TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPING

STANDARDIZED E-LEARNING MODULES

A Report on Methods and Tools in a Distributed Content Production Project

Michael Clauß

Department of Factory Planning and Factory Management, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany

Sandra Döring

Media Center, Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany

Michael Gerth

AG E-Learning-Service, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

Keywords: e-Learning, Development framework, Module production toolset, Standardization, Distributed content

production, Small and medium-sized enterprises, SME, European Social Fund, ESF, Creative Commons.

Abstract: The article summarizes the surrounding conditions and solutions for challenges in the so called

SECo-project, which was initiated by several German universities in order to strengthen the competitive

situation of small- and medium-sized enterprises by providing knowledge on e-learning. It focuses on

methods and tools for the development and production of standardized e-learning modules in distributed

teams of authors. It is a report on work in progress, outlining solutions for typical problems in content

production projects, which are generated through interdisciplinary expertise and based on the need for

standardization.

1 INTRODUCTION

The production of e-learning content is considered to

be cost-intensive and highly uncertain in terms of

revenue. Therefore the utilisation of e-learning in

on-the-job trainings in small- and medium-sized

enterprises [SME] hasn’t yet become common

practice. In order to strengthen the competitive

position of SMEs, which are in the focus of federal

employment politics in Germany, nine universities

in the German State of Saxony started a common

project named Saxon E-Competence Certificate, also

called SECo (SECo, 2009).

The aim of the project, which is managed by the

University of Leipzig and sponsored by the

European Social Fund (European Commission,

2009), is the provision of standardized e-learning

modules for continuing education of SMEs training-

staff by teaching them how to use e-learning for a

more cost-efficient staff training. By promoting the

knowledge transfer from science to industrial

practice, SECo actively involves Saxon SMEs, both

during content development and certification.

For that purpose the participating universities are

geographically dispersed over Saxony so that

communication with local SMEs is facilitated and

requirements are not limited to regional specifics.

The resulting diversity of authors and expertise

poses a couple of problems, which have to be coped

with to produce standardized learning modules.

Since learners may choose freely from the entire

range of modules that are not necessarily built by the

same author, standardization is seen as a basic

requirement for SECo learning modules. For

consistent appearance several measures have been

taken. This paper will give an overview of methods

and tools developed or chosen for SECo. They will

be presented in four dimensions of standardization.

These dimensions cover aspects of content,

didactics, technology and organisation. The modules

202

Clauß M., Döring S. and Gerth M. (2010).

TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPING STANDARDIZED E-LEARNING MODULES - A Report on Methods and Tools in a Distributed Content

Production Project.

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 202-207

DOI: 10.5220/0002778802020207

 SciTePress

will be provided under the CC License [CC-BY-SA]

(Creative Commons, 2009).

2 CONTENT

The declared aim of the project is the development

and production of e-learning modules to increase

competencies in media and e-learning for Saxon

companies. This first section will give an overview

of content-related aspects of standardization.

2.1 Topics

The cumulative study time for all modules was

estimated to be around 400 hours split into 50

different learning topics. These topics are derived

from the domains of didactics, technology and

management.

Furthermore, these topics are grouped by roles,

which are typically involved in e-learning scenarios,

namely author, trainer, manager and expert of

technology. The topics were redefined during the

initial phase of the project.

2.2 Module Types

For each topic, a basic module with a study time of

two hours and a comprehensive module of four

hours are to be produced, each addressing different

learning profiles. A few topics were supplemented

with special courses that have a study time of seven

hours and contain applied knowledge of highly

practical relevance.

2.3 Certification

All the modules are designed to be applied in

blended learning settings. Like the different module

types, certification is also planned to be provided in

three stages: the basic, the standard and the special

certification.

The definite configuration of the certification

stages is still pending and the final solution will be

worked out based on practical experience and

requirements of Saxon SMEs later on, even though

there is an initial concept contained in the project

description.

2.4 Content Classification

The content to be produced is classified according to

the ratio of production effort to study time. There are

three classes of content defined: lower, medium and

high qualitative content. The respective ratios are

defined with 20, 70 and 100, saying that a 10 minute

learning content of lower quality by definition

allows a production effort of 200 minutes.

The proportions of lower, medium and high

qualitative content are fixed at 20%, 35% and 30%.

The missing 15% are designated for tests. These

values are compulsory for the overall content.

3 DIDACTICS

The development of multimedia learning content is

usually very complicated. Therefore, it is useful and

appropriate to have a well-planned didactic approach

rather than a mere intuitive concept.

In order to build didactically sound modules, the

heterogeneous expertise among the authors in SECo

requires a high degree of standardization in this

field.

3.1 Didactic Approach

In media didactics, the quality of a learning medium

can be rated by its contribution to solving an

educational issue. Therefore, an adequate

assignment of learning opportunities to a learning

situation is required.

Several steps of analysis and specification are

necessary, namely the definition of learning

objectives (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill and

Krathwohl, 1956), the choice of teaching methods

and media for the learning scenario, not to forget the

didactic design of the learning modules.

Therefore, a common didactic approach for the

modules is essential and includes several basic

educational issues such as the classification of

learning theory, the focus on educational models, the

preparation of the content, the use of teaching and

learning methods and aspects of learning control.

A didactic concept was needed, that can be used

as a template for the entire module development.

The basic concept is the Instructional Systems

Design (Issing and Klimsa, 2002). It relates to media

didactics and both learning and cognitive

psychology.

The first step is to determine what the e-learning

program has to provide to satisfy the educational

needs. Therefore a description of the targets of the

educational program is needed. This relates to the

educational goals such as skills and learning

objectives as well as to general objectives such as

certification and training duration.

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The second step involves the development of the

didactic approach. The approach chosen is based on

the Constructivist Learning Theory that corresponds

to the distinct individual learning character of the

SECo modules.

3.2 Didactic Template

The didactic approach will further be integrated into

a methodological framework for the e-learning

modules. This includes aspects of presentation,

performance, exercises, assessment, content and

reflection on learning time. In result a didactical

template is defined, which must be used for the

development of the modules in the SECo project.

The template is structured into basic components

such as knowledge units and content pages of

different types according to the elements of the

Learning Content Management System [LCMS]

which is used for module implementation and will

be introduced in the following section.

This methodological framework, containing the

module template, is the starting point for detailed

concept elaboration on individual module level.

The detailed concepts include the selection and

preparation of the learning content. Therefore, the

collection of potential learning content and its

modularization is based on the learning objectives

(Kerres, 2001).

The efforts are driven by the intention to produce

modules that are reusable in multiple e-learning

trainings. Therefore, as a first step, a Knowledge

Map based macrostructure of the module is set up.

In a second step this static structure is converted into

a sequence made up of a temporal order of actions

and events. Next, the content is divided into lectures,

units and learning steps. Furthermore, the type of

screen page is defined and, in addition, the types of

media and interaction is selected and planned.

All of the above information is compiled to a

detailed module concept. It includes a description of

the complete screen content, the structure of the

module as well as the learning objectives. After

evaluation, this document is binding for media

production and content creation.

4 TECHNOLOGY

Furthermore, authoring software and a platform for

course creation and content management had to be

chosen. This section provides information about the

solutions considered appropriate for the surrounding

conditions in SECo.

4.1 Media Production

Learning modules contain different types of media.

The range goes from simple text elements up to

complex interactive animations. Each media type is

assigned to a content class according to its ratio of

production effort to study time. Content

Classification was introduced in section 2.4.

The market offers a wide range of authoring

tools for media production. Not just commercial

solutions, but also open source and free software

programs were tested at the beginning of the project.

Finally the Adobe E-Learning Suite (Adobe,

2009) was chosen for reasons of usability, the wide

functional range and availability of documentation.

Another important criterion was the support of

standard web formats. On the long term,

maintenance of the media content is facilitated by a

limited variety of media formats.

4.2 Course Creation

There are a plenty of software solutions for course

creation and management. Concerning the software

architecture, they can be distinguished between

desktop-based and web-based systems. In summary,

the following selection criteria were taken into

account:

 Web-based system;

 Multitenancy;

 Flexible role model;

 Cooperative course creation;

 Separation of content and design;

 Template-based course creation;

 Multiple output formats (html, PDF etc.);

 Flexible template modification;

 Flexible combination of knowledge objects;

 Media- and metadata management capa-bilities;

 SCORM compliant learning modules;

 SCORM compliant tests.

The system of choice was the state-of-the-art

Learning Content Management System [LCMS]

named KnowledgeWorker developed and distributed

by the Saxon e-learning specialist chemmedia AG.

It is a web-based solution, which provides

multitenancy, online editors for text entry and

flexible definition of didactical elements such as

citations or notes. These elements appear in a

specially set up style and can freely be generated by

defining an appropriate XML-structure (chemmedia,

2009).

Furthermore, the system strictly separates

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content and design. This way authors don’t have to

take care of the look and feel during content

creation, they just have to pay attention to a correct

semantic markup. For this purpose the system

provides a so-called What You See Is What You

Mean [WYSIWYM] editor. Alternatively, content

can be created in XML-mode, showing that the

systems’ interface is flexible enough to address both

experienced and first-time users.

In addition the LCMS provides distinctive

features for content management. All the media files

transferred to the system are organized in a media

database. To use a media file in a course element,

the respective file in the database is referenced. Each

media file can be referenced several times. The

advantage of this solution is the easy replacement of

frequently used media files. At the same time,

planning of media use gets more demanding. It

needs to be considered that future changes to the

media elements still fit the context of the knowledge

objects.

The media files can be tagged and described via

various metadata elements. It is possible to deposit

the raw pictures, videos or animation elements in

addition to the published media file, making it easier

to enhance the media elements during maintenance

after the project is finished.

5 ORGANISATION

The organisational measures focus on the usage of

collaborative technologies such as web 2.0 tools or

learning management systems for project

organisation and cooperation.

Furthermore, the production process is described

via an event-driven process chain model that is

provided to all SECo authors via a simple web-

interface.

The determination of a valid media mix with

regard to production effort and study time is the

third organisational tool for working out the module

concept. It will be introduced in this section.

5.1 Cooperative Platforms

Two different open source learning platforms are

used for project communication: Moodle and OLAT

(Online Learning And Training / Zurich, 2009).

Moodle is the standard Learning Management

System [LMS] used by the University of Leipzig. It

is predominantly used for project organisation. In a

special course room all necessary documents, which

were created during the project, are provided to the

project members. It is the central platform for

document management and communication

(Moodle, 2009).

OLAT is the standard LMS of the Saxon

universities. It is used for mainly non-organisational,

content-related discussions.

Furthermore, the open source project

management tool dotProject is used for overall

project supervision and cooperation with external

stakeholders and promoters (dotProject, 2009).

The platforms contain various tools for online

communication. The most popular tool is the web

forum. After a posting is sent, it is additionally

pushed to all the project members via email.

Instant messaging clients and traditional email

can be used for individual communication in

addition to the tools within the learning platforms.

5.2 Process Model

For the purpose of creating a common understanding

of the production process an event-driven process

chain was modelled, using ARIS Toolset (Scheer,

1998). It is based both on experience and some

influences of the PAS 1032-1:2004-02 learning

reference model. The general structure of the

process model is shown in figure 1.

The model contains all the steps from the initial

idea to the completed learning module. The author

receives an orientation to all the steps and to the

tools to be used during module production. Figure 1

shows the three general stages of the process model.

First stage is reached when the general concept is

finished. If some of the formal requirements on the

concept are not met, the concept has to be revised.

If all aspects of stage one are completed

satisfactorily, production can be started. After

production is complete, the second stage is reached

and another evaluation is conducted. Again, once

this is completed satisfactorily, the module will be

field-tested with students. This testing occurs at

stage three. If the learning objectives are reached,

the module is considered finished. The model is

permanently examined and refined, in order to be a

valid reference for the authors.

5.3 Effort Calculation Scheme

Based on the general content classification described

in section 2.4, a tool for calculating the study time of

the learning module and the corresponding module

production effort was developed. This Microsoft

Excel based scheme ensures that the module concept

can be implemented within the scheduled time.

TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPING STANDARDIZED E-LEARNING MODULES - A Report on

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Figure 1: Summary of the event-driven process chain

describing the production process in SECo project.

Furthermore, it helps to estimate the study time of

the module.

The scheme is based on a classification of all

relevant media types that may be used within the

learning modules. Each media type is described by

its standard study time per unit and the

corresponding production effort. The mandatory

proportions of the content classes only allow such

module concepts that fulfil the requirements on both

production effort and target study time of the

planned module.

For example, a module concept for a four-hour

module could be a mix of the following media types:

 6x text1 (orientation);

 4.5x text2 (content);

 4x picture;

 4x diagram;

 5.5x sound recording;

 10x interactive animation;

 6x non-interactive animation;

 9x video;

 29x self-test;

 4x test.

This is a valid mix of media types concerning the

constraints described in section 2.4. For each media

type, the product of the number of media elements

and the standard learning time per unit is calculated.

Afterwards, the products are summed up. The same

is done concerning the standard production effort per

unit. As a result, these two sums indicate the degree

of conformance to the requirements defined for the

learning modules in SECo. To be valid, the planned

learning time has to fit exactly to the expected time.

On the other hand, the production effort has to be in

a range of 10 per cent to the expected value.

The effort calculation scheme supports the author

in planning a module that fits the rather formal

requirements. It is the second mandatory document

besides the detailed module concept at the end of the

first stage of the process model.

6 CONCLUSIONS

In summary, the tools and methods developed so far

in the SECo project are essential for the coordination

of activities on the way to produce standardized e-

learning modules.

The dimensions presented are provisional and

permanently refined during further project work.

Nevertheless, the templates, models and tools

developed, are raising remarkable public interest.

It’s still a long way to go before a generally accepted

concept for a multi-dimensional framework of

methods and tools for the production of standardized

e-learning modules can be established.

The presented results were gained during the first

six months of the project with another two years to

go. The practical background causes mainly

demand-driven solutions, which is important for

compliance with project targets. An accurate

definition of standardization and quality in the SECo

project is still pending, which was compensated by a

preliminary argumentation about the aspects of

standardization.

When it comes to the production stage and the

modules, which are produced on the basis of the

templates, tools and methods, worked out so far, it

will quickly become evident, whether the

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standardization, which was aimed at, is achieved.

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