This dissertation proposal begins with a discussion about how the education of game programmers was not meeting the needs of the game industry. With this problem identified, this study proceeded to verify the existence of disparities of current game programming curricula. The findings from the literature review were able to: (a) justify the need…

Modern education technologies are destined to reflect the realities of a modern digital age. The juxtaposition of real and synthetic (computer-generated) worlds as well as a greater emphasis on visual dimension are especially important characteristics that have to be taken into account in learning and teaching. We describe the ways in which an…

Coreference resolution (CR) and entity relation detection (ERD) aim at finding predefined relations between pairs of entities in text. CR focuses on resolving identity relations while ERD focuses on detecting non-identity relations. Both CR and ERD are important as they can potentially improve other natural language processing (NLP) related tasks…

In the quest for database usability, several applications enable users to design custom forms using a graphical interface, and forward engineer the forms into new databases. The path-breaking aspect of such applications is that users are completely shielded from the technicalities of database creation. Despite this innovation, the process of…

The current research article is based on a simple and practical way of employing the computational power of widely available, versatile software MS Excel 2007 to perform interactive computer simulations for undergraduate/graduate students in biology, biochemistry, biophysics, microbiology, medicine in college and university classroom setting. To…

The Lithuanian Informatics Olympiads (LitIO) is a problem solving programming contest for students in secondary education. The work of the student to be evaluated is an algorithm designed by the student and implemented as a working program. The current evaluation process involves both automated (for correctness and performance of programs with the…

This dissertation deals with a multiterminal source model for secret key generation by multiple network terminals with prior and privileged access to a set of correlated signals complemented by public discussion among themselves. Emphasis is placed on a characterization of secret key capacity, i.e., the largest rate of an achievable secret key,…

The size and dynamism of the Web poses challenges for all its stakeholders, which include producers/consumers of content, and advertisers who want to place advertisements next to relevant content. A critical piece of information for the stakeholders is the demographics of the consumers who are likely to visit a given web site. However, predicting…

The teaching of introductory computer programming seems far from successful, with many first-year students performing more poorly than expected. One possible reason for this is that novices hold "non-viable" mental models (internal explanations of how something works) of key programming concepts which then cause misconceptions and difficulties. An…

This article critiques learning design as a representation for sharing and developing practice, based on synthesis of three projects. Starting with the findings of the Mod4L Models of Practice project, it argues that the technical origins of learning design, and the consequent focus on structure and sequence, limit its usefulness for sharing…

Recommender systems aim to support users in their decision-making process while interacting with large information spaces and recommend items of interest to users based on preferences they have expressed, either explicitly or implicitly. Recommender systems are increasingly used with product and service selection over the Internet. Although…

Developments in computer and information technologies continue to give opportunities for designing advanced E-learning systems while entailing objective and technical evaluation methodologies. Design and development of E-learning systems require time-consuming and labor-intensive processes; therefore any decision about these systems and their…

Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) was proposed as a standard for sharable learning object packaging, delivering and sequencing. Several years later, Common Cartridge (CC) is proposed as an enhancement of SCORM offering more flexibility and addressing needs not originally envisioned, namely assessment and web 2.0 standards, content…

Geotechnical data are one of the most prevalent data types in civil engineering projects. The majority of the civil engineering projects that are in use today are designed using site-specific geotechnical data. The usage of geotechnical data is not limited to construction projects. This data is used in a wide range of applications, including…

The development of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) is in the scope of research groups and educators aiming to propose suitable mechanisms for the organization of self-controlled and self-directed learning, providing students with tools and services for access to content and human intelligence inside and outside the educational institutions.…