OPAL: outcomes for personal
and adaptive learning
Rachel Ellaway1, Patricia Warren2, Catriona Bell3,
Phillip Evans2 and Susan Rhind3
1MVM
Learning Technology Section, 2Medical Teaching Organisation,
3Veterinary Teaching Organisation, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
OPAL
• University e-Learning Fund Project 2004-2005
• Opportunity to create staff and student focused
curriculum maps for medicine and veterinary
medicine
• Instantiated inside their respective VLEs
• Divergent practices following curriculum needs
• Based on learning objectives and outcomes
• But really … why do this?
Using the map
Students
How will I be
assessed about
about X ?
Where will I learn
about about X ?
Where did I learn
about about X ?
How do I learn
about about X ?
How will learning
about X be
relevant to me in
practice ?
How does X link in
with what I will
learn later in the
course ?
Using the map
Teaching Staff
How does X
relate to
other topics?
Do I need to
include X in my
classes, or has it
been covered
already ?
Is X being
assessed?
When are the
students taught
about X ?
What will students
already have learned
about X before coming
to my class/rotation ?
Using the map
Curriculum developers
Does the teaching
and assessment of X
match up?
Where is this
particular
discipline
addressed in the
curriculum?
Is X being taught
and assessed too
much or too little?
How does the teaching
of X match
professional
competencies?
Using the map
Quality Assurance Bodies
What kinds of
physiology
topics are being
taught?
Where is X
provided in the
curriculum ?
How is X
provided in the
curriculum ?
How much
assessment is
there in the
curriculum ?
Where (and how) is
X assessed in the
curriculum ?
Using the map
Prospective Students
What would they
teach me in this
particular course
?
What would I
need to do
throughout the
course ?
How is this
course different
to those at other
schools ?
How would I be
taught and
assessed?
OPAL: process
• Iteratively built system
• Collecting and coding learning objectives:
– Terminal outcomes
– Session instance
– Year and module instance
– Classification - MeSH-based
– Keywords: curriculum, teaching and assessment
methods
– Mapping to Scottish Doctors and Tomorrows Doctors
• Many issues encountered …
Coding and Semantics i
• Learning objective statements in many forms:
– Unitary, compound list, bulleted list, hierarchy, prose
– Needed to be unitary - comprehensible as an independent
statement
– Many needed to be normalised - restructured and revalidated - in
new form
• Dealing with semantic complexity e.g. synonyms: locomotor,
bones and joints, rheumatology etc problematic for syntactic
systems (computers)
• Medical classification using MeSH:
– US system - US language and spelling
– Subjective trees and hierarchies
– Missing terms - redefined terms - EdMeSH
– When to use tree inheritance
– How to handle resulting glossary
Coding and Semantics ii
• Required vocabularies for:
– teaching method (PBL, bedside, self-directed)
– assessment mode (OSCE, portfolio, exam)
– curriculum structures (semester, rotation, attachment)
• Stability of curriculum outcomes (internal for Medics
vs external for Vets)
• Versioning between academic sessions
• Relationship to ever more granular curriculum
representations
• Ownership and maintenance by teaching staff
Relation to parent systems
• All OPAL management, representation and linking are fully
integrated with respective programme’s VLEs
• Anticipated OPAL becoming the VLE’s underlying
semantic and ontological underpinning layers (SOULs)
• Follows an object oriented architecture
• Connects with all basic system objects: people, events,
resources, information etc
• Cross-connects with emerging subsystems - PPD,
logbooks etc
• Cross-mapping opportunities (SDMCG, MEDINE Tuning)
Diverging and converging Practice
• OPAL for medicine and veterinary medicine differs:
– Outcome framework - internal vs external
– Keywording - structured vs unstructured
– Granularity of objectives
– Intra-system connectivity
• And converge:
– Versioning, ownership and unitary statements
– Multiple classifications
– Complexity and extent of process
– Limited ability to carry out - central support staff as
curriculum cartographers
Unresolved Issues
• How to move the process to curriculum mainstream
(with appropriate resourcing)
• How to get curriculum-wide buy-in and commitment
from teaching staff
• How to accommodate the multi-dimensional and
semantically complex nature of the task more
efficiently - without losing functionality
• Resolving tensions between process and product
• Resolving inherent partialities of curriculum
cartographers
• How to represent the OPAL map in many different
ways to different users for different purposes
Where next?
• Complete full curriculum LO maps
• Complete system object mapping
• Complete student and staff rendering and
representation and tools
• Finesse and speed up process
• Hand over LO ownership to teachers
• Link these maps with other maps elsewhere in a
sustainable way …
… points to educational informatics as a discrete
discipline and basis for practice
OPAL: outcomes for personal
and adaptive learning
Rachel Ellaway1, Patricia Warren2, Catriona Bell3,
Phillip Evans2 and Susan Rhind3
1MVM
Learning Technology Section, 2Medical Teaching Organisation,
3Veterinary Teaching Organisation, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK