"Cognitive and Emotional Processes in Web-based Education: Integrating Human Factors and Personalization."
A book edited by Dr. Constantinos Mourlas, Nikos Tsianos and Panagiotis Germanakos, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
http://www.media.uoa.gr/~mourlas/COGNITIVEbook/index.html

Introduction
The way people perceive and process information is widely varied on the basis of individual differences that can provide a framework for explaining significant divergences in academic performance. However, individual differences do not imply different learning potential.

Researchers insist that different ways of processing information require corresponding information providing approaches in order for equivalent learning performance to be achieved. A preliminary classification of individual characteristics that affect the outcome of learning procedures is the distinction between cognitive and emotional parameters. These parameters cover a wide spectrum of human factors and both comprise a very important research area in web-based learning. Moreover, such human factors lead also to social and group considerations, especially if one takes into account the interpersonal aspect of web-based learning.

The notion of personalization addresses this matter in a comprehensive manner, for as much as the main aim of personalizing the web-content is the optimization and facilitation of users? interactions within the internet.  Internet Technologies, Adaptive Hypermedia and User Profiling techniques are often closely related to this concept of personalization, with demographical, habitual and behavioural characteristics taken mostly into account. Finally, the semantic augmentation of the data is nevertheless a prerequisite in the field of personalization, and when learning processes are involved, it needs to be extended towards the area of learners? intrinsic characteristics.

The Overall Objective of the Book
The core aim of the proposed book is to gather an extended volume of research in the interdisciplinary field of human cognition and educational hypermedia, in order to explain differences in individual performance and to incorporate individual differences in web-based learning design.

The book will focus on the convergence of psychological theories and contemporary research on web-mediated information processing, since an emergence of new methodologies and techniques is much needed. Topics on the field of cognitive psychology and psychological research on the role of emotions on academic performance will be extensively covered.

Personality theories, emotional intelligence and pedagogical approaches in the context of web-based learning are also within the scope of this approach. At a second level, issues on personalization and semantic enhancement of both user profile and educational content will be addressed, to support the notion of adaptation in various application levels.

The content of the book, specifically, will cover areas such as cognitive and learning style, working memory, attention and visual attention, problem solving, reasoning, intelligence, verbal, spatial and mathematical ability, cognitive processes, personality theories, anxiety, academic emotions, emotional intelligence, emotional skills, affective computing, biometrics of emotion, collaborative learning, pedagogical theories and social and network computing.

More precisely the book will cover research measuring the effect of all the above factors in the design of effective e-learning content. The book will also evaluate of all these factors in adaptive hypermedia design, user profiling and web personalization.

The Target Audience
The proposed book will be useful to academics, teachers and researchers, professionals in the field of e-learning, and to people that belong to the broader field of education. The book will cover a large number of topics in the area of cognitive and emotional individual differences, web-based learning and adaptation and personalization of e-learning systems, providing pragmatic references, analysis, new methodologies, and interdisciplinary approaches that cover the subject more comprehensively, incorporating the latest suggestions and solutions. These approaches may also be of significant importance to researchers in the area of the semantic web, especially when the semantic augmentation of the data concerns educational and e-learning applications.

Topics of interest may focus on, but are not restricted to:
Section I:  Cognition and Learning
- Cognitive and learning Styles
- Working memory in the context of the web
- The role of attention in web-based environments
- Spatial ability and hypermedia navigation
- Eyetracking tools, methods and measurements
- Problem solving and reasoning ability
- Individual traits in web-based learning

Section II: Emotion and Learning
- Anxiety (academic anxiety, computer anxiety, cognitive anxiety etc.)
- Academic emotions
- Emotional intelligence and emotional skills in learning
- Self efficacy in e-learning
- Personality theories in the context of computer mediated learning environments
- Affective computing and learning
- Biometric measurements and research in web-based learning
- Emotional state and traits in e-learning processes

Section III: Pedagogical approaches in web-based environments
- Learning strategies
- Exploratory learning
- Collaborative learning
- Social and network computing in web-based learning
- Web-based communities of practice

Section IV: Cognition-Aware and Affective Hypermedia
- Adaptive Hypermedia
- The incorporation of cognitive and emotional parameters in user profiling
- Effects of cognitive and emotional parameters in the design of effective e-learning content
- Adaptation and personalization techniques in web-based learning
- Tracking state changes of the user and dynamic adaptation
- Assessment of hypermedia that take into account individual differences and best practices

Section V: User Modeling
- Acquisition, updating and management of user models and student models
- Evaluation of user modeling techniques and eLearning applications
- User Modeling in the Semantic Web
- Group modeling and adaptive support of collaboration
- User modeling for multimodal interactions
- Modeling of affective factors, social aspects and attitudes
- Privacy and security

Section VI: Semantic Content Creation and Delivery
- Semantic Web technologies
- Ontology and taxonomy design and development for personalized web-based learning systems
- Semantic architecture systems design and evaluation

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to electronically submit on or before April 20, 2008, a 2-5 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of their proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by April 30, 2008, about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by June 30, 2008. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global, (Formerly Idea Group Inc.), http://www.igi-pub.com, IRM Press, Information Science Publishing, CyberTech Publishing, and Information Science Reference (formerly "Idea Group Reference"). Inquires and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) by mail to the editors.

Editors of the book
Dr. Constantinos Mourlas
Nikos Tsianos
Panagiotis Germanakos
Laboratory of New Technologies, Faculty of Communication & Media Studies, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens,
5 Stadiou Str., 7th floor GR 105-62, Athens, Greece
Tel.: +30 210 3689282
Fax: +30 210 3220820
E-mail: {mourlas,ntsianos,pgerman}@media.uoa.gr
Url: www.media.uoa.gr/~{mourlas,ntsianos,pgerman}