Designing and Implementing a Learning Object Repository: Issues of Complexity, Granularity, and User Sense-Making

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : DSpace User Group PresentationsDate: 2009-05-20 03:30 PM – 05:00 PMThe Texas Center for Digital Knowledge at the University of North Texas is designing and implementing a DSpace/Manakin learning object repository (LOR) for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to store and provide access to redesigned undergraduate courses being created through the Board's Texas Course Redesign Project (TCRP). The content for the THECB LOR differs in significant ways from content stored in other well-known and evolving LORs, since the content is in the form of complete or partial courses. While this content can be represented as a single learning object (i.e., a complete course as one learning object), the THECB LOR is making the complete courses available as learning objects and it is providing access to components of the courses' content as discrete learning objects for reuse and repurposing. A number of challenges and issues have emerged in the design, development, and implementation the LOR, and this paper focuses on three key aspects and the solutions we are pursuing: 1) complexity of the course content and granularity; 2) submission of complex objects and metadata; and 3) user interface design to assist users in making sense of this repository and its contents.Texas Higher Education Coordinating Boar

Repurposing learning objects: a sustainable alternative?

Recent experience shows that reusable learning objects, like the computer assisted learning programmes of the early 1990s, have so far failed to achieve expected levels of integration into educational practice. This is despite technical interoperability, cataloguing systems, high quality standards, targeted dissemination and professional development initiatives. Analysis of this problem suggests that conceptualization of the problem may be limiting the scope of solutions. This paper proposes a sustainable and participative approach to reuse that involves repurposing learning objects for different discipline areas. For some time now there has been a growing awareness that even the most accessible resources have failed to be widely adopted by the educational community and as a result have also failed to fulfil their considerable educational potential. (Campbell, 2003, p. 35

Deep Multimodal Image-Repurposing Detection

Nefarious actors on social media and other platforms often spread rumors and falsehoods through images whose metadata (e.g., captions) have been modified to provide visual substantiation of the rumor/falsehood. This type of modification is referred to as image repurposing, in which often an unmanipulated image is published along with incorrect or manipulated metadata to serve the actor's ulterior motives. We present the Multimodal Entity Image Repurposing (MEIR) dataset, a substantially challenging dataset over that which has been previously available to support research into image repurposing detection. The new dataset includes location, person, and organization manipulations on real-world data sourced from Flickr. We also present a novel, end-to-end, deep multimodal learning model for assessing the integrity of an image by combining information extracted from the image with related information from a knowledge base. The proposed method is compared against state-of-the-art techniques on existing datasets as well as MEIR, where it outperforms existing methods across the board, with AUC improvement up to 0.23.Comment: To be published at ACM Multimeda 2018 (orals

Embedding blended learning in a university’s teaching culture: experiences and reflections

Blended learning, the combination of traditional face-to-face teaching methods with authentic on-line learning activities, has the potential to transform student learning experiences and outcomes. In spite of this advantage, university teachers often find it difficult to adopt new on-line techniques, in part because institutional practices are still geared to support more traditional approaches. This paper describes how a project, funded to support international collaboration to enhance learning and teaching in Geography, has allowed a university to explore models for change. It briefly examines the associated issues of sharing and repurposing resources; it reflects on the impact of the project on local strategy, and the importance of sustaining the collaborations and approaches to learning and teaching after the funding is completed

Panning for gold: designing pedagogically-inspired learning nuggets

Tools to support teachers and learning technologists in the creation of effective learning designs are currently in their infancy. This paper describes a metadata model, devised to assist in the conception and design of new learning activities, that has been developed, used and evaluated over a period of three years. The online tool that embodies this model was not originally intended to produce runtime executable code such as IMS-LD, but rather focussed on assisting teachers in the thought processes involved in selecting appropriate methods, tools, student activities and assessments to suit the required learning objectives. Subsequently, we have modified the RELOAD editor such that the output from our tool can be translated into IMS-LD. The contribution of this paper is the comparison of our data model with that of IMS-LD, and the analysis of how each can inform the other

HEA/JISC Open Educational Resources case study: pedagogical development from OER practice: research ethics OER: can they be 'radically repurposed and remixed'?

This case study provides guidance on discovering, reusing and repurposing of Open Educational Resources (OER). It is presented within the context of research ethics OER for higher education learning and teaching and, together with the OER guidance, provides examples of OER found for this subject area

Supporting sustainable e‐learning

This paper draws upon work carried out within phase one of a national forum for support staff, funded by the UK Learning and Teaching Support Network Generic Centre. It sets out themes in current Learning Technology research within the context of institutional practice. It reports the responses of a range of e‐learning support staff to new developments in the reuse and sharing of Learning Objects. The article highlights tensions across support units, inconsistencies in support provision and confusion over issues concerning different modes of teaching. It also forewarns a growing gap between institutional practice and research in the development of approaches to sustainable e‐learning