SUBMISSION DUE DATE: July 1, 2008

Special Issue on Intelligent and Adaptive Web-based Educational Systems,
International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies

Guest Editors: Fuhua Lin, Sabine Graf, Kinshuk, Rory McGreal

INTRODUCTION:
Providing learners with an environment that reacts intelligently to the users' needs and incorporates their individual characteristics for presenting suitable information and learning material helps to support learners and makes learning easier for them. Such systems can incorporate, for example, the prior knowledge, preferences, learning goals, learning styles, and cognitive abilities of learners.

Web-based educational systems based on learning management systems (LMS) such as WebCT, Blackboard, and Moodle are commonly and successfully used in distance learning. They provide a variety of features to support teachers and course developers to create and manage their online courses. However, at current stage, such environments provide very little, or in most cases, neither intelligent support nor adaptivity at all.

This special issue aims to focus on how intelligent support and adaptive features can be integrated in currently used systems as well as on how intelligent and adaptive Web-based educational systems can be improved in order to provide a better learning environment for learners.

The need arise for smart learning environments that offer personal services in the whole cycle of education, from counselling, to academic advising, to program planning, to collaborative learning, to tutoring, and to testing. Learning management systems and university portals need the incorporation of intelligence, adaptivity, and agent-based capabilities to offer dynamic, intelligent and adaptive educational systems.

OBJECTIVE OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE:
The special issue deals with current research about providing intelligent support and adaptive features in the whole cycle of education in order to support the learners and educators, to increase learning opportunities and improve the efficiency and quality of service. The special issue will provide a forum for demonstrating outstanding examples of and discussing how to introduce and incorporate intelligence and adaptivity into Web-based educational systems and university portals for facilitating and supporting teaching, learning, and educational administration.

RECOMMENDED TOPICS:
Topics to be discussed in this special issue include (but are not limited to) the following:
- e-tutor, e-secretary, e-advisor, e-counsellor
- Adaptive curriculum sequencing in learning management systems
- Adaptive presentation and navigation support for learning management systems
- Adaptive collaboration support via learning management systems
- Adaptive testing
- Data mining for education intelligence
- Semantic Web and education
- Integration and interoperability issues
- Intelligent agents in learning management systems
- Agent-based log mining to improve the performance of educational systems
- Authoring tools for developing adaptive and intelligent Web-based educational systems
- Empirical studies of adaptive and intelligent learning management systems

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit papers for this special theme issue on Adaptive and Intelligent Web-based Educational Systems on or before July 1, 2008. All submissions must be original and may not be under review by another publication. INTERESTED AUTHORS SHOULD CONSULT THE JOURNAL'S GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS at www.igi-global.com/journals/guidelines.html. Submitted papers should be between 10 and 20 pages of length. All submitted papers will be reviewed on a double-blind, peer review basis. Papers must follow APA style for reference citations.

IMPORTANT DATES:
July 1 , 2008 Deadline for submission
August 10, 2008 Notification
September 1, 2008 Deadline for final paper

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WEB-BASED LEARNING AND TEACHING TECHNOLOGIES:
Mission and Coverage
The proliferation of web-based technologies during the last decade may have given the impression of wide-spread changes in educational practices. In fact, we have only begun to scratch the surface of experiencing the vast impact these technologies could have on education. Viewed separately, web-based technologies offer exciting possibilities for expanding the capacity to provide access to instruction and knowledge world-wide. However, and perhaps more importantly, viewing these technological advancements in a more dynamic context, forces educators and researchers to rethink the fundamental processes of teaching and learning. It s not just a simple matter of using a technical tool to supply time and place ubiquity, but to accept the challenge of understanding the implications for the entire educational spectrum. Web-based teaching and learning begs the question of what exactly these technologies means for learners, teachers, program designers, academic experts, technical and administrative staff, institutional decision makers, training managers, publishers, and others. Although a considerable amount of exploration has been conducted regarding web-based learning technologies, the breadth and scope for dialogue and experimentation needs to be broadened. This journal intends to provide a place for that dialogue and to support a diverse community interested in taking the challenge further. The primary mission of the International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies (IJWLTT) is to contribute to the broadening of the overall body of knowledge regarding the multi-dimensional aspects of web-based technologies in contemporaneous educational contexts, assisting researchers, practitioners, and decision makers to design more effective learning systems and scenarios. The IJWLTT hopes to explore the technical, social, cultural, organizational, human, cognitive, and commercial impact of technology. In addition, the IJWLTT will endeavour to attract a broad range of authors and, thereby, expand the dialogue to address the interplay among the diverse and disparate interests affected by technology in education. The journal will seek to explore the impact of web-based technology on the design, implementation and evaluation of the learning and teaching process, as well as the development of new activities, relationships, skills, and competencies for the various actors implied in such processes. It will attempt to enlighten any and all of those responsible for the advancement of learning.

Coverage:
Among topics to be included (but not limited) are the following:
* WLTT implementation: models, methods and frameworks
* Web-based technologies enabled pedagogical scenarios
* Web-based technologies enabled pedagogical systems and programs
* Decision making in implementing web-based learning and teaching
* Management side of web-based learning and teaching
* Building multi-disciplinary teams for web-based learning and teaching
* Network learning using WLTT
* Building web-based learning communities
* Constructivist approaches to web-based learning and teaching
* Knowledge building using web-based learning and teaching technologies
* Web-based CSCL
* Project management for implementing WLTT
* Best practices
* All other related issues that impact the overall utilization and management of web-based technologies in education

This journal is an official publication of the Information Resources Management Association www.igi-global.com/ijwltt

Editor-in-Chief: Liliane Esnault at esnault@em-lyon.com
Published: Quarterly (both in Print and Electronic form)

PUBLISHER:
The INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WEB-BASED LEARNING AND TEACHING TECHNOLOGIES is published by IGI Global, publisher of the "IGI Publishing," "Information Science Publishing," "IRM Press," "CyberTech Publishing," "Information Science Reference," and "Medical Information Science Reference" imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com.

All submissions should be directed to the attention of:

Fuhua Lin, Sabine Graf, Kinshuk, Rory McGreal
Guest Editor
International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies
E-mail: oscarl@athabascau.ca (and copied to sabine.graf@ieee.org)