1.1 Motivation and Background / 2
1.2 Thesis Statement and Contribution / 4
CHAPTER 2 SYSTEM / 6
2.1 Learning System / 6
2.2 Discrete Event System (Stochastic Timed Model) / 11
2.3 Conclusion / 13
CHAPTER 3 AN INTERACTIVE CUSTOMIZABLE INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE FOR A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT / 14
3.1 Introduction / 14
3.2 Components and Services / 14
3.2.1 Components /14
3.2.2 Services /17
3.3 Architectural View on the Flow of the Interaction / 22
3.4 Conclusion / 23
4.1 Introduction / 25
4.2 Event Model at JINI / 26
4.3 Event Model at CORBA / 27
4.4 Event Model of Document Object Model Level 2 / 29
4.5 Java Delegation Event Model / 31
4.6 Discussion / 32
CHAPTER 5 SMART DESK / 35
5.1 Introduction / 35
5.2 Other Learning Environment / 37
5.3 Smart Desk Features / 38
5.4 Implementation Issues / 40
5.4.1 Personalized Environment / 40
5.4.2 Adaptiveness issues / 42
5.4.3 User Tracking / 50
5.5 SD Information Architecture and Events / 51
5.6 Conclusion / 55
CHAPTER 6 INTERACTIVITY: DEFINITION, MEASUREMENT, AND THE EXPERIMENT / 57
6.1 Background / 57
6.2 Interactivity on the Web / 57
6.3 Measurement of Interactivity at an Information Architecture for a Learning
Environment / 59
6.3.1 Introduction / 61
6.3.2 Content-Based Measurement / 64
6.3.3 User Transaction Data / 67
6.3.4 Steps to Apply the Interactivity Measurement Methods to Smart Desk / 70
6.4 Case Study: Interactivity Measurement at Smart Desk / 73
6.4.1 Technical Specification / 73
6.4.2 Web Sites Deconstructed / 74
6.4.3 Experiment / 75
6.4.4 Results / 81
CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION / 95
FUTURE WORK / 97
CHAPTER 8 REFERENCES / 98
APPENDIX A. GUIDELINE OF INTERACTIVITY FEATURES AT WEB SITES / 102
APPENDIX B. WEIGHTED 2D GRAPH / 103
APPENDIX C. SOURCE CODE INFORMATION / 105
APPENDIX D. THE LEARNING SYSTEM MODELING / 107
D.1 Notation of State Automata Models / 107
D.2 System Modeling of the Learning System Using a State Automata Model / 108
D.3 Petri Net and Stochastic Petri Net Model Notation / 111
D.4 Stochastic Petri Net Modeling of the Learning System / 112
APPENDIX E. COMMON LOG FORMAT / 119
VITA / 120
List of Figures
Figure 1-1: Smart Desk Introduction, the Main Page, and an Application / 4
Figure 2-1: Learning Environment (1) / 7
Figure 2-2: Learning Environment (2) / 9
Figure 2-3: Learning Environment with Controller / 10
Figure 3-1: 3 Tier Architecture of the Learning Environment / 16
Figure 3-2: Services at the Information Architecture / 20
Figure 3-3: an Example of an Event Path / 22
Figure 4-1: Event Generation in JINI / 27
Figure 4-2: OMG Reference Model Architecture / 28
Figure 4-3: Push-Style Communication Between a Supplier and an Event Channel, and Pull-Style Communication Between a Consumer and an Event Channel / 29
Figure 4-4: Event Flow at DOM (1) / 30
Figure 4-5: Event Flow at DOM (2) / 31
Figure 4-6: Event Flow at Java / 32
Figure 5-1: Hand Mouse / 35
Figure 5-2: Smart Desk Hardware Interface / 35
Figure 5-3: Interface to Add a New Application / 39
Figure 5-4: Personalizing Process / 40
Figure 5-5: Communication between front end and server / 42
Figure 5-6: User Tracking / 43
Figure 5-7 (A): An Example of Measuring and Analyzing Mouse Inputs / 44
Figure 5-7 (B): ＾Word Learning￣ Game / 45
Figure 5-7 (C): An Example of Tracking User Events Along With Time Axis / 46
Figure 5-7 (D): An Example of Mouse Trajectory / 47
Figure 5-7 (E): An Example of Right/Wrong Answer Measurement / 48
Figure 5-7 (E¨): Proportion of Right And Wrong Answer / 48
Figure 5-8: Servlets at AS / 51
Figure 5-9: User Registration / 51
Figure 5-10: Customization / 52
Figure 5-11: SD Event Model / 53
Figure 5-12: Data and Event Flow at SD / 53
Figure 5-13: Events at SD in XML / 54
Figure 6-1: Tracked Information at a Web Browser / 68
Figure 6-2: Sample GUI / 75
Figure 6-3: Sample Graph / 76
Figure 6-4: Sample Trajectory / 77
Figure 6-5: Document Map / 79
List of Diagrams
Diagram 6-1: Structure of This Thesis / 62
Diagram 6-2: How SDs are Implemented for Experiment / 70
Diagram 6-3: Process of Experiment / 71
List of Tables
Table 3-1: Services and Their Properties / 21
Table 3-2: An Example of Interaction Among Components / 23
Table 6-1: Time Spent at Each Page / 93
Table D-1: Places and Transitions / 114
Table D-2: Places and Transitions / 117
List of Graphs
Graph 6-1: Original SD / 85
Graph 6-2: P-SD1 / 86
Graph 6-3: P-SD2 / 87
Graph 6-4: Number of Hits vs. Time / 90
Graph 6-5: Transferred Data vs. Time (1) / 91
Graph 6-6:Transferred Data vs. Time (2) / 92
Graph 6-7: Total Completion Time / 93
Graph 6-8: a Learning Curve / 94
Graph D-1: State Diagram / 111
Graph D-2: Petri Net with a Basic Idea / 116
Graph D-3: Stochastic Petri Net for the Learning