William E. Moen <william.moen@unt> Texas Center for Digital Knowledge

1. Reusing & Repurposing Learning Objects________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Issues of Granularity in the Texas Course Redesign Repository William E. Moen <william.moen@unt.edu> Texas Center for Digital Knowledge University of North Texas Denton, Texas Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

2. Texas course redesign project • Statewide initiative, funded by Texas legislature • Original RFP requested proposals: • To redesign developmental and entry-level academic courses • To develop other related projects that would advance the statewide course redesign initiative Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

3. Texas courses being redesigned • 23 redesign projects in development including: • Developmental writing, reading, and mathematics • Biology I & II, Chemistry I & II • College Algebra, Calculus, Math for Business & Social Science Majors, Statistics • Computer Literacy • English Composition I & II • Fine Arts Appreciation • Introduction to Engineering • Spanish • U.S. Government • U.S. History I & II Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

4. Redesigning first year curriculum Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

5. The learning object repository • Two phase project • Phase I: Proof-of-Concept (May 07–Sept 07) • How course content can be decomposed into discrete learning objects (LOs) • How LOs can be individually described through metadata • How users can use the LOR to search, browse, retrieve, and download LOs • How LOs can be packaged to import into learning management systems • Phase II: Research & Development (Sept 07–Aug 09) • Moving towards a near-production level system • Primary means to disseminate redesigned courses For more information, see project website: http://thecblor.unt.edu Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

6. THECB LOR components • Repository platform: DSpace • Stores the LOs and metadata describing each • Provides authenticated user interface for submission of LOs and creation of metadata • Provides public user interface for searching, browsing, access • Manakin XML user interface tool • Course content and learning objects • Our definition of a LO: A digital resource (simple or complex) that can be used to support learning Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

7. THECB LOR components • Metadata • Serves in managing the repository’s content • Serves users to: • Find (searching and discovering LOs) • Identify (comparing similar LOs) • Select (evaluating LOs for specific needs) • Access/Acquire (downloading selected LOs) • Using metadata elements from two standards: • Dublin Core • IEEE Learning Object Metadata • Approximately 40 elements Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

8. Context for THECB LOR • Courses and course content • Developed by separate projects • No standard or common logical structure • Quality of content • Competitive grant process for redesigned courses • Intended audience • Instructors/instructional designers at public institutions of higher education in Texas • Intellectual property • Belongs to Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

9. Basic organization of LOR • Discipline (e.g. History) • Sub-discipline (e.g., U.S History) • Courses (e.g., U.S. History I, U.S. History II) • Course content (Collections of learning objects at varying levels of granularity) Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

10. Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

11. From courses to LOs • Courses not designed in terms of: • Learning objects • Storage in a repository • Challenges: • How to decompose complete course into meaningful LOs • How to decide on levels of granularity • How to represent such levels • How to show relationships among/between related LOs at different levels of granularity Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

12. U.S. History I Course • Structure as designed: • Course • Units (four Units in Course) • Lessons (two or more lessons per Unit) • Topics (two or more topics per Lesson) • Structure served to guide levels of granularity Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

13. U.S. History I Course • Other course components as designed • Case studies • Teacher and student guides • Assessments (primarily at the Lesson level) • Free-standing learning objects • Derived from course content • Have value outside the context for which they were created • Interactive flash animations, video clips, etc. Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

14. Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

15. Characterizing LOs • Netg • Topic: single learning objective, a learning activity, and an assessment • Cisco • Reusable Information Object: content items, practice items, and assessment items aimed at single learning objective • SCORM Content Package • Sharable Content Objects packaged together in larger units of learning related to learning objectives • IMS Learning Design • Learning Object: object needed to perform an activity Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

16. Assumptions for the THECB LOR • Users may be in need of different sized LOs • No common logical structure for courses • No common terminology across courses for labeling structural components of course • Different courses may dictate different levels of granularity • Context for some LOs more important than others • Our definition of a LO: • A digital resource (simple or complex) that can be used to support learning • Not tied to specific learning objectives Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

17. Spanish course • Course content consists of: • Introductory web page • Podcast • Organized by topics, subtopics, specific topics e.g. • Verbs • Present tense • Present tense AR • Present tense ER/IR • Present tense Irregulars • Nouns, articles, adjectives and agreement • Articles • Definite and indefinite articles Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

18. Developmental writing course • Course content consists of: • Web pages of textual information • Assessments and activities • Organized into: • Categories • Lessons • Topics Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

19. LOs at multiple levels of granularity The Russian Doll Approach Separate learning objects are created at all levels: course, lesson, topic, page, page element (media), with each level contained in the one above it. G.W. Matkin Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

20. Russian Doll in context of courses • Spanish • Specific topic LOs • Specific topics aggregated in a subtopic • Subtopic LOs • Subtopics aggregated in a topics • Topic LOs • Topics aggregated into course level • Writing • Topic LOs • Topics aggregated in a lesson • Lesson LOs • Lessons aggregated in a category • Category LOs • Categories aggregated into course level History • Topic LOs • Topics aggregated in a lesson • Lesson LOs • Lessons aggregated in a unit • Unit LOs • Units aggregated into course level Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

21. This approach… • Addresses our lack of knowledge of granularity levels appropriate for intended users • Offers LOs at multiple levels of granularity • Provides a testbed for empirical investigation BUT … lots of challenges, including: • Terminology for levels of granularity • Use of metadata to describe/represent levels of granularity • Use of metadata to show relationships (part of, is part of) • Addressing sequencing and context where that is important I’ll appreciate your ideas and suggestions! Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity

22. References • Disaggregation and reutilization of sharable content objects. Figuerua, A. & Kaufmann, M. • Learning object repositories: Problems and promise. Matkin, G.W. • Transforming existing content into reusable learning objects. Doorten, M., et al. • THECB LOR Project: http://thecblor.unt.edu Reusing and Repurposing Learning Objects: Issues of Granularity