Setting up a Learning Design system in your
institution: OUNL experiences
Colin Tattersall, The Open University of the Netherlands
© 2004
Ways of making use of LD in your org.
- Could just use LD to represent courses, gaining
benefit from standardised language, design-time
re-use, ….;
- Additional benefits come with the use of an LDaware player;
© 2004
OUNL and Learning Design
- History: EML to LD
- Specification development matched with player
development;
- Today:
- In production with 9 courses since September
2003 using Edubox 3 (> 2000 students/staff)
- Courses modelled using EML 1.1; Edubox 3
plays EML 1.1 ….
© 2004
EML and Learning Design
EML
Two versions of
EML: 1.0 & 1.1
IMS Learning Design
© 2004
Assessments,
interactions,
content, …
Architectural context (1)
IMS LD specifies this and has implications here
First: administrative processes put
particular individuals into roles,
instantiating the abstract UoL
Designers create
Units of Learning
containing IMS LD,
XHTML content,
IMS QTI, ….
Then: learners (and staff) use an
LD player in (a part of) their learning
process
Unit of
Learning
Design time
Run time
Various aspects to be arranged for here which are not part of the spec
© 2004
Architectural context (2)
Learner & Staff
Administration
Unit of
Learning
Repository
Portal
Learner &
staff details
Authoring
Unit of
Learning
Design time
Run tool
Run time
© 2004
Run
LD Player
Learning
services
Architectural context (3)
Learner & Staff
Administration
Unit of
Learning
Repository
Portal
Learner &
staff details
Authoring
Unit of
Learning
Design time
Run tool
Run time
© 2004
Run
LD Player
Learning
services
© 2004
© 2004
© 2004
New authoring tools needed
- Need to move up from the tag level
- There is progress – RELOAD, elive LD suite, …
© 2004
But: authoring is not just a tool question
- OUNL has had to examine various questions:
- Who determines the pedagogical model(s)?
- Who supplies the content?
- How to approach re-use?
- What to do about version management?
- Which meta-data is used?
- How is it going to be tested?
© 2004
Pedagogical flexibility
- LD offers learning designers complete freedom in
creating a method to help learners achieve
learning objectives;
- Can lead to proliferation of approaches and wheel
reinvention, hampering re-use and sharing of
experiences;
- In some situations it may be advisable to work
with “template” UoLs which fix certain aspects of
the learning design and have the open slots be
filled;
- Eg Problem-based learning template;
© 2004
Architectural context (4)
Learner & Staff
Administration
Unit of
Learning
Repository
Portal
Learner &
staff details
Authoring
Unit of
Learning
Design time
Run tool
Run time
© 2004
Run
LD Player
Learning
services
Runs, Learners, Roles and Groups (1)
- a course is run once only (then discontinued), with
a single set of learners.
- a course is run for several sets of learners
- Eg Class size restrictions
- a course is run for (possibly several sets of)
learners and the learners are divided into groups
- Eg Group-based learning
- a course is run only when, but as soon as, there
are enough learners enrolled on it.
© 2004
Runs, Learners, Roles and Groups (2)
- Role Constraints specified at design time
- min-persons
- Specifies the minimum number of persons bound to the
role before starting the run.
- max-persons
- Specifies the maximum
- Example: cohort of 200 learners, minimum of ten
and maximum of twenty individuals in the role of
learner.
- ten runs
© 2004
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OUNL situation
- Each course has several runs per academic year
- To arrange ratio of student to staff
- Courses now being offered for second year
- New runs created for the new cohorts
© 2004
Architectural context (4)
Learner & Staff
Administration
Unit of
Learning
Repository
Portal
Learner &
staff details
Authoring
Unit of
Learning
Design time
Run tool
Run time
© 2004
Run
LD Player
Learning
services
Players
- Edubox 3 (EML 1.1)
- New generation of players likely to emerge based
around CopperCore
- JISC “Service Based Learning Design Engine”
projects
© 2004
Closing remarks
- Still quite a leap involved for organisations
considering LD
- UNFOLD aims to help narrow the gap
- Still early days in terms of tools support
- Implications for amount of work involved
- But not just about tools – processes needed
© 2004