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Parametric evaluation of progressively immersive multimedia representations for teaching environment in eLearning

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Abstract

Live eLearning systems present multimedia elements constituting the teaching environment, such as - teacher, teaching aids, in various ways creating virtual representations. Often, teacher’s video and screencast of the teaching material are streamed and displayed as mutually exclusive disconnected entities. Though the existing eLearning systems give a clear view of the screen and the instructor delivering the lecture, they break the spatial connection between teacher’s gestures and content on the screen. In this paper, we identify five perception parameters that influence visual perception of the teaching environment. We introduce new multimedia based representations that circumvent shortcomings of current approaches and provide a spatially coherent view mimicking the real world classroom scenario. By improving the perception parameters, we arrange the representations in a stepwise hierarchy that progressively moves towards an immersive teaching environment. We then present a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of various representations based on these parameters. Finally, we present a user study to substantiate our findings. Results indicate significant enhancement in classroom experience with proposed new representations.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude for the constant support and inspiration given by our University Chancellor, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (Amma). We would also like to thank Dr. Georg Gutjahr for his valuable suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Amrita Center for Wireless Networks & Applications (AmritaWNA), Amrita School of Engineering, Amritapuri, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India

    Uma Gopalakrishnan, P Venkat Rangan, Ramkumar N & Balaji Hariharan

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  1. Uma Gopalakrishnan
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  2. P Venkat Rangan
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  3. Ramkumar N
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  4. Balaji Hariharan
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Correspondence to Uma Gopalakrishnan.

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Gopalakrishnan, U., Rangan, P.V., N, R. et al. Parametric evaluation of progressively immersive multimedia representations for teaching environment in eLearning. Multimed Tools Appl 78, 15403–15432 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-018-6934-0

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