User Centric Retrieval of Learning Objects in LMS A Sai Sabitha Deepti Mehrotra Dept of CS &IT ASCS Krishna Engg College Sector 44, Noida, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India Uttar Pradesh, India saisabitha@gmail.com director@ascs.amity.edu Abstract— Research and Academic Institutions own and archive a great number of documents like lesson plan, study material and research related resources, which are needed to be stored and used over for a longer period of time by lecturers and researchers. In order to achieve this it is required to convert these educational resources into Learning Objects and store them in structured & meaningful way via a learning management system (LMS) thus enriching classical teaching. Also with enhancement of e-learning environment there is a great need of managing the LMS repositories by storing information resources as Learning object, a digital entity which can be used in electronic learning environment. These learning objects are stored in repositories and are managed by Learning Management Systems. It aids teaching and learning process and helps in communications between users. Many designs of LMS are non user-centric and has limited capabilities in delivering user preferred learning material. Searching through keywords or metadata of learning material will result in display of huge quantity of information. Thus there is an earnest need to identify the techniques that can provide more efficient mechanism for information retrieval. Recommendation techniques have shown to be successful in many domains (e.g. movies, books, music, etc.). Thus there is a need to deploy a recommending system in the E-Learning domain to extend the functionality of standard- based learning management systems with providing the user based retrieval. In this paper a model is being proposed that can enhance the search and delivery of a relevant learning object based on his/her preferences and further ranking & clustering of learning objects are done through K-Mean and Self Organising Maps for a personalised learning environment. Keywords— Learning Objects (LO); Quality Metrics; Clustering; Self Organizing Map; K-mean; Ranking. I. INTRODUCTION Personal Learning Environments can change the way in which students consume information through non electronic or electronic learning such as learning management system (LMS). Electronic learning features instant updating, storage and retrieval, distribution and sharing of information. The paradigm of LMS is an emerging technology aimed towards facilitation of management of massive amount of educational resources available in e-learning environment.LMS can offer a great variety of channels and workspaces that can facilitate information sharing and communication among participants in a course. To provide users concise or high quality knowledge of different contexts is still a key challenge in domain of designing LMS. Today we need an Intelligent Learning management system ILMS where need to develop the general framework and a running architecture to support the adaptive life cycle (i.e., design, publication, use and monitoring), which focuses on a user-centered experience and also construct the required models based on standards to support adaptive learning scenarios which combine LMS-based design solutions and intelligent analysis of users' interactions. Data mining tools that can lead classification or clustering, techniques to comprehensively-gather and carefully-analyze data which can support decision making has proved to be very useful in retrieval of learning objects. Indeed the quality metrics can be suitable for Ranking Learning Object. A large amount of research has been conducted for identifying quality metrics with respect to Meta Data, Reusability and Relevance of Learning Object. II. LITERATURE SURVEY A. Learning Management System (LMS) Learning Management Systems (LMS) provide an infrastructure platform through which learning content is delivered and managed. It provides a combination of software tools that perform a variety of functions related to online and offline training administration and performance management. Typically, an LMS is internet-based software that Deploys, Manages, Tracks, Reports the interaction between the learner and the content, and the learner and the instructor . The following “Fig 1a” illustrates the logical framework of a Learning portal site that includes both LMS (for content delivery) and LCMS (for content development)[35] . Figure 1a.Logical Frame of a portal with of LMS and LCMS 2012 Third International Conference on Computer and Communication Technology 978-0-7695-4872-2/12 $26.00 © 2012 IEEE DOI 10.1109/ICCCT.2012.13 14