Cultural Heritage (CH) refers to the representation of historical places and traditional customs of a specific city or country. Its principal aim is to transmit to future generations how their ancestors lived, and what their customs and buildings were like, etc. Nowadays, there are different technology systems and research investigations that are focused on CH education that use augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). The aim of this document is to specifically identify if the use of AR improves students’ motivation to learn about topics related to CH. To this end, studies from different databases and specific journals, along with those concerning technology systems, were evaluated, and comparisons were made between them. Additionally, the aspects that should be considered in future research to improve student motivation and technology systems were identified.

In the past, sites such as museums or archaeological sites focused primarily on the preservation, maintenance, and conservation of heritage elements for present and future generations. However, they now face a new challenge, the lack of motivation and public engagement in visiting and creating content about the exhibited elements. This lack of interest is, since the content presented does not address the interests or needs of the visitors, leading to cognitive overload with irrelevant information. Therefore, various applications have shown that the use of immersive technologies, such as augmented reality (AR), along with content co-creation strategies and information adaptation, can enhance users’ motivation to visit these sites. Moreover, these technologies also contribute to the preservation and conservation of heritage through the creation of virtual content. This article describes the design and implementation of a system called Motiv-ARCHE for the co-creation of educational content about cultural and natural heritage using AR. Its name combines three key elements: Motiv, referring to the motivation for learning; AR, for the use of augmented reality; and CHE, because it focuses on the education of cultural and natural heritage. Motiv-ARCHE is a system that integrates immersive technologies, co-creation, and information adaptation to enhance motivation for learning about cultural and natural heritage. Moreover, it enables both experts and users to generate content without requiring advanced technical knowledge, and this content can be displayed through AR activation by image recognition and geographic location. The system also provides access to various media formats, such as audio, video, 3D models, and AR documents. Thanks to its design, which is oriented toward delivering adaptive services, it aims to provide the user with the information they need according to their characteristics and context, which could enrich their experience at heritage sites by considering both their individual characteristics and those of their context. This increases their motivation to visit these sites and to learn about the heritage they contain. The development of Motiv-ARCHE follows the Design-Based Research (DBR) methodology, an iterative approach divided into three phases: design, implementation, and analysis. In the design phases, the characteristics of Motiv-ARCHE are identified based on the literature and user feedback. During the implementation phases, the core functionalities are developed and some experiments are conducted focusing on the co-creation of heritage elements, content, and routes, as well as on access to this content and in the analysis phases, each experiment is evaluated to improve the system. The article describes three co-creation experiments with 48, 16 and 8 participants respectively and one access experiment with 44 participants. In the three co-creation experiments, the IMMS (Instructional Materials Motivation Survey) motivation test and a demographic questionnaire were applied, while in the access experiment, the IMMS motivation test, the ARAM (Augmented Reality Acceptance Model) technology acceptance test, an augmented reality activation questionnaire, and a demographic questionnaire were used. The results showed that, thanks to the use of the methodology in the first experiment and the feedback provided by users, the application progressively improved, achieving better results in subsequent experiments. Furthermore, it was found that users feel motivated both in the co-creation of heritage elements, content, and routes, and in accessing content through AR.

Since the dawn of the incorporation of ICTs into educational environments, specifically into teaching and learning processes, there have been expectations about the possibilities of individualized education in versatile environments that acknowledge students’ particularities. Although several studies have examined these situations, they are sometimes subjected to specific platforms or applications. An adaptive system must define the components to be adjusted according to specific determinants, in particular, the characteristics of the students’ profile and contextual elements, and also establish a mechanism for the adaptation. This paper proposes a system to generate customized virtual courses based on the separation of the structure of the course from the educational resources that support the educational activities. Such system is enhanced with production rules that determine the educational resources to be delivered at each moment guided by the characteristics in the student’s model. This methodological approach responds to the systemic definition of the adaptation strategy, which requires making the determinants, components and adaptation techniques explicit based on DSR. The proposed system is versatile because it can be enriched with new elements or variations of the attributes in the student profile, taking different models in learning styles and the categorization of personal, academic, or contextual characteristics reflected in the adaptation process. The result shows that the proposed model can provide a different course plan, with personalized activities, according to students’ characteristics and context.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present Zeuss, a software-based tool designed to improve grammar learning process in elementary school children. Despite efforts by the Colombian Government, the results of the final high school test indicate that students have major deficiencies with language, grammar and reading comprehension. Several difficulties have been evidenced in activities like writing essays or understanding academic papers. Among the reasons that may lead to these results include outdated courses, overcrowded classrooms and lack of interest. Design/methodology/approach: A diagnostic test is performed on third-grade elementary school students to assess the current grammar knowledge and identify areas for improvement. The test results are used to design a software-based tool called Zeuss. The authors include playful activities inspired by several pedagogic exercises found in the literature and personalization so that interaction is tailored to specific user preferences and tastes. Findings: Zeuss has been tested with third-grade students of the Gimnasio Campestre San Francisco de Sales elementary school in Bogotá, Colombia. The results show that using the tool leads to an overall improvement in the grammar construction learning process. Social implications: Zeuss aims at improving the learning process in elementary schools helping teachers to overcome several limitations like overcrowded classrooms and outdated pedagogic strategies. Zeuss focuses specifically on the grammar learning process. Originality/value: Zeuss features updated pedagogical strategies, playful activities and a personalization model to tailor the learning process and help in context. It also allows teachers to track individual and classroom progress.

There are different bovine infectious diseases that show economic losses and social problems in various sectors of the economy. Most of the studies are focused on some diseases (for example, tuberculosis, salmonellosis, and brucellosis), but there are few studies on other diseases which are not officially controlled but also have an impact on the economy. This work is a systematic literature review on models (as a theoretical scheme, generally in mathematical form) used in the epidemiological analysis of bovine infectious diseases in the dairy farming sector. In this systematic literature review, criteria were defined for cattle, models, and infectious diseases to select articles on Scopus, IEEE, Xplorer, and ACM databases. The relations between the found models (model type, function and the proposed objective in each work) and the bovine infectious diseases, and the different techniques used and the works over infectious disease in humans, are presented. The outcomes obtained in this systematic literature review provide the state-of-the-art inputs for research on models for the epidemiological analysis of infectious bovine diseases. As a consequence of these outcomes, this work also presents an approach of EiBeLec, which is an adaptive and predictive system for the bovine ecosystem, combining a prediction model that uses machine-learning techniques and an adaptive model that adapts the information presented to end users.