=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=None
|storemode=property
|title=Authoring for Re-use in Outcome-oriented Learning Scenarios
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-681/paper09.pdf
|volume=Vol-681
}}
==Authoring for Re-use in Outcome-oriented Learning Scenarios==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-681/paper09.pdf
Authoring for re-use in outcome-oriented learning
scenarios
Roland Klemke1, Birgit Schmitz2
1
Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies
Open University of The Netherlands
Valkenburgerweg 177, 6419 AT Heerlen, Netherlands
roland.klemke@ou.nl
2
Humance AG
Goebenstraße 10-12, 50672 Köln, Germany
bsc@humance.de
Abstract. Content production processes currently experience a shift in focus.
Due to the growing trend of highly individualized learning scenarios they have
to face and to combine a multitude of different standards. The European
eContent+ network of Excellence ICOPER researches possible strategies and
implementations to deal with this new situation. In its course the project
develops a comprehensive set of prototypes that use, evaluate and propose
extensions to a large number of currently relevant standards such as IEEE RCD,
SCORM or OAI-PMH. This paper describes a collaborative, re-use based
authoring approach that was realized with one of these prototypes.
Keywords: authoring, re-use, interoperability, outcome-oriented learning
1 Introduction
Today’s technology enhanced learning scenarios focus on learning outcome oriented
delivery of learning processes, contents, and services. Rather than pre-defining static
curricula individual learning processes are enabled: learner profiles indicate
individual gaps, learning outcomes describe the required skills, recommended
learning materials help to close these gaps, and assessments indicate successful
mastery which is reflected back into learner’s profiles. This way, the learner gains a
large factor of ownership of learning [9].
In such complex learning situations interoperability issues become important:
standards to describe learning outcomes, learner profiles, assessment items and
learning materials are needed. Technical interoperability between different
components of an overall learning delivery toolset is required in order to ensure
seamless learning processes. Web-service based approaches help to simplify technical
interoperability [12].
The learning outcome orientation also changes the way learning contents are
produced and organized. The traditional “one-size-fits-all” approaches deliver the
69
same content to a large target audience. The production of learning content at high
cost is therefore justified. Outcome-oriented content production processes however,
deliver highly individualized content and have to cope with a large diversity of
interoperability standards due to the multitude of sources they are based on (different
learning objects, learning outcomes, learning designs and learner profiles). The need
for re-use is therefore essential.
The European ICOPER project [8] analyses and discusses state-of-the art
implementations of current standards as a base for the development of a
comprehensive set of prototypes that support individual learning, teaching and
authoring. In the course of ICOPER, the Open ICOPER Content Space (OICS) was
developed, which combines learning object metadata repositories, learning outcome
repositories, learning design repositories and learner profile repositories. The OICS
offers a service interface, which allows to retrieve from and publish into the OICS
[10]. Some of the standards the OICS works with, comprise:
• IEEE Reusable Competency Definitions (RCD) defines a data model for
describing, referencing and sharing competency definitions. The ICOPER
Learning Outcome Definition (LOD) is an application profile based on RCD that
can be used to create Personal Achieved Learning Outcome (PALO) profiles [7].
• Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), a standard to describe
structure and behavior of content and components [1].
• Learning Object Metadata (LOM), an IEEE standard to describe metadata for
learning objects in a standardized way [5].
• Open Archive Initiative’s Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), a
protocol specifying the harvesting of metadata for learning objects residing in
repositories [6].
In the course of the ICOPER project, a collaborative, re-use based authoring
prototype was developed, that is based on the OICS.
Figure 1. Architecture of the ICOPER authoring for re-use prototype
70
The prototype focuses on three main processes:
1. The collaborative collection and organization of media assets.
Media assets comprise individual content elements such as texts, pictures,
videos, and audios, which form the basis of all content productions.
2. The collaborative creation of learning units based.
Learning units are navigable and interactive learning contents built out of
individual media assets.
3. Preparation for re-use.
The previous two processes are supported by a background harvesting process
which updates the metadata repository of the OICS in order to make updated
contents searchable and retrievable.
2 Collaborative collection of multi-media assets
A common problem to all collaborative, re-use based production processes is the
retrieval, organization and management of media assets. Especially, when production
processes have to cope with heterogeneous target groups (e.g. different languages,
support for disabled people) or dynamic topic domains (with many subsequent
content versions) media asset management is a complex matter.
Within the ICOPER project we therefore developed the MediaLibrary prototype.
This online tool offers the opportunity to share media within a community. As
opposed to other publicly available platforms (such as Flickr or YouTube), the
MediaLibrary is designed to support media production processes, content-re-use,
complex media models (with different versions, variants, languages, media formats)
and corresponding metadata. The MediaLibrary is connected to the OICS via an OAI-
PMH interface through which media assets within the MediaLibrary can be searched,
browsed, and re-used. This way, media asset collections become part of larger
learning content and metadata repositories.
3 Collaborative creation of learning units
The creation of learning units involves different tasks comprising the development of
didactical concepts, storyboards and the actual content production which can be
supported by content authoring environments. In our authoring prototype we use a
customized version of author42 (named author42.ICOPER) that is a web-based
authoring environment with extensible interfaces [2] which enables teams of authors
to collaboratively create learning contents.
author42.ICOPER is integrated with the OICS: as a result the whole repository
(including contents from the MediaLibrary and other sources) can be searched
directly from the content production environment and retrieved results can be
seamlessly integrated in the current production process.
71
To enable this integration, author42.ICOPER was extended with a customized
search interface that can be launched from within any content production step. The
search interface allows searching the OICS using combinations of different metadata
and keyword fields. Search results can be selected and integrated into the current
content page just as the users own content would be: page layout, element sizing and
positioning functionalities can be used to fit the search results into the content page.
Through a web-service-based publishing interface, the content created can be
published from author42.ICOPER into different repositories. In our prototype, we
chose the open source learning management system OLAT [4] which we extended
with an OAI-PMH target to connect it to the OICS again. This way, the content is
available for further re-use.
4 Preparation for Re-use
Both prototypes, the MediaLibrary and the author42.ICOPER, offer OAI-PMH
targets to access their metadata and contents from external repositories. The OICS
contains an OAI-PMH compliant harvesting module [11] that is capable of accessing
these targets and retrieving the metadata accordingly. That way, the OICS maintains a
searchable repository of metadata that refers to the original contents.
The search function of the OICS can be used in two different ways: (a) directly,
through the OICS’ own search interface, or (b) integrated into other applications using
the OICS’ web-service interface. The latter being the case in the author42.ICOPER
integration of the OICS, which enables search results to be automatically and
seamlessly embedded into the content production process.
5 Conclusion and Outlook
We have presented a prototype to support collaborative, re-use based authoring for
modern, outcome-oriented learning approaches. In a first evaluation of the
abovementioned prototypes and their interoperability with the Open ICOPER Content
Space (OICS), we performed an evaluation workshop at the JTEL SummerSchool
2010 in Ohrid, Macedonia. Ten participants with different backgrounds covering
teachers, researchers, and students from computer science, technology enhanced
learning and other fields took part in the evaluation.
In a first evaluation step, participants were asked to organize and metatag
MediaAssets according to a selected LOD in the MediaLibrary prototype. These
assets were re-used in the online authoring system author42.ICOPER to produce a
unit of learning. Finally, participants published the results to enable further re-use via
the OICS. Despite some technical problems that arose due to the prototypical status of
the tools in use, participants could effectively solve their tasks and rated the toolset to
be highly relevant.
In the meantime and with the prototype still under way, a new approach to connect
repositories and authoring tools undergoes standardization efforts: the Simple
Publishing Interface (SPI). This draft standard [3] especially focuses on the
72
integration of publishing tools (like the authoring tools used in our prototype) and
repositories (like the OICS). We are planning to use SPI for the next version of our
prototype to support direct collaboration and immediate re-use of results.
Acknowledgments. Parts of this work are funded by the eContentPlus Programme of
the European Commission through the ICOPER project .
References
1. ADL SCORM (2004). Advanced Distributed Learning Sharable Content Object Reference
Model, 2nd ed., Overview, 22 July, Alexandria, VA.
2. Cristea, A. (2006). Interfacing adaptive solutions with corporate training systems.
PROLEARN Deliverable 1.6, retrieved online 19.06.2010 at:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.99.3240&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
3. CWA 16097 (2010). The Simple Publishing Interface (SPI) Specification. February 2010.
Available at: ftp://ftp.cen.eu/CEN/Sectors/TCandWorkshops/Workshops/CWA16097.pdf.
4. Fisler, J. & Schneider, F. (2008). Creating, Handling And Implementing E-Learning
Courses and Content Using the Open Source Tools OLAT and eLML at the University of
Zurich. ISPRS Conference 2008 -TS ThS-16: New Approaches and Tools for Education
and Capacity Building International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
(ISPRS), Beijing, China, July 3-11 2008.
5. IEEE LTSC (2002). Final Draft Standard for Learning Object Metadata. Retrieved
01/15/10 at http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/files/LOM_1484_12_1_v1_Final_Draft.pdf.
6. Lagoze, C. and Van de Sompel, H. (2001) The Open Archives Initiative: Building a Low-
Barrier Interoperability Framework. Proc. 1st ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conf. Digi- tal
Libraries, ACM Press, pp. 54–62.
7. Najjar, J., Derntl, M., Klobucar, T., Simon, B., Totschnig, M., Grant, S., & Pawlowski, J.
(to appear 2010). A data model for describing and exchanging Personal Achieved Learning
Outcomes (PALO). International Journal of IT Standards and Standardization Research.
8. Najjar, J., Simon, B. (2009). Learning Outcome Based Higher Education: iCoper Use
Cases, IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT),
workshop on European Workshop On E-Learning Standards Best Practice, Riga - Latvia,
July 14 - 18, 2009.
9. Savery, J. R., & Duffy, T. M. (1995): Problem based learning: An instructional model and
its constructivist framework. EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY-SADDLE BROOK NJ-,
35, 31–31.
10. Totschnig, M., Derntl, M., Gutiérrez, I., Najjar, J., Klemke, R., Klerkx, J., Müller, F.
(2010). Repository services for outcome oriented learning. 4th international workshop on
Search and Exchange of e-le@rning Materials (SE@M), Barcelona, 27-28 September 2010.
11. Totschnig, M., Klerkx, J. Klobučar, T., Law, E., Simon, B., Ternier, S. (2009). D1.1 Open
ICOPER Content Space Implementation of 1st Generation of Open ICOPER Content Space
including Integration Mini Case Studies. ICOPER project deliverable. Retrieved Online at
28.06.2010 from http://www.educanext.org/dotlrn/clubs/icoper/new-
lors/Deliverables/Deliverables_-_Submitted/D1.1/D1.1-final.pdf
12. Vossen, G. and Westerkamp, P. (2008). ‘Why service-orientation could make e-learning
standards obsolete’, Int. J. Technology Enhanced Learning, Vol. 1, Nos. 1/2, pp. 85–97.
73