Engineering a Future for Web-based Learning Objects

1. Engineering a Future for Web-based Learning Objects Permanand Mohan Department of Mathematic and Computer Science University of the West Indies St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Christopher Brooks Advanced Research in Intelligent Educational Systems (ARIES) Laboratory Computer Science Department University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

2. Adaptive Learning • Adaptive learning is one of the primary goals of e-learning • Dynamic just-in-time generation of learning resources based on the beliefs, desires, and goals of a student to facilitate learning • There are three main stakeholdersin adaptive learning

3. What we have now • Currently there exists work for: • Sequencing content together (instructional design) • Identifying pedagogical aspects of content (instructional design/library systems) • Cataloging content for discovery (library systems) • Repositories for searching content catalogs (library systems/computer science) • Identifying the beliefs, desires, and goals of a learner (computer science) • Correlating these beliefs desires and goals with educational content (computer science/instructional design)

4. So, do we have adaptive learning?

5. Learning Object • The focus of adaptive learning is now starting to shift the “glue” of all of these areas, termed the learning object • Having been worked on by such a diverse crowd, there is no one concrete definition or direction • Digital resources are of primary interest (Wiley), though some authors also include traditional learning resources (IEEE) • One consensus amongst these groups seems to be that the learning resource itself is the “glue”

6. What is a Learning Object? • Norm Friesen identifies three properties that are important: • Discoverability • Modularity • Interoperability • The stakeholder implementations to date have been disappointing • Usually just static HTML web tutorials • Some java applets with limited ability to test a user then adapt content [EOE] • Large search engine like repositories for users to find content [CAREO, MERLOT, etc]

7. Object Oriented Learning Objects • We feel that object oriented principles are ripe to help • Content should have interfaces which describes what abilities or situations the content can be used in • Content should be able to be queried (method/function support) so Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS) can manipulate the content allowing for encapsulation • Content should support inheritance to allow for easily deriving new content (see for instance, [Wu]) • Instructional design patterns can be formalized and applied to build objects that use proven methods of conveying meaning

8. Implementation • A number of web based implementation options are being explored to achieve this: • Content and metadata stored with XML • Object interfaces exported with WSDL • Object methods implemented with XSLT, relying on predefined functions within compliant LCMSs

9. Making learning objects smarter • Object principles are a good start, but future work involves experimenting with higher level reasoning as well as autonomy (agent characteristics) • We envision these principles to be especially useful in the areas of: • Discovery: Intelligent learning objects being aware of one another and of users in the CMS can better advertise their services • Interoperability: As digital rights management technologies become available intelligent learning objects can negotiate with users to determine appropriate forms of payment

10. Final Words • Learning objects are meant to act as the “glue” between the areas of instructional design, library sciences, and computer science as they try to achieve adaptive learning • An object oriented approach to content creation is especially useful for creating more modular and interoperable learning resources • XML technologies, specifically XML, WSDL, SOAP, and XSLT are well poised to achieve object oriented learning objects in a vendor-neutral manner

11. Questions? Contact information: http://www.cs.usask.ca/research/research_groups/aries/ Permanand Mohan: pmohan@tstt.net.tt Christopher Brooks: cab938@mail.usask.ca www.cs.usask.ca/~cab938