UNIVERSAL - Universal exchange for Pan-European Higher Education

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UNIVERSAL - Universal exchange for Pan-European
Higher Education

• Borka Jerman-Blažic
• Laboratory for Open Systems and Networks
• Institut Jožef Stefan and Faculty of Economics
• University of Ljubljana - SLOVENIA

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Where is Slovenia
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UNIVERSAL is a project from the V. Framework
Program

• V.Framework program is funded RD program by the
  Commission of the European Union
• The program last four years, from 1998 to 2002
• It has several subprograms, UNIVERSAL belongs to
  the program Information Society Technologies or
  IST

URL http//WWW.IST-UNIVERSAL.ORG
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http//www.cordis.lu/5fp/
Total initiative budget 3 600 M
Support activities Take up measures Shared
cost RD

Project clusters
Key action 1 18 Key action 3
16
Key action 2
15

Testbeds
Key action4 38 Essential Technologies and
Infrastructure

4Research networking
Future
and emerging technologies 9
Activities Integrated Key
Actions Complementary

Initiatives
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UNIVERSAL CONZORTIUM

• Bureau for International Research and Technology
  Co-operation (Austria)
• Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Austria)
• Institut National des Télécommunications (France)
• University of Lancaster (UK)
• NCSR Demokritos (Greece)
• Hellenic Open University (Greece )
• Iceland Telecom (Iceland)
• Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (Spain)
• Hautes Etudes Commerciales (France)
• Helsinki University of Technology (Finland)
• Warsaw University of Technology (Poland)
• Infonova (Austria )
• Aachen University of Technology (Germany)
• Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium)
• T-Nova Deutsche Telekom Innovationsgesellschaft
  mgH (Germany )
• Institut Jozef Stefan (Slovenia)
• Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zürich
  (Swizerland)

The Universal project unites leading European
Business and Engineering schools as well as
research centers and high-tech companies with
the vision of creating a pan-European exchange
for on-line educational content.
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UNIVERSAL partners are from
DE,UK,GR,BE, AT,FI,IS,FR ES,PL,US and SI
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UNIVERSAL MAIN CONCEPT connect consumers and
suppliers of learning resources through a
brokerage and delivery platform
The content providers - suppliers HEI - Higher
Education Institutions alliances of HEI other
content brokers, such as commercial consortia The
customers - consumers HEI faculty HEI staff the
individual user without enrollment in a HEI
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The major goals

• The goals is to put together the consumers and
  suppliers in a common platform and in addition to
  that...
• Universal aims to become the reference platform
  throughout Europe, attracting the best
  educational content from the best institutions
• Universal intends to provide a brokerage platform
  which can be adapted to the needs of
• degree-granting consortia such as the Cems Master
• academic educational content providers
• rival educational content brokers
• large corporations federating educational content
  from their world-wide sites
• Universal aims to become a key player in the
  E-education market, allowing European initiatives
  to co-operate with North American projects
• Universal aims to provide richer content through
  the use of remotely-sourced course units and
  enabling
• Easier co-accreditation of courses by allied HEI
  in Europe

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Interactions transferred to a
business model

• Basic interactions transferred to a business
  model
• Content requestor
• Content provider

Delivery Profile Engine
Contract Engine
Course Profile Engine
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The design of the business model is a product of
the business process in education
Course Deliverers
Course Consumers
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Main properties of the business model

• Universal is focused mainly on a B2B approach
  the users of the brokerage platform are mainly
  HEI, not end-users
• Nevertheless, the platform allow access, in a
  second phase, for individual users, acting not
  only as catalogue browsers, but also as potential
  customers, without any link to an existing HEI
• This evolution takes into account the evolution
  of the E-education market during the length of
  the project and the growing orientation towards
  the individual citizen of European Union
  initiatives enabling life-lomg learning resulting
  in
• Business-2-Business Platform of UNIVERSAL
  wheregt Content requestors are primarily
  Course deliverers (i.e. Instructors in HEI)
• Business-2-Consumer Platform of UNIVERSAL
  wheregt Content requestors are primarily
  Course consumers (i.e. Learners)

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What is new - The
innovation in UNIVERSAL

• The key innovation service vs technology
• the brokerage of educational content between
  Higher Education Institutions (HEI)
• the brokerage implies
• a market
• with providers
• with consumers
• within a legal and contractual environment
• the technology applied is merely a means to
  provide
• a brokerage engine
• interfaces with delivery engines

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The type of Learning Resources regarding
delivery mode

• Live learning resources are referred to as
  learning resources, which are delivered in a
  synchronous.
• Packaged learning resources are used in an
  asynchronous mode. Packaged courses are also
  referred to as canned courses. The term
  packaged does not imply that a packaged
  learning resource is used for self-directed
  learning (i.e. learning without the help of an
  instructor).

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Types of Learning Resourcesregarding
granularity of the content

• Course is defined as a set of lessons and/or
  modules contributing to one learning goal and
  lasting not longer than one semester (term).
• Module is part of a course and comprises of
  lessons contributing to one learning goal.
• Lesson is part of a course or a module. Lesson
  is also referred to as course unit.
• Fragment is the smallest learning resource. A
  lesson can comprise of multiple fragments.

Provision of granularity of learning resource -
is an adaptation to the market
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Example - Learning resource with different
granularity
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Data Model - Learning Resources - building
the catalogue
IEEE standard on Learning Object Meta Data
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UNIVERSALGeneral platform architecture
Current level of activities
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Administrative issues in UNIVERSAL

• Platform host grants access rights, maintains
  user profiles, supervises billing process
• Multimedia service providers support the
  delivery process in complex settings
• Roles derived from the business model (e.g.
  advertising manager, etc.)
• Provision of legal framework
• Provision of security - encryption, data
  integrity and authentication

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The legal framework - administration engine

• UNIVERSAL provides full IPR and ownership
• The legal framework for IPR provides
• contract between the HEI and the brokerage
  platform
• contract between the brokerage platform and the
  delivery engines
• contract between the HEI and their customers
• contract between the brokerage platform and the
  individual customer

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ASSESSMENT is a part of the delivery system
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Assessment of the usabilityIdentifying the
multiple user roles in UNIVERSAL

• Course instructors responsible for course
  delivery process
• Teaching assistant supports delivery process
• Coach assigned person, serve as motivator
• Moderator encourages discussion on discussion
  lists, asks and answers course related questions
• Lecturer contributes to the course by holding
  lectures
• Students in classes (--gt student record
  available) - other involved, Students with
  individual interests
• External students with some kind of link to the
  HE institution (e.g. Alumni, livelong learners)
• External, independent learners

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Platform components in the assessment service
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ASSESSMENT OF THE USABILITY AND EVALUATION in
terms of

• Success rate in each courseware analysed by
  cohort of entry, as well as major demographics.
• Attendance (live courses) and exam pass rates.
• Correlation between entrance qualifications and
  subsequent course success.
• Distribution of number of assignments submitted
  by module and programme.
• Correlation between assignment submission rate
  and success rates for each module/programme on a
  cohort basis.

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Assessment in terms of Grade Distribution
Profile    Distribution of grades awarded for
modules within a programme and for the major
demographics such as study centre, region, gender
and previous qualifications.    Distribution of
grades awarded by assessors on the same
module/programme, for moderation purpose.
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Monitoring procedures and assessment

•    With respect to students in identifying the
  most and least successful aspect of courseware.
•    With respect to external relevant information
  regarding
•                             i.     Courseware
  offered by similar open systems.
•                             ii.     Pass rates
  of other organisations.
•                            iii.    New
  developments in distance teaching
•                            iv.    New
  developments in non-formal adult education.
•    With respect to the extent and nature of
  public awareness of programme/units offered by
  the system.
•    With respect to student feedback on study
  habits and intentions i.e. those who study on
  their pace, those who are temporarily resting and
  those who do not intend to continue.
•    With respect to general course issues such as
  workload, level of difficulty, whether the
  material is motivating, etc.

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Communication Systems Department

• Provision of course specific assessment
• in terms of
• - Course aims
• - Contents
• - Level
• - Length
• - Pace
• - Workload
• - Presentation and media utilisation
• - Quality of access etc.
•  

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CONCLUSION

• Universal is still in development
• Specifications and implementation of the platform
  finished
• First entries (35) in the catalogue data base of
  learning resources
• Live trials planning finished - to begin in March
  2001, packaged trials - on going
• First review in front of CEC reviewers in April
  next year
• Home page http//universal.infonova.at and
  http//www.ist-universal.org