An Introduction to Learning Objects

The what and the why, a nightmare scenario and some ambitions...

Brian Lamb
Learning Object Coordinator
Office of Learning Technology

What are learning objects?

The IEEE's Learning Object Metadata group:

Learning Objects are defined here as any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be used, re-used or referenced during technology supported learning. ... Examples of Learning Objects include multimedia content, instructional content, learning objectives, instructional software and software tools, and persons, organizations, or events referenced during technology supported learning.

Not a particularly useful statement. As David Wiley notes:

This definition is extremely broad, and upon examination fails to exclude any person, place, thing, or idea that has existed at anytime in the history of the universe."

Characteristics and issues - the "ilities"

Reusability

Interoperability

Manageability

Granularity

Not to mention ...

* Durability,
* Accessibility,
* Discoverability,
* Extensibility,
*Modularity

Reusability...

... is usually talked about in terms of storing, searching, and retrieving learning resources. The most prominent initiatives promoting the exchange of learning objects tend to be focused on repositories.

Merlot
BELLE / CAREO
OAIster

At this moment, we have made far more progress in these areas than with thornier issues around the instructional use of LO's, and building the community of educators who feel comfortable sharing and reusing resources among one another. The Field of Dreams approach ("if you build it they will come") has mostly yielded disappointing results.

Questions:
Who are the users?
What are their needs?
Will treating instructional content as learning objects facilitate reuse and improve quality of instruction?
Is the digital content enduring or ephemeral?

Interoperability and Manageability...

... usually leads to discussions of metadata. Literally "data about data", most of us have had experience with metadata when using a library card catalogue.

To explore the mysteries of metadata is to enter a parallel universe ruled by arcane working groups and acronym-laden consortia.

CanCore
Dublin Core
EML
IMS
IEEE
SCORM

The good news is that these specifications are converging with one another, and we don't really have to worry about choosing the 'wrong' standard. The bad news is nobody has really figured out a way of collecting metadata that does not require effort and expertise.

Questions:
Are there other projects or repositories with which your own initiative could interoperate? What standards are they using?
How much metadata do you need to collect?
Who does the meta-tagging?

Granularity...

...refers to how rigorously we choose to break down and store our learning objects.

* Program
* Course
* Module
* Lesson/Unit
* Segment/Objective
* Raw Object

Generally a finer level of granularity will promote reusability, by allowing for use in multiple contexts. Of course, a greater number of smaller objects requires more cataloguing and therefore increases the costs associated with manageability.

Question:
How important is context to the learning objects you are creating?

Why learning objects?

If we are going to use digital resources, we need to exploit digital media's special abilities (replication, recombination and manipulation) while accounting for its limitations.

A cautionary tale...

Jorge Luis Borges' short story 'The Library of Babel', depicts an unimaginably vast library ...

...composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors.

The books aren't catalogued with a very effective metadata schema, in fact the 'letters on the spine of each book . . . do not indicate or prefigure what the pages will say.'



Most of the books are filled with random gibberish, and nobody has any way of knowing where the meaningful texts might be, or if they even exist...

There are official searchers, inquisitors. I have seen them in the performance of their function: they always arrive extremely tired from their journeys; they speak of a broken stairway which almost killed them; they talk with the librarian of galleries and stairs; sometimes they pick up the nearest volume and leaf through it, looking for infamous words. Obviously, no one expects to discover anything.

Other considerations...

* Shared learning objects promise to reduce redundant effort, reduce costs and increase use of LO's.

* Quality of digital learning resources improve with an active and critical community using them. Establishing systems of peer review is one of the key challenges to the success of LO implementations.

* Teaching, and more recently educational technology, creates common ground for faculty across disciplines.

* Could allow higher education institutions to spin off resources to the wider community off-campus, with minimal additional expenditure.

Challenges...

* Building communities of practice around reusable resources. Researchers, instructors, instructional designers and media developers need to be confident that this approach will enhance their work.

* Coming to understandings on funding models and intellectual property rights. Finding models that share costs and benefits equitably among partners. A frank discussion of when free exchange means "without barriers" and when it means "without charge".

* Not just reusing the learning resources themselves, but sharing the know-how on how we manage them as well.

"Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride..."

Bette Davis

Images from Arhitektura.co.yu
Full Text of The Library of Babel