Below is the CfP for the 2nd workshop on Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments (MUPPLE’09). The same workshop last year was a great success. Please do consider submitting a paper to this very interesting workshop. Looking forward to seeing many of you there!

MUPPLE-09

2nd Workshop on Mash-UP Personal Learning Environments (MUPPLE-09) Interoperable Widgets, Services, and Microformats to facilitate Competence Development held at the 4th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL09), Nice, France, September 29 - October 2, 2009 RATIONALE A change in perspective can be certified in the recent years to technology-enhanced learning research and development: More and more learning applications on the web are putting the learner centre stage, not the organisation. They empower learners with capabilities to customize and even construct their own personal learning environments (PLEs). These PLEs typically consist of distributed web- applications and services that support system-spanning collaborative and individual learning activities in formal as well as informal settings. These PLEs typically complement Learning Management Systems (LMS) with additional widgets, services, and data integrated from and with organization-external learning tools.

STELLAR

Consequently, the aim of this workshop is not to discuss the
concepts ‘PLE vs. LMS’, but to focus more generally on how learning
experiences can be enriched using mash-ups of widgets and services
with microformats and how technology can help to respond automatically
to competence level, need, or context. Moreover, the investigation
of necessary competencies to deploy mash-up technologies, is
dedicated special attention in this workshop.

Technologically speaking, this shift manifests in a learning
web where information is distributed across sites and
activities can easily encompass the use of a greater number
of pages and services offered through web-based learning
applications. Mash-ups, the ‘frankensteining’ of software
artefacts and data, have emerged to be the software
development approach for these long-tail and perpetual-beta
niche markets. Core technologies facilitating this paradigm
shift are Ajax, javascript-based widget-collections, and
microformats that help to glue together public web APIs
in individual applications. Interoperability is the enabler
to allow these different components to be worked
together facilitating the achievement of the underlying
learning task.

In a wide range of European IST-funded research projects
such as ROLE, iCoper, Stellar, LTfLL, Mature, Palette, OpenScout,
and TENcompetence a rising passion for these technologies
can be identified.

This workshop therefore serves as a forum to bring together
researchers and developers from these projects and an open
public that have an interest in understanding and engineering
mash-up personal learning environments (MUPPLEs).

TOPICS OF INTEREST (but not limited to):

• Visions: Architectures, Frameworks, Strategies, Models
• (Collaborative) Authoring Tools
• Data Interoperability: with e.g. Microformats,
  streaming data, mixed media data
• User Interfaces: Concepts, Metaphors, Workflows
• Development Methodologies
• Innovative Widgets and Services: e.g. for instruction,
  game-based learning, self-reflection, personal information
• Interoperability Standards for widgets,
  content recombination, configuration
• User Studies & Evaluation Methods: evaluating e.g. performance,
  usability, specific design features, training methods

WORKSHOP FORMAT

The aim of this workshop is to bring together the various research
and development groups in technology-enhanced learning that currently
focus on the development of the next generation learning environments –
learning environments that put the individuum centre stage and empower
learners with design capabilities by deploying modern mash-up principles
to establish system-spanning interoperability.

As this approach is rather young, the workshop seeks to attract
both research results and work in progress in order to chart out
the current state-of-the-art of MUPPLEs in TEL and to define
main enablers and future challenges. Naturally, it will serve
as a forum for establishing new collaborations.

Using the presentations as impulses and continuing post-talk
debates, the workshop will conclude the day with an open discussion
exchanging ideas, summing up, and defining a medium- to
long-term research agenda.

SUBMISSIONS

Authors are invited to submit original unpublished research as full
papers (8 pages), work-in-progress as short papers (max. 4 pages) or
position statements (max. 2 pages). All submitted papers will be peer-
reviewed by at least three members of the program committee for
originality, significance, clarity, and quality.

The workshop proceedings will be published online as part of the
CEUR Workshop proceedings series. http://CEUR-WS.org is a recognized
ISSN publication series, with ISSN 1613-0073.

Furthermore, the workshop serves as stage for presenting
a snapshot of the work on contributions planned to be submitted
to the upcoming special issue on mash-up personal learning
environments in the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning (IJTEL,
http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalCODE=ijtel).

Authors should use the Springer LNCS format (http://www.springer.com/
lncs). For camera-ready format instructions, please see “For Authors”
instructions at http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.

All questions and submissions should be sent to:
f.wild @ open.ac.uk

IMPORTANT DATES

• Paper Submission: July 31st, 2009
• Results Notification: August 15th, 2009
• Camera Ready Submission: September 15th, 2009
• Workshop Date: September 29th, 2009

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

• Abelardo Pardo (University Carlos III de Madrid, Spain)
• Dai Griffith (University of Bolton, UK)
• Denis Gillet (EPFL, Switzerland)
• Effie Law (University of Leicester, United Kingdom)
• Felix Mödritscher (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria)
• Graham Atwell (Pontydysgu, United Kingdom)
• Gytis Cibulskis (Kaunas Technical University, Lithuania)
• Mart Laanpere (Tallinn University, Estonia)
• Martin Wolpers (Fraunhofer FIT, Germany)
• Mohamed Amine Chatti (RWTH Aachen, Germany)
• Nikos Karacapilidis (University of Patras, Greece)
• Scott Wilson (University of Bolton, United Kingdom)
• Stephane Sire (EPFL, Switzerland)
• Tony Hirst (Open University, UK)
• Bernd Simon (Knowledge Markets)
• Jad Najjar (Vienna University of Economics and Business)
• Kai Hoever (IMC AG)
• Zuzana Bizonova (INT Paris)
• Jan M. Pawlowski (University of Jyväskylä)

ORGANISERS

• Marco Kalz (Open University, The Netherlands)
• Daniel Müller (IMC AG, Germany)
• Palmer (University of Upsala, Sweden)
• Fridolin Wild (The Open University, UK)

ABOUT EC-TEL09

After three successful EC-TEL conferences in 2006, 2007, and 2008,
the Fourth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning
provides a unique forum for all research related to TEL, among
them education, psychology, and computer science. The contributions
will cover the design of innovative environments, the implementation 
of new technological solutions, results of empirical studies on
socio-cognitive processes in learning, and field studies regarding
the use of technologies in context.

EC-TEL is a competitive and broad forum for TEL research in Europe
and beyond. In its specialised accompanying workshops and the
highlighting main conference programme, EC-TEL09 provides
unique networking possibilities for participating researchers
throughout the week and includes project meetings and discussions 
for ongoing and new research activities supported by the European
Commission. See http://www.ectel09.org/ for details.