GVIS: An Integrating Infrastructure for Adaptively Mashing up User Data from Different Sources

In this article we present an infrastructure for creating mash up visual representations of the user profile that combines data from different sources. We explored this approach in the context of Life Long Learning, where different platforms or services are often used to support the learning process. The system is highly configurable and adaptive: data sources, data aggregations, and visualizations can be configured on the fly by the administrative user without changing any part of the software, and have an adaptive behavior based on linear combination of conditions about user or system characteristics. The visual profiles produced can assume different graphical formats and can be bound to different data, automatically adapting to personal preferences, knowledge, and contexts. We applied our infrastructure to a set of federated Learning Management Systems, retrieving information from different sources and creating some indicators of the learning activity. The software we developed provides learners with adaptive indicators of the learning state, and allows instructors to monitor the progress of their learners.