Pumping up Moodle via Integrated Content Authoring, Sharing and Delivery Tools The Educanext LTI Case Study

Transcription

1 Pumping up Moodle via Integrated Content Authoring, Sharing and Delivery Tools The Educanext LTI Case Study Bernd Simon, Michael Aram, Daniela Nösterer, Christoph Haberberger, Knowledge Markets Consulting GmbH Abstract - This paper reports on the design and implementation of Educanext, a marketplace service for the Austrian school sector. The marketplace aims at providing authoring, sharing and delivery tools across platforms. Providing all these tools from a single, interoperable access point the marketplace serves content providers like Austria's leading publishing houses with a unique and easy- to- use channel to school learning environments. So far, the marketplace components have been successfully tested in context of five projects: Three authoring cases demonstrate the capabilities of the authoring service for creating school- book accompanying materials and reference content for competency models. Two sharing and delivery cases demonstrate the integration possibilities for sharing WBTs and (again) school- book accompanying materials with Austria's leading learning management solutions in the school sector: Edumoodle and LMS.at.

2 Moodle mit einem Content- Marktplatz- und Autorenwerkzeug- Dienst aufpolieren: Die LTI Fallstudie Educanext Bernd Simon, Michael Aram, Daniela Nösterer, Christoph Haberberger, Knowledge Markets Consulting GmbH Abstract Diese Arbeit berichtet über die Gestaltung und Umsetzung des Marktplatz- und Autorenwerkzeug- Dienstes Educanext für den österreichischen Schulsektor. Der Dienst zielt darauf ab, Autoren und Bereitstellern von Lernmaterialien plattformübergreifend das Erstellen, Teilen und Ausliefern von Inhalten zu ermöglichen. Das Bereitstellen dieser Dienste von einem zentralen LTI- fähigen Zugriffspunkt ermöglicht Verlagen und anderen institutionellen Inhaltsanbietern neue Vertriebs- und Bereitstellungskanäle für Ihre Inhalte. Bislang wurde der Marktplatz- und Autorenwerkzeug- Dienst anhand von fünf Fällen erfolgreich getestet: Im Rahmen von drei Anwendungsfällen wurde das Autorenwerkzeug hinsichtlich seiner Eignung für die Entwicklung von lehrbuchbegleitenden Materialien sowie für die Entwicklung von prototypischen Beispielen für kompetenzorientierten Unterricht erfolgreich getestet. Zwei Marktplatz- Fallbeispiele illustrierten andererseits die Möglichkeiten der integrierten Bereitstellung von WBTs bzw. schulbuchbegleitenden Material für Österreichs führende Lernplattformen im Schulwesen: Edumoodle und LMS.at.

3 Problem Identification and Motivation In the last couple of years we have evidenced several initiatives promoting the vision of open educational systems. Standardized data formats for describing learning materials (e.g. IEEE LOM, IMS Metadata, IMS Content Packaging) and open, component- based frameworks for learning management infrastructures (e.g. AICC, SCORM, OKI) were supposed to ultimately lead to an improved interoperability of educational systems in particular learning management systems like Moodle (Simon et al. 2007). However, so far the success of these interoperability case studies is mostly limited to the manual export and import of learning materials. In this paper we demonstrate interoperability on a new level. Based on the IMS Global's Learning Tools Interoperability Specification (IMS 2012) we illustrate the integration of an authoring, sharing, and delivery service in Moodle and other learning management systems. Brief Introduction to LTI The basic use case behind the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) Specification (IMS 2012) is to allow the seamless connection of web- based, externally hosted applications and content summarized under the concept (remote) "Tool" to platforms that present these Tools to users. For example it allows the secure integration of external assessment applications or hosted premium content with learning management systems without having to develop and maintain custom integrations for each application or content provider. Based on this "Tool" concept, LTI distinguishes between the "Tool Consumer", in many cases the Learning Management System "consuming" the Tool, and the "Tool Provider", as it "provides" the Tool for use in the Tool Consumer (IMS 2012). At the Tool Consumer, a Tool is launched within a certain "Context" relevant to the Tool Provider. Examples for a relevant Context are a course, or a school organisation representing groups of users sometimes with different privileges (e.g. instructors, students). Objectives and Requirements of an Integrated Marketplace and Authoring Service In this section, we list high- level requirements for a marketplace and authoring service, which have been identified in close collaboration with our stakeholders, i.e. publishing houses and providers of learning management solutions in the Austrian School Sector. R1. Maximize coverage To reach out to its customers, it is in the highest interest of a publishing house to make its learning resources available within as many (technology- enhanced) learning environments as possible. LMS.at and Edumoodle are considered a first class marketing channel in this context, addressing approximately users in total. Together both web services can be considered as heavily used sites, resulting in 21.8 million page impressions alone in October 2012 in total (LMS.at: 12.47, Edumoodle: 9.37) a figure close to the one of diepresse.com, one of Austria's Top 10 Web Sites according to ÖWA (ÖWA 2012).

4 R2. Keep publishers in control of the provided content One important requirement that has been identified is to ensure, that a publisher of premium content stays in full control of learning resources provided at any time within its lifecycle (i.e. creation, sharing, delivery, termination). This originates from the fact that from a publisher's perspective a learning resource represents a core business asset, and therefore the publisher has an interest in not delegating the maintenance of this asset to a third party. R3. Allow publishers to manage access to resources Another requirement stemming from our publisher's business model is the need for staying in control of content access policies. Given the fact, that a subset of the learning resources offered might be considered premium content and therefore the publisher has no interest in making it freely available a third party must not become in charge of managing access control. R4. Provide platform- independent authoring services Publishers increasingly aim at unifying their landscape of potential authoring tools, while we see an increased need for cross- platform authoring environments. Such authoring environments need to support the creation of interactive exercises in combination with multimedia resources ranging from picture- annotated text to online videos. R5. Support sharing of different content types In the school sector, relevant content varies significantly and as a consequence the marketplace needs to be able to support the hosting of all different kinds of materials. While some educators prefer content that is optimized for a paper- based learning environment (e.g. PDF documents) others feel the need to share standard formats (e.g. PowerPoint) for electronic delivery. Others might even require to exchange e- learning content in SCORM or other formats. R6. Allow easy integration in learning management systems From the perspective of the provider of a learning management system, the integration of learning resources should be as seamless and easy as possible. Providers would like to avoid developing and maintaining custom integrations for each content- providing institution. R7. Acquire access to a plethora of high- quality learning resources To maximize the benefits of its users (primarily learners and instructors), a platform provider strives to offer learning resources from a broad variety of publishers and other institutional content providers. Implementation Based on the requirements introduced in the previous section, the implementation of the marketplace has been carried out and tested in the context of the following case studies. Austria's leading publishing house in terms of market share, Veritas, agreed to provide all its school- book accompanying online materials to the marketplace using again LTI. Veritas is now able to upload an archive of LTI links to its online material. This archive is un- packaged, the metadata extracted, and the LTI links stored in the marketplace. The set of LTI links is then made available within Edumoodle and LMS.at under the "Veritas" channel. From the Tool Consumer's point- of- view (i.e. Edumoodle and LMS.at) the LTI integration allows an automated login and authorization in a first step at the Educanext and then sub- sequently also at the Veritas web site where the premium content is hosted.

5 In another delivery and sharing use case Educanext is utilized as a centralized hosting service for SCORM packages. Premium contents in the form for high- quality WBTs covering European Computer Drivers Licence (ECDL) topics such as the introduction to word processing, working with spread sheets etc. are provided in SCORM format. Educanext hosts this content and grants access rights on a school level. This functionality allows the publisher, Bitmedia, to implement a business model charging its users depending on their affiliation (school license model). In the early stage of deployment the market place has already gone through some substantial adoption of its authoring component. For the publishing house HPT an authoring environment was created that supports the creation of vocabulary trainers. For the Austrian Ministry of Education the authoring interface was tested in the context of designing competency models. In this context, reference exams and interactive exercises were created that test certain competencies according to the official competency model for business management published by the ministry. Our third authoring case became the most sophisticated one in terms of content formats covered. Here a significant number of school- book accompanying materials were created ranging from single PDF files over PowerPoint slides to interactive exams and exercises. All authored and shared materials are made available in Moodle Moodle 2.2 or higher is required for LTI support and LMS.at, while for each of the projects a separate channel has been designed. When it comes to the delivery of the content, Context information such as school, course, user, and user role is passed on from the learning management system to the marketplace supporting business models as the ones described above. Figure 1 depicts the integration of Educanext in Moodle, showing the Veritas channel. Figure 1: Screenshot of the marketplace service Educanext embedded in Moodle

6 Conclusions This paper reports on the design and implementation of a marketplace service for the Austrian school sector, Educanext. The marketplace aims at providing authoring, sharing and delivery tools across platforms. Providing all these tools from a single, interoperable access point the marketplace serves content providers like Austria's leading publishing houses, but also other institutional providers with a unique and easy- to- use channel to school learning environments. So far, the marketplace components have been successfully tested in context of five, highly heterogeneous projects. However user experiences, both on the publisher but also on the end- user side need to be further collected and evaluated. Such an evaluation will subsequently drive the future design of Educanext and its integration in learning management systems. References Simon, B., et al. (2007). The Everlasting Dawn of Educational Brokers: A Search for Key Design Principles. Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Learning Object Discovery & Exchange (LODE'07). D. Massart and J.- N. Colin. Brussels, Belgium, European Schoolnet. IMS (2012). IMS Global Learning Tools Interoperability Implementation Guide. ÖWA (2012). Österreichische Web Analyse. Basic Report Oktober (Retrieved ) Acknowledgements This work is partly sponsored by the European Commission under the "ITEC Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom" grant (Grant agreement no ).