ECS researchers develop new portal for e-learning in Higher Education

ECS researchers have developed a new e-learning portal for Higher Education. The new portal is powered by semantic wikis, but is also simple enough to be embraced by non-technical users.

The FREMA (e-Framework Reference Model for Assessment) project, part of the Joint Information Systems Committee’s (JISC) e-Learning Framework, is a large inter-connected portal which will house information about e-learning assessment relevant to the education community.

It has been developed by Dr David Millard and Dr Gary Wills of the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), who will launch the new FREMA portal at a JISC e-Learning programme meeting on 11 October. It will be hosted by ECS at: http://frema.ecs.soton.ac.uk/wiki/

FREMA began in 2005 to help people in Higher Education build systems for e-learning. Its goal was to develop a reference model for systems in the Assessment Domain which focus upon the creation, execution and recording of electronic assessments which are accessible across institutions and to the lifelong learner.

According to Dr Millard, FREMA is a type of wiki with all the resources representing various aspects of Assessment in Higher Education such as information on standards and funding, but it can be queried like a Knowledge Base, so that users can find gaps and trends in the domain.

'A huge advantage of this system over any similar ones is its simplicity,' said Dr Millard. 'Although it is a major Knowledge Base, it is simple enough to be accessed by people who are not computer scientists, who can then contribute and run queries on issues such the most popular standards.'