Contribution to the authoring, distribution, evaluation and integration of learning objects

Abstract

Learning Objects have emerged in recent years in the field of educational technology as a key strategy for creating and delivering digital educational resources. The fundamental idea behind them is that educational content can be broken down into small chunks that can be independently created and reused in different contexts and e-Learning systems.Learning Objects are educational resources that aim to improve reusability in order to minimize production cost, save time and provide better learning experiences. Various benefits of using Learning Objects have been exposed by several studies that have examined their acceptance and effectiveness as well as their capacity to be reused. Nevertheless, and in spite of the immense amount of work done in this research field, there are still several barriers hampering the use and adoption of Learning Objects. To overcome these barriers and fully exploit the potential of Learning Objects, various challenges must be addressed at different stages of their life cycle. This thesis encompasses the design, development and evaluation of various systems, metrics and models in order to address and overcome several of the main barriers that hamper the authoring, distribution, evaluation and integration of Learning Objects. Moreover, the use of Learning Objects in various educational environments is studied. The thesis starts with the identification of the main barriers that hamper the use and adoption of Learning Objects along the different stages of their life cycle. Thereafter, an e-Learning platform that supports the whole Learning Object life cycle is presented. Then, results of the design, implementation and evaluation of an authoring tool to create Learning Objects are reported. Next, the thesis presents the first system designed to provide systematic evaluation of Learning Objects and generation of quality scores to e-Learning systems according to multiple Learning Object evaluation models and quality metrics. Furthermore, two new evaluation models and several new quality metrics for Learning Objects are proposed. One of these metrics is based on learning analytics and allows to estimate the quality of Learning Objects based on learners' interactions. This thesis also presents a hybrid Learning Object recommendation model for Learning Object Repositories and two recommender systems implemented based on this model. After that, three integration models are detailed: a model to allow e-Learning authoring tools to assemble Learning Objects by integrating and combining other ones, a model to enable the integration of Learning Objects into web videoconferencing services, and a model to integrate Learning Objects into web games in order to create educational web games. Afterwards, several projects and learning experiences in which different contributions have been validated are described. Finally, the thesis concludes with answers to the stated research questions, a summary of the main contributions and some suggestions for further research.