Reengineering UNITAR’s Courseware Development Model

By Zaid Ali Alsagoff [email_address] Reengineering UNITAR’s Courseware Development Model

Imagine!

“… All UNITAR’s courseware (100s) are simultaneously and continuously being developed, updated and improved, semester after semester…”

Tools Projects Tutors & Students Course Leader LTU Quality Assurance Course Plan Knowledge Galaxy

UNITAR’s Blended E-Learning Model

Six (6) major components:

Courseware – CD-based and web-based.

Learning Management System - Virtual Online Instructional Support System (VOISS)

Tutorials – Online/face-to-face tutorials and online forums.

Study Centers – Classrooms, workstations, library, etc.

eLibrary – Online databases, electronic texts, staff publications, e-books, past exam papers, etc.

Customer Relations Management – Online/Offline support to students (and staff) facing academic, technical and personal problems (e.g. telephone, fax, emails, chat).

Contents

OBJECTIVES

WHAT IS COURSEWARE (CW)?

PAST SCENARIO

PRESENT SCENARIO

CW DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

CW DEVELOPMENT MODELS

ITERATIVE COLLABORATIVE CW DEVELOPMENT MODEL

CONCLUSION

1. OBJECTIVES

Discuss UNITAR’s past and existing courseware development approaches and problems.

Discuss current and future trends in courseware development tools and approaches.

Propose a new iterative collaborative courseware development model.

2. WHAT IS COURSEWARE?

“ “ Any digitized content that can facilitate the teaching-learning process and/or learning

outcomes in a course.”

I have not failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that won’t work. Thomas Edison

3. PAST SCENARIO

Original purpose of Courseware = Replace Lectures

Courseware Development for UNITAR’s blended e-Learning model:

1998 - 2001 = CD-based multimedia teaching courseware

2000 – 2004 = Web-based Teaching Courseware

2001 – 2005 = Resource-Based Courseware

2004 – 2006 = Macromedia Breeze Presentations

Courseware Development Required:

Instructional Designers

Programmers

Graphic Designers

Video/Audio Specialists

Subject Matter Experts

Etc.

3. PAST SCENARIO - FINDINGS

Findings:

Never really replaced lectures

Too costly to produce

Took too long time to develop

Required a lot of manpower

Lecturers need help to edit/update

Lecturers reluctant to use Breeze

Students prefer course notes/book

4. CURRENT SCENARIO

Since September 2005:

Courseware Department was discontinued.

All course leaders are responsible for preparing the course materials for their courses .

Course Leaders’ Workload:

Prepare

Course plan

Course materials

Final exam & testing scheme

Course assignments

Examination questions

Course Delivery

F2F/OLT classes

Online forums

Additional activities (e.g. Lab work)

Consultation/advising

Assessment

Mark examination papers

Mark project papers

Research

Tutors’ Workload:

Prepare for the course/classes

Conduct F2F/OLT classes

Online forums

Additional activities (e.g. Lab work)

Mark assignments

4. CURRENT SCENARIO (2)

UNITAR’s current LMS (VOISS) needs radical improvement

No content management tool

No online quiz engine

No monitoring and tracking capabilities

No Online WYSIWYG content editor

No wikis, blogs, peer-assessment, etc

And much more…

We need to reengineer our approach in promoting and implementing Breeze.

5. Future Breeze Implementation Formula? Audio Recorder/ Wireless Microphone PC MP3 or WAV Format Breeze Audio & Slides Online Record 1 Transfer 2 Convert 3 Import 4 Edit + Synchronize 5 Publish 6 Lecture

5. COURSEWARE DEVELOPMENT TOOLS LMS CMS Groupware Wikis Digital Library LCMS RSS E-Portfolio E-mail Survey LO Repository Operating System Blogs Forum Authoring Web-Conferencing VoIP Chat Atom OPML Aggregators Social Bookmarking Social Networking Podcasting File Sharing Instant Messaging Screencasting UNESCO Free Software Portal: http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_freesoft/Software/ WebQuest

5. CWR (Moodle) Experience Survey Respondents: 101

5. Future Tools Scenario Breeze = Record Lectures (F2F/OLT) Moodle = Content Management, Activities, Assessment & Tracking Other Tools = Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, etc Courseware Other Tools Moodle BREEZE

6. COURSEWARE DEVELOPMENT MODELS

Outsource Courseware Development

Buy or Subscribe to Of-the-shelf Courseware

Reuse/Adapt/Co-develop Open Educational Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources MERLOT MIT OCW OLI Connexions UT OCW CAREO SOFIA Stanford on iTunes Tufts OCW USU OCW CLOE DLORN ARIADNE eGranary Digital Library Wikipedia e-Lee Gutenberg Project Fathom Archive Harvey Project ICONEX Lydia Global Repository OOPS World Lecture Hall WebJunction CORE PEOI ICTdev Library JHSPH OCW OAISTER SPLASH W3Schools VCILT Open Courseware Laboratory URL: http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=OER_publishing_initiatives

Iterative Collaborative Courseware Development Model

Moodle (CWR): http:// cwr.unitar.edu.my /

External Authoring Tools:

Breeze

Word

PowerPoint, etc.

3) Tools

Course Leader

Tutors

LTU (or e-Learning Unit)

Students

Quality Assurance Clusters

2) Development Team

Synopsis

Learning outcomes

Topic outline

Learning/Instructional Design

Activities

Assessment, etc.

1) Course Plan

Courseware Development Flow Course Plan Development Exploration Discovery Engagement Discussion Reflection Connection Integration

The Holy Grail of Courseware Development Technology Savvy Digital Natives Time Net Generation Intelligent Willing Diverse Social Learners Online Connected Explorers Getting Students More Involved in the Development Process… Creative Innovative Problem Solvers

Knowledge Filtering Process

External Authoring Tools Course Leader Tutors Quality Assurance Clusters L&T Unit Students Iterative Collaborative Courseware Development

Content Authoring & Management Tools

LAMS

Quiz Engine

Wikis

Blogs

Monitoring & Tracking

Glossary & FAQs

Chat & Forums

Journals & Assignments

Polling & Survey

Online Resources

Peer-evaluation

Etc…

Courseware Repository Course Plan

Conclusion

UNITAR should consider:

An iterative collaborative courseware development model that even involves active participation by tutors and students.

Adopting Moodle (and other constructive user-friendly tools) to enable a collaborative courseware development environment, as it provides a comprehensive set of user-friendly tools to dynamically create and manage content and activities online.

Final Thought!

“ We simply need to open our minds to all the possibilities we have today, and most of our courseware challenges will eventually be dealt with efficiently and effectively in a collaborative, user-friendly, and cost-effective way”

Zaid Ali Alsagoff

Q&A Q&A

Thanks!

References

Alhabshi, S. O. & Hakim, H. (2003). “The Virtual University: UNITAR. A Newly Created Institution.” UNESCO, International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP). URL: http:// www.unesco.org/iiep/virtualuniversity/files/unitar.pdf

Alsagoff, Z. A. (2005). “Reflecting the Future e-Content Development Evolution in Higher Education”. URL: http://breeze.unitarklj1.edu.my/future/

Alsagoff, Z.A. (2004) “UNITAR’s Experience with Online Live Tutorials” Published in IJCIM (International Journal of The Computer, The Internet and Management, 2004) URL: http://www.elearning.au.edu/research/elearning_conference_2004/index.html

Bersin, J. (2004). “The Four Types of E-Learning: When should you use PowerPoint or Breeze?” Bersin & Associates.

Brogan, P. (2003). “Using the web for interactive teaching and learning”. http://www.ced.ntu.edu.sg/acedemia/vol_1/06/whitepaper_interactive.pdf [cited 21/11/2005]

Courseware Definitions :

Bitpipe Dictionary - http:// www.bitpipe.com/tlist/Courseware.html

eTeach-Net - http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Courseware

e-Learning Guru Glossary - http://www.e-learningguru.com/gloss.htm

Hylan, Jan (2005). Open Educational Resources: Opportunities and Challenges. 2005: OECD-CERI. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/1/49/36243575.pdf [cited 13/04/2006]

MIT OpenCourseWare (2005). ”Our Story” Massachusetts Institute of Technology. URL: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/our-story.htm [cited 14/04/2006]

References (2)

Moodle - A Free, Open Source Course Management System for Online Learning. URL: http:// moodle.org /

Open Educational Resources (2006). ” OER publishing initiatives” UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning's Community of Interest. URL: http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=OER_publishing_initiatives [cited 14/04/2006

Open Educational Resources (Examples):

MIT OpenCourseware - http:// ocw.mit.edu/index.html

Connexions - http:// cnx.org /

Kyoto-U OpenCourseWare - http://ocw.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en /

ParisTech OpenCourseWare - http:// graduateschool.paristech.org/index.php?type = cours

Tufts University OpenCourseWare - http:// ocw.tufts.edu /

Utah State University OpenCourseWare - http:// ocw.usu.edu/Index/ECIndex_view

Stanford on iTunes - http:// itunes.stanford.edu /

Open Educational Resources (OER) Index : http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title = OER_useful_resources [cited 27/06/2006]

López, P. I. (2005) “e-Learning for Development: a model”. URL: http://www.ictlogy.net/ictlogy/articles/ismael_pena_elearning_for_development.pdf [cited 21/11/2005]