Simply Creating Accessible Learning Object Angelo Di Iorio, Antonio Angelo Feliziani, Silvia Mirri, Paola Salomoni, Fabio Vitali Department of Computer Science, Università di Bologna, Via Mura Anteo Zamboni 7, 40126 Bologna BO, Italy
{diiorio, afelizia, mirri, salomoni, vitali}@cs.unibo.it
Abstract. Wide access has long been considered as one of the major benefits of e-learning, but it’s progressively proving to be the unfulfilled promise of such a technology. Actually, e-learning materials are usually realized to be used with a specific technology or configuration making them less available to people who have limited access capabilities or are using non standard equipment. The main reason for this effect is the assumption that creating accessible and universal Learning Objects (LO) is a daunting and time-consuming task. Reducing the distance between students needs (while reading) and authors efforts (while writing) is one of the key issues of e-learning authoring applications. In this paper we describe LO creation and management process, designed to guarantee content accessibility and universality. To solve that strange oxymoron hidden in the title, it contemporarily offers to teachers a simple and friendly authoring interface.
1 Introduction The technical prowess required to read the Web is very low: mostly everyone can read the Web, regardless of location, age, education, and (when accessibility guidelines are considered) disability. There are two main reasons which encourage taking advantage of technology in whatever possible way to widen access to education: 1. Accessibility (inclusive e-learning): learners with disabilities can benefit a great deal from e-learning, not just because it allows distance and flexible learning activities, but also because it helps impaired students to access resources which would otherwise present significant barriers to them [9]. In particular, learners with reading difficulties (i.e. people with visual impairments) can take a great advantage from the integration of digital materials into teaching practice. Across the world, laws are in place or under definition to ensure that interactive/on-line services, and sometimes specifically e-learning, are made accessible to citizen with disabilities [12], [8]. 2. Universality (browser and device-independence): students can need or simply decide to use a specific access technology. This ranges from students using open source software on standard hardware platforms to people using mobile devices with non standard capabilities, or learners who want to access educational contents by using Interactive TV (t-learning).
In order to meet these requirements two main strategies combined together are usually exploited: • use of technologies, compliant to world wide standards, to enhance interoperability and portability [16], [14]. • Use of alternative versions of a certain content, designed to accommodate different users, i.e. students who access by using limited input devices and/or students with sensorial impairments [14], [15], [6]. Thus, the WWW is straightforwardly suitable for being a knowledge publishing platform, where any user can easily access any content. However, the ease of reading does not extend to authoring Web pages. Too many tools, languages, protocols, expectations and requirements have to be considered together for the creation of Web pages and sites. Yet, expert authors can routinely create and publish graphically advanced Web pages providing a lot of visually and intellectually compelling contents but inexpert authors have not the same possibilities and facilities. In this paper we present a methodology for creation and management of accessible and universal learning objects (LO). The process involves different tools, from wide widespread text editors that are used by authors to easily produce contents, to an ad hoc application, called ISA-BeL, designed and implemented to support automatic production of standard compliant Web materials. The process has been widely used to publish in about 40 learning modules currently in use or under revision. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 generally introduces the creation and management process in e-learning contexts, while section 3 presents an overview of functionalities and architecture of our authoring-to-provision process. Finally, Section 4 concludes the paper and briefly introduces future works.
2 Knowledge Creation and Provision in E-Learning Most of the recent efforts in the field of knowledge management address e-learning, distance learning based on the use of personal computers. Systems providing elearning services can be divided in two main categories: LMSs (Learning Management Systems) which are platforms that actually provide content to the users and LCMSs (Learning Content Management System), the authoring environments used to create learning objects. Two chief workflows, indeed, can be identified in the complex process of an e-learning infrastructure: • Content Management: the main actors are authors in charge of preparing contents by exploiting a LCMS, which supports them during the whole process of content creation and management. • Learning Experience: the main actors are learners which access a LMS to acquire knowledge. Thus, the main features of a LCMS are related to the content management, from the production to the storage including reusability and distribution of content. On the other hand a LMS manages the administrative functions (i.e. curriculum management), the distribution of contents to learners including the tracking of learners experiences and assessments.
We propose a different approach for creating content: rather than using tools provided by the learning platforms, content could be made by using existing tools such as word processors, editors and so on; the system should be in charge of transforming this content into a learning object readable through an LMS. The benefits of such approach are clear: a user does not need to learn to use a new editor, even if really simple and usable. Furthermore the integration of existing material into a LMS is simplified: rather than being re-created from scratch or manually converted, in fact, existing content can be integrated with little effort. At this point, a relevant role is played by the e-learning Standards such as AICC [4], LOM [5], IMS [7] and SCORM [2]. These standards propose rules for content, authoring software and Learning Management Systems - rules that specify how courses can be created and delivered over multiple platforms so that they all work seamlessly together. The main goal of these standards is the interoperability among different systems: regardless the LCMS used to prepare contents, if they are built according to the specifications, they can be delivered by any other LMS. For this reason, one of the most interesting fields in the e-learning research can be the simplification and automation of the learning objects production: our goal is just the provision of an environment where any author can use his/her preferred tool to edit learning objects, so that they’re able to transfer their knowledge without any particular effort.
3. Content Creation and Provision process through ISA-BeL From knowledge creation to e-learning provision we can now define a three step workflow: 1. Authoring (Content creation), done by teachers by using a word processor (or alternatively a different personal productivity tool, such as a presentation application). Output of this phase is a set of documents in common formats like rtf, doc, ppt, etc. containing accessible learning materials. 2. Producing (Content transformation), i.e. the process of creating a LO from a set of documents created at phase 1. Output of this phase is a LO that have to maintain accessibility features embedded in original documents. 3. Provision (Content distribution), the real e-learning service, provided by a LMS that guests the LO produced at phase 2. The LMS has to guarantee accessibility of content and service provisioning. The key issue of this process is phase 2 and in the reminder of this paper we will show a complete workflow including a novel tool, called ISA-BeL, which supports an automatic production of LOs compliant to the above mentioned features. As above mentioned in our approach authors write learning objects by simply using MS Word and other word processors, according to a set of given guidelines. These guidelines stress on the correct usage of styles in order to assign a role to any fragment in the document. This mark-up is used by the conversion engine, primarily, to express the content in XML and then to transform it into (X)HTML.
The output of ISA-BeL is not a simple set of common HTML pages, but a group of different alternative contents, which are used to enhance portability and accessibility, such as: 1. Learning Objects (LO, compliant to SCORM 1.2 or 1.3): this version can be uploaded on a SCORM compliant LMS and provided to students throughout the Web. 2. Web-based materials, to be distributed on-line on the Web or on an optical storage device (CD or DVD) or to be delivered through the Internet. 3. Printed materials in PDF format, obtained from original contents by using XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO). Authoring and provisioning are depicted in Figure 1 that also shows the content production exploited by ISA-BeL, described in the following Section 3.2.
.doc
Word Processor
.htm
ISA
.xml
LOB
LO
LMS LMS
Web Contents
HTTP HTTP server server
ISA-LOB PDF
AUTHORING
PRODUCTION
PROVISION
Fig. 1 Authoring-management-provision of accessible e-learning through ISA-BeL. Author works with a common personal productivity tool and a set of automatic conversion transforms well formed documents in different readable formats.
3.1 Content Creation An ISA-BeL author writes his/her contents by using a word processor, assisted by three different elements designed specifically to support the user in producing accessible LO: • An authoring toolbar that offers a fast access to him/her main activities such as defining presentational aspects and defining structural elements, inserting accessibility related information and so on. A capture of the ISA-BeL toolbar is depicted in the following Figure 2. • A verification toolbar that runs automatic controls on the respect of accessibility and universality constrains. For example some exploited controls are: have any image an alternative description? Has any table a summary? Are titles used in the correct hierarchical structure? Other manual controls are made by the postproduction equipe (about foreign language words, acronyms and abbreviations,
and so on); if the LO does not respect these constrains then authors have to correct and control contents again, before starting the production phase. • A set of forms to collect SCORM Metadata. As expected, a key role is played by the SCORM metadata: while some of them can be derived by the system (last-saved date, file size, language, version number and so on), other information have necessarily to be provided by the authors. The interface for this step has been designed according to the above mentioned approach: giving users the possibility of completing their tasks without having to learn new technologies and tools.
Fig. 2 The ISA-BeL authoring toolbar (in MS Word) containing: buttons for presentational aspects (i.e. Bold –G– and italic –C-), buttons for structural elements (like p, h1, h2 and so on) and accessibility features (like images with alternative description and long description or table with summary).
A form directly integrated into Microsoft Word allows users to add the required metadata. The SCORM metadata have been classified into different groups, based on the author competency and the importance of each single data. We have identified three main roles in the process of content authoring: the lesson author (writing single units of content), the module author (collecting single units into a compound) and the editor (assembling the final LO). For each of these roles we have selected the relevant metadata and we have created specific interfaces. Moreover we have put the most important fields onto the main form and the other relevant fields in an advanced form, to simplify the author’s work. An example of the SCORM interfaces in ISA-BeL is shown in the following Figure 3. 3.2 Content Production The production process is performed by an ad hoc application, ISA-BeL that is composed of two modules: • ISA (Immediate Site Activator): a conversion tool that actually transforms document from the word processor format into an intermediary XML representation, enriched by all the necessary metadata. An introduction about ISA architecture and functionalities can be found in [13]. • BeL (Backed e-Learning): a stand-alone application that gathers all information stored in the intermediary XMLs, merges the content into a single .ZIP file and creates the SCORM structures, in particular the tracking scripts and the manifest file [1], by processing the output of ISA. BeL also integrates in the LO a (multimedia) recorded accessible video lecture, that is automatically transcoded in a
media) recorded accessible video lecture, that is automatically transcoded in a different line of the LO production. More information about this transcoding process can be found in [10].
Fig. 3. The form for Meta-Data gathering embedded in Microsoft Word. Mandatory and Optional fields are exploited.
The production process is based on a set of templates and configuration files that are used to define structural aspects as well as layout and graphical aspects of the automatically produced LO. In particular, as requested by Italian law on Web accessibility: (i) all templates completely separate presentation from content and structure, producing XHTML Strict 1.0 and CSS 2.0 code, (ii) layout and font dimensions are relative, and (iii) foreground and background colors are compliant to W3C requirements. 3.3 Content Provision The system has been used for an e-learning project, called A3, Accessible Learning Environment [11], in Italian Ambiente Accessibile d’Apprendimento (University of Bologna 2005), which provides contents and services to support Information Technology skills. A3 offers different educational modules in blended e-learning. Educational contents are provided through an Open Source LMS, ATutor [3]. Contents produced by the automatic process are loaded on the e-learning platform through
standard (for SCORM compliant contents) import procedures. Accessibility of the LMS guarantees that produced contents maintain accessibility features and ensure accessibility and portability of services (chat, forum, news). Figure 4 shows a page created with MS Word and the same content how it appears uploaded on ATutor.
4. Conclusions and future works The need of simplicity in knowledge creation and sharing has been a basic concern in the international e-learning community. This paper presents a content creation and management process that allows authors to easily produce accessible and portable LO by using personal productivity tools (i.e. a word processor).
Fig. 4 Content created with MSWord and rendered by e-learning platform that finally provides materials organized as a LO. Authors write two different descriptions for the image that are converted in appropriate (X)HTML attributes of element
(alt and longdesc respectively).
Accessibility of e-learning materials produced by the above mentioned tools has been widely tested by involving a group of people with disability in verifying on-line contents and services. Universality of materials has been tested by using different browser running on different platforms (specifically MS Internet Explorer 5.0 and later, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 and later, Netscape Communicator 7.0 and later, Lynx 2.8.4 rel. 1, IBM Home Page Reader 3.0, Apple Safari 1.0). Finally, LO produced by our process were compliant to all the constraints considered by the Italian Law on Web Accessibility, meeting also WCAG 1.0 AA level and Section 508 requirements. Also accessibility of the process has been verified by involving in authoring and reviewing blind people (using the screen reader JAWS, versions 5.10 and later). This complex goal was reached through simplifying the authors’ work by letting them to use their preferred tools to produce e-learning material. Main future work is devoted to extend the number of personal productivity tools that can be used by authors and, in particular, we are now testing the LO production process with OpenOffice.
Acknowledgments This work was partially funded by MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research) and was supported by CRIAD (www.criad.unibo.it). Authors want to thank Lorenzo Donatiello, Simone Martini, Marco Roccetti, Nelda Parisini and all the colleagues that supported this work with their precious suggestions. Finally authors want to thank ASPHI Onlus Foundation (www.asphi.it) that supported tests with users.
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