Authoring courses with rich adaptive sequencing for IMS learning design

This paper describes the process of translating an adaptive sequencing strategy designed using Sequencing Graphs to the semantics of IMS Learning Design. The relevance of this contribution is twofold. First, it combines the expressive power and flexibility of Sequencing Graphs, and the interoperability capabilities of IMS. Second, it shows some important limitations of IMS specifications (focusing on Learning Design) for the sequencing of learning activities

The added value of implementing the Planet Game scenario with Collage and Gridcole

This paper discusses the suitability and the added value of Collage and Gridcole when contrasted with other solutions participating in the ICALT 2006 workshop titled “Comparing educational modelling languages on a case study.” In this workshop each proposed solution was challenged to implement a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning situation (CSCL) posed by the workshop’s organizers. Collage is a pattern-based authoring tool for the creation of CSCL scripts compliant with IMS Learning Design (IMS LD). These IMS LD scripts can be enacted by the Gridcole tailorable CSCL system. The analysis presented in the paper is organized as a case study which considers the data recorded in the workshop discussion as well the information reported in the workshop contributions. The results of this analysis show how Collage and Gridcole succeed in implementing the scenario and also point out some significant advantages in terms of design reusability and generality, user-friendliness, and enactment flexibility

Design Support for non-expert authors in the creation of units of learning - a first exploration

[unpublished]Diverse approaches have been proposed to model educational resources using design rules into IMS Learning Design units of learning. Although varied, these approaches have found limited practical application by teachers, in today’s e-learning. The tools remains tied to the specification with little to no design support for non-experts in the specification. As a result, today’s IMS LD tools cater to LD experts and serve as reference implementations of the specification rather than supporting the non-experts’ engagement in the design process. Consequently, non-experts in the specification cannot undertake the creation of units of learning and remain outside the fold of the IMS LD community. This paper presents features and characteristics of an IMS LD authoring environment to actualize the active participation of non-expert authors in the design of instruction using IMS LD, by addressing the paucity of support afforded to this group with the application of learning design rules to capture the their knowledge. The paper presents an alternate classification of the approaches used in IMS LD authoring tools to support the engagement of non-experts, and based on the salient features of the approaches proposed, the paper reviews the state-of-the-art in IMS LD tools, exemplifying the paucity of IMS LD tools for non-expert authors.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

Using the Personal Competence Manager as a complementary approach to IMS Learning Design authoring

Vogten, H., Koper, R., Martens, H., & Van Bruggen, J. (2008). Using the Personal Competence Manager as a complementary approach to IMS Learning Design authoring. Interactive Learning Environments, 16(1), 83-100.In this article TENCompetence will be presented as a framework for lifelong competence development. More specifically, the relationship between the TENCompetence framework and the IMS Learning Design (LD) specification is explored. LD authoring has proven to be challenging and the toolset currently available is targeting expert users mostly working for institutions of higher educations. Furthermore these tools re-enforce a fairly rigid top-down workflow approach towards design and delivery. This approach it is not always the most suitable model in all circumstances for all practitioners. TENCompetence provides an alternative bottom-up approach to LD authoring via its first implementation: the Personal Competence Manager (PCM). Constructs such as competence profiles and competence development programmes, let users define, modify, and acquire competences they need for achieving their personal goals. We will show how the PCM provides support for these constructs and stimulates the bottom-up development of learning materials. We will also show how these concepts can be mapped towards LD. This allows the ad hoc designs of the PCM to be captured in a Unit of Learning (UOL). These UOLs can be enhanced and eventually fed back into the PCM, therewith closing the edit cycle. This editing cycle allows for a gradual integration of bottom-up ad hoc designs with more formal top-down designs introducing LD in a gentle fashion.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

The UNFOLD Project. Understanding and using Learning Design

A booklet with 131 pages about the UNFOLD Project and IMS Learning DesignThe UNFOLD project was born in January 2004, to support the adoption of open eLearning standards catering for multiple learners and flexible pedagogies, our focus being IMS Learning Design (IMS LD). We have provided access to resources through the site http://www.unfold-project.net, where you can find news, documents, information about events, links, ... while http://moodle.learningnetworks.org is the site for Learning Network for Learning Design-LN4LD (OUNL, 2004) housing more structured materials with (learning) activities and forums.UNFOLD Project. www.unfold-project.ne

CourseEditor: A course planning tool compatible with IMS-LD

For the successful adoption of Computer Based Learning (CBL), it is necessary to provide teachers with user-friendly authoring tools that guide them in the process of planning a course. It is important that the documents generated by these tools are compliant with CBL standards to ensure that the instructional designs made by the teachers remain valid regardless of the Learning Management System (LMS) used to deliver the course. IMS-Learning Design (IMS-LD) is one of the most accepted specifications by the educational community for modeling of learning processes. There are some authoring-tools that allow export learning designs in IMS-LD but they are not course-planning oriented. In addition, a big challenge is how to improve the user interfaces of these tools in order to be easier to use for regular teachers. This paper presents CourseEditor, a course planning authoring tool that allows a teacher to describe the complete planning of a course (objectives, contents, methodology, and evaluation) and export the results in an IMS-LD compatible format. The paper provides a novel modeling of course planning that takes into account ideas from different instructional theories. CourseEditor combines power and flexibility, with the simplicity of an interface that can be used by teachers with no technical background. The paper illustrates the use of the tool creating a course on Telematic Services in the context of a Telecommunications Engineering degree. In addition, the relationships of course planning and IMS-LD are presented, showing which information of course planning can be represented in IMS-LD and which not. (c) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 421-431, 2013This research has been partially funded by the following projects: project "Learn3: Towards Learning of the Third Kind" funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under grant No. TIN2008-05163/TSI and project E_MADRID: "Investigación y Desarrollo de Tecnologías para el e-Learning en la Comunidad de Madrid" funded by the Madrid Regional Government under grant No. S2009/TIC-1650.Publicad

Online and Collaborative Learning Design model based on IMS-LD to Stimulate Collaborative Learning in E-learning Environments

In the e-learning field, there is an urgent need for the sharing, reuse and design of online courses as learning objects. However, in the vast majority of cases, e-learning courses are built in a manner that not stimulating cooperation, interaction, and collaborative learning. The primary aim of this paper is to develop a strategy for constructing learning objects, strategy targeted at supporting instructors in designing educational contents in order to promote collaborative learning in e-learning environments. A key challenge in this work is the definition of a new method of learning design of e-learning contents to stimulate collaborative learning. In addition, we introduce a general model of online and collaborative learning design. Model is based on the methods of instructional design and Educational Modeling Languages, particularly the IMS-LD specification. Firstly, the paper presents the online and collaborative design process of a content based on a life cycle adapted. Then, the paper describes the steps of the modeling process of content. Finally, the paper exposes the adopted technical choices and a first prototype is set up to provide a subjective evaluation of the new framework