The document discusses improving interaction and personalization in learning object repositories. It proposes enhancing the DSpace repository software with a new user interface that allows browsing competencies, keywords, and a visual taxonomy. This interface would introduce more contextualized searching and recommend related learning objects to improve the learning experience. A case study involving statistics resources for thousands of students is presented. While progress has been made in developing the taxonomy and tag cloud, further work is needed on design, technologies, and engaging learning activities before fully implementing the new approach.
OER in the Mobile Era: Content Repositories’ Features for Mobile Devices and ...eLearning Papers
Learning objects and open contents have been named in the Horizon reports from 2004 and 2010 respectively, predicting to have an impact in the short term due to the current trend of offering open content for free on the Web. OER repositories should adapt their features so their contents can be accessed from mobile devices. This paper summarizes recent trends in the creation, publication, discovery, acquisition, access, use and re-use of learning objects on mobile devices based on a literature review on research done from 2007 to 2012. From the content providers side, we present the results obtained from a survey performed on 23 educational repository owners prompting them to answer about their current and expected support on mobile devices. From the content user side, we identify features provided by the main OER repositories. Finally, we introduce future trends and our next contributions.
GGULIVRR: Touching Mobile and Contextual LearningeLearning Papers
The quest of today’s learning communities is to creatively uptake and embed the emerging technologies to maintain the pace of change, of learning content and platforms, while satisfying learners’ needs and coping with limited resources. As information is delivered abundantly and change is constant, education focuses on driving 21st century fluency.
Project GGULIVRR, Generic Game for Ubiquitous Learning in Interactive Virtual and Real Realities, initiates the study of ubiquitous learning, investigating mobile and contextual learning, challenging small devices with sophisticated computing and networking capacities, testing the pervasive internet and exploring intelligent tags.
The goal of project GGULIVRR is to present learning communities a framework enabling learners to practice and enhance 21st century skills while generating and playing mobile contextual games.
Project GGULIVRR entices learners to get in touch. To play the contextual game one needs to physically go to a ‘touchable’ location, where real objects are tagged with an intelligent tag. By touching a tag one gets in touch with the contextual content. Through playing and developing GGULIVRR games one meets other gamers and developers as the project format induces interdisciplinarity, inter-social and intercultural communication and collaboration empowering local people to unlock contextual content with a minimal technical threshold.
OER in the Mobile Era: Content Repositories’ Features for Mobile Devices and ...eLearning Papers
Learning objects and open contents have been named in the Horizon reports from 2004 and 2010 respectively, predicting to have an impact in the short term due to the current trend of offering open content for free on the Web. OER repositories should adapt their features so their contents can be accessed from mobile devices. This paper summarizes recent trends in the creation, publication, discovery, acquisition, access, use and re-use of learning objects on mobile devices based on a literature review on research done from 2007 to 2012. From the content providers side, we present the results obtained from a survey performed on 23 educational repository owners prompting them to answer about their current and expected support on mobile devices. From the content user side, we identify features provided by the main OER repositories. Finally, we introduce future trends and our next contributions.
GGULIVRR: Touching Mobile and Contextual LearningeLearning Papers
The quest of today’s learning communities is to creatively uptake and embed the emerging technologies to maintain the pace of change, of learning content and platforms, while satisfying learners’ needs and coping with limited resources. As information is delivered abundantly and change is constant, education focuses on driving 21st century fluency.
Project GGULIVRR, Generic Game for Ubiquitous Learning in Interactive Virtual and Real Realities, initiates the study of ubiquitous learning, investigating mobile and contextual learning, challenging small devices with sophisticated computing and networking capacities, testing the pervasive internet and exploring intelligent tags.
The goal of project GGULIVRR is to present learning communities a framework enabling learners to practice and enhance 21st century skills while generating and playing mobile contextual games.
Project GGULIVRR entices learners to get in touch. To play the contextual game one needs to physically go to a ‘touchable’ location, where real objects are tagged with an intelligent tag. By touching a tag one gets in touch with the contextual content. Through playing and developing GGULIVRR games one meets other gamers and developers as the project format induces interdisciplinarity, inter-social and intercultural communication and collaboration empowering local people to unlock contextual content with a minimal technical threshold.
Reaching Out with OER: The New Role of Public-Facing Open ScholareLearning Papers
Open educational resources (OER) and, more recently, open educational practices (OEP) have been widely promoted as a means of increasing openness in higher education (HE). Thus far, such openness has been limited by OER provision typically being supplier-driven and contained within the boundaries of HE. Seeking to explore ways in which OEP might become more needs-led we conceptualised a new ‘public-facing open scholar’ role involving academics working with online communities to source and develop OER to meet their needs.
To explore the scope for this role we focused on the voluntary sector, which we felt might particularly benefit from such collaboration. We evaluated four representative communities for evidence of their being self-educating (thereby offering the potential for academics to contribute) and for any existing learning dimension. We found that all four communities were self-educating and each included learning infrastructure elements, for example provision for web chats with ‘experts’, together with evidence of receptiveness to academic collaboration. This indicated that there was scope for the role of public-facing open scholar. We therefore developed detailed guidelines for performing the role, which has the potential to be applied beyond the voluntary sector and to greatly extend the beneficial impact of existing OER, prompting institutions to release new OER in response to the needs of people outside HE.
Designing and Developing Mobile Learning Applications in International Studen...eLearning Papers
This paper reports on an international collaboration in which students from different universities designed and developed mobile learning applications, working together in interdisciplinary teams using social and mobile media. We describe the concept, process and outcomes of this collaboration including challenges of designing and developing mobile learning applications in virtual teams.
First research data mlearn2012 mobile access in mooc courseInge de Waard
Presentation giving an overview of the first steps in a study looking at the impact of mobile accessibility on learner interactions in an open, online course. This presentation was given during mLearn12 in Helsinki, finland.
Standing at the Crossroads: Mobile Learning and Cloud Computing at Estonian S...eLearning Papers
This paper studies the impact of mobile learning implementation efforts in Estonian school system – a process that has created a lot of controversy during the recent years. Best practices in mobile learning are available from the entire world, forcing schools to keep up the push towards better connectivity and gadgetry. Even in the best cases where the schools are provided with the necessary tools, the process has met a lot of scepticism from teachers who are afraid to implement new methods. Teachers are often cornered with the ‘comply or leave’ attitude from educational authorities, resulting in a multi-sided battle between involved parties.
We have surveyed students, teachers, parents and management at five Estonian front-runner schools to sort out the situation. The results show different attitudes among students, school leaders and staff – while all of them mostly possess necessary tools and skills, teachers almost completely lack motivation to promote mobile learning. We propose some positive and negative scenarios – for example, we predict major problems if teacher training will not change, e-safety policies are inadequately developed or authorities will continue the tendency to put all the eggs into one basket (e.g. by relying solely on closed, corporate solutions for mobile learning platforms).
M-portfolios: Using Mobile Technology to Document Learning in Student Teacher...eLearning Papers
We briefly analyse the enhancement of eportfolio processes defined by Zubizarreta (2009) with the introduction of mobile technology. We give some examples of appropriation of mobile device usage in eportfolio processes carried out by student teachers. These examples become the evidence of the enhancement possibilities of one of the portfolio processes defined by Zubizarreta (2009), that of documentation.
Widget and Smart Devices. A Different Approach for Remote and Virtual labsUNED
A vast number of learning content and tools can be found over Internet. Currently, most of them are ad-hoc solutions which are developed for a particular learning platform or environment. New concepts, such as Widgets, Smart devices, Internet of Thing and learning Clouds, are ideas whose goals is the creation of shareable online learning scenarios over different devices and environments.
EGI Services for Structural Biology - S Brewer EGISteve Brewer
Integrated e-infrastructure for integrated software for integrated structural biology: defining the roadmap for collaboration.
EGI slides presented by D Wallom at CECAM meeting, Oxford.
Mummies, War Zones, and Pompeii: the use of tablet computers in situated and ...tbirdcymru
I presented this at the ALT-C Conference in Manchester, UK, on 12 September 2012. The work is now being evaluated in the Places project http://www.le.ac.uk/places-mlearn
This publication has been originally published in paper. It's a collection of five selected articles published during 2008/09 in the digital eLearning Papers.
Reaching Out with OER: The New Role of Public-Facing Open ScholareLearning Papers
Open educational resources (OER) and, more recently, open educational practices (OEP) have been widely promoted as a means of increasing openness in higher education (HE). Thus far, such openness has been limited by OER provision typically being supplier-driven and contained within the boundaries of HE. Seeking to explore ways in which OEP might become more needs-led we conceptualised a new ‘public-facing open scholar’ role involving academics working with online communities to source and develop OER to meet their needs.
To explore the scope for this role we focused on the voluntary sector, which we felt might particularly benefit from such collaboration. We evaluated four representative communities for evidence of their being self-educating (thereby offering the potential for academics to contribute) and for any existing learning dimension. We found that all four communities were self-educating and each included learning infrastructure elements, for example provision for web chats with ‘experts’, together with evidence of receptiveness to academic collaboration. This indicated that there was scope for the role of public-facing open scholar. We therefore developed detailed guidelines for performing the role, which has the potential to be applied beyond the voluntary sector and to greatly extend the beneficial impact of existing OER, prompting institutions to release new OER in response to the needs of people outside HE.
Designing and Developing Mobile Learning Applications in International Studen...eLearning Papers
This paper reports on an international collaboration in which students from different universities designed and developed mobile learning applications, working together in interdisciplinary teams using social and mobile media. We describe the concept, process and outcomes of this collaboration including challenges of designing and developing mobile learning applications in virtual teams.
First research data mlearn2012 mobile access in mooc courseInge de Waard
Presentation giving an overview of the first steps in a study looking at the impact of mobile accessibility on learner interactions in an open, online course. This presentation was given during mLearn12 in Helsinki, finland.
Standing at the Crossroads: Mobile Learning and Cloud Computing at Estonian S...eLearning Papers
This paper studies the impact of mobile learning implementation efforts in Estonian school system – a process that has created a lot of controversy during the recent years. Best practices in mobile learning are available from the entire world, forcing schools to keep up the push towards better connectivity and gadgetry. Even in the best cases where the schools are provided with the necessary tools, the process has met a lot of scepticism from teachers who are afraid to implement new methods. Teachers are often cornered with the ‘comply or leave’ attitude from educational authorities, resulting in a multi-sided battle between involved parties.
We have surveyed students, teachers, parents and management at five Estonian front-runner schools to sort out the situation. The results show different attitudes among students, school leaders and staff – while all of them mostly possess necessary tools and skills, teachers almost completely lack motivation to promote mobile learning. We propose some positive and negative scenarios – for example, we predict major problems if teacher training will not change, e-safety policies are inadequately developed or authorities will continue the tendency to put all the eggs into one basket (e.g. by relying solely on closed, corporate solutions for mobile learning platforms).
M-portfolios: Using Mobile Technology to Document Learning in Student Teacher...eLearning Papers
We briefly analyse the enhancement of eportfolio processes defined by Zubizarreta (2009) with the introduction of mobile technology. We give some examples of appropriation of mobile device usage in eportfolio processes carried out by student teachers. These examples become the evidence of the enhancement possibilities of one of the portfolio processes defined by Zubizarreta (2009), that of documentation.
Widget and Smart Devices. A Different Approach for Remote and Virtual labsUNED
A vast number of learning content and tools can be found over Internet. Currently, most of them are ad-hoc solutions which are developed for a particular learning platform or environment. New concepts, such as Widgets, Smart devices, Internet of Thing and learning Clouds, are ideas whose goals is the creation of shareable online learning scenarios over different devices and environments.
EGI Services for Structural Biology - S Brewer EGISteve Brewer
Integrated e-infrastructure for integrated software for integrated structural biology: defining the roadmap for collaboration.
EGI slides presented by D Wallom at CECAM meeting, Oxford.
Mummies, War Zones, and Pompeii: the use of tablet computers in situated and ...tbirdcymru
I presented this at the ALT-C Conference in Manchester, UK, on 12 September 2012. The work is now being evaluated in the Places project http://www.le.ac.uk/places-mlearn
This publication has been originally published in paper. It's a collection of five selected articles published during 2008/09 in the digital eLearning Papers.
Personal Knowledge Graphs: Use Cases in e-learning PlatformsEleniIlkou
Personal Knowledge Graphs (PKGs) are introduced by the semantic web community as small-sized user-centric knowledge graphs(KGs). PKGs fill the gap of personalised representation of user data and interests on the top of big, well-established encyclopedic KGs, such as DBpedia [21]. Inspired by the widely recent usage of PKGsin the medical domain to represent patient data, this PhD proposal aims to adopt a similar technique in the educational domain in e-learning platforms by deploying PKGs to represent users and learners. We propose a novel PKG development that relies on ontology and interlinks to Linked Open Data. Hence, adding the dimension of personalisation and explainability in users’ featured data while respecting privacy. This research design is developed in two use cases: a collaborative search learning platform and an e-learning platform. Our preliminary results show that the e-learning platforms can get benefited from our approach by providing personalised recommendations and more user and group-specific data.
Video in Modern Language Education Revisited. Presented by Ton Koenraad (TELLConsult) and Patrick de Boer (Penta College, CSG J. van Liesveldt) at the
Dutch bi-annual National EFL 2015 Conference. Ede, Netherlands
Towards a methodology of researching mobile learningJudith S.
Towards a methodology of researching mobile learning.
Judith Seipold (University of Kassel, Germany; WLE Centre, IoE, London)
Norbert Pachler (Institute of Education, London)
3rd WLE Mobile Learning Symposium. 27 March 2009, WLE Centre, IOE London, UK.
Learning Analytics at Large: the Lifelong Learning Network of 160, 000 Europe...Ralf Klamma
Ergang Song, Zinayida Petrushyna, Yiwei Cao, and Ralf Klamma
Information Systems and Databases, RWTH Aachen University
EC-TEL 2011
Palermo, Italy
September 23, 2011
Innovating Teaching and Learning Practices: Key Elements for Developing Crea...eLearning Papers
This paper looks at how to innovate teaching and learning practices at system level. It describes the vision for ‘Creative Classrooms’ and makes a consolidated proposal for their implementation, clarifying their holistic and systemic nature, their intended learning outcomes, and their pedagogical, technological, and organisational dimensions for innovation. ‘Creative Classrooms’ (CCR) are conceptualized as innovative learning environments that fully embed the potential of ICT to innovate learning and teaching practices in formal, non-formal and informal settings.
The proposed multi-dimensional concept for CCR consists of eight encompassing and interconnected key dimensions and a set of 28 reference parameters (‘building blocks’). At the heart of the CCR concept lie innovative pedagogical practices that emerge when teachers use ICT in their efforts to organize newer and improved forms of open-ended, collaborative, and meaningful learning activities, rather than simply to enhance traditional pedagogies, such as expository lessons and task-based learning.
A preliminary analysis of two existing cases of ICT-enabled innovation for learning is presented in order to show (i) how the proposed key dimensions and reference parameters are implemented in real-life settings to configure profoundly diverse types of CCR and (ii) to depict the systemic approach needed for the sustainable implementation and progressive up-scaling of Creative Classrooms across Europe.
Vivim en la societat de la informació, segons uns, o del coneixement, segons els altres. Sigui com sigui, informació i coneixement són el producte refinat de la dada en brut, la veritable font d’energia de la societat actual. La tecnologia ha permès generar i disposar de quantitats ingents de dades, processar-les i visualitzar-les, apropant-les als usuaris finals, convertint-les en informació i coneixement útil, suposadament per a tothom. Moltes d’aquestes dades, però, son gestionades per grans corporacions i l’administració, sense ser realment acessibles pels ciutadans. El moviment al voltant del concepte d’Open Data pretèn establir unes bases sobre les quals crear i compartir dades que pugin ser d’interès pels ciutadans, tenint en compte un seguit d’aspectes tecnològics, legals, ètics, etc. En aquest seminari discutirem quins són els origens del moviment d’Open Data, els seus impulsors i les definicions bàsiques (al voltant dels termes “Open" i "Data") així com els aspectes més importants dels ja esmentats. També introduirem el concepte de Big Data, dades que per la multiplicació de diferents factors (espai, temps, nombre d’usuaris, …) superen amb escreix la nostra capacitat d’enteniment. Tots dos termes els acompanyarem d’exemples i bones pràctiques impulsades per les administracions però també pels usuaris finals, que han vist la possibilitat de participar activament en aquesta societat, com deiem, de la dada.
June 3, 2024 Anti-Semitism Letter Sent to MIT President Kornbluth and MIT Cor...Levi Shapiro
Letter from the Congress of the United States regarding Anti-Semitism sent June 3rd to MIT President Sally Kornbluth, MIT Corp Chair, Mark Gorenberg
Dear Dr. Kornbluth and Mr. Gorenberg,
The US House of Representatives is deeply concerned by ongoing and pervasive acts of antisemitic
harassment and intimidation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Failing to act decisively to ensure a safe learning environment for all students would be a grave dereliction of your responsibilities as President of MIT and Chair of the MIT Corporation.
This Congress will not stand idly by and allow an environment hostile to Jewish students to persist. The House believes that your institution is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and the inability or
unwillingness to rectify this violation through action requires accountability.
Postsecondary education is a unique opportunity for students to learn and have their ideas and beliefs challenged. However, universities receiving hundreds of millions of federal funds annually have denied
students that opportunity and have been hijacked to become venues for the promotion of terrorism, antisemitic harassment and intimidation, unlawful encampments, and in some cases, assaults and riots.
The House of Representatives will not countenance the use of federal funds to indoctrinate students into hateful, antisemitic, anti-American supporters of terrorism. Investigations into campus antisemitism by the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Ways and Means have been expanded into a Congress-wide probe across all relevant jurisdictions to address this national crisis. The undersigned Committees will conduct oversight into the use of federal funds at MIT and its learning environment under authorities granted to each Committee.
• The Committee on Education and the Workforce has been investigating your institution since December 7, 2023. The Committee has broad jurisdiction over postsecondary education, including its compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, campus safety concerns over disruptions to the learning environment, and the awarding of federal student aid under the Higher Education Act.
• The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating the sources of funding and other support flowing to groups espousing pro-Hamas propaganda and engaged in antisemitic harassment and intimidation of students. The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the US House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X.
• The Committee on Ways and Means has been investigating several universities since November 15, 2023, when the Committee held a hearing entitled From Ivory Towers to Dark Corners: Investigating the Nexus Between Antisemitism, Tax-Exempt Universities, and Terror Financing. The Committee followed the hearing with letters to those institutions on January 10, 202
Macroeconomics- Movie Location
This will be used as part of your Personal Professional Portfolio once graded.
Objective:
Prepare a presentation or a paper using research, basic comparative analysis, data organization and application of economic information. You will make an informed assessment of an economic climate outside of the United States to accomplish an entertainment industry objective.
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
Acetabularia Information For Class 9 .docxvaibhavrinwa19
Acetabularia acetabulum is a single-celled green alga that in its vegetative state is morphologically differentiated into a basal rhizoid and an axially elongated stalk, which bears whorls of branching hairs. The single diploid nucleus resides in the rhizoid.
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
Introduction to AI for Nonprofits with Tapp NetworkTechSoup
Dive into the world of AI! Experts Jon Hill and Tareq Monaur will guide you through AI's role in enhancing nonprofit websites and basic marketing strategies, making it easy to understand and apply.
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
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1. Learner-centered learning
object repositories:
personalization and
interaction issues
Julià Minguillón
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
2. Table of contents
• E-Learning is / is not …
• Virtual Learning Environments
• Learning Object Repositories
• Case of study: Statistics
• Improving interaction
• Introducing personalization
• Current project status
• Summary
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
3. E-Learning is not…
• …e + learning
• …reproducing traditional learning
• …leaving learners alone with technology
• …technology replacing teachers
• …delivering content through LCMS
• …a collection of tools / services
• …mail, chat or blog
• …self-learning
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
4. E-Learning should be…
• …promoting communication
• …enabling deeper reflection
• …technology supporting users
• …personalized and adaptive
• …interactive and engaging
• …overcoming time / space barriers
• Learning anytime and anywhere!
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
5. Adopting E-Learning
• Three dimensions (Bates, 2005):
– Methodological
– Technological
– Organizational
• Not completely orthogonal: interconnected
• Challenge: European Higher Education Area
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
6. The “new” EHEA (I)
• Methodological / organizational changes:
– ECTS
– Learner centered model
– Competence aimed instead of content driven
• Technological requirements:
– Efficient management of educational resources
– Virtual learning environments
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
7. The “new” EHEA (II)
• Competence (not content) is the King:
– Evaluate already acquired competences
– Competence development through activities
– Activities involve the use of learning resources
– Content becomes infrastructure
providing the learner with the appropriate
learning environment for acquiring and
developing the desired competences
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
8. Learning as a journey
Degree ≈ Continent
Course ≈ Country
Activity ≈ City
Resource ≈ Map, guide
Device ≈ Vehicle
Learning path ≈ Itinerary
Previous experience ≈ Already visited places
VLE ≈ GPS
Teacher ≈ Expert assistant
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
9. Virtual Learning Environments
• E-Learning is de facto web-based learning
• VLEs enable learner centered models
Learning
Process
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
10. Data
VLE Mining
Learning
Object
Repository
LO
User
Interaction
LO LO
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
11. Learning
Process ontologies
evidences
user itineraries
profile
LOs
LD+ player
LOR
default itinerary
personalized itineraries
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
12. Managing resources
Competences
Activities
Resources
Learning
Object Content is infrastructure
Repository
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
13. Learning Object Repositories
• Two main goals:
– Ensure preservation
– Promote reutilization
• Other goals:
– Dissemination → positioning (institutional)
– Personal information management (users)
• These goals are somehow contradictory!
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
14. Key factors for LOR success (I)
• Three dimensions (McNaught, 2006):
– Resources: what?
– Actions: how?
– Users: who?
• LOR design should include them all
• Top-down vs bottom-up approaches
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
15. Key factors for LOR success (II)
• 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 ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
16. Critical issues of LOR design
• Methodological:
– Learning is more than just content
• Technological (back-end + user interface):
– Learning is more than just accessing LOs
• Organizational:
– Workflow
– Licenses
– Metadata
– Policies
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
17. Traditional repositories
• Library centered:
– Books, journals, works, … (mostly textual)
• Everything has a unique title
• Everything has one or more authors
• Everything has a creation date
• Almost everything is a PDF file
• Main goal: easily finding a resource by
using a minimum set of common descriptors
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
18. Learning Object Repositories
• LOs are diverse:
– Exercises PDF, QTI, …
– Examples PDF, PPT, ODP, …
– Multimedia elements JPEG, MP3, MOV, …
– Simulations Applets, Flash
– Source code C, Java, …
– Data XLS, SPSS, …
– Other (equations, …) LaTeX, MathML, …
• Title, author and year are not enough and useless
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
19. Ideal LOR
• Basic premise: the act of browsing and/or
searching for resources should be a
learning experience in itself
– Contents are not isolated pieces
– “Traveling” requires knowing “from” and “to”
– Users should be able to organize contents
– Connectivism (Siemens, 2005)
• Ideal UI: conceptual map + “social layer”
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
20. 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%)
• Just browsing and searching (16.4%)
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
21. System architecture
PIM
UI
Institutional Social
LOR layer
PIM
PIM
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
22. DSpace pros and cons
• Why DSpace? → already in use at UOC
• Pros: • Cons:
– Solid, stable – Ugly user interface
– Large community – 1.0 philosophy
– Persistent handles – Dublin Core
– Preservation – Multilingualism
– Customizable – Intricate
– OAI PMH – Mainly for e-prints
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
23. 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
– Gather usage data
• Goal: allow learners to take control over LOs
without using DSpace directly
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
24. 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 ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
25. 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 ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
26. New user interface
• Three complementary elements:
– List of competences
Competences
– Tag cloud of keywords
– Visual taxonomy
LO
Ontology
• Additional filters: LO
– Resource type LO
– Language Keywords Taxonomy
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
27. Introducing personalization
• Don’t constrain, always recommend
• Tag cloud parameters:
– Which keywords
– Sorting
– Color
– Size
• Context-aware (right-button pop-up)
• Web 2.0 services: delicious, annorate, …
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
28. Competences Taxonomy Keywords
• To compare two proportion
proportions
• To select the right
test and hypothesis test box-plot
• To design a survey
• To estimate the mean
parameters of an
unknown population Student’s t test
• To create graphics
from data variance
Filtering Results
Type LO LO
Language LO
LO LO LO
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
29. Current project status (I)
• DSpace repository online http://oer.uoc.edu
• 200 resources (500 soon, >1000 expected)
• Pilot course with 400 students (CS degree)
• List of specific competences for Statistics
• Visual taxonomy created with prefuse
• Tag cloud created with tagcrowd
• First stages of user-centered design
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
30. Current project status (II)
• But:
– Different technologies (Java, PHP, HTML, …)
– Complex process for adding resources
– Our learners (and teachers) are not so “2.0”
– Engaging activities must be designed
– Accessibility issues
• Ideas, money and students are welcomed!!!
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
31. Summary
• LOs cannot be isolated pieces
• Learners need to contextualize LOs
• Learners need to “adopt” LOs
• LORs cannot be just lists of LOs
• LORs = back-end + front-end
• DSpace as back-end: the “pyramid”
• UI as front-end: the (personal) “museum”
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy
32. Thank you!
• Contact information:
Julià Minguillón
jminguillona@uoc.edu
J. Minguillón ECEL 2009, 8th European Conference on eLearning, Bari, Italy