Anoush Margaryan

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Community Dimensionsof Learning Object
Repositories

• Anoush Margaryan
• International Centre for Research on Learning
• University of Dundee, Scotland, UK
• www.ic-learning.dundee.ac.uk
• a.margaryan_at_dundee.ac.uk

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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

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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
LORs communities
typology of communities
dimensions of communities
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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
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LOR Communities
Types of communities 1. Hobby-oriented
communities of interest/ fantasy 2.
Research-oriented communities 3.
Learning-oriented communities 4. Work-oriented,
communities of practice Seufert,
Moisseeva Steinbeck (2001)
Community dimensions 1. Purpose 2. Dialogue 3.
Roles and responsibilities 4. Coherence
close-knit or loosely confederated/ transient 5.
Context 6. Rules Margaryan, Currier,
Littlejohn, Nicol (2006)
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LORs involved in this study

• LOR Dimensions
• Scope
• Subject discipline
• Educational sector
• Purpose
• Contributor
• Business model

JORUM (national) WM-Share project
(regional) SIESWE Learning Exchange (social
work) IVIMeds (medicine) Aberdeen
University University of Ireland Galway UHI
Millennium Institute Edinburgh University
Spoken Word Services DIDET (student
contributors)
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Key barriers
Socio-cultural Pedagogic Organisational and
info management Technological Margaryan,
Currier, Littlejohn, Nicol (2006) http//www.ic-
learning.dundee.ac.uk/projects/CD-LOR/CDLORdeliver
able1_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

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LORs and communities as activity systems
LOR
Learning activities/tasks
Improved learning co-construction of knowledge
Learning activities/tasks
LOR Communities
Stakeholder roles responsibilities
Curriculum, stewardship models, IPR, workflows,
interoperability standards, DRM, community ground
rules, reward schemes
Institutions, organisations, governments, etc.
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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 (n10)
• - Users, incl. teachers, students, and support
  staff (n6)

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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 Contribu
tors 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
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Issues for communities DIDET
dmem1.ds.strath.ac.uk/didet/
Socio-cultural Mismatch 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
resources Quality of student-generated
metadata Technological Connectivity (some
students have no access from home uploading is
time consuming)
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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)

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LORs and communities Jorum www.jorum.ac.uk
Purpose Share and reuse learning resources
from any discipline across many educational
sectors Resource types All possible resource
types Contributors Teachers within UK
HE/FE Business 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
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Issues for communities Jorum www.jorum.ac.uk
Socio-cultural Culture clash associated with
sharing resources and collaboration across a
range of institutions and educational sectors
Pedagogic Need for user training and support
nationally and the costs associated with such
support Need to cater for the diverse pedagogic
models and approaches that various institutions
and disciplines utilise Usability and relevance
of the resources Organisational and information
management Institutional 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
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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 materialto 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 contentthe materials are not
significantly different from worksheets that
teachers already use Community
identity Institution department discipline,
not LOR
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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
HE Business model Trading model not applicable,
but requires staff commitment, and incentives
within the institutions Communities 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.
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Issues for communities Spoken Word
Services http//www.spokenword.ac.uk/
Socio-cultural Preference for different resource
types and learning approaches within
disciplines Organisational and information
management Institutional support and recognition
dependent on perceived value Political barriers
within institutions associated with the use of
open resources User IT skills (adult learners as
opposed to younger students) IPR, particularly
when users upload 3rd party materials
Scalability of user support and
guidance Technological Accessibility (streaming
audio, inst. firewall), searchability, ease of use
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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 timeThere isnt the kind of
  recognition that doing something practical has
  the same academic value as spouting lots of
  quotations and doing a thick bibliography

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

• 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
  wouldnt 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, its 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

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

• Community, belonging, identity
• Primarily discipline and institutional
  community, but also CoP coalescing around the
  Spoken Word
• I wouldnt underplay the importance of what that
  small community is. What I get out of being
  involved with this project is something about
  validation, its something to do with not
  feeling, you know that sort of thing,
  everybodys out of step but our Jock, you know.
  Theres that kind of feeling that I dont think
  that the things that I do in relation to
  e-learning or learning generally are recognised
  within the school that Im 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
  peoples areas. So I think that we are a
  community of practice.

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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

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Prerequisites for success of LORs

• Design of LORs based on needs of the communities
• User needs integrated through cascading/collaborat
  ive 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