Specifying Collaborative Tasks of a CSCL Environment with IMS-LD

Abstract

The standardization of eLearning environments is causing a constant evolution of the standards, the specifications, the reference models and the best practices of these specifications. Mainly, this evolution is a consequence of the educational and computational paradigms which the standardization applies and of the pedagogic and cognitive requirements of the learner using these environments. “Instructional Design” or “Learning Design” (LD) is an approach on specifications in the standardization process centred on cognitive characteristics and on the learning process itself. In this case, the learning process is isolated from the learning object design. This is, LD is centred on “how to learn”, not in “what to learn”. IMS Learning Design (IMS-LD) is the specification used to describe the learning design. We are working in the AULA_IE project whose objective is to evaluate different standards and to check their application and contribution in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environments. As a consequence of this evaluation we have observed a lack of semantics when some activities and tasks are specified. Based on this result, we propose a reference model inside the IMS specifications core.