JISC

Practitioners were supported in drawing up IMS Learning Design units of learning. During this process the RELOAD IMS LD editor was evaluated, and the team gathered user requirements for a ‘practitioner-friendly’ user interface. A prototype user interface was produced and the project investigated how this may be implemented within a real institutional context.

Executive Summary

The objectives of the project were to:

• evaluate the RELOAD IMS LD editor in use with practitioners
• produce a prototype user interface
• investigate implementation of the user interface
• produce IMS LD units of learning in a variety of situations
• investigate re-use of IMS LD units of learning

The project team have supported FE/HE teaching practitioners in authoring IMS Learning Design (IMS LD) units of learning (UoLs), with varying degrees of support. In some cases, these UoLs have been run live with learners.

The project has evaluated the Reload IMS LD editor with practitioners. The project produced a prototype user interface for an IMS LD editor. The team at LHU undertook the process of drawing up initial designs based on feedback from practitioners in earlier projects and the Reload user evaluation, and these were evaluated with the practitioner user group.

In addition, the early designs allowed the project to assist the Reload team in the development of the TENCompetence LD editor which was also evaluated by practitioners through the project.

The project additionally investigated interoperability, which was beyond the original scope. The team worked with the JISC eLIDA CAMEL project to export sequences from LAMS 2, and amend these such that they could be opened in the Reload IMS LD editor. A proof-of-concept level A IMS LD export was developed for activity sequences built using IOPortal technology

Key messages

Requirement for more usable tools
The project has developed a more usable interface to an editor, and this work needs to be built on. Although this is happening to an extent within the TENCompetence project, there is an urgent need to ensure that tools are developed involving the Design for Learning target user community.

Requirement for interoperable learning design tools
The project developed a vision of interoperable learning design tools. At the moment there is a gulf in usability between the simpler tools (such as LAMS) and fully fledged tool sets such as Reload/ReCourse and SLeD. There is a need for tools that allow a practitioner to use various planning and authoring tools, but with IMS LD as the 'glue' that makes interoperability possible.

Compatibility with Content Packaging
The IMS LD UoL, although a IMS Content Package, had to be manually edited and the learning design element removed before it could be loaded into a non-LD compliant VLE. There is a need for better compatibility, so that a UoL has a default <organisation> element that a non-LD aware tool will recognise.

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