DIGITAL RIGHTS AND E-PAYMENT IN E-LEARNING

Completing the Learning Object Lifecycle

Luis de Marcos, Carmen Pages, José Javier Martínez, José Antonio Gutiérrez, Juan Manuel de Blas

and José María Gutiérrez

Dpto Ciencias de la Computación, ETS Ingeniería Informática, Universty of Alcalá

Ctra. Barcelona km 33.6, Alcalá de Henares, Spain

Keywords: Learning object, learning object lifecycle, digital rights, digital rights management, e-payment.

Abstract: The learning objects paradigm actually drives the majority of researches and commercial developments in e-

learning field. Nevertheless, this paradigm has been harshly criticized due to the fact that it has not achieved

the objectives proposed in its initial definition. This, together with some false assumptions surrounding the

e-learning concept, have led costumers and organizations to the belief that e-learning have not met its initial

expectations, and have borne e-learning marketplace to a expansion lower than was expected. This paper

describes how two emerging areas within e-learning field, digital right aggregation to learning objects and

payment systems integration, can help the learning object paradigm to meet its initial expectations and can

help the e-learning marketplace to go beyond its current barriers. Digital rights and e-payment will enable to

complete the learning object lifecycle in an automated way, thus permitting on-demand, high-quality, low-

cost learning.

1 INTRODUCTION

E-learning, when was initially conceived, was said

to become the greatest potential market over the

Internet, but “despite massive investments in both

hardware and software, there has yet to emerge a

viable market for e-learning products. Only course

management systems […] and PowerPoint lectures

[…] have been widely accepted.” (Zemsky &

Massy, 2004). These spectations have not been met

due to: (1) false assumptions and myths that have

surrounding e-learning since its very beginning

(Rosenberg, 2006; Zemsky & Massy, 2004), (2)

technology limitations associated to e-learning

(Barr, 2006; Sloman & Buren, 2003), and (3) lack of

pedagogical and didactic issues in technology-

enabled learning approaches (Feldstein, 2006;

Friesen, 2004; Sosteric & Hesemeier, 2002). E-

learning needs to overcome these problems and

limitations in order to fully achieve its marketplace

potentials.

Within e-learning, the learning object paradigm

drives almost all initiatives. This paradigm

encourage the creation of small reusable learning

units called learning objects. These learning objects

are then assembled and/or aggregated in order to

create greater units of instruction (lessons, courses,

etc) (Wiley, 2000).

The technologocial-related problems in e-

learning are associated to the learning objects

paradigm and its related technologies. Among these

problems, two are gaining increased importance:

et al., 2002), and the integration of payment

gateways within current e-learning systems in a

flexible way (Hämäläinen et al., 1996). On the other

hand, the society demands lifelong, on-demand,

adapted, high-quality learning, E-learning

technology must acommodate these problems in

order to as become flexible as the society demands.

This paper presents a solution to address right

management and payment integration problems

around e-learning initiatives.This solution is based

on the learning objects paradigm and it is viable

within the current available learning technology

status. Section 2 depicts this conceptual model

proposal, that is based on the definition of a

complete lifecycle concerning learning objects, since

its creation to its final delivery, billing and charging.

In section 3 the proposed model benefits are

540

de Marcos L., Pages C., Javier Martínez J., Antonio Gutiérrez J., Manuel de Blas J. and María Gutiérrez J. (2007).

DIGITAL RIGHTS AND E-PAYMENT IN E-LEARNING - Completing the Learning Object Lifecycle.

In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and e-Government /

e-Learning, pages 540-544

DOI: 10.5220/0001284805400544

 SciTePress

presented. In section 4 the technological steps

necessary to made this solution operative are

described. And finally, section 5 outlines the extra

developments that could be done in order to improve

the proposed model and the e-learning solutions.

2 CONCEPTUAL MODEL

PROPOSAL

In order to automate the learning object process, the

complete lifecycle of that objects should be

considered. In the same way that in object oriented

paradigm the object lifecycle comprises from the

object creation to its destruction, in the learning

objects paradigm the initial and the final points must

be defined.

The learning object lifecycle begins when the

reusable learning objects are created by the content

creators. According to current literature, the learning

object lifecycle ends when that object is delivered to

the final learner (Daziel, 2002; Grewal et al., 2005).

Even if this delivery is done successfully according

to copyright restrictions (i.e. allowing access to

authorized learner or denying it to unauthorized

ones), we consider that this lifecycle should not be

completed until the moment the author gets the

return of investment of its initial development.

Figure 1 presents the learning object lifecycle

within the proposed framework. According to that

model, content providers create the initial learning

objects (LO). A digital right (DR) specification

(called rights object) must be attached to each

learning object to complement it in a twofold way:

First, it ensures that the copyright restrictions are

distributed with the object; and second it may

content the payment data (price, payment mode,

etc.). Payment data will not be attached when the

objects are intended for free use, but the rights

specification should be attached to the learning

object even if the object is intended for free use, “if

for no other reason than to avoid the risk of

inappropriate commercial sale of free public domain

items” (Daziel, 2002).

The learning object (with its digital right

specification) is then stored in a repository. This

repository, and other distributed repositories across

the Internet, must publish its learning objects

information in order make possible for federated

search engines to find them. When the resources are

published, instructors use a LCMS (Learning

Content Management System) to built courses by

assembling learning objects. These learning objects

have to be retrieved from the local repository or

from remote repositories using the federated search

system. The LCMS is hold responsible for

presenting license agreements to instructors, and

instructor must accept the licences in order to

include the learning objects in the courses.

After the learning experience (course) creation,

the course must be published in the LMS (Learning

Content Management System), so that the final users

(learners) can access the learning contents. Learner

connect to the LMS and access to the courses

object needs to be accessed, it is delivered to the

learner so that he or she can receive the instruction.

In order to complete the learning object lifecycle,

one more process and two more flows are required.

A ‘payment management’ process must collect the

payment data from learners (provided by the learners

or by the organization he/she belongs to) and the

learning objects usage (retrieved from the LMS) in

order to execute the charges related to the learning

objects the have been accessed. The payment

management could handle extra issues, such as

billing and invoicing, discounting, payment modes,

etc. The LMS is hold responsible for presenting

license agreements to learners, and learners must

accept the licences so that learning objects could be

delivered to them.

Finally, the payment management process pays

to the content creator the owed amount for the

learning object usage. The payment management is

depicted as a process in Figure 1 and it could be

integrated in the LMS, it can be implemented as an

external system, or the service can be handled by

(outsourced to) third parties.

3 MODEL BENEFITS

First of all, the proposed model makes possible an

automated and flexible processing of the learning

objects. The automated processing produces a cost

reduction due to the lowering of administrative tasks

and administrative staff that the organizations are

carrying nowadays to accomplishing such tasks. The

flexible processing is achieved due to the capacity of

the model to serve and charge the learners only for

that objects that are really using. This encompasses

(1) ‘the broader view of e-learning’ (Rosenberg,

2006), that it is the e-learning capability to deliver

critical-content and lifelong-learning, and (2) the

PaWYRN (pay-what-you-really-needed) model

(Binemann-Zdanowicz et al., 2003) for learners.

DIGITAL RIGHTS AND E-PAYMENT IN E-LEARNING - Completing the Learning Object Lifecycle

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Figure 1: Learning Object Lifecycle.

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Static and dynamic pricing models (Gruene et

al., 2005) are enabled, so that organizations can offer

contents in a tailored way regarding its necessities

and opportunities. Also, several payment models

(pay-at-once, pay-per-feature, pay-per-time) can be

used (Binemann-Zdanowicz et al., 2003).

Flexibility is also available to content providers

and instructors. Content providers could buy

contents to other content providers to ‘adapt’ it or to

‘include’ it in its own content in a flexible way by

making the suitable changes in the license definition.

Anyway, content providers could make its content

license-unchangeable in the digital right definition.

ROI (Return of Investment) and copyright are

guaranteed to the content creators. We think that this

is necessary to create a viable open e-learning

marketplace. Current open systems developments

lead to free systems and contents that are nonviable

for profit-driven organizations.

Courses assembled with learning objects from

different sources are made possible, while payment

to each of these source-content providers for its

objects usage is guaranteed.

Each component (and actor) of the system, and

its responsibilities, are clearly depicted. With such

separation, several organizations can enter into the

e-learning marketplace, and each organization will

offer one or more services. So, we could have in the

e-learning arena content providers, publishers and

repository managers (including repository system

vendors), federated search engines providers or

searching services providers, copyrights holders and

managers, LMS and LCMS vendors, and payment

intermediaries.

4 MODEL NECESSITIES

The model comprises the complete learning object

lifecycle and enables a flexible control, delivery, and

payment of learning objects. But, what are the

technological requirements to make the model

implement-‘able’?

First of all, compliance with current e-learning

standards and specifications is necessary. LOM

(Learning Object Metadata) standard (IEEE, 2002)

should be used to catalogue learning objects in order

to enable precise searches. Digital Repositories

Interoperability specification (IMS, 2003),

developed by IMS, should be used in order to ensure

learning objects storage and retrieval interoperability

among repositories. And SCORM (Shareable

Content Object Reference Model) specification

(ADL, 2004) should be used in order to ensure: (1)

courseware interoperability among different

platforms (LMSs and LCMSs), and (2) a common

pattern for describing and reporting access to

learning objects, so that learner could be charged for

them and content providers could be paid.

Available specifications must be extended to

incorporate digital rights and price modelling within

individual learning objects. Current literacy quotes

the lack of concepts in current standards for the

integration of copyright and price (Binemann-

Zdanowicz et al., 2003; Bohl et al., 2002; Downes,

2003; Gruene et al., 2005), and it present some

methods (and even implemented systems) to cover

the identified lacks. These methods include: (1)

Integrating digital rights expression languages

within the learning objects description. The digital

rights description could be attached to the learning

object or it could be stored externally and pointed by

the learning objects (Daziel, 2002; Grewal et al.,

2005). (2) Extending current metadata descriptions

to include digital rights or pricing models (Grewal

et al., 2005; Gruene et al., 2005). And (3), defining

new methods of integration regardless of current

specifications (Binemann-Zdanowicz et al., 2003;

Tschiedel et al., 2003).

Finally, the developed system/s should be

integrated with current commercial payment

gateways. For that purpose content provider and

costumer (learner) needs should be considered as

well. Possible payment models include pre- and

post-payment, as well as micro- and macro-payment.

5 FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS

Some improvements are considered for further

research in the near future. These include the

following:

Automatic content adaptation based on learner

needs. Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) and

adaptive learning systems are an active research line,

whose researches offer some possibilities that should

be reviewed in order to improve the proposed model.

Automatic content adaptation regarding interface

and corporate image issues. Organizations are

actually facing large investments just in content

adaptation to different platforms and to corporate

image interface requirements. The proposed model

should be extended to handle this issues by defining

methods that clearly separate interface and contents

in learning objects, and use

transformation/combination methods to create the

final content.

DIGITAL RIGHTS AND E-PAYMENT IN E-LEARNING - Completing the Learning Object Lifecycle

543

Web service integration. Web services can

improve interoperability between platforms, between

contents, and between platforms and contents. An

approach of the model from the web services side

could be described

Negotiation systems (so that different actors

could negotiate, between them, the terms and

conditions of learning contents) and more flexible

rights management (so that actors can deal, accept,

refuse, change or negotiate the rights flexibly) are

just another potential research lines.

Finally, not only learning object lifecycle should

consider, but e-learning lifecycle should be

considered as well. E-learning comprises the whole

learning process from the initial definition of the

learning objectives to its achievement and

notification (Daziel, 2002; Gruene et al., 2005). The

relation between the e-learning lifecycle and the

learning object lifecycle must be researched, aiming

the largest automation possible of the e-learning

process, while improvement of e-learning paradigm

and e-learning objectives are also taken into account.

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