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Towards a Model of Quality for Learning Objects
Abstract
This paper presents the scene and the elements that take part in the definition of a quality model in the learning objects arena and describes the difficulties that appear during its definition, summarizing the current open research issues.
... Many authors have proposed other solutions for evaluating the quality of LO. Sarasa and Dodero [40] present a definition of a quality model for LO. Daniel and Mohan [41] considered a model based on content design, back-end delivery, front-end presentation, and the learning process itself. ...
Virtual learning in engineering education uses e-learning resources in many different ways. These resources are normally stored in learning object repositories (LOR) where they are catalogued with metadata facilitating retrieval by end users. As ranking e-learning resources according to quality criteria is considered helpful for end users, quality measures play a prominent role. This article presents a study for estimating the quality of learning objects (LO) by using the available data in MERLOT, a large LOR. The main result of this study is the identification, definition, and evaluation of quality metrics applicable to engineering e-learning resources which can be adapted to other types of repositories for facilitating the search of e-resources in general. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 9999:1–12, 2015; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.21619
... − D-Ontology Import: this module allows the extension of the label set used for the annotation of learning objects by using ontologies described with RDF(S). − Assessment: This module provides the means to perform a priori tests of the quality of the in-development learning objects [15]. − Collaboration: this module supports the collaboration mechanisms during the development of the learning objects, especially during the annotation and evaluation processes. ...
This paper describes an extension of the LOM metadata elements used in the IMS learning object speci- fications, to incorporate new labels for the semantic classification of non-educational information to the set of LOM metadata. These labels have been obtained from specialized vocabularies represented by means,of domain- specific ontologies described using RDF and ,transformed ,using a LOM ,to RDF binding. They are included as LOM standard metadata under the classification subcategory. In order to test its viability, the proposed extension has been implemented,as an additional functionality of a learning object editing tool developed,as part of the MD2 project.
... 2. The elaboration of a quality evaluation framework for a priori testing of educational products in several dimensions ⎯i.e. usability, educational utility, interoperability, etc. [53] The theoretical endeavors of MD2 are tested in practice on a distributed software platform, whose architecture is depicted in Figure 2. The main component is the collaborative development tool, which is divided in several functional modules. The first two modules are related to the edition and annotation of learning contents and designs. ...
In this paper we present an analysis of the development process of technology-supported didactic material. Such analysis considers didactic materials as the conjunction of contents and in- structional design used to guide learning and teaching processes. And we examine why several features such as reusability, semantic interoperability and collaboration support must be ensured from the earlier stages of the material creation process. For those reasons di- dactic material development is not a trivial task and demands of a development methodology support and a high-quality authoring en- vironment. We describe how the MD2 research project provides an integrated solution for creation of didactic materials that take into account those rationales. The MD2 solution is based on two ap- proaches: first, the definition of a method for the collaborative crea- tion of didactic materials and second, the elaboration of a quality evaluation framework for a priori testing of educational products. We also present CASLO a collaborative authoring tool used to facilitate these endeavors.
This chapter emphasizes integration of the Semantic Web technologies in intelligent learning systems by giving a proposal for an intelligent learning management system (ILMS) architecture we named Multitutor. This system is a Web-based environment for the development the e-learning courses and for the use of them by the students. Multitutor is designed as a Web-classroom client-server system, ontologically founded, and is built using modern intelligent and Web-related technologies. This system enables the teachers to develop tutoring systems for any course. The teacher has to define the metadata of the course: chapters, the lessons and the tests, the references of the learning materials.
In this work, we propose a system for quality measurement of Learning Objects (LO), when they are considered as software artifacts. The quality of Learning Objects is important not only in their usage dimension, but also for improve their design methods and techniques. The use and adaptation of the ISO/IEC 9126 standard to LO is presented. Before, some concepts and studies about LO quality, are reviewed. 1 Introducción El uso de Objetos de Aprendizaje (OA) ha permitido organizar los contenidos digitales orientados a la instrucción, en unidades independientes de manera de que puedan ser utilizados en diferentes contextos [1], por ejemplo en distintos LMS (Sistemas de Gestión del Aprendizaje). El proceso de construcción de estos recursos es complejo, y hace necesaria la utilización de conocimientos y habilidades diversos sobre los contenidos, las teorías sobre el aprendizaje y los métodos de diseño instruccional, entre otros. La evaluación de los OA es un elemento importante que incide, tanto en el diseño, como en la comprensión de sus valores utilitarios en los procesos de instrucción y de ayuda al aprendizaje. Son muy diversos los factores a considerar en la evaluación de los OA. El objetivo de este trabajo es revisar los modelos y enfoques de calidad que se aplican a los objetos de aprendizaje, para luego proponer un conjunto de atributos o rasgos a medir al considerarlos como artefactos de software. Este documento comienza presentando el concepto de OA y su relación con la Calidad. Luego se analizan estudios que discuten y proponen dimensiones de los Objetos de Aprendizaje que se relacionan con la calidad. Finalmente se proponen las características y los rasgos que pueden servir para la evaluar la calidad de estos recursos basado en la norma ISO/IEC 9126 (parte 1).
Recent advances in e-learning techonologies and web services make realistic the idea that courseware for personalized e-learning can be built by dy- namic composition of distributed learning objects, available as web-services. To be assembled in au automated way, learning objects metadata have to be ex- ploited, associating unambiguous, semantically rich, descriptions, to be used for such an automated composition. To this aim, we present a framework and al- gorithms for semantic-based learning objects composition, fully compliant with Semantic Web technologies. In particular our metadata refer to ontologies built on a subset of OWL-DL, and we show how novel inference services in Description Logics can be used to compose dynamically, in an approximated -but computa- tionally tractable- way learning resources, given a requested courseware descrip- tion.
In this paper we present an analysis of the development process of technology-supported didactic material. Such analysis considers didactic materials as the conjunction of contents and instructional design used to guide learning and teaching processes. And we examine why several features such as reusability, semantic interoperability and collaboration support must be ensured from the earlier stages of the material creation process. For those reasons di-dactic material development is not a trivial task and demands of a development methodology support and a high-quality authoring environment. We describe how the MD2 research project provides an integrated solution for creation of didactic materials that take into account those rationales. The MD2 solution is based on two approaches: first, the definition of a method for the collaborative creation of didactic materials and second, the elaboration of a quality evaluation framework for a priori testing of educational products. We also present CASLO a collaborative authoring tool used to facilitate these endeavors.
E-learning has become widely available and accepted by learners either as the main or supplemental facility in their learning activities. A wide range of electronic resources and virtual learning environments are now available over the Internet for use by learners and educators alike. Recent standardisation work has defined learning/sharable content objects at a more fundamental asset level. Further, a number of metadata standards have been developed to help in content aggregation of objects into courseware. This paper presents a quality assessment methodology developed within the EU Socrates EIE-Surveyor Project for evaluating online e-learning resources. The proposed methodology is applied to resources available in the field of Electrical and Information Engineering and some early results are presented. The proposed quality assessment methodology has two main parts: an electronic catalogue (e-Cat) and an evaluation survey (e-Surv) for users of the linked e-resource. The e-Cat serves the purpose of cataloguing e-resources available in the field of Electrical and Information Engineering over the European Internet area and making them available to learners across Europe and beyond. The e-Surv is an e-Cat resource hyperlinked questionnaire comprising evaluation in four main sections: type of users, quality of contents, technical aspects of the resource, overall user satisfaction. E-Surv is designed to allow continuous assessment of the quality of e-resources available within the e- Cat through user surveys.
The lack of standards supporting interoperability and reusability of learning content is a major concern in educational technology. Several academic and business initiatives have started to promote the use of learning objects technology in providing strong connections between learners, learning content, content developers and training managers. However, interoperability between different tools is difficult to achieve. In this paper we propose a framework which supports generation, integration and reuse of different kinds of learning objects, following the educational standard specifications and providing teachers/designers with a tool for the creation of didactical units in Web-based self-contained courses.
The Essen Learning Model is a generic development model supporting development processes on three levels: development of curricula, learning sequences, and learning units. We focus on finding an adequate combination of didactical methods and educational technologies. Secondly, we focus on interoperability, reusability, and ease of use, using standards on the modeling level (ARIS), architecture level (LTSA, IMS), and implementation level (XML). The approach will enable educators, project managers, and authors to efficiently develop and implement Computer Supported Learning Environments.
We discuss some features of the learning resource collection that supports a set of learning objectives for some course. Two characteristics, compactness and completeness, are suggested as an important component of the collection quality assessment. To measure these characteristics, each resource is represented as a point in the multidimensional metadata space, and distribution of the resources within this space is analyzed. The results of such analysis presented may be used to improve management and maintenance of the collection and thus its quality for the users.
The paper presents a methodology to design and to develop personalizable educational content to be used by learning communities on the Web. As the cost of design and creation of educational materials for web-based courses is normally expensive and time consuming, there is an obvious advantage in exchanging course material between educators involved in the same field. To this end we are claiming that other than the adoption of re-use methodologies, a valuable saving is obtained by realizing content that best fits the actual needs of different students engaged in diverse learning scenarios. A methodology that couples re-use techniques with personalization methods is discussed and a layered modelling process is proposed. A system based on this model is considered, and some of its peculiar implementation aspects are highlighted. In particular, focus is placed on the benefits of using XML technology as a straightforward solution to our modelling requirements.
Digital libraries are fast expanding into the role of independent educational entities that aspire not only to complementing traditional classroom teaching, hut also allow open electronic learning for distance and continued education. Many studies have defined a concept of "learning object" to address the issues and needs. But in attempting to solve the problem, the definitions have emphasized some aspects of the digital library while leaving the other issues to be solved later. In this paper, the authors have proposed a comprehensive learning object (LO) model, along with the associated system model, that will allow complete and flexible integration of content into digital libraries. The process will be user-centric (both for knowledge developers and learners), scalable and interoperable with legacy and existing content databases and display systems. This paper covers how the LO model was integrated into the core of the library's content development, discovery, and delivery process. The results of the experiment in terms of ease-of-use, flow-control, and feasibility of the model are documented.
Iwaki Meisei University, a popular university in Japan, has developed e-Learning oriented Programming Courseware for freshmen using the authoring tool Hiplus, Hitachi Ltd., Japan, at the Department of Electronics and Computer Science. Department freshmen are required to use this Programming Courseware. This courseware consists of two parts: specification of requirement and verification of program validity. Both parts address the need for support by logical thinking in addition to production of software documents by a natural language. Using it, a modern programmer can use a dedicated algorithm which handles a newly developed object once a software requirement has been formally specified Moreover freshmen are able to assess their own learning progress due to graded exercises configured in the Programming Courseware.
With fast development in e-learning, assessment plays an important role between teaching and learning. A good e-learning system has not only good teaching strategy and better learning resources but also a proper assessment model. In this paper, we propose an assessment meta-data and assessment analysis feedback for recent e-learning environments. There is proper feedback for teachers, students, and learning management systems. The feedback could provide proper teaching, learning resource delivery and learning progress suggestions. With this approach, assessment prompts the learning effort in e-learning.
This paper presents state-of-the-art technologies of distance education systems. A survey of current approaches in distance education is given, including a historical perspective of media technologies for learning. The paper also discusses current systems available and potential research directions to enhance these systems. Methodological and sociological issues of distance education are also discussed. A number of distance education tools implemented at Tamkang University, Taiwan are demonstrated.
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