Instructional Engineering for Learning Objects Repositories Networks

Knowledge management in organizations, the learning objects paradigm and the advent of a new Web generation, the “Semantic Web”, are major actual trends that reveal a new potential for a renewed distance learning pedagogy, but at a certain number of conditions. The first and foremost is the use of education modeling languages and instructional engineering methods to help decide how to assemble learning objects in meaningful learning and knowledge management environment. This article proposes a set of tools and some Instructional Engineering principles to help use learning object repositories to create learning/training designs that respond to pedagogical needs. THE CENTRAL ROLE OF LEARNING OBJECTS The learning objects paradigm is deeply rooted in the evolution towards a knowledge society, which entails the need for lifelong learning and for more flexible, adaptive learning systems, inside and outside the public education system. More and more people are knowledge workers involved in knowledge management activities. This situation produces a huge demand for Web-based resources for work and learning and thus for the reusability and interoperability of digitized information materials. Adopting knowledge management, an increasing number of education and workplace organizations have started to formalize their knowledge, re-engineering work and training processes using Internet technologies and, more recently, learning objects repositories accessible through the Web. These two trends converge and become integrated into yet another wider trend aiming at the next Web generation, the "Semantic Web " (Berners-Lee et al 2001). This starts by adding metadata to information resources (learning objects), thus representing the knowledge they embody, as a component of an ontology or a semantic description. The ultimate goal is to enable us to search and exploit Web resources in more intelligent ways. Instructional engineering plays a central role in knowledge management and in the use of Webbased learning objects. Knowledge management aims at the identification and sharing of the available knowledge in an organization and at the increase of the competencies of their personnel. It is based on two main processes: the acquisition of knowledge from experts, and the construction of learning environments helping other persons to gain knowledge and skill through their use of learning objects. EDUCATIONAL MODELING The fast evolution of learning technologies has multiplied the number of decisions a designer must make to create a distributed learning system. The term “Educational Modeling Language (EML)” was first introduced in 1998 by researchers at the Dutch Open University. It came out of a strong preoccupation for Instructional Design and pedagogical concerns. The work on Educational Modeling Languages, and the its subsequent integration in the IMS Learning Design Specification (IMS-LD 2002a), is the most important initiative to date, to integrate Instructional Design preoccupations in the international eLearning Standards movement. In particular, it describes a formal way to represent the structure of a unit of learning and the concept of a pedagogical method that specifies the roles and the activities that learners and learning facilitators can play using learning objects repositories. Educational Modeling Languages (EMLs) The EML concept challenges the over importance devoted to learning objects seen solely as information packages. As Rob Koper (2001) puts it: “A lot of learning does not come from knowledge resources at all, but stems from the activities of learners solving problems, interacting with real devices, interacting in their social and work situation. A lot of research about learning processes provides evidence for this stance that learning doesn’t come form the provision of knowledge solely, but that it is the activities of the learners into the learning environment which are accountable for the learning.” The emphasis on learning designs is also justified from a reusability perspective. For example, Michael Feldstein (2002) asserts that “content is harder to recycle than design”, that “recycling design can give bigger gains than recycling content” and, on the other hand, that “reusability (of learning objects) breaks some instructional designs”. This approach also integrates well with the IEEE LTSC (2000) broad definition: “A learning object is any entity, digital or non-digital, that can be used, re-used, or referenced during technologysupported learning”. The unit of learning itself and all its components are embedded learning objects, including learning objectives, prerequisites, learners’ or trainers’ roles, activity assignment, information objects, communication objects, tools and questionnaire objects. But identifying the learning objects associated to a learning unit and the interrelations between them is not sufficient from an technical perspective. The IMS-LD information model needs to be expressed in a standard XML binding enabling computer processing by any compliant eLearning system. It should then be possible for any Learning Content Management System (LCMS) to interpret and use the unit of study, reuse the learning objects composing the unit in new contexts, as well as adapt, distribute and archive units of learning and all the learning objects they contains. A unit of learning refers to any delimited piece of education or training, such as a course, a module, a lesson. When activating a unit of learning, the method element is central. It is located within the unit of learning set of XML files. This central element and its sub-elements control the behavior of the unit of learning at runtime, coordinating the activities of the actors in the various roles they play and in their use of learning objects. A method is composed of plays that provide alternative scenarios for the same unit of study, to adapt to different target populations or to different delivery models such as distance or classroom learning. Each play unfolds in a series of one or more acts which are always run in sequence. An act brings together one or more role-parts , each role-part associating exactly one role (learner, trainer, tutor, manager, etc.) with exactly one activity, associated or not to a set of learning objects. At every level within a method, it is possible to specify rules when a role-part, act, play or unit-of-learning is completed. Implementing IMS-LD within the eduSource infrastructure The IMS-LD specification has been retained as a major eduSource component. The central goal of the eduSource project (www.edusource.ca) is to enable existing Canadian learning object repositories, or future repositories in Canada or elsewhere, to communicate seamlessly so that their learning objects can be found and aggregated in units of learning. The eduSource software system is based on a Web service architecture composed of an eduSource communication kernel. This infrastructure comprises the eduSource Communication Language connector and gateway, the eduSource Registry of Services and the Common Search Component enabling Federated, Harvesting or Distributed Peer-to-peer (PtoP). It processes searches for learning objects and passes its results to a display component that presents the metadata to the user and launchs the corresponding learning object. On top of this infrastructure, an extendable eduSource suite of tool enables operations on the metadata (reference, search, view), on digital rights and on the learning objects (transfer, aggregate, design, package), providing support to learning design.