identifying e-learning resources for reuse

Institut für Informatik und Wirtschaftsinformatik (ICB)

Identifying E-Learning Resources for Reuse EDEN Conference 2011, Valencia Thomas Richter

Picture: Winding-tower, Essen

Pictures: University of Duisburg Essen

Identifying E-Learning Resources for Reuse

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Sustainability: Making Learning Contents Reusable

n  High-Quality Learning Resources available: Merlot, MIT, … n  When reusing contents from or implementing own contents within

foreign contexts, changes may be needed. n  Own studies1/2 showed that institutions, educators, and learners

o  are not aware on how to implement the adaptation process o  particularly do not fully understand how to deal with cultural

differences à rather focus on national/local audience/contents

n  Determining changing needs for cultural adaptation is considered being very difficult.

n  In the following: 1.  introduce our adaptation process model 2.  brief demonstration of the context of E-Learning 3.  raise awareness: Discuss, how we can support educators and learners

to manage adaptation related challenges and therefore, foster the sustainability of digital learning resources?

1 RICHTER, T.; EHLERS, U.D. (2010). Barriers and Motivators for Using Open Educational Resources in Schools. In: Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Open Education Conference, Valencia, Spain. 2RICHTER, T. & ADELSBERGER, H.H. (2011). E-Learning: Education for Everyone? Special Requirements on Learners in Internet-based Learning Environments. In: Proceedings of the EdMedia conference 2011, Lisbon, Portugal.


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The Adaptation Process Model

PAWLOWSKI, J.M.; RICHTER, T. (2010). A Methodology to Compare and Adapt E-Learning in the Global Context. In: Breitner, M.H. (Ed.). E-Learning 2010 – Aspekte der Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Informatik. Physica-Verlag HD, Berlin, pp. 3-14. (model extended and modified)


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Considering differences in the adaptation process: Two basically different scenarios Scenario 1: Contents from foreign context are being adopted to

the own context n  Own context is well known n  Check what appears different and focus on those aspects

o  No deep insight on differences is needed o  Intuitive decisions are sufficient o  Help needed: encouragement by raising awareness of relevant aspects

in the own context (where to look at?)

Scenario 2: Own contents are being implemented in foreign contexts (or learners from foreign contexts join)

n  Own contents are well known n  Knowledge of targeted/foreign context often is poor

1.  Know your context (list of relevant issues) 2.  Know the other context (list of relevant issues) 3.  Compare contexts, analyse results if differences apply to contents 4.  Analyse necessary changes and decide if adaptation reasonable


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The Context of E-Learning 1/2

• Richter, T. (2010). Open Educational Resources im kulturellen Kontext von e-Learning. Zeitschrift für E-Learning (ZeL), Freie elektronische Bildungsressourcen, 3/2010, pp. 30-42.

The context of E-Learning consists of all aspects that have an influence on E-Learning scenarios and which can not be influenced by the learning design


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The Context of E-Learning 2/2

• Richter, T. & Pawlowski, J.-M. (2008). Adaptation of e-Learning Environments: Determining National Differences through Context Metadata - In Arlt, H. (Ed). TRANS. Internet-Journal for Culture Studies. No17/2008, INST, Austria. http://www.inst.at/trans/17Nr/8-15/8-15_richter-pawlowski17.htm

Most influence factors were quite easy to determine to compare different contexts. C o m p a r i s o n r e s u l t s a r e understandable.

“Culturally motivated” attitudes and expectations of learners have been unknown (learner sat is fact ion/demands/some cultural aspects).

However, there still are unknown side-effects between influence factors.


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Cultural influences on Learners‘ Attitudes and Expectations – when do those need attention? n  Relationship to authorities

n  Gender related issues

n  Motivation n  Feedback

n  Group work experience n  Group building processes n  Group behaviour

n  Time Management

(just applies if group-work is intended)

(is there contact to lecturers/tutors?) (is there interaction between learners?) (general issues)

(documents to be written, time-line set?)

How to determine those culturally-specific attributes?


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10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0

Impact significant

Germany (35)

Austria (11)

South Korea (60)

China (80)

Impact not

significant

Impact not

significant

Why not to use what we already have got?

n  Culture concept o  Hofstede (1980): one nation – one culture o  Leonardi (2002): language is strongest indicator for culture (India: 179

languages) n  Hofstede dimensions (and other dimensional models) are too

generic to deduce concrete attitudes and to give answers to our questions.

n  Example: Relationship to authorities (e.g. professors), represented by the power distance index (Richter et al. 2008)

•  Richter, T., Pawlowski, J.-M., & Lutze, M. (2008). Adapting E-Learning situations for international reuse. In: Sudweeks F., Hrachovec, H., & Ess, C. (Eds.), CATaC'08 Proceedings (Nimes, France): Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication, School of Information Technology, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Australia, pp. 713-725.

The relative values of Hofstede‘s dimensions do not allow any concrete deductions and when trying, there is a high risk of misunderstandings


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Comparative study: Example for cultural differences Item Korea % (p/n) Germany % (p/n)

Feedback: directly when mistake found 82.27 (p) 77.38 (p)

Feedback: at the end of the task 72.18 (p) eq. dist

Feedback: item related (vs. task related) 64.92 (p) 84.31 (p)

Group building process: Used to build groups? 60,08 (n) 66.26 (p)

Group Work (kind of action): memorising 99.19 (p) 75.67 (n)

Motivation: content related to needs (exams) 81.45 (p) 63.68 (p)

Motivation: what to do when task too difficult? I just solve the manageable parts…

90.32 (p) 67.25 (n)

Role of Lecturer: L. is unfailing person 75.81 (p) 69.68 (n)

Role of Lecturer: L. is expert 95.97 (p) 99.57 (p)

Tasks of Lecturer: provide preselected contents 87.90 (p) 97.69 (p)

Tasks of Lecturer: provide technical support 81.85 (p) 65.66 (n)

Gender related: same abilities eq. distr. 75.78 (p)

Gender related: contents should be the same 75.40 (p) 93.29 (p)

3 German universities, online (1817 students, all degrees, f/m ratio 1:2)

Korea, 32 universities, paper@street (300 students, all degrees, f/m ratio 3:2)


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Different cases ...

n  Adaptation on user level o  Learners and educators

-  use foreign contents (often small Learning Objects) -  provide own contents for the community (“UGC”) -  adapt from foreign to own context -  most considered resources small (e.g. one picture/page of text)

o  Most aspects easy to determine (appears strange? à investigate) o  Mainly cultural aspects to be considered – and those often are obvious

when adapting to own context

n  Adaptation on institutional level o  Institutions

-  adept foreign contents (on institutional level rather complete courses than just small Learning Objects)

-  provide own contents to international auditory (!) o  Service providers

-  provide own contents to international auditory (!)


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What should be done next ?

n  As quick as possible: Raising awareness on contextual differences o  Collect data in different contexts and make those public o  Show how “manual” comparison can be done and results interpreted

n  In the long term: Simplification/Automation of processes o  Implement a standard on context description o  Provide a public database containing “indexable” contextual information

at least on national level o  Consider the standard in LMS, authoring tools, Learning Objects

(Contents) by enabling authors to index their context and attach it to learning contents

o  Develop public and web-based applications to automatically proceed comparisons

o  Write and collect context-sensitive reports on experiences regarding successful and not successful adaptations

n  In the very long term: Decision support system on changing needs o  Provide tools to automatically compare contexts and make

recommendations on changing needs


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Conclusions

n  Providing data to raise awareness seems a promising first step n  We need help for international data collection

n  Adaptation from user side is easy to manage if context-awareness is given

n  Adaptation from provider/institutional side is rather complicated but manageable

n  Further work needed


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Thank you!

Thank you very much for your Attention!

Are there any questions?

(Also feel free to contact me after the session)