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Learning Object Repositories: a learner centered perspective. Julià Minguillón Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. EdReNe – 4 th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain. Table of contents. Learning Objects and Repositories LOR for Statistical resources
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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
Pedagogy Learning Objects Information Science Repositories Computer Science J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
METADATA CONTENT Learning Objects (digital) J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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 J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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, … J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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? J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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 J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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 prevails J. 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 J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
Repositories Several possibilities: General purpose Thematic Top-down Bottom-up Institution driven Community driven Content Links to content No discussion: open access J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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” J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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 J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
Key factors for LOR success • Three dimensions (McNaught, 2006): • Resources: what? • Actions: how? • Users: who? • Why? (Margaryan and Littlejohn, 2008) • User Centered Design methodology J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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 ↑ ↑ ≈ ↑ ≈ ↑ ↓ ↓ ↑ J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
Adopting E-Learning • Three dimensions (Bates, 2005): • Methodological • Technological • Organizational • Not completely orthogonal:interconnected • LORs are basic infrastructure of VLEs J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
Virtual Learning Environments • E-Learning is de factoweb-based learning • VLEs enable learner centered models Learning Process J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
Data Mining VLE Learning Object Repository LO User Interaction LO LO J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
ontologies evidences itineraries user profile LOs LD+ player LOR default itinerary personalized itineraries Learning Process J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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, … J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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%) J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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” J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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 context J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
System architecture PIM Services LO LOR Social layer UI PIM PIM J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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 J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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 DSpace pros and cons • Why DSpace? → already in use at UOC J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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 J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
New user interface • Three complementary elements: • List of competences • Tag cloud of keywords • Visual taxonomy • Additional filters: • Resource type • Language Ontology LO J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
LO LO LO proportion mean LO box-plot variance test Student’s t test x □ □ x □ □ □ x □ □ □ □ □ □ □ J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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!!! J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
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/ J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain
Thank you! • Contact information: Julià Minguillón jminguillona@uoc.edu CC-BY-NC-SA http://www.slideshare.net/jminguillona J. Minguillón EdReNe – 4th Strategic Seminar, March 24th - March 26th 2010, Barcelona, Spain