Innovations in Smart Learning

The book aims to provide an archival forum for researchers, academics, practitioners, and industry professionals interested and/or engaged in the reform of the ways of teaching and learning through advancing current learning environments towards smart learning environments. It facilitates opportunities for discussions and constructive dialogue among various stakeholders on the limitations of existing learning environments, need for reform, innovative uses of emerging pedagogical approaches and technologies, and sharing and promotion of best practices, leading to the evolution, design and implementation of smart learning environments. The focus of the contributions in this book is on the interplay of pedagogy, technology and their fusion towards the advancement of smart learning environments. Various components of this interplay include but are not limited to:
● Pedagogy: learning paradigms, assessment paradigms, social factors, policy;
● Technology: emerging technologies, innovative uses of mature technologies, adoption, usability, standards, and emerging/new technological paradigms (open educational resources, cloud computing, etc.);
● Fusion of pedagogy and technology: transformation of curriculum, transformation of teaching behavior, transformation of administration, best practices of infusion, piloting of new ideas.

Elvira Popescu is an Associate Professor at the Computers and Information Technology Department, University of Craiova, Romania. She is in charge of two BSc courses (Web Applications' Design, Multimedia Technologies in e-Learning) and two MSc courses (Semantic Systems, Web Services Technologies). She is also a member of the Multimedia Applications Development Research Center, University of Craiova. Her current research interests include technology enhanced learning, adaptation and personalization in Web-based systems, Web 2.0 and social learning environments, learning analytics, intelligent and distributed computing. She has authored and co-authored more than 70 publications, including a book, journal articles, book chapters and conference papers. She is also participating in several national and international research projects.

Kinshuk is Associate Dean of Faculty of Science and Technology, and Full Professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems at Athabasca University, Canada. He also holds the NSERC/CNRL/Xerox/McGraw Hill Industrial Research Chair for Adaptivity and Personalization in Informatics, funded by the Government of Canada, Government of Alberta, and by industries. He earned his PhD from De Montfort University, United Kingdom. His work has been dedicated to advancing research on the innovative paradigms, architectures and implementations of online and distance learning systems for individualized and adaptive learning in increasingly global environments. Areas of his research interests include adaptive and personalized learning; learning analytics; learning technologies; mobile, ubiquitous and location aware learning systems; cognitive profiling; and, interactive technologies.

Mohamed Koutheair Khribi is a program manager in the ICT department at Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO). He is currently leading several projects related to OER, MOOCs, Mobile Applications and Cloud Computing to enhance education in Arab countries. Dr. Khribi is a researcher and IEEE member, his research interests include technology enhanced learning; educational recommender systems; open education; learning analytics; and mobile and ubiquitous computing. He has authored several well-cited e-learning related publications in scientific books, journals, and conferences. Ronghuai Huang is a professor in Faculty of Education in Beijing Normal University (BNU) in which educational technology is one of the National Key Subjects, and director of R&D Center for Knowledge Engineering, which is dedicated to syncretizing artificial intelligence and human learning.

Prof. Huang is now the dean of Smart Learning Institute in BNU, which aims to promote the education technology discipline and its related subjects. Prof. Huang has being engaged in the research on educational technology as well as knowledge engineering since 1997. He has accomplished or is working on over 60 projects, including those of key science and technology projects to be tackled in the national "Ninth Five-year Plan", "Tenth Five-year Plan" and "Eleventh Five-year Plan" and the projects in the national 863 plan as well as others financed by the government. His ideas have been widely spread, with more than 160 academic papers and over 20 books published in the domestic and overseas.

Mohamed Jemni is a Professor at the University of Tunis. He joined recently the ALECSO organization as the Director of the ICT department. From 2008 to 2013, he has been the General chair of the Computing Center El Khawarizmi, the Internet services provider for higher education in Tunisia. He is the Head and the founder of the Research Laboratory of Technologies of Information and Communication & Electrical Engineering (LaTICE) of the University of Tunis. He is a Senior Member IEEE and the Founder of the Tunisian IEEE Education chapter. He is member of the executive board and New initiative chair of IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technology. His Research Projects Involvements during the last 24 years are Enhanced Learning Technologies, High Performance & Grid computing and Accessibility of ICT to People with Disabilities. He has published over 200 papers in international referred journals, conferences and book chapters and he has produced many studies for international organizations such as UNESCO, ITU and ALECSO.

Nian-Shing Chen is Chair Professor at the Department of Information Management at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan and chair of IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technology. Prof Chen has published over 350 papers in the international referred journals, conferences and book chapters. One of his papers published in Innovations in Education and Teaching International was awarded as the top cited article in 2010. He is the author of three books with one textbook entitled E-Learning Theory & Practice. Prof. Chen received the national outstanding research awards from the National Science Council, Taiwan in 2008 and 2011-2013.

Demetrios G. Sampson is a Research Professor of Learning Technologies at the School of Education since October 2015. His main scientific interests are in the area of Learning Technologies and Technology Enhanced Teaching and Learning. He is the co-author of 370 publications in scientific books, journals and conferences with more than 3382 citations and h-index 27 as listed in Scholar Google (March 2016). He has received 8 times Best Paper Award in International Conferences on Learning Technologies. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Educational Technology and Society Journal (5-year impact factor 1.376, ERA-Quality). He has served or serves as Member of the Steering Committee of the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies (5-year impact factor 1.697, ERA-Quality), Member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences and the International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence, Member of the Editorial Board of 23 International/National Journals and a Guest Editor in 31 Special Issues of International Journals.