eDILEMA SOCRATES Project No 90683CP12001MINERVA

1
e-DILEMASOCRATES Project No 90683-CP-1-2001-MINE
RVA

• Jaroslava Mikulecká
• University of Hradec Králové
• Czech Republic

2
E-resources and Distance Learning Management

• The main aim of the project was to support the
  university teachers and students in their
  e-learning activities.
• Project outputs
• A study On-Line Distance Learning Technology and
  E-Resources
• A digital library of learning objects - DILLEO
• Guidelines for teachers how to prepare high
  quality and effective materials with the minimum
  of effort and time pattern language
• WebCT training materials in Czech language.

3
Project Consortium

• University of Hradec Králové coordinator
• Institute of Public Administration, Dublin,
  Ireland
• Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK
• Czecho-Moravian Society for Automation, Prague,
  Czech Republic
• EMWACGroup, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
• University of Economics, Bratislava, Slovak
  Republic

4
Digital Library of Learning Objects

• Learning Object is any entity, digital or
  non-digital, that may be used for learning,
  education or training.
• Digital library is controlled collection of
  digital information objects. Controlled means
  that it contains only those objects, which were
  controlled and validated by librarian (librarian
  can decide which objects can be included into
  library). Also users must be controlled, which
  means that mechanism for restricted access to
  digital objects must exist, because of economic
  and/or legal reasons.

5
Similar projects

• Before taking a decision about the library
  architecture, we analysed available standards
  and several projects developing digital library
  of educational materials. We have located two
  categories of relevant projects
• broad digital libraries covering the whole
  educational spectrum as ARIADNE or GEM
• specialised digital libraries dealing with
  educational materials for some disciplines only
  as SMETE or iLUMINA.

6
ARIADNE

• Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring and
  Distribution Networks for Europe was supported by
  the EU 4. FP
• The ARIADNE Knowledge Pool System, developed
  within the project is a Europe-wide distributed
  repository for pedagogical documents, with
  associated indexation and query tools. One of the
  key features of the Knowledge Pool System is the
  underlying metadata specification.

• http//www.ariadne-eu.org

7
GEM - Gateway to Educational Materials

• Created through the efforts of several groups,
  including US department of Education, the
  national Library of Education, and a team from
  Syracuse University.
• The goal of the project is to provide teachers
  with a broad range of educational materials on
  the www. Allows users to search for educational
  materials in variety of formats as
• lesson plans,
• educational Web pages,
• books for sale,
• web pages for national museums
• by subject, keyword or grade level. Materials are
  reviewed

http//www.gemInfo.org
8
SMETE

• A federation of collection and service providers
  to support the learning and teaching needs of a
  broad community of learners in the
• Siences,
• Mathematics,
• Engineering and
• Technology Education.
• Is much more than a traditional academic library
  in digital form, it is a digital learning
  community where learners and instructors can come
  together to locate and discuss teaching and
  learning. It provides its members with mechanisms
  to adapt and build on the work of others

http//www.smete.org
9
iLumina

• A digital library of undergraduate teaching
  materials for
• chemistry
• biology
• physics
• mathematics
• computer science
• The resources range in type from highly granular
  objects such as individual images and video clips
  to entire courses. IMS compliant metadata.
  Library resources can be browsed by discipline,
  resource type, structure, media type or
  contributors. The hierarchical taxonomy has three
  levels

10
DILLEO -Digital Library of Learning Objects

• Targeted to teachers and students of
• information systems
• economics
• tourism
• management
• Before adding to library every learning object is
  reviewed and proper metadata is provided.
• Metadata based on ARIADNE Educational Metadata
  3.1, published in May 2001. This schema is
  compatible with LOM and was modified to conform
  our requirements.

11
DILLEO - architecture

• Three-tier architecture implemented in following
  tiers is used
• centralized database server Microsoft SQL Server
  2000 together with Microsoft Index Server
• business logic implemented in Transact-SQL stored
  procedures and specialized .NET application
  objects
• user interface based on HTML/DHTML/JavaScript
  interface and ASP.NET code.

12
DILLEO Architecture
13
DILLEO - Multilingual support

• User interface is implemented with support of
  multiple languages. Defined languages can be
  easily switched in-between.
• Metadata of every document are in so-called
  primary language, system offers to input metadata
  also in all other defined languages.
• All languages are defined dynamically they can
  be added or removed without any need to change
  any system code.

14
DILLEO users (1)

• User types have hierarchic levels of rights -
  rights of lower level users are subsets of rights
  of higher level users.
• Types of users
• not-registered user
• registered user
• librarian
• system administrator
• Not-registered user - all visitors until they
  obtain username and password in the registration
  process. Can search and view public learning
  objects.

15
DILLEO users (2)

• Registered user - successfully went through the
  registration process and owns username and
  password. Has the right to search and retrieve
  all learning objects and to submit new learning
  objects into the library.
• Librarian has higher rights for specified
  group of learning objects (usually one object in
  one topic and its subtopics), defined by system
  administrator. In these topics he can accept
  learning objects submitted by registered users
  and make them available for registered and/or
  not-registered users. Librarian has right to move
  and delete learning objects in a topic and is
  also responsible for proper metadata.

16
DILLEO users (3)

• System administrator is responsible for
  continuous operation of the whole Dilleo system.
  He manages all users and their rights to objects
  and also has full rights to all parts of the
  system. He can change all system settings (for
  example primary language of communication).

http//e-dilema.uh.cz/dilleo/
17
DILLEO - browsing

• The objects are organized in the tree-like
  structure of topics, starting with general topics
  such as Mathematics or Computing in the top-most
  level and ending with specific topics such as
  Pattern recognition in the bottom-most level.
• There are many topics already defined in the
  library, which often means that finding the
  specific topic is not an easy task. To facilitate
  the topic finding, the library provides a simple
  topic search user just writes in the keywords,
  pushes the button and the system outputs the list
  of all suitable topics.

18
DILLEO search

• Simple search has been designed to have as simple
  user interface as possible, yet giving precise
  and usable results. User has just to fill in the
  keywords specifying the desired object and click
  on the search button The search query becomes
  processed and non-trivially compared to the
  object metadata in active language.
• Advanced search - the author and keywords are
  searched separately and fulltext search looking
  inside the stored text documents can be used to
  refine the search results.

19
DILLEO - taxonomy editing

• In the installation script for library we provide
  the default tree of topics, but when using the
  system, administrators or librarians may freely
  decide to make any changes necessary. In fact, it
  is possible to delete all topics and create
  completely different structure, without needing
  to re-install or even restart the application.
• Taxonomy editing include
• topic adding
• topic removal and
• topic metadata editing.

20
DILLEO - objects management

• The new object is always put under one of the
  topics. The librarian responsible for given topic
  reviews the object and decides whether to accept
  it into the library. Librarian is also
  responsible for maintaining the multi-language
  metadata of all objects in his topics.
• Librarian may always decide to move any object
  into another topic, or even delete the object.
  For every user it is possible to specify the
  access rights to the object.

21
DILLEO - security aspects

• The communication encryption using HTTPS/SSL
  protocols as the basic protection element has
  been used.
• Very important security aspect is the implemen
  tation of access rights to the library objects.
  The access rights idea is based on access rights
  to the directories and files as implemented in
  WindowsNT or Windows2000.
• All access rights in the system are defined for
  the role. The role in the library context has
  similar meaning as the users group in the Windows
  system.

22
E-learning Pattern Language (1)

• Patterns provide a way of capturing and sharing
  good practice and are used in a number of
  disciplines, including architecture, software
  engineering, user interface design and education.
  
• Our aim is to provide a pattern language that
  will help users to choose the types of learning
  objects to have on-line, based on the educators
  required learning objectives and outcomes.
• The eDILEMA pattern language was developed by
  Janet Finlay and Liz Allgar.

23
E-learning Pattern Language (2)

• Captures patterns that support educators in
  making decisions about the choice and use of
  learning objects in the EDILEMA repository. When
  constructing e-learning courses through the
  design and use of learning objects, educators
  need to consider a number of key questions
• What type of learning object is appropriate?.
• How can learning objects be combined to create a
  learning environment?
• How should a learning object be designed?  

24
E-learning Pattern Language (3)

• The pattern language is available at
  http//www.lmu.ac.uk/ies/comp/research/isle/ELearn
  ingPatterns/
• The E-learning pattern language website will
  provide educators with an online resource to
  access the patterns and help select and design
  learning objects, which may in turn be integrated
  into a WebCT course or equivalent.
• As part of the website, educators are encouraged
  to feedback on the patterns in the language and
  contribute to the pattern language by writing and
  submitting patterns. The intention is that the
  pattern language will belong to the community and
  evolve through use.

25
Let me invite you to visit eDILEMA web
sitehttp//e-dilema.uhk.cz