Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Anoush Margaryan International Centre

Anoush MargaryanCommunity Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories

Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006

Anoush MargaryanInternational Centre for Research on Learning

University of Dundee, Scotland, [email protected]

Community Dimensionsof Learning Object Repositories

http://www.ic-learning.dundee.ac.uk/

mailto:[email protected]



CDLOR project

Is funded by the UK JISC (05/2005-05/2007)

Investigates barriers and enablers to implementation of LORs to support learning within communities

Focuses on socio-cultural, organisational and pedagogic aspects

Collaborators:- University of Dundee (Prof. Allison Littlejohn)- University of Strathclyde (Dr. David Nicol, Ms. Sarah Currier)- Intrallect (Dr. Peter Douglas), and- 25 LOR projects as Associate or Collaborative Partners, (inter)nationally



Key questions

What are the key drivers and dimensions underlying the use of LORs to support learning communities?

What are the barriers and enablers in using LORs?

How do these barriers and enablers relate to the different types and dimensions of LORs and communities?

drivers,barriers & enablers

dimensions of repositories

typology of communitiesdimensions of

communities

LORs &communities



Dimensions of LORs

Purpose – types of resources exchanged; preservation of materials; sharing of resources

Subject area or discipline

Scope - departmental, institutional, regional, national, or international

Educational sector - school, higher education, further education, lifelong learning

Contributors - teachers, students, publishers, support staff, projects

Business model - business, trading and management framework underpinning repository



LOR Communities

Types of communities

1. Hobby-oriented communities of interest/ fantasy 2. Research-oriented communities3. Learning-oriented

communities4. Work-oriented, communities of practice

Seufert, Moisseeva& Steinbeck (2001)

Community dimensions

1. Purpose2. Dialogue3. Roles and responsibilities4. Coherence –close-knit or loosely confederated/ transient5. Context6. Rules

Margaryan, Currier, Littlejohn, & Nicol (2006)



LORs involved in this study

JORUM (national) WM-Share project (regional)

SIESWE Learning Exchange (social work)IVIMeds (medicine)

Aberdeen UniversityUniversity of Ireland GalwayUHI Millennium InstituteEdinburgh University

Spoken Word Services

DIDET (student contributors)

LOR Dimensions:

1. Scope

2. Subject discipline

3. Educational sector

4. Purpose

5. Contributor

6. Business model



Key barriersSocio-cultural

Pedagogic

Organisational and info management

TechnologicalMargaryan, Currier, Littlejohn, & Nicol (2006)http://www.ic-learning.dundee.ac.uk/projects/CD-LOR/CDLORdeliverable1_learningcommunitiesreport.doc

Cultural preferences and expectations related to sharing, collaboration, hierarchies and roles within communities, HCI, culture of disciplines and sectors

Decontextualisation, user skills and information literacy, loss of educational narrative, diversity of pedagogic approaches in communities

Lack of alignment with organisational strategy, need for new management processes, incentives, information management (IPR, DRM, metadata)

Reference models, database technology, technology for services, interoperability with others LORs and tools used by communities

http://www.ic-learning.dundee.ac.uk/projects/CD-LOR/CDLORdeliverable1_learningcommunitiesreport.doc

http://www.ic-learning.dundee.ac.uk/projects/CD-LOR/CDLORdeliverable1_learningcommunitiesreport.doc



LORs and communities as activity systems

LOR

LOR Communities

Improved learning; co-

construction of knowledge

Learning activities/tasks

Stakeholder roles & responsibilities

Curriculum, stewardship models, IPR, workflows, interoperability standards, DRM, community

ground rules, reward schemes

Institutions, organisations, governments,

etc.

Learning activities/tasks



Goals and methods

Goals- To identify barriers and enablers- To begin exploring various components of the activity systems of LORs and communities

Data collection:- Initial scoping questionnaire (October 2005)- Workshop (October 2005)- Interviews (February and March 2006)

Respondents:- Curators of LORs (n=10)- Users, incl. teachers, students, and support staff

(n=6)



LORs and communities: DIDET dmem1.ds.strath.ac.uk/didet/

Purpose: Share and reuse disciplinary learning resources within an institution, develop information-literacy, improve classroom learning

Resource types: Student-created resources, teacher resources, links to external resources, links to external repositories

Contributors: Students, teachers and learning technologists

Business model: Trading model not applicable but commitment from academic staff necessary, incentives might be required at departmental level to get all staff to participate

Community: Tightly knit, classroom facilitation important, integration of LOR use in course, small group learning

Pedagogy: Wide range of resources, learning task design critical, different pedagogies possible although focus on social constructivist pedagogies



Issues for communities: DIDET dmem1.ds.strath.ac.uk/didet/

Socio-culturalMismatch in understanding between the developers and users

Pedagogic- Classroom-based learning models often do not accommodate models where sharing of student-generated resources is emphasised - Decontextualisation of LORs to promote maximum reusability

Organisational and info management- Embedding institutionally: Technical support, integration with other systems (e.g. VLE) must be addressed. - Users’ lack of skills in organising, categorising and prioritising resourcesQuality of student-generated metadata

TechnologicalConnectivity (some students have no access from home; uploading is time consuming)



User perceptions: DIDET dmem1.ds.strath.ac.uk/didet/

Impact

Improved team working and cohesion

Improved project outcomes by increased efficiency

Increased effectiveness of use of information resources

Impacted learning indirectly by allowing to reflect more easily on an organised record of project development

“It supports project work but not learning as such.Could have learnt the same things without it…”

Grierson (2005)



LORs and communities: Jorum www.jorum.ac.uk

Purpose: Share and reuse learningresources from any discipline

across many educational sectorsResource types: All possible resource

typesContributors: Teachers within UK HE/FEBusiness model: Trading model critical,

incentives possibly financial within and across disciplines, requires separate organisation (e.g. JISC)or consortium to manage LOR, workflow, DRM

Communities: Multiple communities, require facilitation, currently supply-demand issues

Support learning: Focus on resources; distant from learning culture of institutions, depends on types of resources created and used



Issues for communities: Jorum www.jorum.ac.uk

Socio-culturalCulture clash associated with sharing resources and collaboration across a range of institutions and educational sectors

PedagogicNeed for user training and support nationally and the costs associated with such supportNeed to cater for the diverse pedagogic models and approaches that various institutions and disciplines utiliseUsability and relevance of the resources

Organisational and information managementInstitutional use dependent on perceived value, critical mass of LOs, quality assurance, exemplars, usability, conditions of use/IPR, DRM

National policies: Reward institutions for contributing, support staff development for those contributing and reusing, link to national ICT policies



User perceptions: Jorum www.jorum.ac.uk

Drivers:“We are about to implement a VLE and I am looking for suitable content with which to populate it. I am also encouraging the use of more self-access e-learning material…to set students work without it adding to the burden of marking”

Barriers:“I have not been able to find much material that is directly relevant to the what we teach here.”

“I was expecting more interactive content…the materials are not significantly different from worksheets that teachers already use”

Community identity:Institution – department – discipline, not LOR



LORs and communities: Spoken Word Services http://www.spokenword.ac.uk/

Purpose: Integration of digitised spoken word audio into learning and teaching Resource types: Authentic audio resources with associated text and images (BBC radio archive)Contributors: Teachers and students within UK and US HEBusiness model: Trading model not applicable, but requires staff commitment, and incentives within the institutionsCommunities: Multiple disciplinary communities, teachers and students Support learning: Students find resources, evaluate and deploy them in developing their arguments. Teachers can use the resources to teach in any way that works for them.



Issues for communities: Spoken Word Services http://www.spokenword.ac.uk/

Socio-culturalPreference for different resource types and learning approaches within disciplines

Organisational and information managementInstitutional support and recognition dependent on perceived valuePolitical barriers within institutions associated with the use of open resourcesUser IT skills (adult learners as opposed to younger students)IPR, particularly when users upload 3rd party materials Scalability of user support and guidance

TechnologicalAccessibility (streaming audio, inst. firewall), searchability, ease of use



User perceptions: Spoken Word Services http://www.spokenword.ac.uk/

Drivers:- Integration of challenging and original resources

“it throws the parameters of what you generally do in teaching”

- Resources allow for pedagogic pluralism“you can see that nobody is using it the same way as anybody else. So what we have got here is not only adaptable, but it naturally exists

as part of whichever package of approaches individuals use”

Barriers:- Technical problems with accessing resources from other institutions- Status of teaching in institutions“I fool around with technology such a lot and it takes all my time…There isn’t the kind of recognition that doing something practical has the same academic value as spouting lots of quotations and doing a thick bibliography”




Barriers (contd.)- Institutional recognition- how institutions regard use of time

“ I sometimes sit at my machine with the headphones on and I am listening to audio that has been collected for me. And people walk past the door and they make remarks about, you know, what I might or might not be doing. But if I were sitting with a journal open on my desk and it wouldn’t be the same comment.”

Impact on teaching

- Transformation of activity of teaching

“ I have had to shift my head in terms of what exactly is it I want to deliver in the classroom, so, you know, it’s not just simply a matter of kind of going in a doing a show and tell, listen to this, listen to that, wonderful. You have to figure out how to make that relevant, which means you have to re-think how you structure a class or how you are going to shape a module or whatever. Now I actually think that I have got a better understanding of how to teach than I had before I got involved in e-learning“




Community, belonging, identity

- Primarily discipline and institutional community, but also CoP coalescing around the Spoken Word

“I wouldn’t underplay the importance of what that small community is. What I get out of being involved with this project is something about validation, it’s something to do with not feeling, you know that sort of thing, everybody’s out of step but our Jock, you know. There’s that kind of feeling that I don’t think that the things that I do in relation to e-learning or learning generally are recognised within the school that I’m part of, so therefore I rely quite heavily on this project for that sense of personal validation and I think it is quite important, and also I learn huge amounts from eavesdropping in, you know, into other people’s areas. So I think that we are a community of practice“.



Findings: Issues for communities Socio-cultural Design of LORs currently not based on clear

understanding of user communities Lack of incentives and rewards to motivate communities

to use the LORs

Technological Lack of usability of tools, processes, and standards for

metatagging, search, retrieval, authentication, workflows

Pedagogic Pedagogic models for use LORs are still predominantly

content-driven and do not involve co-construction of resources by the students

Organisational Lack of institutional strategies for adoption of LORs User skills and information literacies



Prerequisites for success of LORs Design of LORs based on needs of the communities User needs integrated through

cascading/collaborative approaches to design and development

LORs closely linked to institutional and national strategies for teaching and learning

Recognition and rewards based on understanding of the communities and what motivates them

Quality assurance of resources, particularly in LOR models involving student-contributed resources

LOR interoperability and linkage with personal and institutional information environment, tools and systems

Information literacy and development within user communities

Documents

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Anoush Margaryan International Centre