LORNAV: Virtual Reality Tool for Navigation of Distributed Learning Objects Repositories

Navigation in a 3D world has reached its pinnacle with the advent of several technologies like Java, XML, Web services, VRML, X3D, etc. Much effort has been given to visualizing and navigating in virtual mall, cities, digital libraries etc. We designed a virtual reality (VR) tool, called Learning Object Repository Navigator (LORNAV) that extracts learning object metadata (LOM) dynamically from distributed repositories, creates 3D representation of these objects and displays them in a 3D environment using several visualization metaphors. The proposed tool allows the user to navigate through the 3D environment, view the associated metadata of the 3D objects, read/play the content, and select the objects of interest to create a personal space within the 3D environment. The creation of personal space provides users with a familiar navigation space consisting of learning objects of their choice.

[1]  Stephen G. Eick.  Information Visualization at 10 , 2005, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[2]  Kwan-Liu Ma.  Visualization: a quickly emerging field , 2004, COMG.

[3]  David Wiley,et al.  Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy , 2000 .

[4]  Erik Duval,et al.  A LOM Research Agenda , 2003, WWW.

[5]  Christopher G. Lasater,et al.  Design Patterns , 2008, Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering.

[6]  Erik Duval,et al.  Reusable learning objects: a survey of LOM-based repositories , 2002, MULTIMEDIA '02.

[7]  A. El Saddik,et al.  Towards a multi-domain semantic Web application , 2004, Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering 2004 (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37513).

[8]  James A. Hendler,et al.  The Semantic Web" in Scientific American , 2001 .

[9]  Pithamber R. Polsani,et al.  Use and Abuse of Reusable Learning Objects , 2006, J. Digit. Inf..

[10]  G Stix,et al.  The mice that warred. , 2001, Scientific American.

[11]  Cristina Russo Dos Santos,et al.  Metaphor-aware 3D navigation , 2000, IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization 2000. INFOVIS 2000. Proceedings.

[12]  Ivan Poupyrev,et al.  An Introduction to 3D User Interface Design , 2001 .

[13]  Ivan Poupyrev,et al.  An Introduction to 3-D User Interface Design , 2001, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[14]  Randall M. Rohrer,et al.  Web-Based Information Visualization , 1997, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[15]  Richard A. Blade,et al.  Glossary of Virtual Reality Terminology , 1995, Int. J. Virtual Real..

[16]  Melanie Tory,et al.  Human factors in visualization research , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[17]  Erik Duval,et al.  The Ariadne knowledge pool system , 2001, CACM.

[18]  Marek Hatala,et al.  The eduSource Communication Language: implementing open network for learning repositories and services , 2004, SAC '04.