Learning Resources Reusability: Technical Standards Approach

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Learning Resources ReusabilityTechnical
Standards Approach

• Kateryna Synytsya
• IRTC UNESCO ITS
• Kyiv, Ukraine

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Learning Resources Learning Objects

• Resources - supplementary to the ltlearninggt
  process, are processed to produce the result
  LEARNING
• Objects - essential building blocks, have
  individual features AUTHORING

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Learning Object definition

• any entity, digital or non-digital, that may be
  used for learning, education and training
• IEEE P1484-12-1 Learning Object Metadata
• format for LO description

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Learning Object other definitions

• A re-usable, media-independent chunk of
  information used as a modular building block for
  e-Learning content. Learning objects are most
  effective when organized by a meta-data
  classification system and stored in a data
  repository such as an LCMS.
• Making Sense of Learning Specifications
  Standards A Decision Maker's Guide to their
  Adoption. March 8, 2002

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Purpose share and reuse

• Share make available as is under certain
  conditions
• Conditions
• legal,
• financial,
• technical,

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Example courses dissemination

• Library of algorithms and programs
• courses, tests, simulations
• common platform
• no legal issues involved
• no reimbursement for authors
• centralized quality control
• unified curriculum
• stand-alone applications
• complete courses

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Contemporary model

• public sources
• registered in catalogues
• legal and financial issues
• certification
• compatibility
• interoperability
• technical support

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Re-use

• Re-use use in another context, for another
  purpose
• Conditions
• legal,
• financial,
• technical
• Update, modification, and tuning

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Reuse of objects
Personal By others Copying Creative
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Purpose of Reuse

• Do not re-invent a bicycle
• Save on duplication
• Save for unique features
• Make use of uniform approaches and agreed
  frameworks

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Resource construction Art or Technology ?
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Reasons for Reuse

• Financial development cost
• Professional knowledge and experience
• Time constraints
• Validity educational soundness
• compatibility and interoperability?

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Technical standards

• Framework for interoperability and reuse
• abstract models
• data structures
• interfaces
• protocols
• coding and behavior agreements
• Specify and Enable

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Standards and Specifications

• Metadata
• Content Packaging
• Question and Test
• LMS-content interaction
• CMI Data Model
• Simple Sequencing
• Learner Information (Profile)

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Technology for reuse

• Individual
• Invention-based
• Workshop
• Development
• QA for the product
• Proprietary

• NEW
• Procedure-based
• Production line
• Search Assembly
• QA for composition
• Open standards

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LLL and flexibility issues

• Content adaptation
• abridge, simplify, shorten
• tune examples and presentations
• use appropriate visualization
• Content update
• integrate new modules
• substitute old modules by new ones

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Content update
Manifesto
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Requirements needs

• Repository of objects (local or distributed)
• Description of objects
• Tools for search and evaluation
• Tools to combine objects into complex objects and
  resources
• Tools to run objects

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Open issues ?
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Technical interoperability

• Internet as a global platform
• Plug-n-Play
• APIs
• Agreed data structures
• Examples SCORM, IEEE CMI standards

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Learning Objects size

• Large
• map to curriculum
• save on description
• didactically sound
• formal QA
• rare ideal match
• hard to tune

• Small
• precise descriptions
• universal
• easy to re-purpose
• easy to contextualize
• hard to find
• efforts to build-in

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Pedagogical interoperability

• Vocabulary (syntactical presentation)
• Rendering (visual presentation)
• Presentation style (authors personality and
  students expectations)
• Instructional guidance (consistency)
• Continuum of activities and communication

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Learning Object Metadata

• Detailed or basic ? (number of fields)
• Mandatory, optional, conditional
• Automatic generation (extraction and inheritance)
• Completeness and objectiveness
• Embedded or attached
• One per object or many ?
• metadata for whom ?

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Metadata for Resources example

• Web Resources - gt Dublin Core
• limited number of descriptors
• metadata may be attached to the resource
• resource is identified by its URL
• publishers prospective
• extensions mechanism

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Metadata features to describe

• Administration of metadata and objects
• Search
• Evaluation
• Conditions of use

LOM Categories
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Metadata for Learning Resources

• Library Catalogues are inappropriate
• Search for specific virtual content
• Dynamic metadata
• Personalization of search
• Collective and background authoring
• Inheritance mechanisms

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Search across Repositories

• Different metadata
• Common denominator
• Mapping descriptors and data values
• Ontologies and taxonomies

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Learning resource composition

Learning objects in traditional instructional
process
Independent objects combined in a resource
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Summary

• LLL requires technologies
• Technology is standards-driven
• Standards are voluntary, but important
• What should be standardized next ?
• How standardized parts fit into teaching and
  learning process ?

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Standards activities