JISC

CETIS’ background in programme and project support along with its leading role in the development and promotion of IMS Learning Design was drawn upon to support the JISC Design for Learning programme; which builds on previous JISC programmes and provided an ideal opportunity to synthesise the pedagogical and technical / implementation aspects of e-learning. CETIS concurrently supported a number of other JISC Programmes and as such coordinated relevant findings from these, assisting in the synergy of the various JISC initiatives. The team provided pedagogic and technical support to all projects in the Design for Learning Programme. By embedding the support post within the larger CETIS community, wider pedagogic and technical expertise was be made available to the projects within the programme. 

Executive Summary

The Design for Learning programme outputs are diverse and it has undoubtedly enriched pedagogical discourse and conceptual modeling around the designing for learning process; particularly through the work of the MOD4L and pedagogic planners projects. The programme also harnessed the enthusiasm of practitioners in this area, which was evident at the highly successful Design Bash.

The decision to not solely focus on the development of the IMS Learning Design specification has allowed interesting avenues to be explored for example using web 2.0 tools such as wikis. However, at the end of the programme the fundamental technical issues around sharing, adapting and viewing learning designs have not moved forward significantly. We would recommend that JISC continue to fund work to address and move forward the fundamental interoperability issues around the sharing and viewing of learning designs. The IMS Learning Design specification could well be our “last, best hope” in this endeavor as it provides an interoperable basis that could potentially link sound pedagogical practice within wider institutional systems and processes, by providing an interface between the range of standards and systems involved in the wider processes of curriculum design.

The forthcoming Curriculum Design and Delivery programmes are a key step forward in this process and CETIS is committed to providing support through its core remit to the JISC for these programmes. It is encouraging to note that a number of projects involved in the Design for Learning programme have submitted proposals for these bids; and more importantly that other projects are going to take forward the outputs of the programme – in particular the use of both the pedagogic planning tools.

Key recommendations

A summary of key recommendations is provided below. Contextual information for these recommendations is provided within the main body of this report. o Programme support

Future work/funding opportunities

• Further exploration of the issues surrounding the sharing and reuse of designs, particularly the integration of lightweight web2.0 solutions with more formal repositories e.g. integrating the outputs from the programme delicious site into Jorum
• Development of domain maps exposing the pedagogical and technical aspects of design for learning to be included in the e-Framework i.e. models to expose the processes, and technical standards involved in planning, designing and execution of designs
• Development of accompanying SUMs and service expressions for the above to expose interoperability, encourage technical reusability and develop the underlying integrated technical infrastructures involved in the overall curriculum design process
• Further support for the development and integration of smaller tools and services with existing learning design tools e.g. widgets with such tools as ReCourse and the pedagogic planners
• Further Practitioner trials with these light weight tools to inform usability development, and continue to develop the integration of such tools and services into teaching and learning practice

Sharing programme outputs

• Development of additional services to Jorum such as a learning design viewer facility and RSS feeds from social bookmarking sites should be a given high priority
• Encourage the use of technologies such as social bookmarking and RSS feeds in future funded programmes
• Develop basic workflows for tagging programme outputs which would include at least one pre-defined programme tag: mandation of tagging of resources by projects. This way best practice can be developed and supported as users/communities become more familiar with the processes involved
• Further exploration of integration of programme outputs with other related sites such as the Cloudworks social networking site (beta development by the OU, UK) to help build peer-networking facilities in the design for learning community
• Integration of the programme outputs into the recently developed JISC Infonet LRA Infokit. It is recommended that this be done as a cross service activity which would begin to define simple set(s) of basic tags, integration of RSS feeds etc across the JISC e-Learning programme
• Support for further design bashes which allow people/projects to come together and share their designs, tools and so foster best practice. Further design bashes would be useful as part of the new Curriculum design and delivery programme support activities. At least one design bash per year of this funding cycle is recommended. It would be useful to include relevant non programme projects/experts at these events (for example representatives from the LAMS and TenCompetence, HEA, BECTa communities).

Recommendations for Pedagogical Planners

• Scope and definition of use: in this emerging field, it is important to identify what the Pedagogical Planners are (and indeed are not) to enable the wider educational community to engage with further developments
• Increased collaboration between the two planner projects to identify where links between them might result in a more complete tool from the users’ perspective
• Explore potential links with existing JISC funded work of relevance, in particular XCRI, COVA and COVARM and show evidence of this
• The underlying technical architectures of both tools needs revised
• Migration of Phoebe core content to a wiki platform which can render RSS feeds (e.g. media wiki)
• JISC provide support for the emerging pedagogical planner community. The existing DfL support wiki already provides the functionality for this

Dissemination

• Programme managers be cognisant of number of programme meetings/additional activities projects have to participate in
• Ensure key flexibility around dates for dissemination activities

Programme Support

• Support projects should be given lead time to ensure that they have all programme support mechanisms (e.g. websites, discussion forums) in place before the start of programmes. Multiplicity of online resources should be avoided where possible.
• Differentiation between the roles of support and evaluation projects should be explicit from the start of programmes such as DfL employing separate projects for each function.

Project Visits

• Joint short tele-conferences between projects, project managers and support and evaluation projects should take place near the start of the programme to avoid meeting overload, clarify points of contact for projects and ensure early contact is established with projects with support and evaluation teams

Programme Outcomes

• JISC (through CETIS) continue to support the development of the burgeoning international design for learning community and take a lead role in any further development of the IMS Learning Design specification
• JISC provide support for the emerging pedagogical planner community. The existing DfL support wiki already provides the functionality for many potential online activities such as discussion forums, shared web space etc. These could be enhanced through the use of existing social networks such as Facebook. Using existing networks would avoid multiplicity of communication channels and technical issues such as hosting and developing a new community site

 

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