MetaCampus for Lifelong Learning

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MetaCampus for Lifelong Learning

• 4th International Conference on Information
  Technology Based Higher Education and Training
  ITHET July 7-9, 2003, Marrakech
• Presented by
• Paul Fenton/Josep Canellas
• Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

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Facts and Figures
European IST Project MetaCampus for Lifelong
Learning Starting Date April 2001 Finish Date
September 2003 Coordinator Universitat Oberta
de Catalunya Partners SchlumbergerSema (Spain)
University of Koeln (Gerrmany) France
Telecom. RD (France) Gestion de
Conocimientos (Spain) La Caixa (Spain)
Scienter (Italy) TCV
Multimedia (Spain) Ernest Klett
Verlag GMBH (Germany) Lambrakis Research
Foundation (Greece)
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Agenda

• Overview (Demands and Answers)
• Competency Model
• Real World Application of MetaCampus
• The Searches and How They Work
• The Providers Point of View
• What We Learned
• What We Recommended to Standards

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MetaCampus Overview

• MetaCampus
• An EC-funded IST project, MetaCampus aims to be
• a unique lifelong-learning marketplace,
  providing Learning Citizens with a number of
  state-of-the-art features and services that are
  designed to help fulfil ongoing educational and
  training needs, in particular
• Competencies.

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Responding to Demands

• MetaCampus responds to three main demands
• Citizens and workplace demands for new skills
  and continuous training in a personalized way
• European socio-economic demands for convergence
  of skills and qualifications recognition
• Content provider and vendors demands for
  standards-conformant environment to offer their
  goods and services

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Answers

• Competency Model the linking element.
• Between job competency profiles
• Between IMS/IEEE/SCORM conformant description of
  
• learning resources
• Between IMS-Learner Information Package user
  profiles

• Flexible design the linking element.
• Between learning objectives and learning objects
• Between learner preferences and education
  strategies
• Between the parts and the whole (building
  learning paths)

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Working Principles
Three Driving Principles

• Follow the many innovative and relevant
  undertakings regarding metadata standards,
  competency models and competency standards
• Create standards-conformant software to meet the
  needs of Learning Citizens (add value to content
  providers in the knowledge economy)
• Develop a workable - replicable - competency
  model that contemplates learning objectives and
  resources

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Utility of a Competency MapSource HR-XML
Consortium
Scenario Job seeker needs to fill competency gap
for desired position. Engages in learning to do
so.
Evidence
Skill gap analysis

• Even a simple competency map can be useful to
• Help summarize skill gap
• Identify relevant learning activities

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MC Responses

• METACAMPUS IS AN INTELLIGENT SEARCH ENGINE
  WORKING AT SEVERAL LEVELS
• USER LEVEL Browsing and multicriteria search
  help user to find resources according criteria.
• TC LEVEL TC searches the best path to fill in
  the gaps in the user competencies to achieve a
  goal.
• LCA LEVEL LCA search the best composition of
  resources to achieve a learning objective.
• COMPLEMENT LEVEL LCA also search the best
  candidates to add into a course complementary
  resources.

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How Do These Searches Work?
USER LEVEL Users introduce their own
criteria The system search all resources
according this criteria
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How Do These Searches Work?
TC LEVEL This search is competency-based
1.- TC decompose the goal in competencies
2.- TC analyze the user competencies
3.- TC determine the gaps
-

4.- TC finds out the best resources and learning
path to fill in the gaps
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How Do These Searches Work?
LCA LEVEL This search is contribution-based

• Based on learning constructivist theory,
  learning involves interaction among new and old
  concepts which produces and reorganizes learner
  knowledge.
• LCA-expert system to find out what kind of
  resources are better for learner to interact and
  reorganize knowledge according to needs and
  characteristics.
• Interactions are classified as resource types and
  associated to learning objectives.
• We have called contributions different resource
  types.

Learning Objective
Searching relevant resources and packaging
Searching contributions
Ordering Contribution types
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How Do These Searches Work?
COMPLEMENT LEVEL This search is content-based
Using a similar technology, LCA can complement
content
4.- LCA packs and insert new content into the
old content
1.- LCA analyzes the characteristics of content
2.- LCA searches the best contributions
3.- LCA searches the relevant resources
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How Providers Build Resources
Tagging Adds Value to Resources - From Sets of
Practices to Courses The building is flexible

• Based on IMS/SCORM/IEEE-LOM conformant metadata
  schemes
• Template allows for multiple educational
  strategies and pedagogical approaches
• Resources are classified by RLO type (can be
  Presentations, Assessments, Learning outcomes
  like Competencies,Problems, Case Studies..)
• Ordering the RLOs can be compiled via XML binding
  and IMS Content Packaging
• Other learning experiences can be referenced in
  the tagging

Educational Stratgey
Educational strategy is constructed
Devising RLOs
System compiles RLOs by type
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Providers Template
The template contemplates Various
Granularities Competencies Relations to
taxonomies..
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Providers Template
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Providers Template
Possible to label resources according to part in
learning process sequence or educational
strategy For example - Problem Based
Outcome-Based Assessment Led Content Based
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Conclusions from MetaCampus
MC needs a very detailed competency model. But
normally standard models on competencies are very
generic.
To maintain the standard models without losing
details, we added a set of values to concretize
description of jobs, learning tracks, resources,
objectives professional profiles, etc.
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Conclusions from MetaCampus
MC also needs to classify the resource types
which can contribute specifically to each
objective.
MC contains this classification and also the
relations with objectives.
In this way, MC makes it possible to design
pedagogic strategies independently of the
specific resources.
RT
Providing cognitive information
RT
Providing factual information
RT
Providing practice
RT
Providing communication with other users
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Conclusions from MetaCampus
MC needs to classify resources to search in an
accurate way.
MC has created several main taxonomies and
several optional characteristics for
classification according IMS-METADATA Main
taxonomies usedCompetencies to develop de
model of competenciesDisciplines to locate the
content in a knowledge areaInformation types to
outline the content in more detailActivity
types to describe the typology of
resourcesPresentation types To describe the
container of resources Media types to describe
the display of resources.
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Recommendations

• Distinguish generic competencies and adding
  specific chunks of information to STANDARDS, from
  more job-specific, tool- specific or
  company-specific competencies.
• Work by consensus to define rules to establish
  the relationships between resources and
  objectives or competencies to personalize
  learning paths and allow flexibility in
  instructional design.
• Differentiate resource type, information type,
  presentation (via the contributions) so as to
  allow greater personalization of learning paths,
  and better search applications for resources.

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For More Information
Contact Paul Fenton/Josep Canellas
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
pedward_at_uoc.edu
jcanellas_at_uoc.edu Webpage http//www.metacampu
s-project.com/mkt/