brighton Polytechnic, U.K. (1991). He is a senior lecturer in Multimedia Systems in the Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, U.K. and has previously worked as a lecture at the University of Bradford and Leeds Metropolitan University. He has more than 30 conference and journal publications in the areas of technology enhanced learning, virtual prototyping, pervasive systems, computer graphics and animation and lossy compression. His current main field of research is technology enhanced learning and specifically its relation to digital video capture and provision.

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Phil Watten is a creative technologist and founder of Media Technology Lab (MTL) in 2000 as part of the work undertaken by the Interactive Systems Research Group in the school of Engineering and Informatics in University of Sussex. He is the Media Technology Manager at Sussex and Director of the Media Technology Lab. He is a specialist in high‐level digital strategy and creative solutions, app design and development, digital broadcast and content creation and distribution.

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Phil has authored or co‐authored many publications including: 

Brunger, Louise, Smith, Adam, Re, Roberta, Wickham, Martin, Philippides, Andy, Watten, Phil and Yeomans, Martin (2015) Validation of an iPad visual analogue rating system for assessing appetite and satiety. Appetite, 84. pp. 259‐263. ISSN 0195‐6663

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Gilardi, Marco, Watten, Phil L and Newbury, Paul (2014) Unsupervised three‐dimensional reconstruction of small rocks from a single two‐dimensional image. In: Eurographics 2014, 7‐11 April 2014, Strasbourg, France.

Phil’s current research is focused on the design, development, and usage of new education technologies and pedagogies to bring the methodologies together into high‐quality social‐based learning environment using entertainment technology and approaches to deliver learning resources that the learners feel most comfortable with. His interest areas include using production in other areas of technology‐based research and using a combination of film‐making, visual effects and virtual prototyping new products and large system.

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