Flexible learning objects for teaching, learning and sharing: implementing a multiinstitutional coll

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Flexible learning objects for teaching, learning
and sharingimplementing a multi-institutional
collaboration
Dawn Leeder Tom DaviesClinical School,
University of Cambridge 4th International
Conference on New Educational Environments ICNEE
Lugano May 8 - 11 2002 Keywords e-learning,
multimedia, learning objects, reusability,
collaboration
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Background
1998 Cambridge Clinical School Subjects relating
to Public Health Medicine taught to

• Increasing number of smaller groups
• Post graduate/ undergraduate
• Multiprofessional - doctors/nurses/PAMs

Consequently lecturers

• Repeat same lecture many times
• Use same material for teaching different levels
• and for teaching different disciplines

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Solution?

• Three options
• Carry on as before - unsatisfactory for
  lecturers
• Produce video - unsatisfactory for students
• Interactive multimedia - transform lectures

How interactive?
browse investigate explore choose do
stop start watch listen
TEACHER-CENTRED
STUDENT-CENTERED
PASSIVE
ACTIVE
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Solution?

• Three options
• Carry on as before - unsatisfactory for
  lecturers
• Produce video - unsatisfactory for students
• Interactive multimedia - transform lectures

How interactive?
browse investigate explore choose do
stop start watch listen
TEACHER-CENTRED
STUDENT-CENTERED
PASSIVE
ACTIVE
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Advantages/Disadvantages of Interactive Course

• Advantages
• Engaging for students
• Interesting for lecturers (usually!)
• Opportunity to update/verify material
• Opportunity to question/improve pedagogy
• Student centred/less didactic
• Self-directed learning anytime, anywhere

• Disadvantages
• Time consuming and costly to produce
• Time consuming for students to do
• Overhead for lecturers
• Face to face contact lost
• Students have responsibility for own learning
• Some students prefer a timetable
• Difficult for whole courses to be re-used

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Medical Sociology Interactive

• Rationale
• Needed to replace a course
• Mandatory course - GMC
• Lecture-like experience to be retained
• Coherent course a required outcome
• Quality assurance uncertainties
• Small group supervisions continue
• Formal examination

• Therefore
• Each lecture translated into interactive module
• Large chunks of material - difficult to
  disaggregate
• Narrative structure adds layer of complexity
• Not-invented here syndrome - re-use discouraged

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Lessons learned

• Expensive! (70,000 7 hours)
• Sizeable minority disliked course
• Preferred traditional lecture
• Suspicious of high production values
• Technophobic
• Genuine access problems
• Resented time spent
• Would have preferred set book
• Linearity
• Preserves flow of original
• But makes it rigid
• Lectures impose structure
• Students feel uncertain
• Too little too late
• Not-invented here syndrome

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Conference 1999

• One-day conference
• A seminar on computer-aided learning in public
  health
• Cambridge Institute of Public Health - June 1999
• Wide-spread collaboration necessary
• Need to share high costs, therefore need to share
  resources
• Collaborative RBL model proposed (Draper, 2000)
• Therefore need to create learning objects or
  atoms

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Conference 1999

• One-day conference
• A seminar on computer-aided learning in public
  health
• Cambridge Institute of Public Health - June 1999
• Wide-spread collaboration necessary
• Need to share high costs, therefore need to share
  resources
• Collaborative RBL model proposed (Draper, 2000)
• Therefore need to create learning objects or
  atoms

SUBJECT SPECIFIC SUBJECT GENERAL
COURSES RESOURCES
INSTITUTION SPECIFIC INSTITUTION NEUTRAL
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COLIPHE - 1999

• COLIPHE - COllaboration In Public Health
  Education
• Majority of Medical Schools in UK invited.
• Mainly enthusiastic, but where not
• It is very expensive and we have not got any
  spare money
• We have created our own material and we are not
  going to give anybody a free lunch
• No matter how you dress it up, students have to
  get down to the hard graft of learning and
  traditional methods are just as good.
• Once you have started collaborating what happens
  to the integrity of the University Departments
  and their degrees?
• Were all extremely busy people and we dont have
  time for this

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UCEL - 2002

• UCEL - Universities Collaboration in
  E-Learning
• 4 collaborating institutions initially
• Manchester
• Nottingham
• East Anglia
• Cambridge
• Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Midwifery, Health
  Sciences, Public Health
• Focused group of enthusiastic collaborators.
• Shared vision - complementary resources
• Each institution commits 10K for first year
• Resources are offered and requested by SMEs
• Developed as learning objects by DL

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UCEL - Aim

• Aim
• To collaborate in order to develop, manage and
  evaluate a cost effective
• bank of web-based interactive e-learning
  resources to support generic
• education of doctors and other healthcare
  professionals in statistics,
• epidemiology and research skills

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UCEL - Objectives

• Objectives
• To conduct a preliminary survey to review what
  resources already exist
• To enter into a contractual obligation to create
  shared e-learning resources
• To appoint a steering group to agree which
  resources are developed and oversee progress.
• To develop an indexing scheme for the resources
• To develop an electronic evaluation strategy for
  the resources
• To monitor usage and to disseminate results both
  within the group and to the wider academic
  community.
• To ensure equity of accessibility to the
  web-based media by providing appropriate and
  various media forms and filesizes to suit
  different levels of access.
• To ensure flexibility of resources by creating
  and storing them as reusable modules

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UCEL - Topics

• Topics
• Research methods
• Evaluation techniques
• Statistics
• Epidemiology
• Questionnaire design
• Survey methods
• Survey design
• Critique of scientific papers
• Ethics

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Learning objects (i)
A definition (Wiley, 2000) A learning object
is any digital resource that can be reused to
support learning
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Learning objects (ii)

• A working definition (Leeder et al, 2002)
• A reusable learning object (RLO) is based on a
  single learning objective
• comprising a stand-alone collection of three
  components
• Content a description of the concept, fact,
  process, principle or procedure to be understood
  by the learner in order to support the learning
  objective
• Activity something the learner must do to engage
  with the content in order to better understand it
• Assessment a way in which the learner can apply
  their understanding and test their mastery of the
  content

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Learning objects (iii)
Work in progress April 2002 - Mar 2003

• General information Website
  www.medgraphics.cam.ac.uk/UCEL/
• Aim
• Objectives
• Background
• Invitation to others to join
• Documentation
• Agenda and minutes of meetings
• UCEL core document
• Memorandum of understanding
• Reusable Learning Object Specification
• Reusable Learning Object Specification Support
  Notes
• Papers
• Peer-reviewed resources
• Learning objects

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Conclusion
UCEL project so far

• Successful collaboration essential for success
• Shared sense of ownership necessary
• Modest project easier to manage and grow
• Keep bureaucracy light
• Have clear objectives, activities, milestones
• But be flexible!
• Build partnerships with industry, support
  agencies
• Disseminate to publicise
• Recognise that collaborators are valuable
  project assets
• Provide support, resources, encouragement
• Individuals collaborate - not institutions.