E-study resources: How we can design them for re-use in many situations?

E-study resources: How we can design them for re-use in many situations? M. Drozdova and K. Pilatova * Department of Information Networks, Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University of Zilina, Univerzitna 8215/1, 010 26 Zilina, Slovakia Creation of interactive multimedia study recourses used in e-learning courses is a demanding and time-consuming activity. However, so far there is no manual for the creators of these resources that would enable them to do it in the proper way. The teachers, who are usually the only creators of the materials, are forced to improvise. This contribution presents two approaches for study recourses creation. The first one is an original solution of the e- learning recourses design, created at University of Zilina in 2006. The methodology uses a scenario creation comes out from analogy of movie scenarios because the interactive multimedia study recourses are quasi movies. The second method is more systematic, it is based on looking at e-study resource design as at partial information system design. One way of systematic analyze of informatics systems design is to use the Service Oriented Architecture for it. Both methods endeavour to achieve interoperability of e-study resources, therefore there are used standards for resources saving and delivering. Keywords content, e-learning, study recourses, scenario, SOA, Service Oriented Architecture, standard, learning object 1. Introduction Information and communication technology are new tools for the education process alongside the textbooks and blackboards. Using of information and communication technologies in education, also known as e-learning or Technology Enhanced Learning can bring revolutionary changes to education, which can be used for new pedagogical purposes. Learning Management System, as a much known toll is good solution for managing of education and automation of some activities, is used at the whole universities. But its using doesn t change style of education at the universities till now. Situation in education is still the same as in the past; teachers interpret learning content to students face-to-face. Learning Management Systems is only a first step to e-learning. Next step have to be a quality digital learning recourses creating, which will support effectiveness of learning. Interactive multimedia learning resources created on base of new education methods can bring fundamental modification of educational process as it is declared in the Lisbon Strategy and in the Bologna Declaration. Such multimedia learning resources allow student to study wherever, whenever, faster and with better understanding as current traditional education. Multimedia study materials need to be created with emphasis on motivation factors and support of student interest in learning. There is not recommended any methodology how to create digital learning recourses. Creating digital learning resources for new education led to different approaches depending on creator s knowledge. Creators used their own, usually not standardized techniques and methods and it brought a lot of resources in different quality which are usually used only by their creators or their colleagues. Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University of Zilina has tried to solve the problem of digital learning resources creating a few years. The first project called E-learning Content Design (TOP-eL) was carried out since September 2006 and supported by means of the European Social Found. Its aim was to solve pedagogical and methodical aspects of the digital learning resources creating. The continuing project, supported by the Slovak Cultural and Educational Agency, are currying out re-usable learning object hierarchy, technical standardization for saving and retrieving reusable learning objects in digital library. Information system architecture approach is used in this problem solution. The issue of the both projects is own methodology for digital learning recourses based on the multimedia metadata learning object creation. 2. E-learning content design The methodology for interactive multimedia metadata objects design as a basic approach of a digital learning recourses editing was created in the first project. Some e-learning objects, used by teaching in the field of information and communication technologies, were created according to this methodology. Each object is small part of learning and student can use it without teacher. These objects are saved in a digital library. There is * Corresponding author: e-mail: katarina.pilatova@fri.uniza.sk 520

possibility to compose digital learning resources, according to educational needs or wishes of employment market, by retrieving required e-learning objects from the digital library. This approach can help transform the traditional education process and reduce the face-to-face lessons. 2.1 Methodology From didactic point of view the digital learning resources shouldn t be only a text and static pictures in a digital form, they should contain multimedia and be interactive. Right interactivity should support learning as a process based on communication. The problem is, how transform a specific topic or subject contents into an optimal digital format? Our previous know-how from many solutions as well as knowledge from other digital resources analysis led us to well-designed compact courses creation. These courses are adaptable to own teaching structure and progress of designers. Adoption of such courses requires acceptance and conformation of a full content package and it wasn t convenient for us. Our strategy was based on fragmental multimedia metadata objects from which can be composed e-study materials according to teaching requirements. This approach is a base for all the solutions that enforce reusable learning objects. The methodology divides the solution into five steps: Topic searching Scenario creation Learning objects processing Learning object saving Learning object using. 2.2 E-learning content designers Working out e-study materials according to above mentioned methodology is complicated one because it contains two different planes of solution. The first plane is related with collecting, sorting and arranging of learning material. The second one is technical processing of learning material to interactive multimedia form. For this reason working teams must be interdisciplinary; teachers, programmers and graphic designers work together. The creation of digital learning materials is very similar with a movie production. When creating a movie nobody doubts about a need of professionals, but at a design of contents for e-learning the professional work is often expected only from teachers. In our projects, there teachers as content and scenario creators cooperated with technical oriented people programmers, graphic designers, flash developers and XML source creators. 2.3 Scenario processing A methodology of a scenario processing came out from a similarity of multimedia learning materials and a movie. A process of a scenario creation is basically identical, no matter if it is art, literature, movie, TV or e- learning creation. The creation process was divided into particular stages. Documentary movie uses three stages of scenario creation: Analysis, which implies branch materials studying, decision for a processing technique, dialogs with experts and another participants concerning to the creation and centralization of received material. Selection, in which we make a selection of material according to the idea and the plan. We divide it into three groups: important, less important and material, which we don t use at the realization. If in the first stage we considered quantity of received material, in the second one we consider its quality and importance. Synthesis, where based on the idea conception we transform material to parts of prepared work. We focus primarily on the factors which affect the product the most. Those are basically the knowledge and rules of audiovisual creation and ability of teachers and script writer for creative work. Similar preparation should be with e-learning materials creation. Everything that will be shown on screens and on a projection sheet in education must primarily go through literary preparation. According to the movie creation rules, dramaturgy and script writers should participate on this work and at the educational level it should be a teacher as experts of the process topic. In our projects we divided responsibilities as follow: Teachers were authors, responsible for expected contents and were designers of a script and technical scenarios too. Programming of multimedia applications was realized by professional programmers, as well as movie and music execution. 521

To help teachers master scenario based on the documentary scenario, we prepared a procedure for digital e- learning recourses creation. The procedure is divided into three phases: Subject, where the educational topic is elaborated and realized, and it is outlined here how to convey the content of this topic to the digital form. The possible formats of the work are: multimedia animation, video-sequence or interactive processing of a concrete study theme. The script writer has to define, what he wants to teach by the exact learning material. Subject contains all information elements; it means image, audio and text comment. In this phase it is necessary to think about curriculum of the processed topics. Only topics which are perspective from long-time aspect in education are selected for the digital processing. Script is a second phase of production. There should be determined the idea of the future digital subject processing in a written or image form. Constituent parts of education are divided according to adaptation to slides and step by step numbered. Picture elements are separated from the comments of this element. Technical scenario comes out from a final phase of literary preparation of education subject - from the script. Its task is to convert learning content, described in scenario, to a digital form. A script interprets the idea to a designer by means of all suitable audio-visual media. Therefore it is important to describe exact instruction for processing at realization in the technical scenario. The technical scenario specify ways of how to change an idea into a visual version through real screen offer, collage, commix, symbols, mosaic decoration, picture, graph and lot of other creative possibilities. Technical scenario is a blueprint for programming. 2.4 Processing and saving of e-learning objects The way of digital learning resources distribution is dependent on the format in which the given content is stored and whether it contains sufficient supporting information necessary for its distribution and achievement requirements. Users of created e-learning objects need to know how to manipulate with the given content and how to present it correctly. For this purpose we used IMS Content Packaging Specification [1] in the project. Its main goal is to codify criteria for co-operation and reusability of educational materials. IMS Content Packaging is specification assigned for definition rules for sending educational objects from one type of environment into another so that simple delivering, sharing and reuse of educational materials were ensured. IMS Package enables the export from one virtual learning environment (VLE), content management system (CMS) or digital repository (DR) and import into another environment together with preservation all information describing content package as well as it s internal structure. But IMS CP doesn t guarantee content co-operation within package with new environment after its delivery. The main advantage is a support for a great quantity of different types which can be presented through the package (CSS, picture, video, web page). Metadata utilization simplifies searching for a required content in large libraries. 3. Systematic approach to learning content objects creating However the first projects issues end with good results we haven t satisfied completely with its result. Idea of creating reusable learning objects has been good, but we missed some features of study materials and their usability. We started looking for more systematic solution. The basic approach comes from Service Oriented Architecture because support of all needs of participants in technology enhanced learning requires robust and distributed information system. It is demanding to manage all the necessary functionalities that can consist of numerous components. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) offers number of features that can create a base for a flexible solution of an e-learning information system. Independence from platform, programming language or application, flexibility in addition of new services, reuse of existing services and other SOA benefits are well exercisable in e-learning information system. This development way of the information system for support of education can consist of many small independent systems or services. During the business analyse we marked study resources creation as a one of important processes in educational process. Figure 1 depicts process of learning materials creation. 522

Fig. 1 Process of learning materials creation The process has two perspectives perspective of author who creates small basic learning resources called Content Assets [2] and perspective of teacher (tutor) who uses content assets to create smaller or bigger learning resources (Information Objects, Learning Objects or Learning Components [2]). Some parts of this process can be supported by technology; they can be services in SOA view. 3.1 Didactic aspect of learning materials creation It is not important whether we create materials for face-to-face learning or e-learning they should be created with emphasis on didactic aspects of learning materials. Only such materials can provide required effect. For that purpose we decide to use 4MAT model. 4MAT model involves up-to-date psychological and pedagogical knowledge. It was created following various learning styles of people all the world over. It is built around four key types of learning four modes of learning that all learners need to succeed in learning. By designing instruction around these core skills, instructors engage a wider diversity of students and, in the process, develop a full range of learning skills in all learners. Fig. 2 The 4MAT model [3]. The 4MAT Model explains learning in terms of the ways people perceive and process information. Together, perceiving and processing describe the whole range of the learning experience. While all learners engage in all types of learning, most seem to favour one particular type. Another idea is that learning entails interaction between the right and left brain. It entails the use of right and left-brain strategies within four distinct phases of the learning cycle [3]. 3.2 Package Interchange File In the TOP-eL project there we used IMS Content Packaging Specification. Later we analysed another specifications ADL SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model), IMS Learning Design and IMS Common Cartridge. According to new requirement at e-study materials we have chosen IMS Common Cartridge (IMS CC) as the most suitable one. IMS CC defines open format for rich online content distribution designed to ensure the correct installation and operation of content among various platforms and tools conformant with IMS CC. It implements several standards and specifications such as Dublin Core Metadata Element Set mapped to IEEE Learning Object Metadata, IMS Content Packaging Specification, IMS Question and Test Interoperability and IMS Authorization Web Service. 523

Two problems are solved in IMS CC. The first is to provide a standard way to represent digital course materials for use in online learning systems so that such content can be developed in one format and used across a wide variety of learning systems (often referred to as course management systems, learning management systems, virtual learning environments, or instructional management systems). The second is to enable new publishing models for online course materials and digital books that are modular, web-distributed, interactive, and customizable. The focus of Common Cartridge is interactive collaborative learning situations, typically with a teacher, professor, or instructor involved in guiding a cohort. The learning materials can be online, offline, or both - a situation often referred to as hybrid or blended learning [4]. 4. Conclusion Using of information and communication technology in education has a certain steps. At the beginning we used it for substitution of some mechanical and manually operate activities. PowerPoint presentations or written text in Word are some examples. The next step of the support is Learning Management System which enables managing the educational process and minimizing face-to-face education. Student can study anywhere and anytime and communicate with teacher through the electronic communication network. But technology enhanced leaning is not only about technology, it is mainly above learning and teaching. ICT are the tools for learning and teaching changes. The educational content is the next step of the solution. If we work it out, we can put it in the Learning Management System and change the whole educational process. Acknowledgements: The support by project KEGA number 3/5205/07 is gratefully acknowledged. References [1] IMS Global Learning Consortium, IMS Content Packaging Information Model, 2004 [2] K. Leginova, Reusability of learning object for e-learning, Proceedings of Transcom 2007, 7 th European Conference of Young Research and Science Workers, Section 3: Information and Communiction Technologies, Zilina, Slovakia, June 2007, pp. 153-156 [3] About Learning, http://www.aboutlearning.com/index.php/what-is-4mat/what-is-4mat [4] Common Cartridge Frequently Asked Questions, http://www.imsglobal.org/cc/ccfaqs.html [5] A New Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Maturity Model, http://www.omg.org/soa/uploaded%20docs/ SOA/SOA_Maturity.pdf [6] J. Schekkerman: Services Orientation, Hype or Hope?, http://www.enterprise-architecture.info/images/ Services%20Oriented%20Enterprise/EA_Services-Oriented-Enterprise1.htm [7] IMS Common Cartridge Profile, Version 1.0 (October 2008), http://www.imsglobal.org/cc/index.html [8] Using of new generation ICT and network platforms in education, Project of government program for research and development, n. 2003 SP 20 028 01 04, 2006, University of Zilina 2006 [9] J. P. Lawler, H. Howell-Barber, Service-Oriented Architecture, SOA Strategy, Methodology, and Technology. (Auerbach Publiations, New York, 2008). 524