1. Producing Web Course Material with IBM Knowledge Factory Team
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Department of
Computer Science
University of Helsinki
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

2. Big Picture Course Material Production (IBM Knowl. Fact. Process, …)
, chat,
discussion groups
hyper-media
self-study material
web teaching
(lectures, etc)
Learning Platform
(WebCT, LLS,…)
web
collaboration
tools
web (self) evaluation tools
f2f
collaborative
work
f2f teaching
(lectures, etc)
books, etc
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

3. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Self-Study Material
Interactive book
must be better than conventional book
Animations, movies, sound , …
Links to references & other topics
prerequisite material, on-demand courses?
Navigation, tracking
what have I done already? what next?
for student? for teacher?
Self-evaluation questions
On-line exams
multimedia
hypertext
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

4. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Media requirements
For example
Multi-media PC
56KB Internet connection
Data accessed with browser from learning platform (e.g., WebCT, Lotus LS)
Need to match
produced material
learning platform
end-user media
IBM Knowledge Producer
Lotus Learning Space
Student desktop at home
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

5. Knowledge Factory Concept
Knowledge Factory (KF) Team
14 roles – 14 types of people doing the job
some roles may be taken by client
E.g., Subject Matter Expert
most roles taken by KF Team
many roles combined to one person
some roles need more than one person
E.g., Content Developer
External Team – special expertise areas
Core Team – actual product development
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

6. Knowledge Factory Team
External Team – 8 roles
Subject Matter Expert
Production Manager, Media Architect
Technical Specialist, A/V Specialist
Production Artist, Photographer
Quality Tester
Core Team – 6 roles
Instructional Designer
Courseware Engineer, Content Analyst
Content Developer (plus Voice?)
Media Coordinator, Quality Coordinator
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

7. Knowledge Factory Process
Laine & Kerola
Knowledge Factory Process
Analyze current and existing material
select new material type, instructional method
High Level Design Document (HLDD)
goal, expectations, target audience
navigation, look and feel
instructional theme, instructional strategy & methods
course outline, modules, module dependencies
For each module, Detailed Design Doc (DDD)
draft (E.g., with PowerPoint) on each view for student
navigation, text, voice, hotspots, animations, …
used by Content Developers to produce final material
Knowledge Producer (KP) tool
Quality control by Quality Tester and client
agreement,
contract
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Producing Web Course Material ...

8. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Experiences
Course: Introduction to Databases (18 modules)
divided among 4 universities
our first 2 modules
Relational Algebra (about 2 lecture hours= 6 working hours)
SQL DDL (about 1 lecture hour = 3 working hours)
Our starting point
Existing material in Finnish – simple HTML, simple style, no sound, any browser, printable
We did not know the process
Preparations
Translation in English
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

9. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Experiences
HDDL of 24 pages
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

10. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Experiences
Look & feel – no scrolling, fixed size window
audio in each page
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

11. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Experiences
DDL : 2 tries – initial version with PowerPoint
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

12. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Experiences
final version off DDD used templates (MSWord)
159 pages
about 40 tasks/questions
about 25 pages reachable only by incorrect answers
about 30 pages cartoon like sequences
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

13. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Experiences
First version:
straightforward splitting of the manuscript into small pages - reflection questions added
instructional designer changed during development
errors in formulas, errors in graphics
Second try
inductive learning
database expert included in the team
new layout, less errors
only one browser, server dependence ?
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

14. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Experiences
well defined but laborious process
closer co-operation with implementors needed
hard to fit university teacher schedules with implementation team schedules (part time – full time)
hard to catch the functionality of the material from the DDD – too early decisions about control
overall responsibility of the course was missing
how to maintain the course is a problem ?
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

15. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Example screen
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

16. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Example screen
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

17. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Example screen
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

18. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Example screen
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola

19. Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola
Example screen
Harri Laine, Teemu Kerola