Current use of standards and specifications for practical eLearning Part 2

This is the second of two posts on current use of standards and specifications for  practical eLearning.

Practical work with IMS-LD

As we have indicated in Part 1 (posted on September 20th), IMS-LD helps to define the pedagogical processes; that is why we focus on IMS-LD. The pedagogical processes will usually be based on resources. A teacher will usually create a lesson plan (on paper, or mentally), which can be synonimous of a path for the students, using some readings, images (in general, resources), putting some questions, …
When this is clear and settled, the practical work usually takes the inverse order.  First, the resources are individually gathered; and then integrated in the path.
Let us start then with the resources.

General indications for learning resources

1. Documents used in learning resources should open in a Web browser
   • The best format to use is HTML, as
     • it is simple to edit with free tools (such as Mozilla)
     • it will open in freely available browsers
     • it is very compact
   • An alternative is PDF, this is
     • useful if you want your document to be read only
     • easy to open in a web browser
2. Sound
   • Compression in order to have small files is always an issue which is important to consider.
   • While wav/aiff is a standard, it is usually not compressed, and, perhaps, it is recommended to use mp3 (which is a part of an audiovisual standard called MPEG), as it is currently widely used; other formats which open in most browsers could be an alternative.
3. Graphics/Still images
   • Compression in order to have small files is always an issue which is important to consider even more than for sound.
   • The best format to use is JPG / JPEG, as it is both a standard and widely used; according to the quality required, the size of of the image will be big (for highest quality) or small (for lowest quality). Gif is also widely used on the web for graphics, although it is a proprietary format; SVG has been recently proposed by W3C, the Web consortium.
4. Video
   • Compression is even more important for video, in order to have small files.
   • The recommended format is mpeg, which is standard (although there are different mpegs), although Real, QuickTime, Windows Media usually open in most browsers - these are formats, and can use different compressors, which sometimes is difficult to deal with.

In summary resources should be created in the most standard format, which can usually done with free tools; the way to check this flexibility is that resources should open in different Web browsers.

General indications about creating UoLs

Once the resources are around, a UoL can be created, according to the lesson plan envisaged. This requires an IMS-LD editor. As we have indicated, Reload is the reference editor for IMS-LD. Let us mention that there are other editors, which are special for IMS-LD such as ASK-LDT; or modified to use LD (MOT+, and current work for the well known Moodle …). Some of the editors that are appearing are more user friendly than others (for instance, ASK-LDT is a graphical one, although it does not cover the whole specification, as Reload does). As we indicated in our previous post, current Pompeu Fabra University work about to be released includes an easy to use IMS-LD editor based on templates, Edubat. Let us mention the related work Collage.
Other aspects to be considered are:

1. Packaging of files
• Units of Learning developed using IMS-LD have to be distributed using IMS Content Packaging, which is a zip file with a manifest describing the contents.
2. Tests and assessments
• If you want to include a test or assessment in your Unit of Learning to be run by the computer, it is convenient to use QTI, which is the corresponding IMS specification; the alternative being tests or assessments that open on browsers.
3. Services such as e-mail, chat, forums … are part of the IMS-LD environments
• They are very useful for the pedagogical path in e-Learning.
• You can include some of them using the IMS-LD editor.
4. Metadata is ‘data which describes other data’
• There are standards for general document metadata, , such as the author, the subject …, the main one being Dublin Core or eLearning specific: IMS Learning Object Metadata.
• Availability of metadata can be very useful in locating resources, but it can also be time consuming for users to provide the necessary information to describe the learning resources.
• One can (and should) add basic metadata about the UoL created, by means of the editor; the metadata is kept inside the IMS-LD xml document itself (the manifest)
• It is also a good idea to use Dublin Core in the HTML of theresources (there is a metadata tag, which, again, remains hidden when browsing)
• One could optionally add more metadata using LOM, either in the IMS-LD manifest, or in the Content Package.

Running eLearning

This is not very user-friendly now.
Before a UoL run, one has to assign the users the different roles that might have been defined in the UoL (and to this UoL, of course). Currently, there is a DOS command line tool (CLICC) provided by OUNL. Pompeu Fabra University is close to release a friendlier tool.
The e-learning running needs a Web server with the addition of CopperCore, an alternative being SLED (which includes CopperCore); where of course the UoLs should be stored and managed - as the tracking of the run. Again, Pompeu Fabra University is working on a tool for this management.
The OpenDock project is establishing a repository of UoLs which can be run easily.

Add comment September 25th, 2006