Engaging without over-powering: A case study of a FLOSS project

This is the post-print version of the published chapter. The original publication is available at the link below. Copyright @ 2010 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.The role of Open Source Software (OSS) in the e-learning business has become more and more fundamental in the last 10 years, as long as corporate and government organizations have developed their educational and training programs based on OSS out-of-the-box tools. This paper qualitatively documents the decision of the largest UK e-learning provider, the Open University, to adopt the Moodle e-learning system, and how it has been successfully deployed in its site after a multi-million investment. A further quantitative study also provides evidence of how a commercial stakeholder has been engaged with, and produced outputs for, the Moodle community. Lessons learned from this experience by the stakeholders include the crucial factors of contributing to the OSS community, and adapting to an evolving technology. It also becomes evident how commercial partners helped this OSS system to achieve the transition from an “average” OSS system to a successful multi-site, collaborative and community-based OSS project

Factors that Facilitate or Impede the Effective Implementation of Open Source Software to Support Learning and Teaching in a New Zealand Senior High School

This study’s main focus was on critical success factors in the implementation of open source software to support learning and teaching in a senior high school. Research questions involved the nature of open source software, rationales for its use in the school, its advantages and disadvantages in education, and the pedagogy used in classrooms by teachers in relation to open source software. This study contributes to knowledge about the use of OSS in education

An online learning platform for teaching, learning, and assessment of programming

Abstract: In this paper the use of an open-source online learning platform to aid in teaching and assessment of computer programming in large classes is discussed. The pedagogical philosophy of how the subject of computer programming is taught is presented. Based on the skills and learning processes that are identified for effective teaching of computer programming, a strategy for employing modern web technology coupled with an automated assessment capability to meet these goals is discussed. The paper describes the technology and implementation of the learning platform and new methods for automated assessment of programming assignments and exams. Finally, the application of the system to achieve the pedagogical goals and the benefits of using the system for teaching large classes is reported

Classroom Research and the Digital Learning Media

Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00

An analysis of the software development processes of open source E-learning systems

In recent years there has been a rapid increase in demand for e-learning systems. The software development process plays a crucial role in the design and development of a high-quality e-learning system. However, to date, there is no comprehensive comparative study of open source software (OSS) development process for different OS e-learning systems. This hinders the development of a generalized OSS development process, a key requisite for rapidly developing high-quality OS e-learning systems. This paper provides a full analysis of different existing and successful OS e-learning software systems and the best practices followed in the e-learning development. In particular, this paper investigates the software development activities of Moodle, Dokeos and ILIAS. An activity flow representation that describes their current development practices is constructed individually for all three OS e-learning systems. Further, a comprehensive comparative analysis is carried out that leads to an explicit identification of various development stages of the three OS e-learning systems

Development of Online Course System and an Open Access Online Repository

This Project was divided in to two phases: the first phase comprising of development of an online course system for the institute with the help of moodle. Moodle( modular object oriented dynamic learning environment) is an open source software package for producing internet-based courses and web sites. It's an ongoing development project designed to support a social Constructionist framework of education. Moodle is provided freely as Open Source software (under the GNU Public License). Basically this means Moodle is copyrighted, but that we have additional freedoms of improvising the source code. The 2nd Phase of the project was that of deployment of an open access online repository system using E-prints. EPrints is an open source software package for building open access repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. It shares many of the features commonly seen in Document Management systems, but is primarily used for institutional repositories and scientific journals. EPrints has been developed at the University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science and released under a GPL license

The seamless integration of Web3D technologies with university curricula to engage the changing student cohort

The increasing tendency of many university students to study at least some courses at a distance limits their opportunities for the interactions fundamental to learning. Online learning can assist but relies heavily on text, which is limiting for some students. The popularity of computer games, especially among the younger students, and the emergence of networked games and game-like virtual worlds offers opportunities for enhanced interaction in educational applications. For virtual worlds to be widely adopted in higher education it is desirable to have approaches to design and development that are responsive to needs and limited in their resource requirements. Ideally it should be possible for academics without technical expertise to adapt virtual worlds to support their teaching needs. This project identified Web3D, a technology that is based on the X3D standards and which presents 3D virtual worlds within common web browsers, as an approach worth exploring for educational application. The broad goals of the project were to produce exemplars of Web3D for educational use, together with development tools and associated resources to support non-technical academic adopters, and to promote an Australian community of practice to support broader adoption of Web3D in education. During the first year of the project exemplar applications were developed and tested. The Web3D technology was found to be still in a relatively early stage of development in which the application of standards did not ensure reliable operation in different environments. Moreover, ab initio development of virtual worlds and associated tools proved to be more demanding of resources than anticipated and was judged unlikely in the near future to result in systems that non-technical academics could use with confidence. In the second year the emphasis moved to assisting academics to plan and implement teaching in existing virtual worlds that provided relatively easy to use tools for customizing an environment. A project officer worked with participating academics to support the teaching of significant elements of courses within Second LifeTM. This approach was more successful in producing examples of good practice that could be shared with and emulated by other academics. Trials were also conducted with ExitRealityTM, a new Australian technology that presents virtual worlds in a web browser. Critical factors in the success of the project included providing secure access to networked computers with the necessary capability; negotiating the complexity of working across education, design of virtual worlds, and technical requirements; and supporting participants with professional development in the technology and appropriate pedagogy for the new environments. Major challenges encountered included working with experimental technologies that are evolving rapidly and deploying new networked applications on secure university networks. The project has prepared the way for future expansion in the use of virtual worlds for teaching at USQ and has contributed to the emergence of a national network of tertiary educators interested in the educational applications of virtual worlds