When E-Learning Meets Big Data, Cognitive Computing, and Collaborative Environments

The e-learning scenario is fast-changing in all of its main aspects from both the technology side and the users’ perspective. In this vein, applications and services as well as methodologies are evolving rapidly running after the more recent innovations, through the adoption of novel infrastructures and distributed architectures, to provide the most advanced solutions. In this situation, we observe that the more influential technological factors are two. The former is the availability of a new wave of big data also inherent educational tasks, which can be considered a powerful source for all the people involved in the educational process and acts as enabler for the development of new models for both management and education, based on analytics. The latter is cognitive computing, which can provide learners and teachers with innovative services enhancing the whole learning process, also introducing new capabilities to improve human machine interactions. In these circumstances, it seems that Learning Management Systems (LMS) have reached their maturity stage and they may need a redesign. In this respect, the paper outlines the evolutionary trends of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) and presents the results achieved within two experiences carried on in two Italian universities.