Learning Object Repositories: a learner centered perspective Julià Minguillón Universitat Oberta de Catalunya EdReNe – 4 th Strategic Seminar, March 24th

Learning Object Repositories: a learner centered perspective

Julià Minguillón

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain

Table of contents

• Learning Objects and Repositories

• LOR for Statistical resources

• Virtual Learning Environments

• Idealizing a LOR

• Our reality: DSpace

• Improving learner’s experience

• Open issues

J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain


Repositories

LearningObjects

ComputerScience

Pedagogy

InformationScience


METADATA

CONTENTLearning Objects

(digital)

Learning Objects• Main goals:

– Help learners to acquire and develop a competence, skill, ability, …

– Help teachers (and learners) to create new LOs

• Desired characteristics:– Small to medium granularity– Described according to educational purposes– High level of connections between LOs


Learning Objects• LOs are diverse:

– Courses SCORM, LD, HTML, …– Exercises PDF, QTI, …– Examples PDF, PPT, ODP, …– Multimedia elements JPEG, MP3, MOV, …– Simulations Applets, Flash– Source code C, Java, …– Data XLS, SPSS, …– Equations LaTeX, MathML, …– Other CML, XML, …


Learning Object Metadata• Proposed metadata scheme: IEEE LOM

– 9 categories including Technical, Educational, Relation and Classification

– No required fields but plenty of them (> 70)– Can be “reduced” to unqualified Dublin Core

• But, what the □ □ □ □ is “5.4 Semantic density”?• Who will fill out over 70 fields?• What is the title of an exercise?


Describing LOs• Only fill out fields that:

– …can be automatically filled– …are needed for preservation purposes– …will be used for retrieving (i.e. author?)

• Establish two or three levels of metadata:– Minimum, mandatory fields– Desirable– Complete


Progressive

Repositories• Two main goals:

– Ensure preservation (keep the mummy)– Promote reutilization (show the

mummy)

• These goals are somehow contradictory!(even if the mummy is digital)

• Institutional top-down position prevailsJ. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain

Traditional perspective• Library centered:

– Books, journals, works, … (mostly textual)• Everything has a unique title• Everything has one or more authors• Everything has a creation date• Everything has a source• Almost everything is a PDF file

• Main goal: easily finding a resource by using a minimum set of common descriptors


Repositories• Several possibilities:

General purpose ThematicTop-down Bottom-upInstitution driven Community drivenContent Links to content

• No discussion: open access


Case of study: LOR on Statistics

• Why Statistics?– Basic competences for the Information Society– Compulsory course for several degrees– Thousands of students each semester (≈ 4000)– Large collection of heterogeneous resources

• Known problems:– “There are too many resources”– “I don’t know how to start”– “I can’t link concepts and tools”


Our proposal• From a teaching perspective:

– Build a thematic open LOR on Statistics– Bottom-up approach (teachers)– Integrate the LOR into the learning process– Engage learners into using the LOR

• From a research perspective:– Learning by doing– Create better user interfaces for LORs– Analyze user behavior


Key factors for LOR success• Three dimensions (McNaught, 2006):

– Resources: what?– Actions: how?

– Users: who?

• Why? (Margaryan and Littlejohn, 2008)

• User Centered Design methodology


Key factors for LOR success• Genuine need of a community• Enthusiastic promoters• Clear direction and focus• Feedback from the community• Good management processes• Open access• Easy addition of new resources• Critical mass• Suitable granularity


↑↑≈↑≈↑↓↓↑

Adopting E-Learning• Three dimensions (Bates, 2005):

– Methodological– Technological– Organizational

• Not completely orthogonal: interconnected

• LORs are basic infrastructure of VLEs


Virtual Learning Environments

• E-Learning is de facto web-based learning• VLEs enable learner centered models

LearningProcess


LO

LO LO

LearningObject

Repository

VLE

UserInteraction

DataMining


LD

+ p

laye

r

userprofile

default itinerary

LOR

ontologies

personalized itineraries

LOs

itineraries

evidences

LearningProcess


Critical issues in LOR design• Methodological: (Wiley, 2007)

– Learning is more than just content

• Technological (back-end + user interface):– Learning is more than just browsing and

searching LOs

• Organizational:– Workflow, licenses, metadata, policies, …


What users want from a LOR• More exercises and examples (55.7%)• More simulations and interactive LOs (36.7%)• Submitting questions about a LO (50.6%)• Ranking LOs (43.0%)• Correcting small mistakes (41.8%)• Adding the LO as favorite (36.7%) by using:

– delicious (11.4%)– Other (51.9%)– None (26.6%)

• Nothing: just browsing and searching (16.4%)


Ideal LOR• Basic premise: the act of browsing and/or

searching for resources should be a learning experience in itself– LOs are not isolated pieces– “Developing” requires knowing “from” and “to”– Users should be able to organize LOs– Connectivism (Siemens, 2005)

• Ideal UI: conceptual map + “social layer”


Ideal LOR• Basic premise: once a LO has been

found, learners should be able to– Rate– Make comments / questions– Make favorite– Share– Subscribe

• The LO becomes part of learner’s contextJ. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain

System architecture

Sociallayer

PIM

LOR

PIM

PIM

UI


LO

Services

Enhancing DSpace• Main idea:

– Use DSpace as an invisible back-end– Access LOs through persistent handles– Create a new user interface– Add 2.0 functionalities, maybe 3.0– Gather and analyze usage data

• Goal: allow learners to take control over LOs without using DSpace directly


DSpace pros and cons

• Pros:– Solid, stable– Large community– Persistent handles– Preservation– Customizable– OAI PMH– API, RSS

• Cons:– Ugly user interface– 1.0 philosophy– Dublin Core– Multilingualism– Intricate– Mainly for e-prints

• Why DSpace? → already in use at UOC


Improving interaction

• Avoid Google-like searches

• Contextualized browsing

• Refine search results while being built

• Return only a few relevant LOs

• Visualize related LOs

• Allow learners to use web 2.0 services

• Widget-ize available services


• Three complementary elements:– List of competences– Tag cloud of keywords– Visual taxonomy

• Additional filters:– Resource type– Language

Competences

TaxonomyKeywords

LO

LO

New user interface

Ontology

LO


meanvariance

proportionLO LO

LO

Student’s t test

box-plot

LO

test


• To compare two means

• To choose a test

• To compute a coefficient

• ...

x □□ □

□ xx □

□□

□ □ □ □ □

Open issues

• IEEE LOM vs Dublin Core and OAI PMH• Filter and then find vs find and then filter• Use of upper ontologies for describing LOs• Combining thematic repositories• Multilingualism: UI, content and metadata• Usability, accessibility and mobility issues

• Ideas, people and funding are welcome!!!


References and bibliography• Bates, A.W. (2005). Technology, E-learning and Distance Education, Routledge.

• Margaryan, A. and Littlejohn, A. (2008). Repositories and communities at cross-purposes: issues in sharing and reuse of digital learning resources. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 24, 333-347.

• McNaught, C. (2006). Are Learning Repositories Likely To Become Mainstream In Education? In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies, Setubal, Portugal, 11-13 April, IS9-IS17.

• Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning. 2(1), 3–10.

• Wiley, D. (2007). Content is infrastructure. Terra incognita. Available at http://blog.worldcampus.psu.edu/index.php/2007/10/03/content-is-infrastructure/

• McGreal, R. (2004). Learning Objects: A Practical definition. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 1(9).

• Monge, S.; Ovelar, R.; Azpeitia, I. (2008). “Repository 2.0: Social Dynamics to Support Community Building in Learning Object Repositories“. Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects (formerly IJKLO), 4.

• Thomas, A. and Rothery, A. (2005). Online repositories for learning materials: the user perspective. Ariadne, 45. Available at: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue45/thomas-rothery/


Thank you!

• Contact information:

Julià Minguillón

[email protected]

CC-BY-NC-SA

http://www.slideshare.net/jminguillonaJ. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain

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Learning Object Repositories: a learner centered perspective Julià Minguillón Universitat Oberta de Catalunya EdReNe – 4 th Strategic Seminar, March 24th