A strategy for the modularization of courseware

In order to enable courseware reuse, learning platforms nowadays require the materials to be decomposed into small independent learning units. When trying to fulfill this need, authors face the problem of not knowing how to determine suitable learning objects in their content. What is the appropriate size of one such object? The rather general and abstract definitions for learning objects found in the literature are not very helpful for answering this question. What authors need is an operational definition, which can be directly applied to the learning materials. This paper proposes such a set of formal yet practical definitions by describing learning objects along their contents and resource type and shows how these definitions are used by our platform, SCORE

Modulare Aufbereitung von multimedialen Lerninhalten für eine heterogene Lernumgebung

Der Einsatz multimedialer Lerninhalte ist durch die vielfältig vorhandenen und sich ständig verbessernden technischen Möglichkeiten ein aktuell weit verbreitetes Thema. Ihre Erstellung gestaltet sich allerdings äußerst aufwendig. Daher beschäftigen wir uns mit der kooperativen Entwicklung von multimedialen Lehr-/Lerninhalten, die von verscheidenen Autoren in unterschiedlichen Kontexten für verschiedene Zielgruppen eingesetzt werden können. Unser Ansatz basiert auf dem Modularisierungskonzept zur Unterstützung der Wiederverwendbarkeit von Lernmaterialien. Um solche "universellen" Lernmodule zu entwickeln, die sowohl die Bedürfnisse verschiedener Zielgruppen als auch verschiedener Autoren erfüllen, werden mehrere Modularisierungsebenen eingeführt und die Erzeugung verschiedener Modulsichten ermöglicht

Lockemann: Modular Development of Multimedia Courseware. WISE 2000, the first international conference on web information systems engineering Volume 2

The use of multimedia in courseware and web-based learning is a current topic. This is influenced by the wide availability and the permanently improving technical possibilities. The employment of multimedia technology in education makes it possible to illustrate and to grasp complex processes and coherences. However, the development of multimedia content is still a very costly and tedious task. In order to reduce the costs and efforts needed to build multimedia contents, it is desirable to organize the content in a modular way so that it can be (re)used and created cooperatively. In this paper, we present a development process for multimedia contents that supports a modular cooperative design of multimedia courseware. We argue that applying modularity to courseware design not only reduces the costs but also allows the development of a high-quality reusable and configurable courseware. Configurable courseware can be adapted to meet the needs and characteristics of different lecturers, students and contexts