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About the Contributors

Mahbubur Rahman Syed is currently a professor of Information Systems and Technology at Minnesota State University, Mankato (MSU), USA. He has about 25 years of experience in teaching, in industry, in research and in academic leadership in the field of computer science, engineering, information technology and systems. Earlier he worked in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the North Dakota State University in USA, in the School of Computing and Information Technology, Monash University in Australia, in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in Bangladesh and Ganz Electric Works in Hungary. He was a founding member of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at BUET and served as head of the Department during 1986-92. He served as the General Secretary of Bangladesh Computer Society and also as the General Secretary of BUET Teacher’s Association. He received the UNESCO/ROSTSCA’ 85 award for South and Central Asia region in the field of Informatics and Computer Applications in Scientific Research. He won several other awards. He has co-edited several books in the area of e-commerce, software agents, multimedia systems and networking. He guest edited the 2001 fall issue of IEEE multimedia. He has more than 100 papers published in journals and conference proceedings. He has been serving in different roles such as co-editor-in chief, associate editor, editorial review committee, member of several international journals. Dr. Syed has been involved in international professional activities including organizing conferences and serving as conference and program committee chair.

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Terry Anderson (PhD), as a Canadian Research Chair in Distance Education, is involved as principle researcher in a variety of research and development initiatives including the newly created Technology Enhanced Learning Research Institute (TELRI). He serves as editor of an open access journal, namely the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning and he was founder of the Canadian Institute for Distance Education Research (CIDER). He was a principal investigator in the Canada-wide EduSource Pan Canadian Network of Learning Object Repositories, the Campus Alberta Repository of Education Objects (CAREO) and the Alberta Supernet Research Network. He teaches and advises students in the world’s largest Masters of Distance Education program at Athabasca University. He also serves on advisory committees with the Alberta and Canadian Governments, and on editorial boards of several internationally respected scholarly journals such as the Journal of Distance Education and Journal of Interactive Media in Education. His edited open access book, The Theory and Practice of Distance Education has been downloaded by more than 77,000 users and it is now in its second edition.

Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

About the Contributors

Penny Baillie-de Byl has been researching in the area of online assessment management systems, artificial intelligence and computer games programming since 1995. She has written a number of international conference papers, journal papers, book chapters and two books in these areas. During her career, Dr. Baillie-de Byl has consulted as a computer programmer, computer games designer, website engineer and artificial intelligence designer. Dr. Baillie-de Byl currently works as a senior lecturer in computer graphics and computer games programming and manages a games research and development laboratory at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia.

Damien Clark commenced his academic research career in 2003 developing a parameterisation enhancement to the IMS QTI, resulting in an honours equivalent thesis. Clark’s paper published in this edition of JDET is his first for an international journal. He completed a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Central Queensland University, Australia in 1995. He also holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. During his career, he worked as a UNIX systems administrator before taking a position as lecturer at Central Queensland University in 2002. He teaches system administration, computer networking, and information security.

Flora Chia-I Chang received a BA in economics from National Cheng Chi University, Taipei Taiwan, Republic of China in 1979. She received an MA in economics from San Francisco State University in 1982, an MA in administration and policy analysis, and an EdD in higher educational administration, both from Stanford University (1983 and 1995, respectively). From 1986 to 2004 she has been the vice president for administrative affairs of Tamkang University. Starting August 2004, she has been the president of Tamkang University. She is currently also a professor in the Graduate Institute of Educational Policy and Leadership at Tamkang University. Her research interests include educational leadership and total quality management (TQM) in education, and publish numerous papers, reports, and several books in related fields.

Jing Chen received her BSc degree from Peking University in 2002 and she is currently a PhD candidate at the City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests are in the areas of Web mining, information retrieval and e-learning.

Yen-Jung Chen is currently elementary school teacher. She received her masters degree from the Department of Information and Learning Technology at National University of Tainan in Taiwan. Her research interests include mobile and ubiquitous learning, expert systems and knowledge engineering.

Hsiang Cheng is currently graduate student of the Information Management Department at National Chi Nan University of Nantou in Taiwan, Republic of China.

William K. Cheung is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Hong Kong Baptist University. He received a PhD in computer science from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include model-based pattern recognition, machine learning, and artificial intelligence with applications to data mining, information extraction, recommender systems, and Web and grid service management. Dr. Cheung is currently serving as an associate editor for IEEE Intelligent Informatics Bulletin, and has served as a guest editor and reviewer for several international journals, workshops and conferences.

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About the Contributors

C. Candace Chou is an assistant professor of the learning technology program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the School of Education at the University of St. Thomas. She has extensive experience in the instructional design of e-learning courses. As the co-director of the Minnesota Leaders and Educators Technology Initiatives (MELTI), she has worked to bridge the digital divide in the K-12 schools. Her research focuses on the integration of technology into curriculum, online interaction, emerging technologies in education, computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems, and the design of distance learning environments.

Carol H.C. Chu is currently graduate student of the Information Management Department at National Chi Nan University of Nantou in Taiwan, Republic of China.

Gennaro Costagliola received his Laurea degree in computer science from the University of Salerno, Italy, in 1987. Following four years post-graduate studies, starting in 1999, at the University of Pittsburgh, PA, he joined the Faculty of Science at the University of Salerno where, in 2001, he reached the position of Professor of Computer Science. His research interests include web systems and e-learning, and theory, implementation and applications of visual languages. He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society.

Maria Manuela Cunha is currently an associate professor in the Higher School of Technology, Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal. She holds a DiplEng in informatics and systems engineering, an MSci in the field of information society and a DrSci in the field of virtual enterprises, all from the University of Minho. She coordinates the scientific domain of Organizations and Information Systems in the Department of Information Systems and Technologies, and teaches subjects related with Information Systems and Technologies, Software Engineering and Organizational Models, to undergraduated and postgraduated studies. She supervises several PhD projects in the domain of virtual enterprises. Her scientific and engineering interests are electronic business, agile and virtual enterprises and information systems. She regularly publishes and participates on international scientific conferences. She serves as a member of editorial board for several International Journals and has served in several Scientific Committees of International Conferences.

Ali Dashti is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Kuwait University. His research interests include multimedia systems, database systems, streaming media systems, location-based systems and telematics systems. He received his BS from the University of the Pacific in computer engineering, MS and PhD from University of Southern California in computer engineering and computer science respectively. Dashti is a member of the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM.

Giuliana Dettori completed her studies in mathematics at the University of Genoa (Italy) in 1978. Since then, she has been working as a research scientist for the Italian National Research Council. She is currently with the Institute for Educational Technology, in Genoa, Italy. Her research interests have covereddifferenttopicsinEducationalTechnologyandAppliedMathematics.Shehasauthorednumerous scientific papers, at national and international level, in education, computer graphics and geographical information systems. She has taken part in several national and international projects.

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About the Contributors

Ling Feng got her BSc and PhD degrees in computer science from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China with greatest distinction. Before joining Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2006 as a professor, she was on the faculty of University of Twente in the Netherlands as an associate professor (2002-2006), Tilburg University in the Netherlands as an assistant professor (1999-2002), and Hong Kong Polytechnic University as a lecturer (1997-1999). Her research interests include distributed object-oriented database management system, knowledgebased information systems, data mining and its applications, data warehousing, data/knowledge management issues in the Internet era, including the integration of database and Web-based information technologies, XML databases, knowledge-based digital libraries, and context-aware secure data management in an ambient Intelligent world, etc. Dr. Feng is the Dutch Vernieuwingsimpuls/innovational NWO VIDI award winner.

Filomena Ferrucci received the Laurea degree in computer science (cum laude) from the University of Salerno (Italy) in 1990. In 1995 she received the PhD in applied mathematics and computer science at the University of Naples (Italy). From 1995 to 2001 she has been a research associate at the University of Salerno where she is associate professor in Computer Science since November 2001. She was Program co-Chair of the 14th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering and guest editor of the special issue of the International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering dedicated to a selection of the best papers of the conference. She has served as program committee member for several international conferences. Her research interests are in the fields of human computer interaction, e-learning, and software engineering. She is co-author of about 60 papers published on international journals and proceedings of international conferences.

Paola Forcheri is research director at IMATI-CNR, where she is working since 1976. Her research interests have covered different themes such as teaching and learning models and methods based on multimedia and networking technology, pedagogical metadata models. Application fields of the work are mathematics and informatics education and continuous training. She has authored numerous papers at national and international level, registered several trade-marks, edited special issues of journals and conference proceedings, take part in the scientific organisation of international and national events.

Vittorio Fuccella received the Laurea degree in computer science (cum laude) from the University of Salerno (Italy) in 2003. In 2007 he received the PhD in computer science at the University of Salerno. He is currently a research fellow in computer science at the University of Salerno. He won the Best Paper Award at ICWL’07. His research interests include web engineering, web technologies, data mining and e-learning.

Sabine Grunwald is currently working as an associate professor and distance education coordinator in the Soil and Water Science Department, University of Florida. She has affiliate faculty appointments in the School of Natural Resources and Environment and the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Florida. Her research interests include quantitative soil landscape analyses, geospatial sciences, remote sensing, geostatistics, and land resource management. She teaches numerous graduate and undergraduate courses including GIS and Land Resource Management, Soil Landscape Modeling, and GIS in Soil and Water Science; some of them in distance education mode. Dr. Grunwald earned her PhD (1996) and MS (1992) in environmental sciences from the Justus von Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.

394

About the Contributors

Gwo-Haur Hwang is currently an assistant professor of the Information Management Department at Ling Tung University of Taichung in Taiwan, Republic of China. His research interests include e- learning, expert systems and e-commerce.

Gwo-Jen Hwang is currently professor of the Department of Information and Learning Technology, as well as dean of the College of Science and Engineering, at National University of Tainan in Taiwan. Dr. Hwang received his PhD degree from the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous learning, computer-assisted testing, expert systems and knowledge engineering.

Brandon Hoover is currently working as the distance education support coordinator for the Soil and Water Science Department at the University of Florida. He coordinates and creates web tools that enhance the faculty’s abilities to teach their distance education courses. He also trains the faculty on the latest software and web trends to keep the distance education program on the forefront of distance education. Before coming to the University of Florida, he had worked in various design firms as an award winning graphic and interactive designer until later moving on to web application design. He received his BS in graphic design from Florida State University in 2000.

Gwo-Jen Hwang is currently a professor of the Department of Information and Learning Technology, as well as Dean of the College of Science and Engineering, at National University of Tainan in Taiwan, Republic of China. Dr. Hwang received his PhD from the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. His research interests include e-learning, computer-assisted testing, expert systems and mobile computing. Dr. Hwang has published over 60 papers in such professional journals as IEEE Transactions on Education, IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Computers & Education, Journal of Information Science and Engineering, among others.

Maria Grazia Ierardi completed her studies in computer science at the University of Genoa (Italy) in April 2002. Since then, she has been working as a research fellow for the Italian National Research Council at the Institute for Applied Mathematics and Information Technology, in Genoa, Italy. Her research activity initially focused on morphological mathematics methodologies for image filtering, then, her research interests broaden to different themes in educational technology and applied mathematics, such as teaching and learning models and methods based on multimedia and networking technology. She has authored scientific papers in education, at national and international level. She has taken part in national and international projects.

Masami Iwatsuki is a professor with the Faculty of Engineering, Hosei University, Japan. He received the BE in electronic engineering from Yamanashi University, Japan, in 1984, and the ME and PhD in electronic engineering from Tohoku University, Japan, in 1986 and 1989, respectively. His research interests include visual feedback control for robots, remote experiment systems and distant learning systems. He is a member of IEEE, IEICE, SICE, RSJ, ISCIE and IEEJ. He is also a committee member of HITEC (Hosei University Information Technology Research Center).

395

About the Contributors

Jesse Jin graduated with a BEng from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a PhD from University of Otago, New Zealand. He is the chair of IT in the School of Design, Communication and IT, University of Newcastle. His research interests include medical imaging and multimedia technology. He has published 175 articles and 13 books. He also has one patent and is in the process of filing 3 more patents. He established a spin-off company and the company won the 1999 Vice-Chancellor New Business Creation Award in the Australian Technology Park, Sydney. He was a visiting professor in MIT, UCLA, HKPU, Tsinghua University, Jilin University and China Academy of Sciences.

Gail E. Kaiser is a professor of computer science, an adjunct senior research scientist at the Center for Computational Learning Systems (CCLS), and the director of the Programming Systems Laboratory in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University. She was named an NSF Presidential Young Investigator in Software Engineering and Software Systems in 1988, and has published over 100 refereed papers in a range of software areas. Prof. Kaiser’s research interests include self-managing systems (“autonomic computing”), software testing, publish/subscribe event systems, computer and network security, applied AI, Web technologies, collaborative work, information management, distributed systems, and software development environments and tools. She has consulted or worked summers for courseware authoring, software process and networking startups, several defense contractors, the Software Engineering Institute, Bell Labs, IBM, Siemens, Sun and Telcordia. Her lab has been funded by DARPA, NSF, ONR, NASA, NYS Science & Technology Foundation, and numerous companies. Prof. Kaiser served on the editorial board of IEEE Internet Computing for many years, was a founding associate editor of ACM Transactions on Software Engineering, chaired an ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering, vice chaired three of the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, and and serves frequently on conference program committees. She also servedontheCommitteeofExaminersfortheEducationalTestingService’sComputerScienceAdvanced Test (the GRE CS test) for three years, and has chaired her department’s doctoral program since 1997. Prof. Kaiser received her PhD and MS from CMU and her SB from MIT. See her CV at http://www. cs.columbia.edu/~kaiser/vita.html for details. Her lab’s website is http://www.psl.cs.columbia.edu

John R. Kender is professor of computer science at Columbia University. His primary research interests are in the use of statistical and semantic analyses to understand and retrieve extended videos. He received his PhD from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1980, specializing in computer vision and artificial intelligence, and was the first professor hired in its Robotics Institute. Since 1981, he has been one of the founding faculty of the Department of Computer Science of Columbia University. He was named one of the first National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigators, and he has served the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia both as Acting Dean of Students and as Vice Dean. He has been awarded the Great Teacher Award of the Society of Columbia Graduates, and the Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award of the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association. He has graduated 19 PhD students, has published well over 100 refereed articles, and holds several patents and patent applications in computer vision.

Hajime Kiyohara is a professor with the Faculty of Economics, Hosei University, Japan. He received his BA in English and American language and literature in 1970, and his MA in English and American language and literature in 1972 from Hosei University, Japan, March, 1976. He finished the doctor’s course in English and American language and literature, Hosei University. His research interests include

396

About the Contributors

IT-based educational systems to enable students to effectively learn English as a foreign language. It aims to enhance the English communication skills of students by constructing a virtual environment in which they are exposed to English. He is a member of the English Literary Society of Japan and the Shakespeare Society of Japan. He is also a committee member of HITEC.

Hisato Kobayashi graduated from Waseda University; he received both his master’s degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from Waseda University in 1975 and 1978 respectively. He is now professor of Hosei University Tokyo, Department of Art and Technology. His research interests cover control theory, human-machine interaction design. He is a fellow member of IEEE and also a Committee member of HITEC. Kazuo Yana is a professor of electrical engineering with the faculty of engineering, Hosei University, Japan. He was a visiting associate professor at Harvard-MIT joint division of health sciences and technology in 1989-1990. He received his BE, master’s and PhD in electrical engineering from Waseda University, Japan, in 1974, 1976 and 1979, respectively. His research interests include time series analysis, biomedical signal processing and distance learning. He is a member of IEEE, JSMBE and IEICE. He is also a committee member of HITEC.

Taku Komura is currently a lecturer in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Before joining University of Edinburgh, he lectured at the City University of Hong Kong (20022006), and has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at RIKEN, Japan to simulate various human motion using the musculoskeletal model. He receivied his PhD (2000), MSc (1997) and BSc (1995) in Information Science from the University of Tokyo. Taku Komura’s research interests include human motion analysis and synthesis, physically-based animation and real-time computer graphics. His research area covers computer graphics, robotics and biomechanics.

Ming-ShiouKuo,servingasasystemdesigneratthecomputercenterofNationalPingtungUniversity of Science and Technology, Taiwan, is currently a doctoral student at the Department of Information and Learning Technology, National University of Tainan, Taiwan. Ming-Shiou Kuo has obtained his master’s degree of instructional systems technology at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. Along with his qualification of CCNA and CCAI in network engineering and education, his working experience on programming and distance education as well as the experience of evaluating computer game for more than 15 years, Ming-Shiou Kuo is now focusing on the issues of collaborative game-based learning design in 3D virtual learning worlds, specializing in the theories and techniques required for facilitating the virtual learning communities.

Mason Lam is a senior programmer with PacificNet Limited. He received a BSc in computing studies (information systems) from Hong Kong Baptist University. Mr. Lam was a research assistant in the Department of Computer Science at HKBU and one of the programmers of the system presented in this article. His general interest includes applications of IT in education.

Rynson Lau received a (top) first-class BSc honors degree in computer systems engineering in 1988 from the University of Kent, and a PhD degree in computer graphics in 1992 from the University of Cambridge. He is currently a professor at the University of Durham. Prior to the current appointment, he taught at the City University of Hong Kong from 1998 to 2005 and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 1993 to 1998. From 1992 to 1993, he held a research position at the University of York. Rynson Lau’s research interests include computer graphics, virtual reality and multimedia systems.

397

About the Contributors

Cynthia Lee is an associate professor at the Language Centre of Hong Kong Baptist University. She receivd a PhD and an MA degree from the University of London, UK. Her research areas include pragmatics, web-based learning and teaching, and English language acquisition and pedagogy. Dr. Lee is the co-author of the book, Web-based Teaching and English Language Teaching: A Hong Kong Experience, that was published by The Chinese University Press in 2005.

Frederick Li received both his BA (Hons.) in computing studies and his MPhil from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1994 and 1998, respectively, and a PhD degree in computer graphics from the City University of Hong Kong in 2001. He is currently a lecturer at the University of Durham. Prior to the current appointment, he taught at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 2003 to 2006. From 2001 to 2003, he was the project manger of a Hong Kong Government Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) funded project. Frederick Li’s research interests include: computer graphics, virtual reality, surface modeling, distributed virtual environment and multimedia systems.

Qing Li is a professor at the Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong. He holds PhD and MSc degrees in computer science from the University of Southern California, and a BEng from the Hunan University (China). Li has been actively involved in the research community by serving as an associate or guest editor for several technical journals (including ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engieering, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Information Sciences, World Wide Web, and Journal of Web Engineering), and as an organizer/co-organizer of numerous international conferences. In addition, he served as a programme committee member for over thirty international conferences (including VLDB, ER, CIKM, CAiSE, DASFAA, CoopIS, and FODO). He is the chairperson of the Hong Kong Web Society, and also served/is serving as an executive committee (EXCO) member of IEEE-Hong Kong Computer Chapter and ACM Hong Kong Chapter. In addition, he serves as a councilor of the Database Society of Chinese Computer Federation, a councilor of the Computer Animation and Digital Entertainment Chapter of Chinese Computer Imaging and Graphics Society, and is a Steering Committee member of DASFAA, ICWL, and the international WISE Society.

Qing Li is a professor at the Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong where he joined as a faculty member since Sept 1998. Prior to that, he has taught at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Australian National University. Prof. Li has served / is serving as a consultant to Microsoft Research Asia (Beijing, China), Motorola Global Computing and Telecommunications Division (Tianjin Regional Operations Center), and the Division of Information Technology, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia. He is a guest professor of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), a visiting professor at the Institute of Computing Technology (Knowledge Grid), Chinese Academy of Science, and an adjunct professor of the Hunan University where he got his BEng degree from the Department of Computer Science in 1982. He is also a guest professor (Software Technology) of the Zhejiang University. His current research interests include object modeling and distributed databases, multimedia and mobile data management, data warehousing and mining and workflow management and Web services.

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About the Contributors

Chi-Syan Lin earned his PhD in instructional technology and computer science at Indiana University in 1994. He currently is an associate professor at National University of Tainan, Taiwan. With his compelling experience in the field of networked learning, Chi-Syan Lin frequently serves as a consultant to numerous governmental digital learning projects of Taiwan and Asian countries. Being an advocate of educational simulation since his graduate study in late 80, Chi-Syan Lin now is focusing his research on blending the strength of microworld, simulation, and role playing game to create virtual learning environments and content.

Jiming Liu is professor and director of the School of Computer Science at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Previously, he was professor and the head of Computer Science Department at Hong Kong Baptist University. Professor Liu is educated in China and Canada and he received his PhD in electrical engineering from McGill University, Canada. Professor Liu’s research areas include autonomy oriented computing (AOC), intelligent agents and multi-agent systems, and Web intelligence (WI). He has published numerous articles in refereed international journals and conferences, as well as a number of books in these areas. He has held editorial positions in the IEEE and other international journals.

Tiecheng Liu received his PhD degree in computer science from Columbia University in 2003. Since 2003, he has been with the department of computer science and engineering at University of South Carolina. He is now an assistant professor. His main research interests include computer vision, image and video processing, multimedia and advanced learning technologies. He has published over 30 refereed papers in the area of computer vision and multimedia technology and served as committee member for IEEE MCBAR’04, CIVR’05, and other conferences. He is a member of IEEE and ACM.

Weiming Lu, received his BS and MS degrees in computer engineering from Zhejiang University in 2003 and 2005, respectively. Since March 2005, he has been pursuing the PhD degree. His scientific interests are multimedia retrieval and database technologies.

Anders I. Mørch is an associate professor at InterMedia, University of Oslo, Norway. He received a PhD in informatics from the University of Oslo and an MS degree in computer science from the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. His general interests are computers in education and workplace learning, human-computer interaction, and computer-supported cooperative work. His specific interests include critiquing systems for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). Dr. Mørch has served on the organizing committee of the past three CSCL conferences.

Rory McGreal is a professor and associate VP, research at Athabasca University – Canada’s Open University. Rory graduated from McGill University with Honours in History/Russian. He has a BEd from Dalhousie University in language teaching. His master’s degree from Concordia University was in applied linguistics. His PhD degree in computer technology in education at Nova University was taken at a distance using the Internet. He is also the recipient of the Wedemeyer award for excellence as a distance education practitioner. Previously, he was the executive director of TeleEducation New Brunswick, a province-wide bilingual (French/English) distributed distance learning network. Before that, he was responsible for the expansion of Contact North/Contact Nord (a distance education network in the remote region of Northern Ontario – serving remote native reserves and small mining towns).

399

About the Contributors

He has worked in arctic Quebec teaching Naskapi Cree students. Rory was the founder of the world’s first e-learning website for TeleEducation NB and one of the world’s first metadata learning object repositories.

Dan Phung is a PhD candidate in computer science at Columbia University. He received his BS in biology from the University of New Mexico and a MS in computer science from Columbia University. His research interests are in distributed computing, virtualization technology, autonomic computing and performance optimization.

Goran D. Putnik received his DiplEng, MSci and DrSci from the Belgrade University, both MSci and DrSci. in the area of intelligent manufacturing systems. His current position is associate professor, Department of Production and Systems Engineering, University of Minho, Portugal. He teaches the subjects of CAD/CAPP, CAM, FMS and virtual enterprises in undergraduate studies, and CAD/CAPP/ CAM systems, concurrent engineering, enterprise organization, IMS and design theory in postgraduate studies. He served as director of the Centre for Production Systems Engineering (CESP) for 4 years and its deputy director for 5 years. He is director of the Master’s and Postgraduate Course on CIM, and is responsible of the Laboratory for Virtual Enterprises (LABVE), the Department of Production and Systems Engineering, University of Minho. His scientific and engineering interests are production systems and enterprises design and control theory and implementations: CIM, CAD/CAPP/CAM systems, intelligent production systems and enterprises, machine learning as a design theory model, design engineering, information systems management, formal theory of production systems and enterprises, and distributed, agile and virtual enterprises. He is supervising a number of PhD projects as well. He regularly publishes and participates on international scientific conferences. He serves as a member of editorial board for several international journals and has served in more than forty scientific committees of international conferences. He was also invited lecturer on a number of universities.

V. Venugopal Reddy is currently working as regional director at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) Regional Centre Delhi. He has been working with IGNOU in various capacities, such as faculty member in the school of management studies and the Regional Services Division, since the university’s inception. He has published extensively in the area of distance education, both books and papers in reputed journals. He has also participated in several national and international conferences.

Maytham Safar is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Kuwait University. He received his PhD degree in computer science from the University of Southern California in 2000. He has one book and more than 25 articles, book chapters, and conference/journal papers in the areas of databases and multimedia. Dr. Safar’s current research interests include peer-to- peer networks, spatial databases, multidimensional databases, and geographic information systems. He served on many conferences as a reviewer and/or a scientific program committee member such as ICDCS, EURASIA-ICT, WWW/Internet, ICWI, ICME, AINA, WEBIST, IPSI, HPC&S, ICICT, i-So- ciety, ET-WBC, ICDIM and iiWAS. He also served as a member on the editorial board or a reviewer for many journals such as IEEE TMJ, ACM Computing Reviews, JDIM, MTAP, IEEE TPAMI, and ACM MSJ.

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About the Contributors

Giuseppe Scanniello received the Laurea degree in Computer Science from the University of Salerno (Italy) in 2001, where in 2003 also received the PhD in Computer Science. In 2006 he joined the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Basilicata, Potenza (Italy), where he is currently an assistant professor. His research interests include Reverse Engineering, Reengineering, Workflow Automation, Migration of Legacy Systems, Wrapping, Integration, E-Learning, Cooperative Supports for Software Engineering, and Visual Languages. He is a member of IEEE Computer Society.

Becky Siu received a BSc degree in computer studies from the City University of Hong Kong in 2003. She was a research student in the Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong when she worked on this project. Becky Siu’s research interests include computer graphics and human animation.

Georgia Smyrniou is an associate professor of linguistics and educational technology at the University of Puerto Rico. Her research interests are second language learning and technology, language processing and Web environments, ESL and refugees issues.

Manjulika Srivastava is amongst the few Indians to have done her doctorate in “distance education.” She has been working with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) since 1989 and is presently working as a professor of distance education at the Distance Education Council, IGNOU, which is the apex body for distance education in the country. She has done extensive research in the area of distance education; participated at national and international conferences; coordinated the delivery of IGNOU programmes and conducted staff development programmes for distance educators, both nationally and internationally.

Brian Stewart spent most of his career in the printing and publishing industry where he was responsible for leading the adoption of information technology to printing processes. His most notable achievements were the development of an automated Internet-based print system; a suite of colour management software tools; and the development of industry leading production systems. As Athabasca University’s CIO, Stewart’s role is to provide strategic leadership to the application of information technology (IT) to the activities of the university. Stewart is charged with identifying and resourcing appropriate technologies to improve administrative effectiveness and efficiency; to assist the academic community’s use of IT to develop programs which improve students’ learning and success; and to facilitate the research and development of world class e-learning initiatives.

Dorothée Rasseneur is graduate in computer science and awarded a PhD in computer science from the University of Le Mans (France) in 2004.

Pierre Tchounikine is a full professor of computer science at the University of Le Mans (France). His research interests are collaborative learning environments, communication tools and Webintelligence for educational environments.

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About the Contributors

Hiroshi Tekeda is a vice president and a member of the board of trustees, a professor with the Faculty of Engineering, Hosei University, Japan. He received a BA in engineering in 1966, a MA in engineering in 1968 from Hosei University, Japan and a PhD in 1981 from University of Tokyo, Japan. His research interests include computational mechanics. solid mechanics and numerical analysis. He is a president of JSCES, a member of SCJ, IACM, WCCM, JSCE, SNAJ, JSSC. He is also a director of HITEC. Hisashi Yaginuma is a vice president and member of the board of trustees, a professor with the Faculty of Business Administration, Hosei University, Japan. He received his BA in economics in 1967 from Hitotsubashi University, Japan. His research interests include industrial organization, regional innovation and cluster analysis, tacit knowledge and social common capital. He is a member of JSS, SESS. He is also a committee member of HITEC.

Akira Tokuyasu is a professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Hosei University, Japan. He received his BA in sociology in 1980, and his MA in 1983 from University of Tokyo, Japan. His research interests include social system theory and social semantics. He is a member of JSS, JASESS,AAOS and ISSS. He is also a committee member of HITEC.

Genoveffa Tortora received the Laurea degree in computer science from the University of Salerno, Italy, in 1978. Since 1990, she has been a full professor at University of Salerno, Italy, where she teaches database systems and fundamentals of computer science. In 1998, she was a founding member of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, acting as chair until October 2000. Since November 2000, she has been the dean of the Faculty of Mathematical, Natural, and Physical Sciences. She is author and coauthor of several papers published in scientific journals, books, and proceedings of refereed conferences, and is coeditor of two books. She is an associate editor and reviewer for international scientific journals. She has been program chair and program committee member in a number of international conferences. Her research interests include software engineering, visual languages, geographical information systems, and pictorial information systems. She is a senior member of the IEEE Computer Society.

Judy C. R. Tseng received her PhD from the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. She is now an associate professor and the chairman of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at Chung Hua University of Hsinchu in Taiwan, Republic of China. Her research interests include data mining, knowlege engineering, e-learning and e-commerce.

Wen-Ling Tsai is currently a graduate student of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at Chung Hua University of Hsinchu in Taiwan, Republic of China.

Giuseppe Valetto received his Laurea degree in electronic engineering from Politecnico di Torino (Turin - Italy) in 1992, and his master of science and PhD in computer science from Columbia University (New York, USA) in 1994 and 2004, respectively. He has worked in industrial and academic research environments since 1994. Since 2005 he joined the IBM T.J Watson Research Center, in Hawthorne, NY as a post-doc. His current research interests include autonomic computing and communication, the use of Semantic Web techniques in service-oriented platforms, and the governance of software development. He is the co-author of around 30 scientific publications in international conferences and journals. He is a member of IEEE.

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About the Contributors

Meng Wang is currently doing research and study in University of Durham, United Kingdom. He received a BS degree from Tsinghua University, China and MPhil degree from City University of Hong Kong. Meng Wang’s research interests mainly focus on computer graphics, specifically GPU-based real-time rendering algorithms, point-based rendering.

Te-Hua Wang is a PhD candidate of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at Tamkang University, Taiwan. His current research interests are in the scope of distance learning and multimedia computing. He graduated from Tamkang University in 1997 and received his master’s degree in 2001. He took the alternative service in Ministry of Education in Taiwan from 2001 to 2003, and returned to the academia after the retirement from the alternative service. He is the chief researcher of the SCORM research team in the Multimedia Information Networking Lab at Tamkang University. In the past few years, he joined the development of the Hard SCORM Authoring Tool. He is one of the main contributors of the Hard SCORM research project founded by the National Science Council in Taiwan.

Guo WenYing is currently an associate professor of Computer Information Engineering and Technology at ZheJiang GongShang University, Hangzhou, China. She received her PhD in computer science from ZheJiang University and got her MSc degree from Northwestern polytechnology university, Xian. Her research over the last ten years has focused mainly on Semantic Web technology, the application of e-learning and electronic commerce.

Kelvin C. Wong is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Hong Kong Baptist University. He received a PhD from the University of Nottingham, UK. His research interests include intelligent interactive learning environments, Web-based assessments, and IT in education. Dr. Wong is a member of Hong Kong Computer Society and has served on organizing committee of several international conferences.

Fei Wu, received his MS and PhD degrees in computer engineering from Zhejiang University in 1999 and 2002, respectively. Since 2002, he has been with the AI Institute of Zhejiang University as a researcher and a teacher. His research interests include computer vision, machine learning and multimedia computing and processing.

Po-Han Wu is currently a graduate student of the Department of Information and Learning Technology at National University of Tainan in Taiwan, Republic of China.

Ting-Ting Wu is currently graduate student of the Department of Information and Learning Technology at National University of Tainan in Taiwan. Her research interests include mobile and ubiquitous learning, computer-assisted testing, expert systems and knowledge engineering.

Richard Xu is a lecturer in School of Information Technology, Charles Sturt University, where he specializesinteachingcomputervisualizationandhuman-computerinteraction.HegraduatedwithBEng (Computers) from University of New South Wales, and a PhD in computer sciences from University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). His primary research is to apply the emerging computer vision and artificial intelligence technologies for distance education. In order to achieve this purpose, his researches

403

About the Contributors

span across areas of multimedia e-learning system design, computer vision, image processing, machine learning, robotic control and statistical modeling. He has authored more than 20 international journal and conference papers and has been reviewing a number of international journals.

Hsuan-CheYangis a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering (CSIE) at Tamkang University, Taiwan. He received his BS degree from the Department of CSIE at Tamkang University in 2005. His research interests include distance learning, computerize assessment, intelligent tutoring system, object-oriented programming, AJAX and Web technologies.

Xiafen Zhang, received her BS and MS degrees in computer engineering from Liaoning University of Petroleum & Chemical Technology in 2000 and 2003, respectively. Since September 2003, she has been with the intelligent institute of Zhejiang University, pursuing the PhD degree. Her scientific interests are multimedia retrieval and digital library technologies.

Yueting Zhuang, received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in computer engineering from Zhejiang University in 1986, 1989 and 1998, respectively. He is a senior professor in AI Institute in Zhejiang University, and a member of the IEEE. His current projects are in the area of multimedia retrieval, computer vision, pattern recognition and digital library. He has contributed to more than 100 reviewed publications in journals and books.

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