The document discusses the development of interactive learning resources through the Forge project, which aims to make experimental facilities accessible and enhance online education from October 2013 to September 2016. It outlines a self-paced, modular course structure including theoretical parts, self-assessment exercises, and rich multimedia content, while promoting the use of open educational resources and Creative Commons licensing. Additionally, it describes various ebook formats, including EPUB and iBook, and encourages educators and developers to create and deploy interactive courses.

1. DEVELOPING INTERACTIVE
LEARNING RESOURCES
Alexander Mikroyannidis
The Open University, UK

2. About FORGE
• Making world class experimental
facilities accessible to anyone /
anytime / anywhere
• Approach is based upon:
• New learning paradigms
• Rich multimedia interactive eBooks

3. Project Fiche
• Name: Forging Online Education through FIRE
• Dates: 1st October, 2013 – 30th September, 2016
• Project Coordinator: John Domingue, The Open University
• Project website: http://ict-forge.eu

4. http://www.ict-fire.eu/home/fire-testbeds.html

5. Cisco Networking Academy

6. MOOCs

7. Self Regulated Learning

8. Flipped Classroom Paradigm

9. Awareness and Reflection via
Learning Analytics

10. Best practices
• Modular and adaptive learning pathways
• Explicit learning goals
• High quality multimedia content
• Interactive learning activities
• Social & collaborative learning activities
• Self-assessment exercises

11. Course structure
We perceive a course as a self-study learning pathway that leads
to achieving certain learning outcomes. Most commonly, the
learner will study the course at at their own pace, since the is no
predefined start or end time.
The structure of such a course is typically based on the following
outline:
Introduction
This section introduces the topic in question and provides an overview of
the main concepts that the course will cover. It can be supplemented by a
short video of the instructor introducing the topic.

12. Course structure
Learning outcomes
These are the skills that the learner will have acquired at the end of the
course. They are usually presented as bullet points.
Theoretical part
The theoretical part is the main body of the course, analysing the topic in
question. It is enriched by multimedia elements, such as videos, webinars,
screencasts, and figures.
Learning activities
These are self-assessment exercises that the learner will complete at the
end of the course to test what he/she has learned. Interactive HTML5
widgets can be used by the learner inside a learning activity, for example
enabling the learner to interact with an online service. Quizzes are also
useful and simple learning activities.

13. Course structure
Summary
This section summarises the main topics covered in the course and
references the learning outcomes of the course.
Further reading
This is a list of recommended reading materials related to the course. They
can contain books, web resources, or scientific publications.
Glossary
The Glossary contains the definitions of key terms that are referenced
throughout the course. In the iBook format, terms that are defined in the
glossary are highlighted in the text of the course. Tapping on the
highlighted terms brings up their definition from the glossary of the iBook.

14. Licensing
Creative Commons licenses (http://creativecommons.org) help
authors retain copyright while allowing others to copy,
distribute, and make some uses of their work.
Every Creative Commons license also ensures the authors get the
credit for their work they deserve.

15. Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources can be described as:
“teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the
public domain or have been released under an intellectual
property license that permits their free use or repurposing by
others depending on which Creative Commons license is used”
(Atkins et al., 2007)
Atkins, D. E., Brown, J. S. & Hammond, A. L.
(2007) A Review of the Open Educational
Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements,
Challenges, and New Opportunities. The William
and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

16. FORGEBox and FORGEStore
FORGEBox is the component that interconnects learning
interactive content with FIRE resources.
FORGEStore is a marketplace of widgets, FORGEBox services,
FIRE adapters and interactive courses.

17. FORGE online courses

18. eBook formats: ePUB
• One of the most common formats for publishing an eBook,
supported by the majority of electronic devices, is ePUB.
• ePUB is essentially a ZIP archive that contains the files
comprising the eBook’s content, including HTML files, images,
CSS style sheets and other assets, plus metadata that make the
content able to be reliably consumed by any application or
device compatible with the ePUB specification.
• In its latest version (3.0), ePUB supports HTML5, allowing
interactive elements like widgets to be embedded in the
eBook.

19. eBook formats: iBook
• Apple has developed a proprietary format for eBooks
specifically for the iPad and MacOS 10.9, called iBooks.
• The iBooks format allows the embedding of interactive
elements inside an eBook, such as HTML5 widgets, thus
enabling it to feature dynamic content offered by external
online sources.
• The authoring software that we use for this purpose is the
iBooks Author, an application for MacOS available to download
for free.

20. The iBooks Author
Some of the main features of the iBooks Author are:
• A variety of templates to use for the design of the iBook.
• The ability to specify the layout of pages.
• The ability to create accessible iBooks for people with
disabilities.
• The ability to embed interactive elements as HTML5 widgets.
The application contains templates for galleries, quizzes,
Keynote presentations, interactive images, and more.
Alternatively, users can create and embed their own HTML5
widgets.
• The ability to export as an iBook, PDF, or plain text.
• The ability to submit the iBook to the Apple iBooks Store.

21. http://vimeo.com/98431150

22. iTunes U courses

23. Opening the FORGE platform
• Build your own interactive course for free!
• Exploit FIRE facilities for educational purposes
• Deploy courses on FORGE platform or other educational platform

24. Types of proposals
Educator/ Learner
• Deploy an existing
FORGE course (as-is)
• Transform a traditional
course into an
experiment-driven one
• Design a new FORGE
lab course
• Extend an existing
FORGE course
• Create interactive
educational material
(eBook)
Developer
• Develop new widgets
and/or FIRE adapters
Provider
• Offer a testbed for
remote
experimentation
+ any combination of the above!

25. More information…
www.ict-forge.eu
info@ict-forge.eu
Try our online courses and
download our iBook for free!
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research,
technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 610889