Learning Networks connecting people, organizations, autonomous agents and learning resources to establish the emergence of effective lifelong learning
Learning Technology
Development Programme
2003 - 2008
More is different … Educational Technology Expertise Centre Open University of the Netherlands COLOPHON
Title: Learning Networks
connecting people, organizations, autonomous agents and learning resources to establish the emergence of effective lifelong learning
Author(s): Rob Koper & Peter Sloep
Programme: Learning Technology Development Programme 2003 – 2008
Programme chair: Prof.dr. E.J.R. Koper
Programme assistant: Mieke Haemers
Report type: Programme plan
Publication date: February 2003
Document Reference: U2003-1608 MMO
Available at: learningnetworks.org Educational Technology Expertise Centre (OTEC) Open University of the Netherlands
Learning Networks connecting people, organizations, autonomous agents and learning resources to establish the emergence of effective lifelong learning
2003, February Educational Technology Expertise Centre, Open University of the Netherlands
Save exceptions stated by the law no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, by print, photo print, microfilm or other means, included a complete or partial transcription, without the prior written permission of the publisher. TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...... 7
POSITION...... 7
WITHIN OTEC AND OUNL...... 7 WITHIN THE FIELD OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY...... 9
OBJECTIVE...... 10
THEMES...... 10
OUTCOMES...... 13
STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAMME...... 15
RELEVANCE...... 17
RISKS...... 19
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS...... 20
ROUTE TOWARDS IMPLEMENTATION...... 22
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... 24
REFERENCES...... 24 Learning Networks
Introduction
This document contains the description of the Learning Technology Development Programme that will start in January 2003 and will run for a regular period of five years. It provides the general framework for the development and execution of a series of concrete projects that will run under the direct responsibility of the programme within the Educational Technology Expertise Centre (OTEC) and ultimately the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL). Furthermore it provides the framework to prioritise additional, (partly) externally funded projects that can be added to the programme to strengthen its output. The programme is embedded within OTEC, its organization, infrastructure, capacity and procedures.
The general requirements to the programme are the following. First, the programme should be relevant for the eLearning/learning technology community, higher education, and the OUNL. Second, the programme should be coherent, be built upon a common set of theoretical and technical assumptions, and describe topic areas for projects that are clearly interconnected. Third, the programme should be formulated in such a way that it can provide output directed to both the eLearning community, the learning technology specification & standardisation communities and the field of higher education. And fourth, the programme should fit the core competence and past performance of OTEC.
The structure of this document is as follows. The first section discusses the position of the programme in its environment, followed by a description of the objectives of the programme. This is followed by a description of the themes, outcomes and overall structure of the programme. Finally attention is paid to the relevance of the programme for its different stakeholders, the route towards implementation and its risks. The elaboration of the theoretical and technological framework behind this programme and the programme management procedures will be published in separate documents.
Position
This section provides a description of how the programme fits within OTEC/OUNL and the field of educational technology.
Within OTEC and OUNL
The programme is developed and carried out in the Educational Technology Expertise Centre (OTEC) of the Open University of the Netherlands. It is directly related to the core mission and activities of the OUNL and OTEC. The OUNL has a dual mission: (1) to develop and deliver high quality higher distance education, collaborating in networks and alliances, (2) to fulfil a pioneering role in the innovation of higher education, taking into account the disparate needs of students, the education market, and society at large. Part of this strategy is to invest in research and technology development in educational technology, not only in order to add to the existing knowledge and technologies, but with the further aim also of improving education and laying a firm foundation for the continuing innovation of higher distance education as provided by the OUNL. The implementation of this strategy is assigned to OTEC, which runs two coherent programmes, one directed at research and the other at the development of new learning technologies. The research programme looks at methodologies and principles for instructional design in higher education that are effective, efficient and appealing, using cognitive and (social-) constructivist perspectives (Van Merriënboer et al, 1998). The technology development programme develops new models and learning technologies that may realize effective, efficient, attractive, flexible and accessible lifelong learning in distributed network environments. Both programmes complement each other and add to the full picture of educational innovation, each programme uses the other's work to build upon. Shared principles of the programmes of OTEC are:
1. Learning processes should be directed at the improvement of the performance of learners in complex task situations. This is related to concepts as competencies, complex skills and
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knowledge sharing. The basic orientation is in (social-) constructivist theories and related self- organization theories.
2. The key instrument for learning is to stimulate learners to perform learning activities using a variety of learning resources. These activities can be ordered according to certain instructional (or learning) design principles (e.g. 4C/ID model, Van Merriënboer, 1998) and can be formally described and made interoperable using learning technology specifications, such as Educational Modelling Language (EML, 2000) and IMS Learning Design (IMSLD, 2003).
3. Learners are responsible for their own learning process to the degree that they can carry that responsibility. Support should be provided in so far they cannot act independently, and should be directed at increasing the responsibility and independency of the learners (scaffolding).
4. Learning opportunities are to be provided using new learning technologies, that – in principle - may enable more flexibility (personalisation, adaptation), better accessibility (time and place independency; lifelong learning; learning integrated into the work environment), more efficiency (reuse, automation, just-in-time and just-in-case development and delivery) and, possibly, more effectiveness and new functionalities in learning (e.g. through the implementation of new pedagogical models).
5. New technologies are to enhance the teaching-learning process and the accessibility to learning facilities, with the proviso that they should always be considered as a means to an end and not as a goal in itself. Focus is on 'open' technologies that are shared to advance learning and underlying knowledge and that make systems interoperable.
6. Rich learning environments should always be regarded as learning environments that use a variety of media rather than a single medium (e.g. the computer). Also, preferences for a specific media mix can vary from situation to situation and from user to user. In the mix, one of the media is the so-called ‘core’ medium. It is used (e.g. by a teacher or in an automated fashion) to set the tasks, it integrates and refers to the other media. In eLearning the discussion should not be on the complete substitution by computers of books, face-to-face meetings, etc., but on how to use the computer as the new core medium in lieu of current media (face to face setting or print).
7. Research and Technology Development have to focus on the abstract principles and technologies that may provide fundamental solutions and add to the worldwide state-of-the-art. The Research and Technology Development programmes will select themes and topics that promise to have a high future utility in higher and distance education. They are directed at making learning more effective, efficient, attractive, or accessible by using new methods and techniques.
8. In order for innovation to be successful, one needs to put effort in implementing the findings from the research and technology programmes into practice.
For the implementation to become successful, OTEC has an Implementation Programme that provides services to OUNL faculties and supports the implementation of the research and technology development findings. The OTEC staff consists of educational technologists and supporting IT staff to perform the activities in the different programmes. The focus of activities has always been on educational issues, with technology issues in a crucial, but supporting role. The staff are in a capacity pool, stimulating that the same people who work in the research and the technology development field are also involved in the concrete implementation of the findings. Besides the research, technology development and implementation programmes, OTEC has recently started work on a new programme to develop and provide an educational master programme related to its core competences (e.g. instructional design and learning technologies).
In the past OTEC – and its predecessors - have been successful in several educational innovations in instructional design and learning technologies (e.g. 4C/ID model, competency based learning models, EML/IMS Learning Design, publications, prototypes). These contributions are internationally recognized.
The OUNL actively strives to implement most of the new developed learning technologies into its actual practice, providing a continuous basis for innovation. Examples in the past are the
8 Learning Networks implementation of multimedia (80s), internet facilities like StudyNet http://www.ou.nl/studie , automated testing environments and content authoring facilities (mid 90s), introduction of third generation distance education, including new competency/activity based pedagogical models, implementation of learning technology specifications and tools for reuse and interoperability (current situation). At the moment the institute strives to consolidate and implement the new approaches (the educational process, reuse of activities/study tasks, renewal of the media mix, tutoring and market issues) by planning a series of concrete implementation projects (Westera, Van den Bosch & Bakker, 2002).
The Technology Development Programme builds further on this expertise and will provide a basis for future innovation.
Within the field of Educational Technology
The programme is positioned in the field of learning technologies or eLearning, i.e. the application of network-based technologies to provide learning facilities for distributed learners (see the eLearning domain model description; Koper, in press). In the context of this definition, the programme is primarily directed at the innovation of distance education (distributed learning), higher education and lifelong learning; it contributes to a better understanding and improvement of distributed lifelong learning, and elaborates a perspective on the future provision of higher distance education.
The programme is not only relevant for existing, distance teaching universities, but also for traditional residential universities at the very moment they start implementing eLearning. According to the programme, learners, teachers and learning resources will be connected in a network, which provides a new set of possibilities and constraints for educational systems. Among other things, it introduces freedom of place and time; it makes it feasible to automate parts of the teaching-learning process and to simulate actors (agents) or parts of the learning environment; it allows the realization of cost- effective lifelong learning and of mass customization of learning content and contexts (e.g. through global user dossiers containing user models); it fosters the implementation of new instructional design models, the reuse and sharing of learning resources, and the realization of completely novel learning opportunities (e.g. just-in-time as opposed to just-in-case learning opportunities).
The state-of-the-art of learning technologies and markets for eLearning have recently been studied on different occasions (Prometeus, 2002; De Croock et al, 2002; Van der Klink et al, 2002; Open consultation meeting EU RTD 6th Framework Programme). One of the major questions for the coming years is how these potential benefits of eLearning are to be identified and realised. A problem in answering this question is that the domain is quite young and immature. Technical, pedagogical and social developments are rapid and continuous. First implementations are already in place. However, many basic theories, models and technologies are still missing or available only in their very first generations. Because of this, it is at the moment not possible to fully realize the potential of eLearning or to make well-founded decisions about eLearning in practice.
The programme will develop basic models and learning technologies to improve teaching and learning, i.e. improve the effectiveness, efficiency, attractiveness, accessibility and adaptability of teaching and learning. The problem field to be tackled is broad and complex, so its scope has deliberately been limited to include only the following perspectives:
1. The programme will focus on distributed lifelong learning and learning at the higher education level.
2. The programme will focus on the relationship between the micro level behaviours of the actors (in interaction with the learning artifacts) in the eLearning network and the emergent macro level behaviours of the network. Variables taken into account are, among others, learner outcomes and knowledge creation and sharing. More specifically the programme will focus on phenomena such as tracks (learner behaviour traces), ratings, patterns, positions, and other aggregates that emerge in the network under favourable conditions. This is – among others - based on principles from complexity theory and self-organization theory (e.g. Waldrop, 1992; Kauffman, 1995; Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991; Maturana & Varela, 1992).
3. The programme will employ such methods as a mix of prototype development, multi-agent simulation approaches and experiments with real users, in order to develop and validate new
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approaches. Autonomous agents may be used to perform a variety of tasks in the network (e.g. Jennings, 1998; Ferber, 1999).
4. Finally, the programme will focus on the identification and (joint) elaboration of the smallest, critical parts of learning networks that must be standardised in a wider community in order to establish interoperability within and between learning networks.
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Objective
It is the ultimate, long term aim of this programme to develop a new approach towards lifelong learning, by searching for a coherent set of learning technologies with the help of which one may establish so-called learning networks. Learning networks – as they are defined in this programme - use ICT networks to connect people, institutions, learning artifacts and autonomous agents in such a way that the human network becomes self-organized and will give rise to effective lifelong learning (in a certain domain among the participants). These networks are considered to be the future direction for improving the quality of, and access to learning facilities for students, workers, and citizens at regional, national and international levels. It should be noted that currently there are no entities that comply with this definition of learning networks. In terms of hard technologies, however, most basic building blocks are available but have not been integrated with the aim of supporting learning networks. It is the task of the programme to design, create, integrate and study these new entities in order to establish the basic requirements for this future innovation in distance education.
Learning networks will integrate a variety of current approaches to learning and learning technologies, and will try to establish learning related interactions between distributed actors and resources that are not possible today in an efficient manner. Efficient here means that the intensity and learning quality of the interactions between learners and learning (support) resources and those among learners are increased, without increasing (or even decreasing) the workload for staff members. Mechanisms responsible for this efficiency are self-organization and knowledge creation (e.g. information about collective behaviour) and technologies (e.g. autonomous agents, ubiquitous communications, interoperability specifications).
Another important aspect of learning networks, specifically in lifelong learning, is the elaboration of the paradigm long since advocated but seldom followed through, to put the learner centre stage in the learning process. In a learning network learners have the same possibilities to act, that teachers and other staff members have in regular, less learner centred educational approaches. Learners can create their own learning activities, can build their own learning plans, can share their learning activities and their learning plans with peers and institutions. However, not in all circumstances this is considered to be a sensible approach. Also teachers, institutions and content providers can provide learning resources, learning activities and learning plans for learners to use in a learning network. Furthermore, it is possible to automate some processes by letting autonomous agents take over some traditionally human tasks and support learners and support staff. In a learning network these approaches will be mixed, they can be balanced differently according to the actual preferences of users, the complexity of the domain, and the preferred pedagogical model.
The concrete, immediate objective of this programme is to deliver a coherent set of validated models, specifications and prototypical tools that will allow the setup and organization of a learning network and a demonstration of its operation in practice. Thus the basis is provided for first implementations in higher education and for further collaborative technical improvement and engineering of the prototypes used (e.g. through the open source model). Also, the design and implementation of the learning network and its tools and specifications, enables institutes such as the OUNL further to improve its contribution to the field of lifelong learning.
The programme will be judged to have been successful if i) it has been able to deliver these learning technologies, and ii) it has been able to demonstrate that they are capable of bringing about the changes envisaged.
Themes
From all the possible themes, a few were selected for inclusion in the scope of the Learning Networks Programme. This selection has depended on such factors as: relevance of themes from an
11 LTDP 2002 educational perspective, available capacity for the programme, competencies and interests of staff, and mission of OTEC and OUNL. Figure 1 provides an overview.
Figure 1. Programme themes within learning networks
In the programme we will thus address four themes: 1. Learning Networks Integrated. This theme addresses the overall questions and problems of learning networks and integrates the findings of the three other themes. The basic development question is: how can we create a distributed network of actors and artifacts that optimises the emergence of effective, efficient and attractive lifelong learning in its participants and in the network as a whole? 2. Learning Activities in Learning Networks. This theme addresses the issue of how actors (and agents) can create, share, (re)use and rate learning activities and related artifacts in learning networks. The reference model for the modelling of activities is the IMS Learning Design Specification. In practice this means that we will look for user-friendly affordances that allow learners and staff to design, edit, use, rate, and share small units of learning that represents a learning activity with zero or more support activities connected to it. 3. Learner Positioning in Learning Networks. The problem here is that the current eLearning systems (including the Web) do not support lifelong learning, for lack of mechanisms to share global, persistent learner dossier properties between institutions and systems. Because of this, it is impossible to position learners in the learning network: which activities fit their competences and preferences? Given a new learning network: where to start in the network? In the programme we will look for solutions to this problem. 4. Navigation in Learning Networks. Given that a learner is at a certain learning activity, how does he know where to go next? We will look for mechanisms such as tracks, routes, maps and patterns to provide the navigation information to learners. This approach balances top-down design and planning with inductive, bottom-up mechanisms. The latter approach is specifically at the focus of our interest because the former is rather well known (instructional/learning design). The inductive approach uses maps, patterns and ratings from previous learners to help the current learner. In this way the design is inductively derived from actual use. Besides the basic questions mentioned above, more detailed questions can be asked. These are elaborated in Table 1.
Every theme has several interrelated aspects under consideration, such as the functional, organizational and technical aspects. Because of the educational technology focus of the programme, functional aspects will take place first. The technical and organizational aspects are supportive.
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Table 1. Overview of the structure of the Programme
Theme Technology Development Questions
1 LEARNING NETWORKS How can we create a distributed network of actors and artifacts that optimises the emergence of effective, efficient and attractive lifelong INTEGRATED learning in its participants and in the network as a whole? What principles, theories, models, methods, rules and technologies govern such a network? What are its benefits and its restrictions? What is the critical size in terms of actors/agents and artifacts for emergence to become possible? Relationship between learning networks? What interoperability protocols and specifications are needed in order to establish learning networks? How can we use and implement a learning network, given a variety of implementation/context constraints?
2 LEARNING ACTIVITIES IN How can actors/agents create, share, (re)use and rate learning activities and related artifacts in learning networks? How best to map LEARNING NETWORKS (a combination of) roles onto individual actors/agents? What is an optimal structure and size of a learning activity, given IMS LD, and the self-organization characteristics of learning networks? How to connect support activities? What principles and facilities allow the sharing of artifacts/resources in learning networks? What principles govern the lifetime of activities, how and when are they fading out and ultimately deleted, also given principles of partial trust and the time-limited availability of artifacts/resources? How are agent roles linked to the underlying business model? Can we create autonomous agents that create, update and/or use activities or help persons in doing so? How can we use existing learning artifacts in learning networks? What interoperability protocols and specifications must be present in order to establish the creation, sharing and use of activities?
3 LEARNER POSITIONING IN How can we determine the position of a learner in a learning network, given that every learner can have different profiles and IDs? Can we LEARNING NETWORKS create an abstract representation of a learners position independent of its role in the learning network itself? Can we identify emergent aspects in the positioning behaviour? How does a learner know which activities match its entry and exit requirements? How to communicate the position of a learner in a reliable, certified way to external parties (e.g. teachers, employers, other actors). Can we create autonomous agents that help the positioning process? What interoperability protocols and specifications are needed to establish independent, persistent and exchangeable learner positions?
4 NAVIGATION IN How do actors know how to proceed in a learning network? How can we store, share and use tracks in learning networks? How do actors LEARNING NETWORKS know about other actors’ activities? How can we plan and use routes for individual and groups in learning networks? Is it possible to create autonomous agents that help actors to navigate, create optimal routes, etc.? What rules govern the navigation in learning networks? How can we analyse and use patterns of tracks in learning networks? What interoperability protocols and specifications must be present in order to facilitate navigation learning networks?
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Outcomes
Outcome types
The programme is primarily directed at the development of new learning technologies in terms of models, prototypical tools and specifications. The results will be published in journals as far as possible for these types of outcomes. The programme will not only value publications per se, but also the prototypes and specifications itself as worthwhile and independent outputs. Learning Technology Development is characterised by (i) the systematic development of innovative prototypical products, which implies the development of models of its structure and use and the inclusion of empirical evidence on their quality, and (ii) the generation of methodological directions for the design and evaluation of such products. Richey & Nelson (1996) distinguish two types of questions in development. The first are case studies in which a new prototypical product is analysed, designed, developed, implemented in a test situation and evaluated. The second extends the first type by generalizing the findings towards knowledge in the form of new (or enhanced) models, strategies or techniques to approach the problems in different application domains. Both types of development will be part of this programme, but with an accent on the development of new, innovative learning technologies.
Primary outcomes
The primary outcomes of the projects in the programme are validated new learning technologies directed the establishment of self-organised learning network to support lifelong learning. The technologies consist of: 1. Validated models for the improvement of lifelong learning using new learning technologies. 2. Prototypical tools and simulations of models, to explore, support, realize and validate the innovations aimed at. These tools will include a variety of evaluation and assessment, tracking and monitoring services to maximize their evaluation capabilities. 3. Open learning technology specifications needed to connect people, agents and organizations in order to create interoperable networks for lifelong learning. Outcomes will be made public in a variety of formats, among which the traditional journal articles, chapters in books, and PhD theses. In addition to this, prototypical tools and learning technology specifications will be disseminated through appropriate, public channels. The source code of software prototypes will be made available via websites, with detailed documentation so as to promote their adoption and further development. In order to allow for review and dissemination, demonstrations of prototypes are needed. Some specifications – the ones of which international acceptance is necessary to enable interoperability in a learning network – will be submitted to the relevant standardisation bodies. Such specifications will take the form of various reports that will be made publicly available after review.
For modelling and tools we will use open standards and specifications where possible and appropriate. For modelling and prototype development we will use e.g. UML (OMG) and the Unified Process (Jacobsen, Booch & Rumbaugh, 1999; Arlow & Neustadt, 2002).
Secondary outcomes
Besides these primary outcomes, based on primary funded projects, also secondary outcomes (spin- off) are expected. Secondary output is the result of additional projects that are added to the programme with external, or additional internal, funding.
An example is software and documentation developed in European projects, and standards as they become available from standardisation projects in which the programme participates.
Specific outcomes
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The programme will ensure a maximum of coherence between the different outputs; not just an odd collection of non-related, diverse models, tools or specifications. The complete set of models, tools and specifications must describe and enable the integrative development of learning networks. For this integration theme 1 is responsible.
The major specific outcome will be the provision of a coherent set of validated models, prototypical tools and specifications that will support test implementations of effective learning networks. From themes 2, 3 and 4 solutions will be provided for the sub-problems of a) the efficient development of learning resources, with a maximum of reusability and user friendliness, b) the assessment and positioning of students independently of institutions, facilitating lifelong learning, c) navigation within learning networks, providing effective and efficient means for adaptive learning routes, inductive learning design and in general an attractive way to interact with people, organizations and learning resources. A further expected outcome of the programme is its delivery of prototypes of autonomous agents that can perform specific tasks to support the work done by persons.
For the software parts delivered by the programme, it should be noted that the programme, with limited resources, cannot provide software fully elaborated according to regular production norms (scalable, secure, stable, fully documented, etc.). The results have the status of prototypes, but will be delivered in such a way that further elaboration (e.g. in the open source model) is feasible. At the programme’s conclusion, users should be able directly to use the prototypes in experiments with learning networks, and to continue work on implementation in terms of improvements of the software and uptake by their organization.
Output criteria
For all outcomes the following criteria must be met: 1. The output must be made publicly available and accessible. 2. Members of the relevant communities can replicate the work on the basis of the documentation provided, i.e. replicate experiments or rebuild prototypes. 3. Members of the relevant communities can continue to work on and elaborate the models and prototypes, given certain copyright restrictions. 4. The output is peer reviewed. For the publication of models in journal articles this is a straightforward and well known process. However, for other typical development output, like tools and specifications we will also apply these criteria as far as possible. E.g. for software prototypes the following procedure can be followed: 1. Accessibility and dissemination. A prototype is accessible when the source code and runtime is made available for download via a website. In order to increase the dissemination we expect that each prototype be demonstrated to external peers and internal stakeholders (to support future implementation). 2. Replication. For prototypes, this is fulfilled when the documentation and articles provide enough information to rebuild the prototype and to redo the evaluation. 3. Further elaboration of existing work. For prototypes, this is fulfilled when the source code and documentation are accompanied with a licence that allows further elaboration with respect to existing intellectual property rights. GNU-type licences fulfil this requirement. 4. Peer review. There are several procedures that may be followed here. The preferred one is to set up a kind of electronic journal that is specifically devoted to the peer reviewed publishing of source code and documentation in the learning technologies field. The setting up of such a journal will be discussed within an international forum of learning technology professors that will be established during 2003. Another, less preferable way but currently feasible way, to proceed is to ask external peers to review the source code with a rule about approval or rejection. Publishing can be done at the programme’s own website if approved. The second procedure will be followed till the first approach is established. Furthermore, part of the review must be directed to the fact that the prototype actually works. In order to show this to an external public we will demonstrate the running prototype to a public of peers and stakeholders. For open specifications the approach adopted is similar. A specification typically consists of the specification model (e.g. information model, behavioural model), a binding, the best practice & implementation guide and documentation about the development process. The information model (and
15 LTDP 2002 the bindings when available) comprise the developed 'source code' of the specification; the practices/implementation guide and further documentation of the specification will be considered as similar to the ‘documentation’. When a specification must be tested in runtime, a software prototype has to be developed additionally.
The specific output norms for staff members in the programme are available in a separate internal document about programme management.
Structure of the programme
A programme describes a coherent set of projects and activities. The relationship between the projects and activity in this programme is described in Figure 2. Every project and activity is drawn as package diagram (square with tab). The projects are ordered in four categories: I … IV.
Figure 2. The structure of the projects and activities in the programme
Category I: Learning Networks projects
Projects of category I provide the primary output of the programme (models, prototypes and specifications) and are managed by the programme and OTEC/OUNL. There is one overall project and three type of sub-projects:
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Projects 1.1: Learning Networks Integrated. These projects address the questions of theme 1 (How can we create distributed network of actors and learning artifacts that optimises the emergence of effective, efficient and attractive lifelong learning in its participants and the network as a whole) and will integrate the findings of the subprojects. In the first year of the programme a preliminary study will be carried out. Objective of this orientation is: review literature, develop project plans.
Projects 1.2: Learning Activities in Learning Networks These projects will address the questions of theme 2 (How can actors create, share, use, reuse, and rate learning activities in learning networks?). It will start with a preliminary study closely aligned with project 1.1.
Project 1.3: Learner Positioning in Learning Networks These projects will address the questions of theme 3 (How can we determine the position of a learner in a learning network?). It will start with a preliminary study in close connection with project 1.1.
Projects 1.4: Navigation These projects will address the questions of theme 4 (How do learners now how to proceed in a learning network, supported by tracks, routes, maps and patterns?). It will start with a preliminary study in close connection with project 1.1.
Category II: Technology activities
Activities 2.1: development of ICT technologies
The programme has a technology activity populated by the OTEC ICT staff members. It develops prototypes, simulations and performs the technical analysis and design parts of the projects. The activities will be directly derived from the activities planned in projects of category I. This activity does not produce output itself, but supports the other projects’ outputs. It is planned as separate from the projects and has its own ‘project leader’ because of its specificity and of the infrastructural matters involved. The expertise will be too distributed otherwise.
Category III: Co-ordination of external projects
Activities 3.1: co-ordination
In order to provide the mechanism to match the external activities (category IV) on the primary Technology Development agenda of the programme a co-ordinating activity is needed. This activity is responsible for the development/selection of external projects, including the communication aspects (EU commission, participating OUNL faculties, other external parties) and the co-ordination and management of the OUNL/OTEC/Development part of running external projects. This function has three aspects: a content-related aspect, an administrative aspect and a staffing aspect. The function uses the services offered by the administration and the capacity management of OTEC. Like category II, this activity is not planned as a regular project but as an activity that will be planned and budgeted on a yearly basis.
Category IV: Additional projects
Projects of category IV are additional projects that are only under the partial control of the programme; they are only of interest when they strengthen the primary outcomes of the programme or aid in the further dissemination of its results. Because of the external influences, these projects also inevitably produce other outputs ('spin-offs') that are not of direct interest to the programme. Some aren't worthwhile to the programme at all, some can be extremely important. In the selection of additional projects the programme has to be critical and accept or develop additional projects only if they maximally strengthen the primary output and relevant spin-offs.
Currently the programme participates in several EU funded projects, like Alfanet, eLearnTN, Time2Learn, E-LEN, …, and we prepare the participation in new 6th framework EU RTD projects.
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In the standards area, the programme is currently active in IMS, CEN/ISSS WSLT and the Valkenburg group. These activities are related to important secondary outcomes, to wit: ‘standards’ published by external bodies. This activity feeds on the open specifications that are developed in the programme. Most of these specifications need to be accepted by, further developed and maintained in a certain (standardization) community. In this process, others also submit their specifications and the end result will be a joint compromise with a large impact.
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Relevance
The programme considers learning networks to be an important future innovation of higher and distance education in the field of lifelong learning. The programme works towards their realisation. The major expected specific outcomes that are of concrete, practical importance for the OUNL and higher/distance education in general are:
1. A concrete, working set of models, prototypical tools and specifications that will support test implementations of effective learning networks. A learning network can be setup in the users own context and a newly created learning network may be connected to other learning networks through the Internet. The software developed in the programme, will – where possible - be provided as open source software with a GNU type licence. It will be tested in several practical settings, among which the OUNL. Learning networks are expected to provide effective ways to realise a flexible environment that stimulates lifelong learning in a natural way and satisfies the needs of learners and staff. They will offer a highly stimulating, interactive learning environment that invites to search, explore and exchange new knowledge and build on personal competencies.
2. Models, specifications and tools that solve the problem of the creation, sharing, use and rating of learning and support activities in learning networks. Prototypes of autonomous agents are expected to be provided that help users with these tasks or are even able to perform these task themselves (to a limited extent). It is expected that the development costs for education will be reduced while maintaining or even improving on its quality.
3. Models, specifications and prototypical tools that solve the problem of learner positioning and global learner dossiers in learning networks. This will provide one of the means to create really adaptive learning programmes. It should be possible, then, for a multitude of different educational institutions to organize such programmes that accommodate a multitude of different settings (e.g. integrated in the work situation). We expect to build prototypes of autonomous agents that may help users access and use distributed dossiers.
4. Models, specifications and tools that solve the problem of navigating in learning networks, including the creation, use, sharing and rating of tracks, routes, patterns and maps. We expect to build prototypes of autonomous agents that may help users with these tasks or even being able to perform these tasks (to a limited extend) themselves.
5. Intensive use of self-organization principles. These principles allow one to set up an efficient system with a minimum of planning and control overhead while maintaining maximum flexibility to adapt to users needs. Through these principles one may reduce the current overhead costs in maintenance, planning, control and quality issues considerably.
6. Models that explain how learning networks work. They can be handy tools for practical decisions at the level of management or teachers.
Several stakeholders of the programme may be identified: the learning technology development and users community (the eLearning community), higher and distance education in general, and the OUNL specifically.
19 LTDP 2002 eLearning community
Integrative, basic theories and models, as well as integrative technologies are still missing in the eLearning field (see below under Framework for a detailed discussion). Most approaches towards eLearning thus far, lean on theories and models from other domains, such as social-constructivism in pedagogies (e.g. Lave & Wenger, 1991; Duffy & Cunningham, 1996), peer-to-peer computing, grid computing, multi-agent approaches and distributed artificial intelligence in information sciences (e.g. Weiss, 1999), or empowerment and computational organization theory (Carley, 1995; Lomi & Larsen, 2001) in organization theory. These approaches are not integrated yet in a coherent set of theories, models and technologies, which hinders progression in the eLearning field. The programme described here is relevant for the community in eLearning, precisely because it aims to contribute to the development of models and technologies that are at the intersection of pedagogical approaches, ICT technologies and organization theory. And although grand integrative models and technologies cannot be delivered at will, the programme attempts to contribute to their much-needed emergence.
Higher and distance education
Higher and distance education institutions are both exploring the new possibilities eLearning has to offer. So traditional residential institutions for higher education are introducing some of the mechanisms that are traditionally found in distance education only - such as the separation of resources and persons in time and place - and distance-teaching institutions are introducing some of the residential characteristics - like virtual classrooms. As a result of this both types of institutions have a problem demarcating their position in the field of education: Who are the competitors I should avoid and with whom should I collaborate? A variety of new collaborative initiatives (e.g. virtual universities, consortia, digital universities) have sprung up in an attempt to deal with this tension. However, the long-term success of these initiatives is questionable because the processes that underlie eLearning are not adequately understood yet.
Though indirectly, the programme will support attempts by institutes to share resources and collaborate. It does so by providing architectures and by contributing to interoperability standards in the eLearning field. Most current collaborations are not merely hindered by organizational problems, but also because a lot of the required interoperability specifications are simply missing. This programme will help understand the stumbling blocks to sharing and collaboration; it will also help take rational decisions about the design of collaborative efforts in higher and distance education.
Apart from a blurring of the traditional boundaries between institutions for distance education and for regular higher education, eLearning also holds the promise of improving the educational offerings that both kinds of institutions may make. In the long run, lifelong learning will be a major offering, catering for the needs and demands of industry and society in general. New learning and ICT technologies will support the seamless and ubiquitous access to these facilities at work, at home, and in schools and universities. The programme provides working prototypes for a new form of education delivery that goes beyond course and programme centric models, and envisions a learner centred and learner controlled model of life long learning. This model offers tremendous promises but is also very challenging for existing models and administrative systems. The supply of evidence and the opportunity to view and experiment with radically different models is a critical component of innovation adoption (Rogers, 1995) This programme is relevant to higher, further, and distance education because it explores new ways of organizing lifelong learning, through the use of new technologies; it also provides guidelines for its implementation.
OUNL What has been said about higher and distance education in general, applies unrestrictedly to the OUNL too. The five core concepts of education within OUNL are: 1) distance teaching, 2) competency based learning, 3) use of ICT, 4) meeting different demands of society and 5) innovation of higher education. The programme fits anyone of these five aspects and will work towards future innovation of these aspects by means of the realisation of the Learning Network concept. Given the dual mission of the OUNL, the programme is primarily directed at the fulfilment of the second mission, the innovation of education. It explores new ways to organize education and builds models about effective learning using new technologies. Within this context the following issues will be addressed:
20 Learning Networks
- lifelong learning (adult students, background, institutional independent, comparable dossier, etc.) - community building - ‘distance’ to students (lack of feedback) - costs and time of development (closer connected to actual use) - reuse of activities: flexible curricula.
These issues are also part of OUNL’s educational concept as it recently has been redefined (Westera, Van den Bosch & Bakker, 2002). All in all, this provides a basis for the OUNL’s future innovation. Furthermore, through its publication, standardisation and other dissemination activities, the programme will add to the reputation of the institute as a leader in the innovation of education. It allows OUNL staff for external, international co-operation, the benchmarking of ideas, and the acquisition of new ideas and approaches. The programme will help with the implementation of the outcomes within the OUNL, it will collaborate with the OUNL faculties to set up experiments, e.g. to set up experimental learning networks for their respective subject matter fields; and it will invite staff members of faculties to contribute to the different projects in the programme. Ultimately, the programme provides directions for future innovation of the OUNL’s educational model and collaboration projects.
Risks
Any programme directed at innovation looks into the future and adopts a position with respect to future development directions. This plan, too, takes the stance that the themes selected will be a valuable future contribution to lifelong learning using new learning technologies. It describes a programme that adds to the state-of-the-art and tries to advance future learning. There are several risk factors that may hinder its effectiveness or output. Four of the major risks are discussed in this section and will be managed during the programme. About half way through the programme, an estimate will be made of the extent to which outcomes have been attained and an assessment will be made of whether the programme or its themes need to be adjusted.
Changes in state-of-the-art. There is always the risk that the state-of-the-art into the learning technologies field changes radically in the future; for instance, forced by a new technology that is not foreseen, but has a large impact on the field. Dependent on the type of change, this could effect the programme.
Implementation and communication issues. The adoption of learning networks by the various stakeholders in the future is a matter of some concern. First of all, it is well known that success with early adopters of the outcomes of R&D does not guarantee success with the majority. Whereas early adopters revel in the novelty of the new approach and for that reason alone are willing to adopt it and excuse the inevitable wrinkles that need to be ironed out some day, the majority is sceptical, and can only be convinced of the innovation’s worth if it is better than current practice along the board. Wrinkles become insurmountable obstacles, novelty gets hidden under them. This general lesson is applicable to any R&D, so also for learning networks. Staff not only have to descend from their ‘teacher knows best’ throne when giving control to the network, they also need to become a veritable ‘netizen’ and be conversant with the mores on the net. It could well be that for some this is asked too much, and rather than turning them over, one will have to wait for them to retire. What this boils down to is that the tools, technologies, specifications and models that this programme hopes to deliver are a mere starting point. Acceptance must be enlarged by the implementation stages to follow. However, by conducting experiments and pilots and involving teaching staff to the maximum extent feasible, valuable lessons may be learned for the implementation stage.
Staffing. A major factor for the success is the quality and continuity of the staff involved in the programme. The staff comes from the OTEC capacity pool. In principle, staff can move from project to project within the same programme. However, continuity of staff for a longer period of time is necessary to keep the experience evolving in the programme from project to project. Otherwise expertise will be lost during the execution of the programme, leading to a large effort in
21 LTDP 2002
getting new people acquainted with the topics again and again. The right quality of staff is necessary - the right mix of senior, regular and junior staff - in order to realize the output norms.
Additional tasks and loss of focus. There is always the possibility that temporarily there are additional assignments or tasks to the programme. This will decrease the level of activity in service of the primary outputs. Examples are additional tasks at the level of the OUNL or at the level of OTEC. While we will try to prevent this loss of focus as much as possible, if inevitable, we will organize this in separate projects and recalculate the targeted output points.
Theoretical foundations
In this section a summary of the theoretical framework behind the programme will be provided. The framework will be elaborated in a separate publication. eLearning systems can be studied from a micro, meso or macro perspective. At the micro level one looks at the function of the smaller parts within the system, e.g. the relationship between instructional measures and learning processes within individuals. At the macro level one looks at the overall functionality of the eLearning system in relation with the environment, e.g. the effectiveness, efficiency, attractiveness, accessibility and adaptability of the eLearning system. For centuries philosophers and other theoreticians have wondered how, in general, the micro activities of the actors within some system relate to the macro behaviours of the system as a whole: how can human performance be explained from the activity of brain cells; how can the individual activities of ants explain the behaviour of ant colonies; how can the effectiveness of an educational institute relate to the activities of its individual students and staff members; formulated in more general terms, how may a collection of disparate actors create higher-level order under certain conditions? Only quite recently, new theories, models and approaches have been developed particularly in the natural sciences, biology, economical and organizational sciences that explain these aggregation relationships.
This programme focuses on a meso level of analysis of eLearning systems. The programme approaches learning of individuals in relation to the organization of the network environment in which they interact and it seeks to understand how macro phenomena occur as emergent behaviours from the activities of the subsystems at the micro level (see e.g. Prietula, Carley & Gasser, 1998, p. 14). The interaction behaviours and performance of the learners and other actors are the smallest elements in the analysis. Issues like interoperability, re-use, distributed actor interaction, emergent properties (co-ordination, grouping, quality, …), social-constraints and affordances (e.g. Kirschner, 2002), accessibility and network infrastructures are issues that are relevant in this perspective.
The theories underlying this approach to eLearning are elaborated in theories like complexity theory (see Waldrop, 1992; Kauffman, 1995), the study of self-organization and emergence (e.g. Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991; Maturana & Varela, 1992; Gordon, 1999; Johnson, 2001), multi-agent approaches and distributed autonomous intelligence (e.g. Axelrod, 1997; Ferber, 1999; Jennings, 1998), computational organization theory (Carley, 1995; Lomi & Larsen, 2001); small-world network theory (e.g. Watts & Strogatz, 1998; Barabási, 2002), learning communities (Retallick, Cocklin & Kennece Coombe, 1999; Ison, 2000), new learning spaces (Peters, 1999), and technological approaches as peer-to-peer systems (Liber, Olivier & Britain, 2000; Barkai, 2002), pattern analysis (Gamma et al, 1995; Fowler, 1997; Larman, 2002), simulation approaches (e.g. Gilbert & Troitzsch, 2002), formal learning theory (Jain, Osherson, Royer & Sharma, 1999; Zwaneveld, 1999), and the Grid (Foster, Kesselman & Tuecke, 2001).
Emergence is the effect that happens when an interconnected system of actors, interacting with each other and with resources, self-organizes to form more intelligent, more adaptive higher-level behaviour. The resulting organization in its turn puts constraints on and social objectives for the interactions of the actors/agents and resources (Figure 3).
22 Learning Networks
Figure 3. Relationship between emergent properties and organizational constraints (Ferber, 1999, p.14).
23 LTDP 2002
There are several known conditions for emergence to occur, e.g. the principle of more is different. A critical mass of micro level agents is necessary to invoke the macro level behaviours. This critical mass creates a kind of phase shift in the behaviour of the system: the macro behaviours occur and can put new organizational constraints on the lower level agents (e.g. the occurrence of traffic jams). The study of micro level behaviours (e.g. the behaviour of an individual ant in a colony) is not enough to be able to anticipate the macro level behaviour. In most current approaches to learning communities this factor of ‘critical mass’ is still ignored. Another principle is that for of complexity reduction: only a limited set of rules and behaviours are accountable at the lower level. All other complexity can be ignored. Aggregations of lower level agents can be perceived as more complex, more intelligent agents within a higher level of organization. This accounts for the difference between so-called reactive agents and cognitive/intentional agents (e.g. Ferber, 1999). The adaptive behaviour of a self-organised system is dependent on random interactions of the agents with the environment, exploring a given environment without any predefined order. Parenthetically, this does not preclude the possibility of planned or even institution led activities in the network. Here, however, we want to underscore the importance of random, explorative behaviour, even though that obviously may act in concert with staged behaviours. The actors in a self-organized network must be able to detect patterns in the input. The major difference between human societies and animal societies is attributed to the existence of so-called second-order emergence patterns. Human agents can distinguish patterns of collective action, which in turn effects their actions and the function of the system as a whole (Gilbert, 1995). A further condition for self-organized networks is the principle of feedback. The provision of feedback is an essential condition for the higher-order network behaviour, like learning and adaptation, to occur, specifically positive feedback (e.g. Shapiro & Varian, 1999). The higher-order emergence phenomena that are of interest to us here are the emergence of learning, knowledge and communities in networks of learners and organizations. An interesting corollary is: how can we create a distributed network of agents that optimise the emergence of effective, efficient and attractive learning in its participants and the network as a whole. The essence of this approach is that the learning processes and the learning or knowledge communities are not designed, but emerge, i.e. arise bottom-up through mechanisms that operate under certain, favourable conditions. Studies in other domains show that these types of inductively created artifacts can be as effective and efficient as top-down designed approaches (e.g. Dorigo, 1999).
These theories, models and approaches can now be applied to the eLearning field, because of two reasons. First, because the conditions for emergent behaviours can be met by eLearning infrastructures: these connect a large number of individuals, learning artifacts and organizations into a learning network that is capable of inducing emergent behaviours. Second, because recently the approach has shifted from understanding emergent behaviours to intentionally creating systems, like learning networks, that exhibit emergent behaviours. It is expected that new approaches towards learning, like inductive learning design based on the patterns of learners in learning networks will be feasible and will stimulate new ways of learning and knowledge handling. Because of the ubiquitous nature of learning networks available at home, at workplaces, and at formal educational institutions, it is expected that these are specifically suitable for lifelong learning purposes.
This approach towards the creation of learning networks provides a new view on the organization of learning. Briefly, it holds that learning is organized or patterned in an inductive way. The autonomy of the learner is taken as the starting point, rather than a design based on particular instructional principles. Through the users’ learning behaviour, inductively learning ‘principles’ emerge. What type of emergent behaviours (e.g. emergent knowledge, learning, tracks, patterns, etc.) occur in a learning network, by what rules are they governed, what is their efficiency and economy, and how can they be influenced, are still open questions. Answering them is the subject of study and experimentation in this programme.
It should be noted that we use the term learning networks in a stipulative way. There are a number of other contexts of use of the term in which the term has a somewhat different meaning. Examples are Harasim, Hiltz, Teles & Turoff (1995, p.4), who define learning networks as ‘groups of people who use CMC [computer-mediated-communication] networks to learn together, at the time, place, or pace that best suit them and is appropriate to the task’. And there is an online journal called Asynchronous Learning Networks (www.aln.org) that mainly refers to work at the group level using computer conferencing or other networked collaborative tools. A related term is networked learning, which focuses on the experiences of students and teachers with the use of computers in learning. (see e.g.
24 Learning Networks the programme at Lancaster University at csalt.lancs.ac.uk/jisc/). Each of these conceptions bears similarity to the one espoused here, particularly in that they all involve the use of networked computers to support learning. However, there are also significant differences, the most important one being that the present programme seeks a deeper understanding of what networked learning is about. It does so by contrasting the informal to the formal, the emergent to the proscribed, and the self-directed to the institutional, which is evidenced by the explicit incorporation of self-organizational aspects, based on the interactions between actors and learning artifacts, in the conception discussed here.
What can we expect from the application of these connection theories into the eLearning field? A provisional list:
- A better understanding, perhaps explanation, of learning phenomena in networks, providing justified decisions for educational institutions that create multiple levels of collaboration and want to use eLearning in an effective, efficient and attractive way.
- A better insight into how to set up and manage collaboration, and especially collaborative development of learning resources and content in the eLearning field: consortia of digital universities, public-private sector partnerships, libraries, partnerships between traditional and open university systems, international collaborations, relations with publishers, etc.
- A better approach to, and instrumentation of lifelong learning; since e.g. dossiers are not global, but remain under the custody of the education provider, genuine lifelong learning still remains an unfulfilled dream.
- Ultimately a seamless integration of knowledge creation, sharing and use for learning purposes, that possibly opens the doors to complete new ways of learning, teaching and knowledge creation, sharing and transfer.
- A test bed through which institutions can experiment with alternate means of both providing and assessing flexible learning opportunities for accreditation and certification of learning accomplishments. A visible means to operationalize the move from nebulous accreditation practices to outcomes based learning models.
Route towards implementation
Outcomes of technology development programmes should be taken into concrete practice wherever and whenever possible, in order to realise concrete innovation. It is also the ultimate aim of this programme that the results are not shelved, but will be taken up in practice. In general this is a difficult issue, there is a natural and necessary tension between technology development and implementation in daily practice. Products - models, software, standards – resulting from technology development are not or not yet prepared for daily exploitation. Additionally, products leaving the technology development stage have to gain their place in actual practice. Clients, faculties, have to be interested in using it but equally important the implementation programme has to take over responsibility and become capable in terms of knowledge and resources of supporting it. In this section we will sketch a possible approach for implementation within the OUNL and analyse some of the barriers.
The approach
The principles advocated here, are based on diffusion theory of innovation (Rogers, 1995; Surry, 1997). The idea is that technological innovations are inevitable, but is gradual taking the human and organizational factors into account. The steps we propose are the following: 5. Make a three phase distinction in a products lifetime: technology development, implementation (or diffusion) and exploitation. 6. During the technology development phase the new innovations are created. Experiments with the new technologies are performed under the control of the technology development programme. A typical characteristic of experiments is that they can fail; the outcomes are used to validate learning technologies. Because of this, experiments have to be conducted under certain controlled
25 LTDP 2002
circumstances and the experiments are stopped when the findings are delivered. As a consequence, the requirements for the prototype development are to run the experiment, including the evaluation (e.g. logging). The scale of use is limited to the experimental conditions, as are the maintenance, reliability, security and administrative requirements. To test the internal validity of the learning technologies, laboratory settings can be used. However, most of the times the external validity will be tested. These experiments can be run in partnership with the OUNL faculties or external organizations. For experiments with external parties a category IV project will be defined. These projects will have an advisory or steering group with a member of the implementation programme and of the external party. 7. After successful creation and validation of the learning technologies, faculties, external parties, or others can ask for further implementation of the product. In that case the responsibility will be handed over to the OTEC Implementation Programme that will take care of the further diffusion of the innovation. The Implementation Programme initiates the pilots within the faculties and external institutes, and asks for the support of the Technology Development Programme. These projects will have an advisory or steering group with a member of the Technology Development Programme and of the external party. The project is managed through a project plan that specifies the activities and outputs for the different parties. For the OUNL it means that they can further integrate the programme in the Universities infrastructure or set up a partnership with an external ICT partner to support the process. Which option is chosen depends on the scope of the implementation; preferably implementation is done step by step, balancing the experience, needs and improvement of the technical quality of the software and infrastructure. A possible idea is to setup so-called 'test factories' to stimulate the process of implementation in an incremental, evolving way. The implementation and Technology Development programmes will jointly work towards to elaborate this solution. 8. After successful implementation and use, the faculties or the external parties may decide to go into regular exploitation mode. In that case the responsibility is taken over by the faculties or external parties themselves (which one depends on business model used). The faculties can ask services from IT Services Department and the faculties and external parties can ask for services from the implementation programme. There is no relationship with the Learning Technology Development Programme.
The maintenance issue
Experiments and pilots in concrete situations are needed to increase the ecological validity of the models and prototypes. So we will actively seek out opportunities to work together with faculties and external parties to carry out experiments and pilots. However, every time an experiment or pilot is performed with parties external to the programme, an exploitation and maintenance issue emerges. Ideally, experiments must stop after the test results have been obtained. In practice, faculties and external parties will want to invest in tests only if there is at least a perspective on continuation. What this means is that frequently a prototype is carried into exploitation after the test. Sometimes this use continues for many years. This problem is general to all technology development in institutions and not only to OUNL. The positive implication is that it is possible to use prototypes in concrete production situations, a fact often ignored in the books, but frequently observed in practice. On the negative side, however, the restricted technical resources in the development programme, imply it is impossible to maintain all these infrastructures in the programme itself. Handing over maintenance will introduce new requirements (transfer, documentation, installation/setup, etc.) that may not have been built into the prototypes to the extent necessary for regular exploitation purposes. By using the open source model and related distribution and versioning control systems, we expect the situation to be less problematic than with the classical model followed thus far. However, we still feel work needs to be done within the OUNL to solve this problem satisfactorily. In general, the maintenance issue will be elaborated in the concrete project plans for joints pilots. User involvement To ensure input from various future users (students, teachers, developers, administrators) in the project plans that concern pilots within the OUNL, concrete measures will be included that take the role of the faculties as potential clients and of implementation as potential new owners into account. Depending on its type and phase, each project plan will describe the role that faculties and the implementation programme of OTEC will play, ranging from a role as member of an advisory board to becoming active actors in carrying out part of the research, or participating in the experiments. This way, faculties may influence the programme and at an early stage, they may become interested and
26 Learning Networks formulate their requirements for later usage. Similarly, the Implementation programme may in a stepwise fashion take over the ownership and build up the knowledge that would allow it to support later usage and to estimate and plan requirements for maintenance, support and reengineering or incremental improvements.
27 LTDP 2002
Acknowledgements
This programme has been developed during 2002. During this process there have been numerous brainstorm sessions, discussions and reviews with different persons inside and outside OTEC/OUNL.
The authors want to thank the following persons specifically for their valuable contributions: Terry Anderson (Athabasca University, Canada), Bernd Krämer (FernUniversität, Germany), Larry Ragan (Penn State University, USA), Tom Vreeland (OpenVES, US), Wim Jochems (general director of OTEC), Management team of OTEC and the deans of OUNL.
Furthermore we want to thank the following project leaders in the technology development programme for their contributions during 2002: Jan Daniëls, Eric Kluijfhout, Jocelyn Manderveld, Peter van Rosmalen and Hubert Vogten. Last but not least we want to thank Fred de Vries, Mieke Haemers and Nicole Knebel for the valuable support in producing the documents.
References
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