Design and Implementation Strategies for IMS Learning Design

SIKS Dissertation Series No. 2008-27The IMS Learning Design (LD) specification, which has been released in February 2003, is a generic and flexible language for describing the learning practice and underlying learning designs using a formal notation which is computer-interpretable. It is based on a pedagogical meta-model (Koper & Manderveld, 2004) and supports the use of a wide range of pedagogies. It supports adaptation of individual learning routes and orchestrates interactions between users in various learning and support roles. A formalized learning design can be applied repeatedly in similar situations with different persons and contexts. Yet because IMS Learning Design is a fairly complex and elaborate specification, it can be difficult to grasp; furthermore, designing and implementing a runtime environment for the specification is far from straightforward. That IMS Learning Design makes use of other specifications and e-learning services adds further to this complexity for both its users and the software developers. For this new specification to succeed, therefore, a reference runtime implementation was needed. To this end, this thesis addresses two research and development issues. First, it investigates research into and development of a reusable reference runtime environment for IMS Learning Design. The resulting runtime, called CopperCore, provides a reference both for users of the specification and for software developers. The latter can reuse the design principles presented in this thesis for their own implementations, or reuse the CopperCore product through the interfaces provided. Second, this thesis addresses the integration of other specifications and e-learning services during runtime. It presents an architecture and implementation (CopperCore Service Integration) which provides an extensible lightweight solution to the problem. Both developments have been tested through real-world use in projects carried out by the IMS Learning Design community. The results have generally been positive, and have led us to conclude that we successfully addressed both the research and development issues. However, the results also indicate that the LD tooling lacks maturity, particularly in the authoring area. Through close integration of CopperCore with a product called the Personal Competence Manager, we demonstrate that a complementary approach to authoring in IMS Learning Design solves some of these issues

Arquitectura para gestão de actividades em plataformas distribuídas de e-Learning

Doutoramento em Ciências e Tecnologia da ComunicaçãoO desenvolvimento de LMSs bem como dos conteúdos a serem utilizados nos cursos que os mesmos suportam, tem sido feito pelos produtores de software e de conteúdos, sem atender a quaisquer normas, fazendo com que não seja possível a compatibilização dos diferentes sistemas existentes. Preocupações de reuso e interoperabilidade estão na base de diversos projectos de normalização nesta área, levados a cabo por organizações e consórcios internacionais, envolvendo organismos governamentais, empresariais e académicos de todo o mundo. Até ao momento, os principais esforços têm sido canalizados para a questão da construção de unidades de aprendizagem (conteúdos) que possam ser reutilizáveis, estando em curso trabalhos relacionados com a normalização dos LMSs, por forma a que estes possam gerar, utilizar e trocar entre si, conteúdos com as mais diversas amplitudes, indo do simples texto até ao curso completo. Algumas das organizações e consórcios que mais se têm evidenciado neste tipo de trabalho incluem a ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning), o IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc., o AICC (Aviation Industry Computer Based Training Committee), e o IEEE LTSC (Institute of Electriical and Electronic Engineers Learning Technologies Standard Committee), entre outros. O projecto SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) da ADL é talvez aquele que neste momento melhor representa o esforço que tem sido feito no sentido da normalização referida. Contudo, até à data, nenhum dos projectos conhecidos se preocupou com questões de gestão operacional dos cursos, deixando por cobrir aspectos achados importantes para o aumento da probabilidade de sucesso dos processos de ensino/aprendizagem. A presente tese pretende descrever o trabalho de obtenção de um referencial para a camada de gestão on-line dos processos de e-learning suportados por LMSs. Tal camada é proposta de forma a poder integrar-se no todo que constiui uma plataforma de ensino/aprendizagem desenvolvida de acordo com as recomendações SCORM e, para além da proposta de uma camada de metadados de gestão, apresenta a forma como a referida integração poderá ser realizada.The development of the LMSs as well as the development of the contents to be used inside the courses that the LMSs support has been done without any standard guidelines. This fact addresses the problem of the existence of non compatible systems in the e-learning market. So, interoperability and reuse are the concerns of several organizations and consortia involving governmental and corporate members. Till now, the main efforts of those organizations and consortia are focused on the building and delivering of contents that could be reused. Simultaneously there are some works running towards a standardized process of LMSs development, so that it could be possible to create courses and generate, use and interchange contents among them. Those contents could have different levels of granularity, beginning on a simple text and ending in a complete course. Some of the most important organizations and consortia working in the area are ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning), IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc, AICC (Aviation Industry Computer Based Training Committee, IEEE LTSC (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Learning Technologies Standard Committee) and others. The ADL SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) project is perhaps the one that, at this moment, better represents the efforts made in the standardization works referred. However, till today, there isn’t any known project covering the on-line management of activities execution during a course operationalization. We believe that such such management capabilities could allow better results in what concerns the success of the teaching/learning process. This thesis describes the work done towards a proposal of a referential for an on-line management layer to be integrated in the global architecture of a LMS. Doing this work, we had in mind the need of integration of the proposed new layer with the existent SCORM recommendations for the LMSs development. The integration process and the management metadata are also presented and described