learning management systems, authoring, and assessment tools, may diverge as ... formatively evaluated, leading to the pedagogical and technical approach ...
SDPS-2012 Printed in the United States of America, June, 2012 2012 Society for Design and Process Science
TOWARDS A CULTURE OF EDUCATIONAL KNOWLEDGE SHARING: CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE PROJECT CAMPUSCONTENT/EDUSHARING Bernd J. Krämer Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science FernUniversität in Hagen 58084 Hagen, Germany
technical solutions of edu-sharing address the everyday practice of teaching and learning and focus on the practical application of learning objects, including tools, repositories and platforms as well as methodologies and habits of educators. To achieve this objective, the research project CampusContent followed a user-centered approach in an iterative design process that has been formatively evaluated, leading to the pedagogical and technical approach presented in this paper.
ABSTRACT For technology-enhanced learning, the idea of learning objects transfers technologies of content management, methods of software engineering and principles of open access to educational resources. In this paper, we summarize key results of the research project Campus Content. This project was funded by the German Science Foundation as a so-called competence center for e-learning over a period of nearly 5 years. The project designed and developed an integrated portal to a network of knowledge repositories, named edu-sharing. Each repository in this network may be operated by a different institution and the end-user systems at each site, including learning management systems, authoring, and assessment tools, may diverge as well. Thus, edu-sharing facilitates sharing, joint development, reuse and adaptation of learning materials and mature pedagogical knowledge across institutional boundaries and between heterogeneous end-user systems.
Motivation In the last decade, numerous e-learning projects have developed a huge amount of digital learning materials. The German Federal Minister of Education and Research, for example, invested millions of Euros at the beginning of this century in a four-year funding program called “New Media in Education”. This funding prompted the production of digital learning content in German universities across all academic disciplines. However, the plethora of educational content resulting from such efforts is not managed sustainably, and what is worse, rarely has been designed for adaption and reuse in different learning arrangements. In contrast to books and scholarly journals that are systematically catalogued, managed and crossreferenced by libraries, digital learning content is difficult to find and even harder to adapt. CampusContent, a competence center for e-learning at the FernUniversität in Hagen, began its methodological research and technical development at this point with the intention to enable the systematic and effective storing, acquisition, distribution, and easy exchange of digital learning materials.
INTRODUCTION The concept of learning objects aims at facilitating exchange and reuse of educational resources, pedagogical knowledge and practical teaching experience (cf. Carey and Hanley, 2008). Based on this concept and striving for universal access to educational resources using web technology, institutions and networks form a movement dedicated to Open Educational Resources (OER). This movement started from local or national initiatives and has grown onto a transnational or global level (cf. Baraniuk, 2008). In this paper, we present a solution for an integrated portal to networked learning object repositories that supports educators in sharing, joint development and reuse of learning material and pedagogical knowledge. This portal, termed edu-sharing, adds functional value to learning object repositories by supporting educators in the process of contextualizing learning objects with educational settings. The design principles and specific
Structure of this Paper In the following section we briefly review the project’s research, development and deployment strategy. In Section 3 we summarize the architecture and functionality of the edu-sharing system. Section 4 presents our methodological approach to effectively produce adaptable content and pedagogical templates capturing mature methodological know-how. Finally, Section 5 discusses related work.
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groups, and performed task analyses along with informal expert reviews. We also evaluated the current market of open source content management systems we could use as a base component in the implementation of a second version of the repository software. Among the four final candidate systems, Alfresco, Fedora, Jackrabbit (Apache Foundation), and Slide (The Jakarta Project), we selected Alfresco because of its stability, its wide use in industry, and a growing developer community. Based on the findings of the prototype evaluation, an integrated work environment for educators, both content authors and instructors, was designed. It includes authoring tools, learning management systems, and a network of homogeneous content repositories with open interfaces to third party repositories and further end-user systems. In the third phase core components were implemented and integrated into the target platform. The integration of existing open source learning management systems and authoring environments like Moodle (2009) and the QTI 2.1-compatible editor and test-suit Onyx (2009), respectively, were subcontracted to the actual system developers. Meanwhile, a parallel subgroup designed and implemented new methods and tools for effective content creation based on predefined templates, and collected and evolved sample content to best practice examples (Krämer & Han 2009). A further subgroup codified widely accepted learning scenarios in the form of content-free didactic scenario templates and made them available in the repository (Krämer, Klebl and Zobel 2010). The fourth project phase began with the deployment of the software in four different installations and their use in pilot applications with user groups from universities, schools and vocational education institutions. The rollout of the revised technology took place early February 2010 at the occasion of the LEARNTEC conference and fair in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The repository network edu-sharing grew out of the R&D project CampusContent (Krämer, 2005), which the German Research Foundation (DFG) funded from 2004 to 2009 under the program “Centers of Excellence for Research Information”, sub-line “Digital Text and Data Centers”. The project’s main objective was to support the collection, sustainable management, and open sharing, reuse, adaptation and remix of research and teaching information. In this context, CampusContent set out to conduct trans-disciplinary research in a team of computer science and pedagogy experts to develop a repository and broker system for educational content and know-how that: • Improves the visibility and sustainability of and the access to digital learning resources and codified methods substantially; • Supports a sharing and reuse culture for high quality content and pedagogical best practices and enables collaboration across institutional boundaries; • Addresses the heterogeneity of authoring and delivery systems the repository network would later interoperate with; • Leaves the autonomy of system operation to institutional operators and control over their assets to content and know-how owners. In principle, the repository network provides support for the whole research information lifecycle (see Fig. 1), but its core services primarily support the use of research and teaching information in educational settings. Research & Development Strategy CampusContent focused on the daily practice of teaching staff and course authors who are the project’s primary stakeholders. We chose to follow an iterative design and technology implementation process consisting of four phases. In the first phase, extending over the first two years, emphasis was put on the creation of solid conceptual and methodological foundations integrating computer science expertise with outcomes from educational technology and pedagogical research. In parallel to this conceptual work, the architecture and functionality of a first prototype of a learning object and scenario repository were designed and an operational system was implemented. This prototype was limited to core services including search, browse, upload, and (re-) combination of content items and scenario templates. The challenge was to reconcile the need for contextindependence, which is a prerequisite for better reuse and adaptability, and the need for providing pedagogical context and customization, which effective learning settings require (Baumgartner & Kalz, 2005). This prototype was evaluated and tested with future users in the second phase. To understand the needs of potential users and engage them in the further design process, we conducted field studies, organized focus
From CampusContent to edu-sharing Initially CampusContent aimed at content and knowledge exchange in higher education. In the course of the project, however, other educational institutions, in particular schools, but also vocational education providers aspired to integrate CampusContent methods and technology in their e-learning processes. Especially local and regional school networks committed to technology-enhanced learning at different types and ages of schooling raised a strong demand for content sharing technology. Heterogeneous learning management systems and a plethora of disintegrated content pools that need to be searched and accessed individually through disparate user interfaces characterize this landscape but these are exactly the challenges addressed by CampusContent. To take this wider use of project outcomes into account, the product version of the repository technology was launched early February 2010 during the 2
LEARNTEC (2010) conference and fair in Karlsruhe, Germany, under the name “edu-sharing” (2012).
school districts spent money for the same resources that they can only maintain in their local repository and deliver to schools in their district. The heterogeneity of learning management systems and a lack of sharing infrastructure prevents a more cost-effective collaboration here. To cope with such situations, edu-sharing allows the sharing of resources across heterogeneous learning management and authoring systems. In addition, it provides open interfaces and a trusted interaction protocol. Both together allow the integration of proprietary content pools in such a way that their content can be discovered and used from within edu-sharing while obviating the necessity to maintain copies of such foreign content in the edu-sharing repository. Through the trusted interaction protocol, there is also no need to maintain user data and access rights in edu-sharing. Rather, access rights managed by school servers are directly forwarded to the foreign content pool. Finally, the license management component is extensible to serve other licenses than Creative Commons, as well.
REPOSITORY NETWORKS In (Klebl & Krämer 2010a) we elaborated and extended the notions information management, information quality and variability from an e-learning perspective to lay solid grounds for the extraction of contemporary technological and pedagogical requirements for learning object repositories (LORs). We also reviewed the evolution of LORs in the light of pedagogical requirements, information quality demands, and elearning technology standards. In the second part of this article (Klebl et al. 2010b) we presented repository solutions that particularly address the demands of open education movements and argued in favor of scalable network architectures for educational content management. We then presented edu-sharing as a network of homogeneous repositories for learning resources. We also discussed related content repository systems, including Connexions, Merlot, LON-CAPA, and the commercial Blackboard Content System.
Collaboration in Shared Workspaces Besides providing open access to learning content and pedagogical scenario templates, edu-sharing further supports collaborative work processes in networked "communities of practice" (Lave and Wenger, 1991). For each registered user, the local edu-sharing repository provides a personal workspace. Thus, edu-sharing users can manage their own, licensed and discovered open content in collections, which are represented as folders in the workspace and are maintained in the repository. All resources in the workspace only exist once and are just referenced in collections, not copied. In their personal workspace, educators may simple want to work on their own, first. However, once resources are uploaded into or created within the edu-sharing system, sharing resources with other users or groups is effortless. Particularly for the bootstrapping process of communities of practice, this strategy is promising. Educators can invite trusted peers to access individual resources, selected collections or the whole workspace in read or write mode.
Core Components and Functionality edu-sharing typically spans a network of homogeneous learning object repositories. Each edusharing node comes with a local repository, is enriched by common community services, and can be embedded in locally preferred learning environments and authoring tools for content production (see Fig. 2). The default distribution includes several learning management systems (Moodle, metacoon, OLAT, Fronter). Figure 2 also shows some distinguishing features of edu-sharing, including remote rendering services, an extensible license manager, trusted interaction protocols between distributed edu-sharing repositories and between edu-sharing and third-party repositories, and standardconformant service interface including the protocol for metadata harvesting of the Open Archives Initiative. edusharing’s rendering services can handle a wide range of elementary media types, standardized exchange formats like SCORM and QTI but also complete courses that are written in formats (e.g., moodle or metacoon) not known to the actual client’s learning environment.
Network Architecture The edu-sharing portal provides a uniform application interface to the network of edu-sharing and foreign content repositories. Community services and personal workspaces allow for the formation collaborating user communities across individual sites and institutions (see Fig. 3).
Sharing and Reuse versus Open and Closed Content As CampusContent started with the aim to support the open content movement, it supports Creative Commons licenses. But as we went on, we learned from potential users of edu-sharing that open content and Creative Commons licenses are not always the way to go. Schools, for instance, do not own much digital content. Rather, in their teaching they rely on content bought from educational publishers. In Germany, most likely also in other countries, this led to the situation that different
ADAPTABLE CONTENT AND PEDAGOGICAL SCENARIOS the
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Design principles for component software inspired methodological and technological solutions
CampusContent developed for content modularization. Boyle (2003) was the first to transfer the principles cohesion and de-coupling to an e-learning context and thus provided a well-defined and workable notion of learning objects. Cohesion is achieved because all content elements of a learning object have to adhere to a finegrained learning objective, while de-coupling requires the renunciation of references to external resources. Boyle’s approach has limits, however, because adaption of a learning object requires “opening the box” using a specialized editor. To allow for adaptation in a black-box style, we transferred the software engineering principles late composition and parameterization to learning objects (Krämer & Han, 2009). Late composition is a heuristic principle that mitigates the inherent contradiction between the requirement of context-neutral content, which provides flexibility for reuse, and the necessity of tailoring learning objects to the needs of the learner, which constrains reuse in different application contexts. Late composition suggests keeping content, which we call information object and educational context separate at design time and connecting both facets of learning objects only at reuse time. The concept of pedagogical parameterization aims to equip information objects with parameters that allow the adaption of an information object to specific pedagogical needs. Thematic parameterization refers to the idea that certain interactive learning objects can be adapted to different topic areas by configuring a range of parameters. This principle illustrated building on top of Adobe’s Flex technology. Here we propose to separate the design of generic Flash animation templates from the pedagogically motivated interaction logics. Flex is a free, open source framework for building highly interactive web applications. Flex applications are compiled into Flash (.swf) files that can be deployed and run consistently under major browsers and operating systems. The Flex framework provides a standards-based language, a programming model that supports common program components, in which user interface (UI) design and client logic implementation are clearly separated. To illustrate the approach, we developed a few configurable interaction patterns for concept classification and graph-based search strategies. They exploit Adobe’s Flash Builder technology, which is able to generate Flash applications from XML specifications, and allow the instructor to configure the classification object with his or her preferred visual appearance, own concept categories, proper matches, and time- or error-based constraints controlling the maximal run of a test. Parameterization in combination with late composition was illustrated with finite automata, a mathematical model used in many scientific and engineering disciplines. Late composition means that a learning task and scenario is combined with a proper content object (a graphical or table representation
of an automaton, a regular expression etc.) at use not at design time. Mittag (2011) recently published a textbook on statistics that is accompanied by an impressive set of interactive experiments, mostly implemented in the form of Java applets. They make use of further parameterization facets, including language, notation, or controls. Pedagogical scenarios capture best practices in educational activity and provide the pedagogical context of learning objects. A scenario models the dynamics of teaching and learning processes for a specific subject and a particular situation. It describes what learners, teaching staff, and other actors should do given a set of learning objects and tools. Scenarios can be composed to larger units and complete course modules. IMS Learning Design is an e-learning standard for describing pedagogical scenarios (see, e.g., Koper & Tattersall, 2005). As Learning Design is not yet well accepted in educational practice, we refrained from relying on this standard to formalize pedagogical scenarios and took a pragmatic approach (Klebl et al., 2010a). It can be viewed as a subset of Learning Design, while resembling the style instructors organizes their courses in Moodle in the form of nested and sequentially organized blocks, each describing a single learning path. The edu-sharing system provides an editor for configuring predefined scenario templates with application-specific resources and tools and for constructing new templates. ITUNES U, IBOOKSTORE, AND OTHER CONTENT MANAGEMENT AND DELIVERY PLATFORMS Since the definition of the project in 2003, some unexpected developments occurred at the horizon that can be viewed as threads to edu-sharing. Late 2004 Blackboard, a commercial learning tool provider, published its new Content System. It is a file-based centralized repository for managing learning content. Blackboard users may be willing to buy in but it is no option for institutions that use other learning environments, even more so when they are proponents of open source solutions. In May 2007 Apple Inc. launched iTunes U as a special portal of the company’s iTunes Store through which higher education institutions can offer educational content (audio, video, text) and manage courses in their own section in iTunes U. The content in iTunes U is largely freely accessible but access restrictions for instructional material related to a course are possible through password protection. As of March 2012, 18 German and a few Austrian and Swiss universities are present in iTunes U with German content such as public relations features and content that aims to expose the depth and breadth of their profile in research and teaching, illustrate campus life, and make class material available to
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a broader public audience. Research-related content includes videos on outstanding research projects, electronic versions of dissertations and similar publicityoriented materials. Educational offers include syllabi, recorded and other digital forms of lectures, and textbooks to name a few. Content offered in iTunes U can be stored on Apple or university servers and is just referenced from within the university’s iTunes U track. Intellectual property rights remain with the rights owner. iTunes U is undoubtedly a prominent publicity channel for universities. It is visible worldwide and benefits from Apple’s reputation as an innovation leader. But the courses offered are more elements of feasibility studies than comprehensive educational offers – simply because there are not enough available. It is possible to share complete courses but content providers are not allowed to maintain DRM software in iTunes U. In addition, sharing and reuse at a finer level of granularity, which is the focus of edu-sharing, is not practical in iTunes U. Community building and cooperation through shared workspaces is not feasible. Apple’s recent policy is that books are opened in iBook, videos, PDFs and audio content in a special app. These new features are, however, rarely used at universities and the rendering software (iBook reader and iTunes U app) are only operational under IOS. In contrast, edu-sharing guarantees a rendering service for each content type and prominent browser. Finally Apple has complete operational control and nobody knows how long the company’s service will be free and available. Although no longer the only app store on the planet, Apple’s version seems to be ahead in terms of learning apps and educational iBooks. These solutions definitely leverage expectations on the quality of digital content for education, both from a media and instructional design perspective. But currently, the focus here is on pre-school and k12 education, while little can be found for higher education. iBooks will most likely be used for complete courses, while educational apps seem more appropriate for implementing small grain learning objects. Again, quality assurance and distribution are solely controlled by Apple and – in the future - other app store providers, and the division into pro- and cons-IOS, Android or Windows camps is not supportive for open education and unconstrained sharing of educational content.
conceptual map (OECD, 2007, p. 31). This map clearly shows that OER is more than just content, namely a whole set of development and delivery tools and implementation resources, too. In (Krämer & Klebl 2011) we argued that edu-sharing nicely matches all element of the OER conceptual map with a resilient technical infrastructure, including: • a network of homogeneous repositories for educational content and know-how at its core, • open (service) interfaces and secure communication protocols to interconnect with foreign repositories and heterogeneous end-user systems like authoring environments and learning management systems, • a comprehensive portal with custom-designed applications for searching, browsing, cooperation in protected spaces, and content brokering supported by an extensible digital rights management (DRM) component. The DRM component supports Creative Commons licenses by default but can be extended by other licenses as well. The need to admit the coexistence of different licenses, including commercial ones, arose from lessons learned in pilot projects, e.g., at schools in Germany, where hardly any OER but plenty of commercial content is in use. In the context of viable business models for educational content and knowledge sharing, these issue where also discussed in (Geser, 2007, pp. 64-70). Through shared workspaces members of a (geographically and institutionally) dispersed community can cooperate in protected, license-free spaces in the repository network. But once content or templates developed cooperatively are published in the repository, they have to be assigned one or more licenses. Another outstanding feature of edu-sharing is the capability to virtually integrate arbitrary end-user systems, including authoring and learning tools or leaning management systems at various levels of integration from deep to shallow. This allows, for instance, a search in or an upload to a repository in the network from within a learning management system (LMS) or authoring tool. As of March 2012, four LMS, Moodle, metacoon, OLAT, and Fronter, are integrated with edu-sharing and the integration of Ilias is under development. In addition, a few commercial content pools have been connected to edu-sharing in such a way that users, e.g., school students, who are authorized to access commercial content will get access through trusted protocols established between interconnected components. This way edu-sharing not only provides a single system view to all resources in the network but also provides a uniform and custom-designed functionality made available through an extensible portal.
CONCLUSION The project began its research and development in the spirit of the emerging movement to make educational content freely available over the web in the form of socalled open educational resources (OER), which later culminated in the open education movement (Cape Town 2007). An OECD study (2007) comprehensively defines core concepts in the domain, describes stakeholders and their interests and roles, discusses copyright issues and sustainability problems, and organizes all elements in a
A persistent problem with educational content for higher education is that - although we find a plethora of content on web pages, in learning object repositories, and other content silos - it is mostly tailor-made for specific 5
courses and lectures. What we need, however, is reusable and adaptable content produced for a market, as it exists, for example, in the school sector, which is dominated by professional publishers, at least in Germany. With edusharing we aimed to make appropriate provisions for an emerging market for educational content and know-how, both free and commercial.
Geser, Guntram (Hrsg.) (2007): Open educational practices and resources: OLCOS Roadmap 2012. Salzburg, Austria: Open Learning Content Observatory Services Klebl, M. (2006): Educational Interoperability Standards: IMS Learning Design and DIN Didactical Object Model. In: Ehlers, Ulf D. & Pawlowski, Jan M. (Hrsg.), Handbook on Quality and Standardisation in E-Learning (S. 194-215). Berlin: Springer. Klebl M, Krämer BJ (2010). Distributed Repositories for Educational Content. eleed, Vol. 7. (urn:nbn:de:0009-527716) Klebl, M., Krämer, B. J., Zobel, A. (2010a). From Content to Practice: Sharing Educational Practice in edu-sharing, British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol 41(6), 2010 Klebl M, Krämer BJ, Zobel A, Hupfer M, Lukaschik C (2010b). Distributed Repositories for Educational Content. eleed, Vol. 7. (urn:nbn:de:0009-5-27748) Koper, R. Tattersall, C. (2005, Eds.). Learning Design: A Handbook on Modelling and Delivering Networked Education and Training, Springer Krämer, B.J. (2005): CampusContent: Competence Center for eLearning with Reusable Learning, e-learning and education Objects, Vol. 1. (urn:nbn:de:0009-5-940) Krämer, B.J. & Han, P. (2009): Educational Content Creation and Sharing in a Technology-rich Environment, International Journal on Advances in Software, 2(2&3):188-201 Krämer, B. J., Klebl, M. and Zobel, A. (2010). Sharing educational knowledge and best practices in edu-sharing. International Conference on Mobile, Hybrid, and On-line Learning. eL&mL 2010. Second International Conference on Mobile, Hybrid, and On-line Learning 2010, pp. 53-59, IEEE Computer Society Krämer, B. J. and Klebl, M. (2011). Open Educational Resources and the Repository Network edu-sharing, The Third International Conference on Mobile, Hybrid, and On-line Learning (eL&mL 2011), http://www.thinkmind.org/index.php?view=article&article id=elml_2011_3_20_50043 Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, New York: Cambridge University Press. LEARNTEC (2010). Netzwerk-Plattform edu-sharing wird freigeschaltet!, http://www.learntec.de/cgi-bin/x-
A further element of this portal is an evolving information system gathering all kinds of information relevant to the e-learning community, including short survey articles, best practice examples, guidelines and more on media and instructional design, technical and legal topics, and social software. Articles in the information portal can be referenced from and included on other web sites. For interested readers, a demo version of edu-sharing is accessible under: http://demo.edusharing.net. On YouTube interested readers can find several videos illustrating the use of edu-sharing, for example, a preview on version 1.6 or a training session. REFERENCES Baraniuk, R. G. (2008) Challenges and Opportunities for the Open Education Movement: A Connexions Case Study In Iiyoshi, T., Kumar, M. S. V. & Brown, J. S. (Eds.), Opening up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education Through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge. (pp. 229–246). Cambridge, Massachusettes; London, England, The MIT Press. Baumgartner, P. & Kalz, M. (2005) Wiederver-wendung von Lernobjekten aus didaktischer Sicht. In Tavangarian, D. & Nölting, K. (Eds.), Auf zu neuen Ufern! E-Learning heute und morgen. (pp. 97-106). New York, München, Berlin, Waxmann. Boyle, T. (2003). Design principles for authoring dynamic, reusable learning objects. Australian Journal of Educational Technology 2009, 46–58. Cape Town (2007). The Cape Town Open Education Declaration. http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/readthe-declaration Carey, T. & Hanley, G. L. (2008) Extending the Impact of Open Educational Resources through Alignment with Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Institutional Strategy: Lessons Learned from the MERLOT Community Experience. In Iiyoshi, T., Kumar, M. S. V. & Brown, J. S. (Eds.), Opening up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education Through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge. (pp. 181–195). Cambridge, Massachusettes; London, England, The MIT Press. edu-sharing (2012): www.edusharing.net
mkp/info.pl?language=1&eve_id=9&inf_type=7&in f_id=1458 Mittag, H.-J. (2011). Statistik: Eine interactive Einführung, Springer OECD (2007), Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources, OECD Publishing. doi: 10.1787/9789264032125-en Onyx (2009). Onyx Test-Suite, http://www.bpssystem.de/cms/index.php?id=43&L=1
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FIGURES AND TABLES
Fig. 1 Research information lifecycle and edu-sharing functionality supporting individual phases
Fig. 2 Core components of edu-sharing
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Fig 3 Networked repositories with cross-organizational communities
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