JUCS - Journal of Universal Computer Science 22(2): 271-297, doi: 10.3217/jucs-022-02-0271
A Bot Spooler Architecture to Integrate Virtual Worlds with E-learning Management Systems for Corporate Training
expand article infoLeonel Morgado, Hugo Paredes, Benjamim Fonseca, Paulo Martins§, Alvaro Almeida|, Andreas Vilela, Filipe Peixinho, Arnaldo Santos
‡ INESC TEC - INESC Technology & Science, Porto, Portugal§ INESC TEC and Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Porto, Portugal| UTAD - Universidade de Tres-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal¶ Altice Labs, Aveiro, Portugal
Open Access
Abstract
Joining efforts of academic and corporate teams, we developed an integration architecture - MULTIS - that enables corporate e-learning managers to use a Learning Management System (LMS) for management of educational activities in virtual worlds. This architecture was then implemented for the Formare LMS. In this paper we present this architecture and concretizations of its implementation for the Second Life Grid/OpenSimulator virtual world platforms. Current systems are focused on activities managed by individual trainers, rather than groups of trainers and large numbers of trainees: they focus on providing the LMS with information about educational activities taking place in a virtual world and/or being able to access within the virtual world some of the information stored in the LMS, and disregard the streamlining of activity setup and data collection in multi-trainer contexts, among other administrative issues. This architecture aims to overcome the limitations of existing systems for organizational management of corporate e-learning activities.
Keywords
learning management systems, standards and interoperability, learning environments, games, computer uses in education, software architectures