Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Anoush Margaryan International Centre for Research on Learning University of Dundee, Scotland, UK Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 CDLOR project  Is funded by the UK JISC (05/ /2007)  Investigates barriers and enablers to implementation of LORs to support learning within communities  Focuses on socio-cultural, organisational and pedagogic aspects  Collaborators: - University of Dundee (Prof. Allison Littlejohn) - University of Strathclyde (Dr. David Nicol, Ms. Sarah Currier) - Intrallect (Dr. Peter Douglas), and - 25 LOR projects as Associate or Collaborative Partners, (inter)nationally

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Key questions  What are the key drivers and dimensions underlying the use of LORs to support learning communities?  What are the barriers and enablers in using LORs?  How do these barriers and enablers relate to the different types and dimensions of LORs and communities? drivers, barriers & enablers dimensions of repositories typology of communities dimensions of communities LORs & communities

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Dimensions of LORs Purpose – types of resources exchanged; preservation of materials; sharing of resources Subject area or discipline Scope - departmental, institutional, regional, national, or international Educational sector - school, higher education, further education, lifelong learning Contributors - teachers, students, publishers, support staff, projects Business model - business, trading and management framework underpinning repository

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 LOR Communities Types of communities 1. Hobby-oriented communities of interest/ fantasy 2. Research-oriented communities 3. Learning-oriented communities 4. Work-oriented, communities of practice Seufert, Moisseeva & Steinbeck (2001) Community dimensions 1. Purpose 2. Dialogue 3. Roles and responsibilities 4. Coherence –close-knit or loosely confederated/ transient 5. Context 6. Rules Margaryan, Currier, Littlejohn, & Nicol (2006)

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 LORs involved in this study JORUM (national) WM-Share project (regional) SIESWE Learning Exchange (social work) IVIMeds (medicine) Aberdeen University University of Ireland Galway UHI Millennium Institute Edinburgh University Spoken Word Services DIDET (student contributors) LOR Dimensions: 1.Scope 2.Subject discipline 3.Educational sector 4.Purpose 5.Contributor 6.Business model

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Key barriers Socio-cultural Pedagogic Organisational and info management Technological Margaryan, Currier, Littlejohn, & Nicol (2006) LOR/CDLORdeliverable1_learningcommunitiesreport.doc  Cultural preferences and expectations related to sharing, collaboration, hierarchies and roles within communities, HCI, culture of disciplines and sectors  Decontextualisation, user skills and information literacy, loss of educational narrative, diversity of pedagogic approaches in communities  Lack of alignment with organisational strategy, need for new management processes, incentives, information management (IPR, DRM, metadata)  Reference models, database technology, technology for services, interoperability with others LORs and tools used by communities

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 LORs and communities as activity systems LOR LOR Communities Improved learning; co-construction of knowledge Learning activities/tasks Stakeholder roles & responsibilities Curriculum, stewardship models, IPR, workflows, interoperability standards, DRM, community ground rules, reward schemes Institutions, organisations, governments, etc. Learning activities/tasks

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Goals and methods  Goals - To identify barriers and enablers - To begin exploring various components of the activity systems of LORs and communities  Data collection: -Initial scoping questionnaire (October 2005) - Workshop (October 2005) - Interviews (February and March 2006)  Respondents: - Curators of LORs (n=10) - Users, incl. teachers, students, and support staff (n=6)

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 LORs and communities: DIDET dmem1.ds.strath.ac.uk/didet/ Purpose: Share and reuse disciplinary learning resources within an institution, develop information-literacy, improve classroom learning Resource types: Student-created resources, teacher resources, links to external resources, links to external repositories Contributors: Students, teachers and learning technologists Business model: Trading model not applicable but commitment from academic staff necessary, incentives might be required at departmental level to get all staff to participate Community: Tightly knit, classroom facilitation important, integration of LOR use in course, small group learning Pedagogy: Wide range of resources, learning task design critical, different pedagogies possible although focus on social constructivist pedagogies

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Issues for communities: DIDET dmem1.ds.strath.ac.uk/didet/ Socio-cultural Mismatch in understanding between the developers and users Pedagogic - Classroom-based learning models often do not accommodate models where sharing of student-generated resources is emphasised - Decontextualisation of LORs to promote maximum reusability Organisational and info management - Embedding institutionally: Technical support, integration with other systems (e.g. VLE) must be addressed. - Users’ lack of skills in organising, categorising and prioritising resources Quality of student-generated metadata Technological Connectivity (some students have no access from home; uploading is time consuming)

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 User perceptions: DIDET dmem1.ds.strath.ac.uk/didet/ Impact Improved team working and cohesion Improved project outcomes by increased efficiency Increased effectiveness of use of information resources Impacted learning indirectly by allowing to reflect more easily on an organised record of project development “It supports project work but not learning as such. Could have learnt the same things without it…” Grierson (2005)

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 LORs and communities: Jorum Purpose: Share and reuse learning resources from any discipline across many educational sectors Resource types: All possible resource types Contributors: Teachers within UK HE/FE Business model: Trading model critical, incentives possibly financial within and across disciplines, requires separate organisation (e.g. JISC) or consortium to manage LOR, workflow, DRM Communities: Multiple communities, require facilitation, currently supply- demand issues Support learning: Focus on resources; distant from learning culture of institutions, depends on types of resources created and used

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Issues for communities: Jorum Socio-cultural Culture clash associated with sharing resources and collaboration across a range of institutions and educational sectors Pedagogic Need for user training and support nationally and the costs associated with such support Need to cater for the diverse pedagogic models and approaches that various institutions and disciplines utilise Usability and relevance of the resources Organisational and information management Institutional use dependent on perceived value, critical mass of LOs, quality assurance, exemplars, usability, conditions of use/IPR, DRM National policies: Reward institutions for contributing, support staff development for those contributing and reusing, link to national ICT policies

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 User perceptions: Jorum Drivers: “We are about to implement a VLE and I am looking for suitable content with which to populate it. I am also encouraging the use of more self-access e-learning material…to set students work without it adding to the burden of marking” Barriers: “I have not been able to find much material that is directly relevant to the what we teach here.” “I was expecting more interactive content…the materials are not significantly different from worksheets that teachers already use” Community identity: Institution – department – discipline, not LOR

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 LORs and communities: Spoken Word Services Purpose: Integration of digitised spoken word audio into learning and teaching Resource types: Authentic audio resources with associated text and images (BBC radio archive) Contributors: Teachers and students within UK and US HE Business model: Trading model not applicable, but requires staff commitment, and incentives within the institutions Communities: Multiple disciplinary communities, teachers and students Support learning: Students find resources, evaluate and deploy them in developing their arguments. Teachers can use the resources to teach in any way that works for them.

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Issues for communities: Spoken Word Services Socio-cultural Preference for different resource types and learning approaches within disciplines Organisational and information management Institutional support and recognition dependent on perceived value Political barriers within institutions associated with the use of open resources User IT skills (adult learners as opposed to younger students) IPR, particularly when users upload 3 rd party materials Scalability of user support and guidance Technological Accessibility (streaming audio, inst. firewall), searchability, ease of use

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 User perceptions: Spoken Word Services Drivers: - Integration of challenging and original resources “it throws the parameters of what you generally do in teaching” - Resources allow for pedagogic pluralism “you can see that nobody is using it the same way as anybody else. So what we have got here is not only adaptable, but it naturally exists as part of whichever package of approaches individuals use” Barriers: - Technical problems with accessing resources from other institutions - Status of teaching in institutions “I fool around with technology such a lot and it takes all my time…There isn’t the kind of recognition that doing something practical has the same academic value as spouting lots of quotations and doing a thick bibliography”

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 User perceptions: Spoken Word Services Barriers (contd.) - Institutional recognition- how institutions regard use of time “ I sometimes sit at my machine with the headphones on and I am listening to audio that has been collected for me. And people walk past the door and they make remarks about, you know, what I might or might not be doing. But if I were sitting with a journal open on my desk and it wouldn’t be the same comment.” Impact on teaching - Transformation of activity of teaching “ I have had to shift my head in terms of what exactly is it I want to deliver in the classroom, so, you know, it’s not just simply a matter of kind of going in a doing a show and tell, listen to this, listen to that, wonderful. You have to figure out how to make that relevant, which means you have to re-think how you structure a class or how you are going to shape a module or whatever. Now I actually think that I have got a better understanding of how to teach than I had before I got involved in e-learning“

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 User perceptions: Spoken Word Services Community, belonging, identity - Primarily discipline and institutional community, but also CoP coalescing around the Spoken Word “I wouldn’t underplay the importance of what that small community is. What I get out of being involved with this project is something about validation, it’s something to do with not feeling, you know that sort of thing, everybody’s out of step but our Jock, you know. There’s that kind of feeling that I don’t think that the things that I do in relation to e-learning or learning generally are recognised within the school that I’m part of, so therefore I rely quite heavily on this project for that sense of personal validation and I think it is quite important, and also I learn huge amounts from eavesdropping in, you know, into other people’s areas. So I think that we are a community of practice“.

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Findings: Issues for communities Socio-cultural  Design of LORs currently not based on clear understanding of user communities  Lack of incentives and rewards to motivate communities to use the LORs Technological  Lack of usability of tools, processes, and standards for metatagging, search, retrieval, authentication, workflows Pedagogic  Pedagogic models for use LORs are still predominantly content-driven and do not involve co-construction of resources by the students Organisational  Lack of institutional strategies for adoption of LORs  User skills and information literacies

Anoush Margaryan Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories Networked Learning Conference, April 11, 2006 Prerequisites for success of LORs  Design of LORs based on needs of the communities  User needs integrated through cascading/collaborative approaches to design and development  LORs closely linked to institutional and national strategies for teaching and learning  Recognition and rewards based on understanding of the communities and what motivates them  Quality assurance of resources, particularly in LOR models involving student-contributed resources  LOR interoperability and linkage with personal and institutional information environment, tools and systems  Information literacy and development within user communities