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

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

Designing for change: mash-up personal learning environments

Institutions for formal education and most work places are equipped today with at least some kind of tools that bring together people and content artefacts in learning activities to support them in constructing and processing information and knowledge. For almost half a century, science and practice have been discussing models on how to bring personalisation through digital means to these environments. Learning environments and their construction as well as maintenance makes up the most crucial part of the learning process and the desired learning outcomes and theories should take this into account. Instruction itself as the predominant paradigm has to step down. The learning environment is an (if not 'the�) important outcome of a learning process, not just a stage to perform a 'learning play'. For these good reasons, we therefore consider instructional design theories to be flawed. In this article we first clarify key concepts and assumptions for personalised learning environments. Afterwards, we summarise our critique on the contemporary models for personalised adaptive learning. Subsequently, we propose our alternative, i.e. the concept of a mash-up personal learning environment that provides adaptation mechanisms for learning environment construction and maintenance. The web application mash-up solution allows learners to reuse existing (web-based) tools plus services. Our alternative, LISL is a design language model for creating, managing, maintaining, and learning about learning environment design; it is complemented by a proof of concept, the MUPPLE platform. We demonstrate this approach with a prototypical implementation and a – we think – comprehensible example. Finally, we round up the article with a discussion on possible extensions of this new model and open problems

A Competence-Based Course Authoring Concept for Learning Platforms with Legacy Assignment Tools

This paper is concerned with several of the most important aspects of Competence-Based Learning (CBL): course authoring, assignments, and categorization of learning content. The latter is part of the so-called Bologna Process (BP) and can effectively be supported by integrating knowledge resources like, e.g., standardized skill and competence taxonomies into the target implementation approach, aiming at making effective use of an open integration architecture while fostering the interoperability of hybrid knowledge-based e-learning solutions. Modern scenarios ask for interoperable software solutions to seamlessly integrate existing e-learning infrastructures and legacy tools with innovative technologies while being cognitively efficient to handle. In this way, prospective users are enabled to use them without learning overheads. At the same time, methods of Learning Design (LD) in combination with CBL are getting more and more important for production and maintenance of easy to facilitate solutions. We present our approach of developing a competence-based course-authoring and assignment support software. It is bridging the gaps between contemporary Learning Management Systems (LMS) and established legacy learning infrastructures by embedding existing resources via Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). Furthermore, the underlying conceptual architecture for this integration approach will be explained. In addition, a competence management structure based on knowledge technologies supporting standardized skill and competence taxonomies will be introduced. The overall goal is to develop a software solution which will not only flawlessly merge into a legacy platform and several other learning environments, but also remain intuitively usable. As a proof of concept, the so-called platform independent conceptual architecture model will be validated by a concrete use case scenario

Stimulating Personal Development and Knowledge Sharing

Koper, R., Stefanov, K., & Dicheva, D. (Eds.) (2009). Proceedings of the 5th International TENCompetence Open Workshop "Stimulating Personal Development and Knowledge Sharing". October, 30-31, 2008, Sofia, Bulgaria: TENCompetence Workshop.The fifth open workshop of the TENCompetence project took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 30th to 31st October 2008. These proceedings contain the papers that were accepted for publication by the Program Committee.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

Towards a practitioner-centered approach to the design of e-learning competence editors

Girardin, F., Ayman, M., & Josep, B. (2007). Towards a practitioner-centered approach to the design of e-learning competence editors. In T. Navarrete, J. Blat & R. Koper (Eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd TENComptence Open workshop 'Current Research on IMS Learning Design and Lifelong Competence Development Infrastucture' (pp. 99-104). June, 20-21, 2007, Barcelona, Spain: TENCompetence.This article reports on the background research on requirements and current approaches to editors for learning curriculum designers. First we take a critique look at the state of the art in the domain of learning activity editors. We then look back in the information visualization and interaction literature to discuss the design challenged of such tools. From these current theories and applied works we define a set a rules that are crucial for the design of CDP editors based developed on top of complex e-learning models. Finally, we exemplify the set of design rules with a prototype integrating tightly coupled map-based and Gantt chart views.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

Current Research on IMS Learning Design and Lifelong Competence Development Infrastructures

These proceedings consist of the papers presented at the Third TENCompetence Open Workshop which were accepted after peer reviewing. The workshop theme was Current Research on IMS Learning Design and Lifelong Competence Development Infrastructures. The workshop took place at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain, on the 21st and 22nd of June 2007

Experiences with GRAIL::Learning Design support in .LRN

The IMS-LD specification allow the transcription of almost any pedagogical model in a "Unit of Learning" (UoL), which is a package where contents and methodology are combined together in order to be deployed in a compliant software. Making use of GRAIL as the supporting tool inside the .LRN Learning Management System, this paper presents two real experiences of use where IMS-LD has been used to deploy pedagogical models with different levels of complexity

From collaborative virtual research environment SOA to teaching and learning environment SOA

This paper explores the extension of the CORE VRE SOA to a collaborative virtual teaching and learning environment (CVTLE) SOA. Key points are brought up to date from a number of projects researching and developing a CVTLE and its component services. Issues remain: there are few implementations of the key services needed to demonstrate the CVTLE concept; there are questions about the feasibility of such an enterprise; there are overlapping standards; questions about the source and use of user profile data remain difficult to answer; as does the issue of where and how to coordinate, control, and monitor such a teaching and learning syste