Flexible authoring and delivery of online courses using IMS Learning Design

Abstract

Since the publication of the IMS Learning Design (IMS LD) specification in 2003, many initiatives have been undertaken to build authoring tools that are simple enough to be used by non-technical instructors and teachers. IMS LD's technical complexity is believed to be a major burden for the adoption of the specification. We have developed a new approach for course authoring and delivery that hides most of the complexities and is powerful enough to create highly flexible online courses. Key aspects in this approach are (1) integration of IMS LD authoring and delivery tools in order to enable teachers to adapt courses in runtime and (2) the use of templates to standardize aspects of the LD. This article reports on the research and development of this approach, as well as a first implementation by the Open University of the Netherlands as part of an integrated e-learning system.

Exploring teachers’ needs and the existing barriers to the adoption of Learning Design methods and tools: A literature survey

“…In such cases, flexibility refers to the ability to come back to the original design and change it in the light of issues raised during the delivery. In particular, Prieto and colleagues () report that teachers asked for more flexibility in terms of runtime changes; similarly, Hermans, Janssen, and Koper () identify the opportunity to easily switch between the design and runtime environments as highly desirable.…”

A workflow-based solution to support the assessment of collaborative activities in e-learning

“…To achieve the first shape of a solution, we propose an extension of IMS-LD meta-model which is mostly and widely accepted by the educational community specification (Hermans et al, 2016;Cuevas et al, 2013) in order to support both necessary concepts for assessment and workflow systems requirements. Reconciliation between the IMS-LD meta-model and the workflow concepts is also proposed.…”

Leadflow4LD: Un método para representar computacionalmente el flujo de actividades y el flujo de datos en guiones de situaciones de aprendizaje colaborativo

“…En la actualidad, IMS LD continúa siendo tomado en cuenta en investigación y desarrollo de tecnologías en e-learning. Por ejemplo, en el desarrollo de nuevas aproximaciones de autoría y entrega de cursos flexibles en línea(Hermans, Janssen & Koper, 2014). O el caso de CoLearn (Stylianakis, Moumoutzis, Arapi, Mylonakis & Christodoulakis, 2014), que es una plataforma que se puede integrar por encima de infraestructuras existentes de aprendizaje electrónico (VLE -Virtual Learning Environments, Entornos de Aprendizaje Virtual), con el propósito de ofrecer funcionalidad del flujo de aprendizaje basado en IMS LD.…”