Guidelines for supporting re-use of existing digital learning materials and methods in higher education

Judith Schoonenboom,Eja Kliphuis,Henk Sligte

doi:10.3402/rlt.v17i2.10870

Abstract

The literature on the re-use of learning materials has largely focused on the development of materials. This paper explores how re-use can be stimulated after learning materials have been developed and made available. We searched for and developed guidelines that support staff and/or management most frequently adopt in cases of (un)successful re-use of existing digital teaching and learning materials and methods by teachers in higher education. In a grounded theory approach, we collected existing guidelines from 11 literature studies, and developed new guidelines from 19 (mainly Dutch) case studies. Through constant comparison, we developed ‘low-level’ guidelines, which were classified into high-level guidelines. Five high-level guidelines turned out to be robust when subjected to repeated comparison with the case studies. Further, this paper elaborates existing guidelines by showing specific elaborations of them in our case studies. Keywords: educational innovation; higher education; teacher support; re-use; digital learning materials DOI: 10.1080/09687760903033074

Highlights

There is an extensive literature on the re-use of learning objects, i.e. resources “usually digital and web-based, that can be used and re-used to support learning” (Wiley 2000)
We develop a theory for supporting the re-use of existing learning materials, which is both ‘grounded’ in the data (Charmaz 2006) and ‘humble’ in the sense of Cobb et al (2003, 10), the theory being “concerned with domain-specific [support] processes, ... accountable to the activity of design”, and “provid[ing] detailed guidance in organising [support]”
We looked at successful and unsuccessful cases of re-use of existing learning materials, as we would expect that useful guidelines should contribute to the success of re-use

Summary

Introduction

There is an extensive literature on the re-use of learning objects, i.e. resources “usually digital and web-based, that can be used and re-used to support learning” (Wiley 2000). The literature has focused on the development of materials, with significant attention being paid to the design of learning objects to optimise their re-use. Attention has been paid to encouraging re-use by making learning materials available through repositories, using metadata (Sonntag 2007). This has led to the formulation of principles for good metadata (NISO Press 2004); the development of metadata standards such as Learning Object Metadata (LOM) (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2002); a discussion on the use of tagging versus metadata (Smith 2008); and the formulation of a trade-off between learning material size and costs of metadata (Wiley 2002)

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion