Aspect News for EdReNe seminar
Copenhagen 7.10.2010
Adopting Standards and Specifications for Educational Content
Educational Resources Packaging
Standards SCORM and IMS Common
Cartridge Users point of view
Kati Clements1, Àgueda Gras-Velázquez2, Jan Pawlowski1
1. University of Jyväskylä, Finland 2. European Schoolnet, Belgium
How do the users feel about
adoptions of standards?
• During 30months-lasting
project Aspect several
spesifications were tested
with teachers: Metadata
standards, content
packaging standards...
• Problem of testing
standards: Not testing the
spesification, but the
implementation to spesific
tools.
Testing content packaging
standards
• SCORM spesification by ADL
• IMS Common Cartridge
spesification
 Are the current
implementations of these
standards too difficult for
teachers to use?
 Can the teachers see benefits
in using packaged content?
 Are the standards
interoperable with LMSs like
Moodle
Pilot around Europe
44 Teachers from
Belgium
Portugal
Lithuania
Romania
Test set up
• Task 1: Create a lesson plan in Moodle x 4:
1) Using non-packaged content
2) Using the entire SCORM
3) Using an entire IMS Common Cartridge package
4) Picking up parts from the IMS Common Cartridge
package
• Task 2: SCORM and IMS CC packages –
testing features
Tests set-up
• Data gathered with mix-method approach, so
results would complement each other.
– Online Surveys after each task
– Individual and group interviews with teachers
– Observation
Critique: sample of teachers small (n=44) and slightly
above average ICT users, ==> results ~ These results
can only give indication.
We also used Moodle as well as Icodeon SCORM player &
CC platform as a LMS tools, which narrows the results
to these particular implementations
Interface preference
How easy of hard was it to create a lesson plan?
Using…
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Really Easy
Reasonable
Some problems
Quite
Complicated
Using normal web page
Using a SCORM package
Using an IMS Common Cartridge package
Taking parts of an IMS Common Cartridge package
Impossible to use
in everyday
teaching
How big of a benefit can you see for using content
packaging...?
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
43%
39%
66%
57%
50%
25%
7% 5% 7%
That would be
extremely helpful
This could be a
helpful in limited
cases, for
example when I
am teaching
online, or giving
homework to
students
I cannot see any
benefit for me
2% 0% 0%
I still don't
understand how
this would help
me
Taking an entire course in SCORM format and using it in Moodle (or my school's
own System)
Taking an entire course in IMS Common Cartridge format and using it in Moodle (or
my school's own System)
Taking a piece of the learning resource from one of the IMS Common Cartridge
packages and using it with my other teaching materials
Preference of use
Initial results
• Teachers were generally very excited about
the possibilities of IMS Common Cartridge
• This was due to 2 issues:
– Re-Use of materials in their on LMSs have
become easier (In moodle, you can edit as you
like, add, remove or alter – This is however the
current implementation, if Moodle starts to
support SCORM in a similar way, teachers would
like that)
– Icodeon CC platform’s functionality of being able
to embed parts of the package into blogs, social
media, web pages…
Users view on content
packaging in general
• In most cases, a ready-made resource package
is not directly suitable for their lessons.
However, if it can be mildly altered, then it
becomes useful
• Packages that you cannot modify can mainly be
used only by learners (teachers described a
case where they have to teach an entire new
topic and first would have to learn it themselves)
• Content packaging comes most in use when
repeating the same course many times in an
LMS platform, not having to copy every small bit
separate.
Would you use it?
• Almost 100% of the teachers said that if
high quality educational resources would
be available in either SCORM or Common
Cartridge format, they would use them
BUT - these are above average teachers and they still need
training.
Initial results from tests
http://www.aspect-project.org/node/88
More coming soon, until then,...
Send feedback/ask more..
Kati Clements (kati.clements@jyu.fi)
Dr. Àgueda Gras-Velázquez (agueda.gras@eun.org)
Thank you!