Learning and teaching.

Abstract

In this column I am going to take an introductory look at re-using online resources, working with learning objects and consider the opportunities and roles available to information professionals. I shall draw on work going on in the Open University's Institute of Education by Chris Pegler, Robin Mason and Martin Weller and in the Open University Library under the direction of Liz Mallett, Gill Needham, Non Scantlebury and Evelyn Simpson and of the work of the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC—http://www.jisc.ac.uk). As we see the agenda for education (whether continuing personal development, lifelong learning or workforce planning) gather speed, it becomes increasingly obvious that we must find cost-effective ways of developing and delivering learning. The blended learning approach, that is to say a mixture of traditional and e-learning, addresses both the issues of delivering at scale as well as the demands of what might be termed ‘role on role off’ or ‘just in time’ learning. That is to say flexible, often bite sized chunks of learning available when the learner has the time and motivation to acquire them. It also successfully addresses issues relating to the increasingly distributed nature of learners. Blended learning is a model that must appeal strongly to the provision of learning within a healthcare context since it addresses the need of scalability and flexibility whilst allowing for local interactive face-to-face learning episodes, such as group work and workshops. E-learning particularly facilitates the re-use of learning materials (how many diagrams of the skeleton do we need?) and with the ability to share learning resources we should, in theory, be able to reduce costs of course production. This unpacking of learning ‘stuff’ allows for the re-purposing of material. Course developers can retrieve and re-purpose material so that it may be customised and accessed in different ways. A learning object repository also allows students to take ownership of their information gathering in problem-based and resource-based learning approaches. Changes are also being driven in assessment methods whereby students develop portfolios and include quality assured and managed resources that they have found for themselves. As a paper produced by OCLC1 points out, a learning objects approach supports a more user-centred rather than owner-centred culture. Many of us think of learning resources as books and journals, but in this context learning objects can be simulations, video, graphs and charts, images, sound, photos, live data feeds and text or larger combinations of ‘stuff’. Learning objects are often talked about in terms of their levels of granularity relating to the size of a learning resource. There is much discussion around the desirability of the finest levels of granularity which might be used to make up a learning episode. They vary extensively in scope and size. One working definition of learning objects given by Johnson2 is ‘any grouping of materials that is structured in a meaningful way and is tied to an educational objective’. Weller, Pegler & Mason3 describe a learning object as ‘a digital piece of learning material that addresses a clearly identifiable topic or learning outcome and has the potential to be reused in different contexts’. Rehak & Mason4 define some key attributes of learning objects as: Reusable—they can be modified and for versioned for different courses; Accessable—they can be indexed for easy retrieval using metadata standards; Interoperability—portable, they can operate across different hardware and software; Durable—they can remain intact through upgrades to the hardware and software. The way in which learning objects are defined will also impact on the way in which they can be utilized. Issues around instructional design and sequencing are described in Wiley,5 whilst Learning Infrastructure (NLII) has developed an ontology of learning objects to describe issues relating to both the creation and use of learning objects.6 Learning objects are managed in asset banks and learning object repositories which require sophisticated retrieval and display facilities. Scantlebury7 provides two definitions: A web based ‘host their own’ portal offering a collection of freely available existing learning objects and where applicable precleared for ‘rights’ within an educational context; OR A website offering a catalogue of learning objects either hosted locally or in other collections and portals. These learning objects could be hybrid products containing third part digitized content requiring clearance for educational re-use by the intended user. One example of a learning object repository is the JORUM8 developed as part of the JISC funded Exchange for Learning programme (X4L). The JORUM is being designed to facilitate the location access and publishing of learning objects. It is also being explored for its potential as a national repository. Nevan and Duval9 discuss some of the issues around storing and exposing learning objects in learning-object metadata-based repositories. The article also compares 11 international learning object repositories. Learning object repositories can address three levels of functionality sharing content, re-purposing or personalization of the instructional method or content.10 The issue of re-purposing also raises considerations of pre-purposing. That is to say, the need to plan, when designing a course, to use components, learning objects, will be suitable for re-use and re-versioning. There is an obvious, if challenging, requirement for resource discovery and interoperability within learning objects if real opportunities for sharing in an international ‘learning object economy’ are to prove realistic as well as the need to include instructional design information to support sequencing of learning objects. The issues around standards and metadata are significant, and there is considerable international activity devoted to developing this area which I do not propose to cover in this column, however useful sources of information are included for completeness. Learning object metadata may be objective information (such as the size of a file) or subjective (for example an academic opinion of the quality of the content). The JISC funded Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability (CETIS) provides a wealth of information and knowledge about current thinking and activity in this area (http://www.cetis.ac.uk). CETIS has developed the UK Learning Object Metadata (LOM) core from a subset of the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) specification. An additional source of information may be found on the IMS specifications website: http://www.imsproject.org In 2003 the Open University launched ‘Learning in the connected economy’ (H806) an online Master's course based on learning objects and developed as a pilot course for the UKeUniversity in partnership with Cambridge University. It builds a course model entirely based around the creation of and interaction with independent learning objects. The approach has been particularly useful in looking at issues of quality, flexibility, cost, re-use and scaleability. In their account of the experience Weller, Pegler and Mason3 identify particular issues related to: Loss of educational narrative; Balancing student interaction with flexibility in study patterns; Allowing for academic progression. The authors go on to describe how their experience in developing H806 led to the identification of a number of different types of learning objects quoted below: Instructional objects—standard explanatory text, covering a specific topic with little student interaction; Individual activities—structured around some introductory text, suggested third party reading, an activity and some reflection; Companion activities—linked to a database; Collaborative activities—a joint task, either synchronous or asynchronous; Technical activities—to explore using appropriate technologies, for example instant messaging; Narrative objects—providing an integrative framework for students; Assignments. The course is now being offered by the Open University and the learning objects re-used in other course materials. In their paper ‘Exploring the role of the Open University Library in relation to learning objects’, Needham and Simpson11 identify a number of areas where the Library can play a role in the development of a learning objects approach: ‘Identifying and monitoring developments in national and international repositories; providing a portal to manage access to the emerging sites and literature; developing links with the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the development of the JORUM repository; Supporting course teams by ensuring library staff are knowledgeable about pedagogy and about learning resources particularly in identifying relevant quality learning objects and other resources; assuring quality by facilitating the identification and evaluation of learning objects in external repositories; providing access across institutional and external repositories; building on expertise developed in the Library's Reversioning Helpdesk; providing and supporting facilities for group viewing of multimedia e-resources by course teams; Contributing to the development of an internal repository by advising on the application of metadata, providing advice on digital archiving and on the design of user-friendly search engines; Supporting the University in staff development and knowledge management by building on their relationships with course teams; extending information literacy training to encompass retrieval and evaluation of learning objects; providing a venue for displays, seminars and workshops; supporting the development of communities of practice; Working on feasibility projects. Information literacy programmes offer an ideal opportunity for libraries to develop their own learning objects which can be pre-versioned and re-versioned to meet the needs of different programmes and levels.’ The ‘Learning for a Healthier Nation’ project (http://extranet.lauder.ac.uk/x4l) is also one of the JISC X4L projects concerned with identifying and re-purposing learning objects to support learning in health care at college and university level. Led by Lauder College, its partners are Napier University, Heriot Watt University and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB). It focuses on cancer, chronic heart disease, stroke and mental illness and will be considering resource research and evaluation, repository issues, learning objects development and pedagogic evaluation. The project members include health care college and university tutors, disability specialists, librarians and researchers in pedagogy. One of the questions raised in this project is whether librarians or academics are best placed to apply metadata, given the issues of relating resource and pedagogy. During the selection of resources evaluation took place against a variety of criteria including clarity, style, functionality, bias, and currency and rights issues. The identification gathering and evaluation of resources was undertaken by librarians prior to academic scrutiny and evaluation. The Open University Library is working on a number of projects which explore some of the issues in managing and providing access to learning objects. The DiVA (Digital Video Applications) project is a four year research project which aims to create and evaluate a fully searchable database comprising a selection of digitized OU video material for a range of different contexts. The project aims to explore the feasibility of re-using course materials. The Open University Library has for many years provided a service which identifies materials from the extensive archive of print, audio and video materials associated with the traditional Open University course materials. More recently the Library has established a re-versioning service which assists academic colleagues and media specialists from the Open University Learning and Teaching Solutions division (media production) to identify bits of ‘stuff’. This has become known as the ‘Reversioning Help-desk’. Mallett12 provides the following description of the DiVA project: ‘A small digital video library has been developed and is being piloted by 10 course teams, 2 groups of students and a group of disabled students. DiVA has sophisticated retrieval and display facilities. The software encodes analogue video-tape, which results in digitized versions of video in three different qualities (56K, 512K, MPEG2). While encoding, it performs a series of indexing processes automatically. These are voice-to-text transcript generation, face recognition, sound recognition, on-screen text recognition, and voice recognition. These are all rendered searchable. As well as the automatically generated metadata (described above), the system allows us to add our own, using the IMS schema. The database stores the video-clips, the metadata, and also provides management on who has used it, which videos they viewed, etc. When the resulting videos are played from within DiVA, a transcript plays alongside the video. This is especially helpful for hearing-impaired users. Workgroup facilities allow collaborative sharing of video-clips plus comments between colleagues. A link to the University's Rights department allows course teams to request permission to re-use a clip’. Another JISC funded project which explored similar issues was the DEViL project (Dynamically Enhancing Virtual Learning Environments from within the Library). The project and was undertaken as a partnership by University of Edinburgh and the Open University. The project particularly sought to identify and address key issues for e-learning stakeholders. Scantlebury and Stevenson13 describe their findings and raise a number of issues. Particularly interesting here is the need for developing true teamwork if real opportunities for developing e-pedagogy approaches and innovative uses for learning with learning objects are to be gained. The risk is that traditional models of teaching are transcribed. There is a challenge in facilitating the entrenched positions of stakeholders described in the findings of the DEViL project. One of the key findings for librarians concerning the student experience of library resources related to the need to embed the library e-resources and provide robust library learner support. This ensures that links and signposting are appropriate. A key issue which is raised frequently in the literature and in debates is the need for leadership in the area of e-pedagogy. Done well e-learning can engage the student. Librarians must engage in the debate about pedagogy if they are to play a significant role and not risk being marginalized. Issues relating to third party rights and authentication are critical if a learning object economy and the global availability of resources is to be workable. The final report of the DEViL project is available at http://srv1.mvm.ed.ac.uk/devilweb/index.asp In concluding this introduction to learning objects I will draw your attention to two valuable resources. ‘Re-using online resources: a sustainable approach to e-learning’14 is a mine of information on both theory and practice from renowned international experts. Divided into three sections, vision and theoretical perspectives, design perspectives and strategic perspectives, it provides a valuable reader. The second, ‘Guidelines for Authors of Learning Objects’, provides a what, why and how of learning objects.15 In its own words it provides practical advice for ensuring that use of learning objects is learner-centred and learner-driven. A companion website, the ‘Guidelines Resource Website’ at http://www.nmc.org/guidelines is available.