open educational resources: conversations in cyberspace – edited by susan d'antoni &...

Reviews_1135_1 968..978

Special subject reviews—Open educational resources

D’Antoni, Susan & Savage, Catriona ed(2009) Open educational resources: Conversationsin cyberspace UNESCO Publishing (Paris) ISBN 978-92-3-104085-6 172 pp $12.00 (pdf file: no cost)http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=Open_Educational_Resources:_Conversations_in_Cyberspace

Open educational resources reports on a series ofonline forums organised by the UNESCO Interna-tional Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)about open educational resources (oer) in 2005 and2007. Here more than 600 participants from ninetycountries report on oer history, achievements, issuesand challenges from oer provider and user perspec-tives. The selection of approaches from developedand developing countries represents a broad rangeof perspectives and approaches.

The book has four sections. Section 1 discusseslessons learned and challenges identified. Section 2addresses research and development issues. Section3 discusses motivational aspects and incentives.Section 4 addresses priority issues.

Section 1 introduces and defines the term oer (“Theopen provision of educational resources, enabled byinformation and communication technologies, forconsultation, use and adaptation by a communityof users for non-commercial purposes.”). Thus, oerconsists of resources for learners, for teachers, andfor quality assurance. As there are many oer initia-tives today, problems of retrievability replace prob-lems of availability. Some oer provider initiativespresented here are:

• approaches towards free and open teaching andlearning resources;

• a web-based teaching and learning environmentfor interconnected, explorable and re-usablecontent for communities;

• developing oer courses according to researchresults in cognitive and learning sciences; and

• adding social support and providing an opensource platform.

Complementary oer user initiatives are

• mirroring of oer in local infrastructures;• translations of oer to other languages; and• localisations of oer to other cultures, including

adaptations.

The discussion points and challenges raised are notthe same for providers and users.The providers’ chal-lenges include: suitable technologies, impact of oer,internal and external barriers, cross-organisationalstandards, involvement effort, appropriate use of oer,authorship, attribution, and incentives. Major issuesof oer remain sustainability and intellectual propertyrights.

The users of oer request a shift towards collaborativeapproaches. Trade-offs include the need for techno-logically innovative courses opposed to the needfor accessibility and stability. Language issues andcultural differences require open formats and adapt-able content objects. Learning object repositorieswith standard metadata improve retrievability andaccessibility.

Generally, oer is seen to have the potential ofimproving knowledge distribution world wide,when the issues mentioned are addressed. Commu-nities of interest need to be formed to carry on thework in this direction. Furthermore, promotionalactivities to spread oer initiatives and usage areneeded.

The book’s second section focuses on researchand development issues for oer. It discusses theneed for an alignment of the oer movement withother initiatives to improve educational systems.It identifies five main categories of research efforts:1. oer creation, 2. organisation, 3. dissemination,4. utilisation, and 5. interventions. Within thesecategories several critical aspects—needs—arediscussed in greater detail.

• Economic aspects: the need for long-term fundingfor oer. The aim to promote equality in access, pro-duction and use of open content in all countries isformulated—as open access to learning contentcontributes to social equality.

• Methodological issues: the need for surveys andanthropological research methods to studysuccess conditions of oer communities.

• Creating oer: the need to promote a cultureof collaborative authoring of resources isidentified.

• Quality assurance: as quality is acknowledgedas subjective, finding high-quality oer and highquality translation of resources is important.

British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 41 No 6 2010 968–978

© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, OxfordOX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

• Several experts recommend us to look for thesuccess factors of open source initiatives.

• Future scenarios research should focus on dynamic,interconnected and self-organising aspects of oerpractice.

• Policy issues: most attention is given to copyrightand licensing. There is a recommendation tofurther push the use of a less restrictive license foroer. Those concerned have different opinions onnon-commercial licenses.

The plan to have do-it-yourself (diy) oer develop-ment sites with a special focus on supporting devel-oping countries in their oer initiatives is to avoidthese countries being in a role of only consumersof oer produced in richer countries. Members ofAfrican states remind the community that global oerinitiatives should enable opportunities for localcontent production and distribution. A diy site tosupport the creation of oer should include develop-ment guides, technological solutions, communitysupport and also some best practice examples toserve users who cannot imagine the variety of oerthat exists already.

Section 3 describes a second forum discussing theOECD study of oer. The main contents includean overview of currently existing and plannedoer initiatives and their classification. Also, theforum investigated incentives for individuals andinstitutions to produce and share oer, and thirdpolicy implications and policy issues on differentlevels are discussed.

Initiatives in oer are categorised according to scale(small/large), provider type (institution, commu-nity), and the multidisciplinarity of the repositories.Barriers against establishing oer initiatives are thelack of time to engage colleagues and contentproducers, and the difficulty of doing that. Forinstance, many oer producers have not been usingany licencing scheme for their resources.

There are six arguments here as motivational back-ground for institutional engagement in oer projects:

• There is an altruistic motive for sharing knowl-edge in the academic tradition.

• Educational institutions should gear up invest-ment by free sharing and reuse of resources.

• We should not forget the old argument that whatyou freely give, you get back improved.

• We can benefit from marketing aspects and posi-tive image for attracting students.

• There are new possibilities in modern businessmodels and alternative ways of making revenue.

• Opening and sharing will speed the developmentof new resources and stimulate improvement

Individual motivational aspects for participatingand contributing to oer projects include altruism,

the desire to stimulate innovation, the pleasure ofpeer activities, reputation gain, and others. Themain barriers for establishing oer are the lack oftime and skills, a lack of interest in pedagogicalinnovation, and the absence of an incentive system.This discussion highlights issues of openness, openinnovation of teaching and learning, and thewidening scope of contributors and users of oerresources to industry and alumni.

Most organisations still have to develop a clear oerpolicy and get rid of the fear of losing their competi-tive advantage. The unclear legal situation is identi-fied as a major barrier to the use of web-basedmaterials and oer, while oer policy developmentshould include a wide range of stakeholders. Jointwork in partnerships and cooperation across organi-sations seems to be essential for the broad uptake ofoer initiatives. Also, the core role of governments inthe overall process is highlighted.

The final section deals with an analysis of issues forthe oer movement; this draws on a survey of 620UNESCO-IIEP members. Six important issues arosewith two presented as concerns (quality assuranceand copyright / licenses). The data is in two sets, fordeveloped and developing countries. This reveals dif-ferences in priorities: for instance Copyright andstandards is ranked 12 for developing countrieswhile it is considered important in developed coun-tries (ranked 5). The interesting aspect of this surveyis that it illustrates that, according to background,people tend to differ in their priorities for the oermovement.

The section concludes with an overview on howprogress can be made on the key issues.

To conclude, this book documents an importantmilestone for the oer movement, and presents abroad overview of the different approaches, prob-lems, and future directions. It has a broad coverageof different perspectives and different foci. Thisbroadness lacks some more specific advice for actionwithin the different problem categories. Due to thelinks between oer and a lot of different fields (suchas global economics and Web 2.0), the amount ofinformation and the complexity of the recommen-dations can be overwhelming. A different approachand maybe also a different way to document andvisualise the problems discussed in the forums couldhave helped here.

In general, a discussion of the different methodsfor collecting expert input for future road mappingwould have contributed to the book’s qualityand usefulness. Even so, it represents a good star-ting point for practitioners and researchers who

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© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta.

want an overview of the current status of oer and itsfuture directions.

Roland Klemke, Marco Kalz, Marcus Specht andStefaan Ternier (received July 2010)Centre for Learning Science and Technologies, OpenUniversiteit, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Liyoshi, Toru & Kumar, M S Vijay (2008) Openingup education: The collective advancement of educationthrough open technology, open content, and open knowl-edge MIT Press (Massachusetts) ISBN 978-0-262-03371-8 500 pp $19.95http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12366

Technology and education are two inseparablebodies. This book tries to explain how developingtechnology could improve the quality of educationnow and in the future. Why open up education? Theauthors’ main theme is to suggest and discuss howeducators could take full advantage of open educa-tional technology, content and knowledge, in orderto improve teaching and learning.

Here, open education technology is handled fromvarious valuable viewpoints as:

• individualised and distance learning as diffe-ring from the traditional framework of formalschooling;

• arousing learning communities with new culturesof knowledge sharing;

• change in the ethos or spirit of learning;• design features; and• new pedagogical strategies through opening

up education beyond the boundaries of formalsystems.

Authors from academic institutions, associations,leading foundations, and projects discuss openingup education in aspects of design, development, col-laboration, sharing, adoption, standards, policymaking, and the evaluation of such technologies inteaching and learning. The book is in main threesections—dealing with open educational techno-logies, content, and knowledge. The authors con-tribute their reflections in three main areas: theeducational value and implications of open educa-tion initiatives, micro and macro factors in these ini-tiatives, and the importance of sharing educationalcontributions.

I think one of the most important themes of thisbook is its emphasis on the strengths of this newtechnology in sharing resources between educators.

Going a step further, how educators can this wayadvance their pedagogical practice and knowledgeis another issue in this book. The term “connectedcommunity” is used, as it enhances the transfor-mative opportunities for education as collaborativeconstruction, revision and extension.

Meanwhile, the first chapter gives way to thoughtson open education technologies from a number ofauthors. Here, Kahle looks at the design issues ofdeveloping open source software and balancingcommunity and local user needs in that. He makesyou think about new ways to design open edu-cational technologies. Lee analyses open learningmanagement systems in terms of their strict role-based hierarchy. Focusing on the real free opensource system called Bodington—a learning man-agement system developed and used by OxfordUniversity—he sees users’ roles and sharing ofmaterials from both instructors’ and learners’ per-spectives. Here too there is consideration of how toopen up and re-design such systems—to turn themfrom role based structures into systems that relate tousers’ interests and needs. One of the advantages ofopen education systems—helping learners to beactively involved in simulations of real applicationsin their field—is discussed by Stuart, with reflectionsfrom their iLabs project. Long and Ehrmanns followthat with a detailed evaluation of iLabs.

Walker in turn also evaluates open educationtechnologies by systematic collection and analysisof results. His main theme is evaluation as a neces-sary component to increase the impact of openeducation. The argument for longitudinal studiesin technology-related educational evaluations,as opposed to the use of small time spans, isremarkable.

Next, Barson, Paharia and Kumar look at the roleof open educational technologies in taking us fromscarce to abundant educational resources. Withexamples from real projects and systems, theyaddress issues of visibility, social interaction, sharedmeaning making, and easy access to resources.

Next, Lynch’s concern is the relationship betweenaccess to information and access to education in thedigital world; this takes our attention to the socialnature of education (especially higher education).Meanwhile, Mackie looks at one of the main themes,the need for a change in the culture of old institu-tional structures such as universities. He suggeststhat we need change in the culture of universities asregards resource sharing in order for open educationtechnology to succeed.

The chapters of the second section concern issuesrelated to open educational content, with threemain themes—context, community, and purpose.

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Lane thinks about the possible outcomes of theinternet’s social networking systems, and the pos-sible changes these bring to higher education—as those institutions serve more and more learnerswith the advance of such systems. Thille’s stand-point is that content depends on a context thatinvolves pedagogical practice also. Moreover, sheadvocates having a community of higher educatorsto create quality open digital resources. Thille’semphasis on pedagogical practice is clear inCarey and Hanley’s work; here the importance ofinvolving staff members in creating digital contentand sharing their experiences of using it is discussedspecifically in the MERLOT case.

Harley handles sustainability in higher educationinstitutions involved in developing and distributingopen educational content resources. She stresses thevalue of user analyses and knowing the demands ofusers in sustaining such systems. Lerman, Miya-gawa and Margulies criticise the MIT’s OCW expe-rience and explore the features behind the successof this project as well as the barriers. Baraniuk, in acase study of another open educational resourceenvironment—Connexions—looks at the role ofeducational content providers as they encouragecreating new sharing materials from old ones.

Wiley’s article is interesting, since the author tries todraw a picture of the situation for the economicsand politics of open educational resources in thefuture with a taste of science fiction. Last, Casserlyand Smith draw our attention to the purpose ofopen education and the open educational resourcemovement by asking how the definition of formaleducation will change in the future.

The concern of the book’s third section isclarification and extension of open educationalknowledge—the authors look mainly at issues ofreflecting, sharing and re-using knowledge andideas about teaching and learning with open educa-tional resources. In her introduction, Richardsonnotably points out the need for educators to havetheir own educational model and tools for fielddevelopment.

Gale explains and discusses the key featuresof scholarship for teaching and learning by giv-ing examples from the programme at CarnegieAcademy for the Scholarship of Teaching andLearning. He notes the importance of understand-ing learning by means of inquiry, peer review, andpublic dissemination through scholarship and alsobuilding a distributed leadership in that field. Bassand Bernstein also discuss some ways for thestaff to design collaborative strategies for focusing onstudents’ learning.

Laurillard reminds us of the importance of the rolesof institutional administrators in creating a com-

munity of culture for open educational resources.Liyoshi and Richardson then propose community-driven systems in which reviewing the sharingof ideas between peers could also be used for differ-ent collaborators. Cambridge makes clear that thegrowth in open educational technologies must be acollaborative process and that a knowledge-buildingsociety must handle this issue carefully. Huber andHutchings remark on the importance of creatingteaching commons that result from the pedago-gical experiences of teachers and learners of allkinds. They explain the importance of the quality ofknowledge, of knowledge sharing, and of policies asimportant concepts required for development ofopen knowledge in future.

Dalziel worries about the “lack of progress onsharing pedagogical know-how among educators”.He emphasises “learning design” and explains thedifference between this concept and “instructionaldesign”. He mentions the importance of learningdesign and sharing knowledge and ideas on designprinciples and experiences through open systems.Lessons learned from the experiences of LAMS—the Learning Activity Management System—alsoappear here.

Next, Oblinger and Lombardi stress the importanceof understanding students’ learning strategies,while Fong gives real examples from her universityof how and why teachers’ attention on students’learning has grown.

Last, Liyoshi and Kumar make recommendationsthat highlight the main issues for the success ofopen education in improving the quality of learningand the successful implementation and sustainabil-ity of such concepts.

In summary, this book provides a comprehensivevision of the future of open education for teachers,researchers, academicians, directors of major openeducation projects, administrators, and all peopleinterested in being involved in open education.

Serpil Yalcinalp (received August 2010)Academician, Baskent University, [email protected]

Informing Science: a series of four books on learn-ing objectshttp://informingscience.org/books.php

This series of four volumes addresses all aspects ofe-learning related to the notion of learning objects.Each book contains a mixture of experience reportsand technical articles explaining core concepts,

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foundations, and trends. Although some chaptersof each volume are of a conceptual and theoreticalnature, the main target groups of this series arepractitioners and tool builders. The chapter authorsrepresent a good mix of cultural perspectives, scien-tific disciplines, professional experiences, and indi-vidual competences. For an over-view on the field,and for beginners, these volumes provide a goodbasis. Experts in educational technology, on theother hand, may not find many new insights.

Koohang, Alex & Harman, Keith ed (2006) Learn-ing objects: Theory, praxis, issues, and trends InformingScience (Santa Rosa, CA) ISBN 83-922337-6-X 636pp €69.99

The fourteen chapters of this introductory volumeare organised in two parts, on learning object designand on technological trends. The first part examinesthe impact of the use of learning objects on educa-tional strategies. Several chapters present principlesand best practices for designing and properly apply-ing learning objects in a given instructional con-text. Some authors discuss the conflict between theneed for context-independence of learning objectsto achieve a high degree of re-usability and thedemand for contextualisation of learning. This issueis closely related to a debate about the differentdegrees of granularity of learning objects. Whilesome authors narrow the definition of context tocognitive aspects of learning and teaching goals,Chapter 3 views “context” from the viewpoint oflearning object re-use and presents five distinguish-ing dimensions: organisational cultures, learningscenarios, incentives for reuse, work processes, andtechnical management of learning objects. The twopolar ends of each dimension are a system and apersonal orientation.

Readers who look for best practice examples andguidance may be particularly interested in Chapters6, 7, and 8. Chapter 6 provides concrete examples ofinteractive multimedia learning objects and includesa discussion of useful development and presentationtools. Chapter 7 presents design guidelines for userinterfaces of learning objects with a focus on corefunctions such as displaying content, facilitatinglearning-object interactivity, collecting learnerresponses, evaluating learning progress, and provid-ing feedback. Chapter 8 emphasises the usabilityissues of learning objects, both in theory and prac-tice. Several chapters address the embedding oflearning objects into instructional design method-ologies, the most concrete being Chapter 9.This leadsfrom an overview of educational learning theories,through a discussion of the relationship betweenlearning objects and the instructional design of com-plete e-learning courses, to a step-by-step introduc-tion to Wiley’s learning object design and sequencing

(lodas) theory. Other chapters in Part I are more ofconceptual nature, leaving lots of room for realisa-tion options. As an educator in an engineering disci-pline, I found the instructional design model forlearning objects in Chapter 2 overly simplistic as itsuggests we measure the cognitive performance ofstudents only with multiple choice questions.

Part II, entitled “Technological and future trends”,starts with a chapter that reviews the learning objectmetadata (lom) and related standards, explains theunpopular task of metadata entry, and presentsattempts to acquire metadata with the help of tools.This part also includes a brief discussion of differenttypes of learning object repositories and learningcontent management systems.The last chapter daresto take a look into the future of learning objects inwhich portability, interoperability, and copyrightbarriers are overcome—for instance, through adher-ence to open standards and the availability of opensource, open content, and open education.

Weak points that struck me in this volume includethe following:

• Although several authors refer to the potentialeconomic value of learning objects, includingthe removal of unnecessary duplication andthe sharing of resources across departmental ororganisational units, none of the chapters in thisvolume provides evidence about possible costreduction, beneficiaries, and business models foreffective learning object re-use.

• Some authors mention important enablersof re-usability—such as adaptation and re-purposing of learning objects—but (except for onetype of learning object presented in Chapter 6) noother solutions are discussed. Readers who expectto find an agreed definition of a learning objectwill be disappointed in view of the fourteen differ-ent and often fuzzy definitions put forward by theauthors of this volume.

• Social aspects of e-learning—such as thecomputer-mediated collaboration, participation,and social networking that became highly popularwith the advent of Web 2.0 concepts—are notaddressed.

This volume is an anthology of independent, thoughthematically related, contributions. It would havegained a lot of value if the authors had agreed—atleast to a certain extent—upon terminology anddefinitions and would have referred to each other. Atleast the common index is a valuable tool to findtopics of concern and navigate through this book.

Bernd J Krämer (received July 2010)Professor in Computer Science, FernUniversität inHagen, [email protected]



Harman, Keith & Koohang, Alex ed (2006) Learn-ing objects: Standards, metadata, repositories, andLCMS Informing Science (Santa Rosa, CA) ISBN83-922337-5-1 406 pp €69.99

The eleven chapters of this volume are again splitinto two parts, entitled “Concepts and architec-ture” and “Issues and perspectives”. Part I ismainly concerned with technology-related supportfunctions for indexing and cataloguing learningobjects using metadata. Chapter 1 sets the scene bymotivating the need for metadata as a mechanismfor discovering learning objects matching a certaincontext of use. This discussion leads to a sketch ofselected learning object repositories and techno-logical options to enable a search beyond theboundaries of a single repository. The authors alsosurvey the organisations and their activities tocreate appropriate sets of metadata, includingIEEE’s Learning Object Metadata (LOM), Dublincore, and SCORM. They relate the semanticsbehind metadata elements and discuss pragmaticissues and difficulties of human experts to assigncompatible metadata values for selected attributes.Chapters 2 and 3 further the discussion about thecomplexities of metadata standards, which I wouldrather call complicatedness. Complexity is aninherent property of a system or an organisationand is a measure for the set of possible relation-ships between its constituent elements and not justthe amount of elements we have to deal with.Systems become complicated, however, when themultitude of constituent elements and their seman-tics become difficult to handle—which is the casefor the plethora of metadata standards discussed inthis volume. In 1994 Kurt Biedenkopf claimed:“Progress is the path from the primitive over thecomplicated to simplicity.” Concerning learningobject metadata, we have not yet reached the endof this path—which might consist in a commonagreement and adherence to one single standardwith optional and normalised extensions. Hence,Chapter 2 extends the focus by referring to taxono-mies, thesauri, and ontologies as means to modela common understanding of concepts and theirrelationships, while Chapter 3 emphasises syntacticand semantic interoperability issues among meta-data. Chapter 4 shifts the focus from metadata to alanguage for separating the structure of learningobjects from their content description and orga-nising the structure along pedagogical models.Chapter 5 investigates different repository architec-tures, quite cursorily, and illustrates different waysof maintaining metadata in relation to the objectsthey describe. Chapter 6 presents learning con-tent managements systems as learning environ-ments that combine learning object maintenanceand sharing with learning management andperformance functions.

The chapters of Part II of this volume put lear-ning object metadata into the context of advancedtechnology including:

• the automated acquisition of metadata fromlearning materials and the context of use;

• the use of ontologies that integrate the differentconcepts and meanings of metadata and allow forthe realisation of so-called semantic repositoriesthat respond to user requests independently ofthe specific metadata model the requester isacquainted with;

• mappings between application profiles of metadatamodels to overcome interoperability problems;

• inclusive technology realising a bird’s-eye view oneducational situations as portfolios that integrateboth short- and long-lived facets of a learner’scareer; and

• open source components to enable scalable andcustom-designed repositories.

Again, this volume confronts the reader with con-fusing uses of the term learning object, rangingfrom a study course, a course book or a lecture atone end of the granularity spectrum to small com-ponents that address a narrow topic and serve a veryspecific learning objective. Only the following fourattributes of learning objects recur frequently. They

• can be re-used in different instructional contexts;• are independent of the learning delivery media or

context;• can be combined with each other following the

building-block metaphor;• can be discovered with the help of metadata,

where discovery relies on descriptive metadata,which can be improved by subject taxonomies.

A better separation of concerns, less redundancy,and mutual cross-referencing among the chapterswould have improved the value of this volumesubstantially.

Although the aggregation of learning objects is asubject of discussion, there is nothing here about acorresponding composition of metadata of compo-nent objects to form the metadata of the composite.


Koohang, Alex & Harman, Keith ed (2006) Learn-ing objects and instructional design Informing Science(Santa Rosa, CA) ISBN 83-922337-7-8 502pp €69.99

There are a theory section and an applicationsection for the fourteen chapters of this volume. The

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former first introduces foundational learning theo-ries and taxonomies (Bloom, Gagné, Briggs) andthen presents conceptual models for integratinglearning objects and instructional design. In thiscontext, learning objects are viewed as specific typesof learning materials. Process components forselecting proper learning objects become an integralpart of course design.

The next chapter keeps this focus but considersthe specific approach to online learning taken bythe University of South Australia. This impliesthat we discuss concrete technologies, types oflearning object, and instructional strategy. Thereis no evidence here, however, to undermine theclaim that effective online learning strategies can beimplemented with learning object technologies.

Chapter 3 follows the same line of thought, addinga new dimension in the form of a taxonomy thatreveals the relationship between educational theory,instructional design and learning objects. Conceptu-ally this relational table is quite insightful, thoughdifficult to read. However, the gap in effective educa-tional technology that exploits these relationshipsfor the sake of the lonely educator is wide open.Chapter 4 picks on issues discussed in Volume IIalready. They include the de-contextualisation oflearning objects for increasing reusability, thebalance between learning object granularity andre-purposing or weak metadata for expressing edu-cational aspect. The author builds on his discussionto investigate approaches that incorporate peda-gogically grounded principles and instructionaltheories in the design of learning objects. Shepresents criteria for a suitable technical supportstructure, lists the impact of learner-centred psy-chological principles on learning object design, andanalyses the gap between learning object design andcontemporary research on learning.

Chapter 5 falls back on the whys, whens and howsof learning object re-use, borrowing re-use conceptsfrom software engineering. It also introduces learn-ing object design patterns, fostering the aggregationof fine-grained learning objects to more complexentities. The hypermedia background shiningthrough is shared with the last theory chapter,which puts emphasis on the visualisation of knowl-edge structure using graphical representations ofontologies, more precisely, concept lattices as theywere developed in formal concept analysis. (Interest-ingly, the authors cite a secondary source on thismathematical theory, thus ignoring the originatorsWille and Ganter.)

The first chapter in the practical applications sectionextends the traditional design process for learningobjects by collaboration and community building

facets to involve the students and external workforces in the learning object and activity designprocess. Chapter 9 analyses the potential of educa-tional mark-up languages like EML and its descen-dant IMS Learning Design as means to explicate andshare instructional experiences. Chapter 9 argues infavour of storyboards to organise systematically thedevelopment process for learning objects. Viewed asguidelines, the storyboard templates appear helpful. Iwould object, however, to accept them as mandatoryelements of an institutional process.

Chapter 10 takes the position that instructionaldesign has much in common with software engineer-ing and thus draws several metaphoric lines betweenwell-known design principles and engineering app-roaches, including object-oriented and component-based design, product lines, architectural styles, ordesign patterns. The next chapter promotes inquiry-based learning as a method that challenges thestudents’ active involvement. It lets them work col-laboratively on complex problems that are relevant tothe students’ experience and that emphasise theacquisition of metacognitive skills.To enable interop-erable technology and portable learning contentand design objects, the authors suggest relying onstandards like SCORM and Learning Design. Theideas are illustrated by reference to concrete learningenvironments and possible extensions.

Chapter 12 reports on a case study that analysespractical implications of the authors’ new learningobject design model, which evolved in the processof developing a curriculum on learning objects.Besides the model, core finding of the case study arepresented. Chapter 13 pulls together essential facetsof learning objects and instructional design toreflect upon key concepts and core challenges. Thelast chapter explores interoperability with respectto sharing learning objects across heterogeneouslearning environments. In doing so, the authorsrepeat concerns about a standard definition forlearning objects, granularity, metadata, and digitalrights management. The MPEG-21 standard servesa blueprint for a prototype that overcomes some ofthe deficiencies mentioned.

Readers with a stronger technical and weakpedagogical background may find the volume moreinformative than the previous two. But they mayalso feel an imbalance between the presentationof conceptual ideas and concrete design solutions.Some redundancy unnecessarily increases thereader’s effort.




Harman, Keith & Koohang, Alex ed (2006) Learn-ing objects: Applications, implications, and future direc-tions Informing Science (Santa Rosa, CA) ISBN83-922337-8-6 494 pp €69.99

This final volume consists of three parts, for contri-butions about “e-learning and learning objects”,“applications”, and “future directions” respectively.The first two headings do not really sound progres-sive, but let’s see what they offer. The initial chapterstarts its discussion of e-learning technology bypaying homage to Charles Babbage, John Mauchly(falsely awarding to him the invention of the com-puter), Gordon Moore, and others, before reflectingdistance education as one of the drivers behindonline learning. Then we read again all the folkloreabout learning objects and learning processes,before ending with the conclusion that technologi-cal advances carry the potential for more stakehold-ers than now to participate.

Chapter 2 reminds us of many issues we have readabout in the previous volumes and ends in a call foran ontological classification of learning objects. Thisis to pursue the goal to simplify search and browsingand enhance their discovery potential. But thereader has finally the task of finding correspondingexamples and turning these ideas into implement-able and usable technology. The following chapteremphasises the function of learning objects as a wayto improve accessibility to learning, exemplified forteaching art. Concrete evidence that this goal hasbeen achieved is, however, missing. Chapter 4 isuseful for readers who would like to learn aboute-learning models, the essence of e-learning, andlearning objects. The narrative is supplemented bythe discussion of a phenomenological study inwhich students were required to search informationonline, resulting in four phenotypes whose behav-iour we can characterise as follows: find needle in ahaystack, escape from a maze, filter, and pan forgold. Based on these insights, the authors pledge forintegrating components into learning environmentsthat support search planning and search reflection.A corresponding environment, prototyped andtested, illustrates the point, and the lessons offeredare interesting. Chapter 5 concludes the “E-learningand learning object” section by introducing a collec-tion of Flash-based, subject-independent learningobject templates designed for re-purposing. Theselink to Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive competences.

The Applications part of this book includes Chapters6 to 13. The main themes of Chapter 6 are the dis-covery of appropriate learning objects, their compo-sition, and their delivery. The line of discussionconsists of the presentation of several Europeane-learning projects. The essence of this chapter is therequest for technical infrastructures accommodat-

ing different learning preferences, ranging fromtutor-guided to self-organised. Chapter 7 specialisesin mobile learning. It promotes a constructivistapproach by mapping constructivist principles tomobile technology and mobile learning require-ments. The lessons learned from a specific projectare also presented. The next chapter defines a con-ceptual model that allows alternative sequencings ofSCORM-compatible content to adapt instruction todifferent types of learners, in particular, to supportproblem-based learning.

Chapter 9 borrows software engineering concepts(like component, domain model, hierarchy, andcomposition) to propose an educational componentmodel as a unit of learning object composition. Thepresentation of the composition language reads likea formal computer science paper. The compositionapproach carries over to the composition of meta-data as well. The practical part of this contribution isnot overly convincing.

Service-oriented computing inspired the ideas pre-sented in Chapter 10. To overcome inter-operabilityproblems of e-learning environments, the authorssuggest providing access to learning contentthrough web services. A SCORM-compatible proto-type infrastructure is also introduced. Chapter 11looks at multimedia objects in the form of videosannotated with a mixture of LOM and MPEG-7metadata. Further, it talks about the technicalitiesof video objects, a video annotation editor, andcontent delivery and presentation issues. Chapter12 evaluates educational technology in the form ofanimated learning objects used in the classroom.The contexts are geometry, robotics, and twomiddle school classes in which different types oflearning object and of educational strategy wereused. The last chapter in the section reviews essen-tial factors involved in the development of learningobjects.

The last two chapters of this book claim to speculateabout the future of learning objects but their predic-tions are neither overly innovative nor exciting. Imust admit, however, that—with the knowledge oftoday—my judgement may not be fair in the case ofpapers published in the year 2006.

All in all, despite a few disappointingly weak articlesand little vision into the future, this volume containsa number of interesting papers, particularly aboutlearning object-oriented education technology.


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Lockyer, Lori et al ed (2009) Handbook of researchon learning design and learning objects: issues, applica-tions, and technologies IGI Global ISBN 978-15990-4861-1 1018 pp $495.00http://www.igi-global.com/bookstore/TitleDetails.aspx?TitleId=484

Since the invention of the printing press, educatorshave always readily absorbed others’ material fortheir teaching. Today, the idea of learning objectsaims to make learning content—like educationaltexts, exercises or illustrations—instantly available,in bits and pieces, exploiting the possibilities ofdigital networks. However, educators have alwaysrelied on plans for their teaching, too. One majorelement of teaching is to create a beneficial learningexperience for the students. Thus, the idea of learn-ing designs aims to document both practice andprocess of teaching and learning—in order to makenot only content, but entire educational scenarios,available for re-use and adaptation. As this book’seditors, Lori Lockyer, Sue Bennett, Shirley Ago-stinho and Berry Harper attempt to integrate thesetwo concepts. In their view, they connect them, byaddressing sharing and re-using of resources andbest practice equally. But they add another impor-tant thought to this pragmatic view: the editors con-sider learning designs and learning objects as theformalisation of knowledge about teaching andlearning, and, as such, these may support educatorsto translate educational theories and principles intothe practice of teaching and learning.

With that in mind, the editors gather eighteenpapers on learning design in the first section ofthe two-volume book, followed by thirteen onlearning objects in the second one. While theyconsider learning design as an emerging field ofresearch, they expect the papers on learning objectsto report on results rather than on the developmentof new models. A third section is “Integration”, andcontains another twelve papers.

The papers in the first section appears to be highlystructured, despite the (allegedly) immature state ofresearch in the field of learning design. Two papers(the first by Shirley Agostinho, the second by IsobelFalconer and Allison Littejohn) provide a quite sys-tematic introduction to the field. Then they presenttwo separate, but inter-related, approaches onteaching practice and educational processes: twopapers inform us about the IMS learning designstandard, while the next three discuss design pat-terns and pattern languages. In their contributionsthat follow, Gráinne Conole and Elizabeth Master-man introduce a remarkable theoretical back-ground to the concept of learning design: bydrawing on activity theory (as set forth by YrjöEngeström), Gráinne Conole approaches the use of

resources in learning designs, while Elizabeth Mas-terman considers pedagogic planning tools. Forboth, the triangular structure of an activity systemhelps us understand how resources and activityrelate. Another nine chapters highlight differentfacets of implementation, as we see principles oflearning design put into practice. These authorsdiscuss in detail taxonomies, review processes,design principles, contextualisation, and muchmore. Unfortunately, a detailed account of all con-tributions is beyond this review. However, there doesnot seem to be a lack of models and theories inresearch on learning design.

In the second section, the chapters on learningobjects fall into three divisions. There are four paperson designing learning objects, six on effectivenessand evaluation, and, finally, three on issues ofimplementation. We can trace a few themes here.For example, Tom Boyle offers key design principles,and reports of the CETL agile development methodfor learning objects. He also provides a model to inte-grate learning objects and learning design by creat-ing a three-dimensional space of layered learningdesign. The following three contributions focuson contextualisation for learning objects as well, bymeans of learning paths, scaffolding and learningtasks, but they do not refer to any conceptuali-sation of learning design. There are evaluativestudies presented from different levels, ranging frominstructional effects to questions of review throughcollaborative argumentation and, at the top level, tothe impact of national and transnational learningobjects initiatives. The last three chapters of thissection ask for the factors that influence this impact.Here, the authors consider issues of accessibility,utility and economy.

For the third section, the term “integration” signifiestwo intentions: first, to integrate learning objectswith learning designs; second, to integrate bothapproaches in the everyday practice of teaching andlearning. Nine papers present case studies from dif-ferent disciplines in various educational settings.All look at the connection between learning objectsand learning design according to their specific edu-cational approach, starting from problem-basedlearning to learning in online role play. Once more,this review cannot do justice to the rich body ofthoughts here.

Last, the three chapters that conclude this book areworth a mention. These papers discuss standards,formalisation and design principles for both learningobjects and learning designs and explicitly examinehow these new approaches are likely to changedesign and development in education.

It is truly innovative to connect the ideas of learningobjects and learning design. One criticism of the



book in this respect, however, might be that most ofthe papers focus on merely one of the two concepts.Only the few chapters mentioned above explorehow the two approaches relate, and thus attempt tocapture knowledge about teaching and learning inorder to support educators in translating educa-tional theories and qualified principles into practice.Despite this common goal, then, there are still tworather distinct research communities. They addressthis area from two angles: content versus process.However, Lockyer, Bennett, Agostinho and Harperhave started a discourse that will probably lead tothe merger of the two communities.

Dr Michael Klebl (received July 2010)Junior Professor for CSCL, Institute of EducationalScience and Media Research, Hagen University,[email protected]

Northrup, Pamela T (2007) Learning objects forinstruction: Design and evaluation InformationScience Publishing, Hershey PA ISBN 978-1-59904-334-0 327 pp $94.95http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/TitleDetails.aspx?TitleId=697

The promise of almost unlimited computer storageand ubiquitous networks makes possible there-cycling and re-use of information in a multitudeof ways. This collection of papers on learningobjects nicely surveys a fast-growing field ofliterature on the history, design, application, andevaluation of learning object systems.

The book has four sections: “Introduction to learn-ing objects” (Chapters 1-5); “Developing instructionusing learning objects” (Chapters 6-13); “Tool-based solutions for the development and implemen-tation of learning objects” (Chapters 14-16); and anumber of appendices, such as of related websites.

The field of learning objects is extremely broad,encompassing the educational, governmental, andcorporate spheres. Because of these diverse environ-ments, efforts to standardise terminology and tech-nology have not succeeded, leading to differentsystems for type (files), storage (repositories), anddescription (metadata fields and content). After aninformative preface and introduction to the historyof learning objects, Chapter 3 reviews 59 learningrepositories (distributed mainly in the US, Canada,and Europe) by audience (comprehensive, educa-tional, and so on), subjects (such as the sciences andhumanities), technical services, and quality andsecurity.

In addition to many examples of the implementa-tion and application of learning object repositories,

the book includes applications of the principles andtheory used for designing learning object-basedsystems. For example, Bloom’s taxonomy is a widelyused theoretical framework that informs the cogni-tive and pedagogical bases for learning. In Chapter4, we see how Bloom’s taxonomy (prior to its 2001revision) may be aligned in templates that can facili-tate learning object development and reduce costs.

Various tools for the creation and deployment oflearning objects are discussed—such as Quick-Science (Chapter 15), a support tool for teachingscience aligned with Florida state and nationalscience standards. Unfortunately for this reviewer, aquick check on the Web for QuickScience resulted ina timeout, meaning the server wasn’t responsive.[Indeed, this tool does not seem easy to find on theWeb—editor, 18 Aug.]

For the reader looking for learning objectrepositories—at least up until early 2007—withdownloadable content, this text is an excellentresource. Some of the more active ones includeMERLOT, MIT OpenCourseWare, and Wisc-online.Of course these and many others would also beeasily located today using a Google search. Theadded value of this book is in the discussions of theproperties, content, and uses of various learningobject repositories.

Barriers to the deployment of learning objects in theclassroom include a lack of context for learningobjects and of technology support for teachers,among others. Chapter 7 offers a nice review ofthese barriers and proposals for overcoming them,with informative examples from Intel’s Teach to theFuture programme.

One problem discussed in a number of chapters isthe difficulty of searching so many repositories.There is no “universal” search query engine thatcan take a request and distribute it to the multitudeof learning object databases. Recommendationsfor standardising metadata, access, security, andquality of content are all discussed.

A difficulty faced by readers interested in the devel-opment and use of learning objects is that differentauthors define learning objects differently. It wouldhave been helpful to include a compilation of thevarious uses and meanings in the text.

In Chapter 11, the authors examine the many ben-efits of learning objects. They also present a particu-larly good review of barriers to adoption of learningobjects by teachers in higher education. This discus-sion will be of particular interest to administratorswho wish to increase learning object use at theirinstitutions, and perhaps to staff who wish to help

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their administrators become better informed priorto making policy decisions affecting informationtechnology (IT) in this area.

A wide range of expertise appears in this book—from the individual tutor trying for the first time toincorporate learning object technology in a teachereducation class (Chapter 13), to an extensive discus-sion of benefits, barriers to adoption, templates forcontent development, standards, and criteria forassessing the quality of learning objects (Chapter11). However expert, the latter authors believe that“... most faculty are proficient in html.” This doesnot accord with my experience in higher educationin the US—most of my colleagues have never eventouched html programming. The authors may havearrived at their conclusion because of their beingat the University of Wisconsin; this is one of theleading US universities developing and asses-sing technology for education, and has extensivetechnology support systems to minimise barriersof learning technology adoption for the teachers.In my opinion, this extensive support system isnot representative of the majority of colleges anduniversities in the US.

Chapter 13 presents a fascinating review of thedevelopment of a self-paced, Web-based course forthe training of biotechnology technicians. Collabo-rations were established with the tutors to develop acurriculum that describes required competencesand to develop the curriculum to align with theneeds of the industry. Two other programmes weredeveloped to train school teachers. What’s moststriking, however, is the time and developmentcost of just these three programmes (with a total ofabout a hundred learning objects)—some $2million. Therefore, the cost for each learning objectis about $20 000, and the overall expense for devel-opmental time is about $40 000/hour. Such figuresput the vision of professional quality development oftechnology-bound curricula for education beyondthe reach of most colleges and universities.

Even so, this book will appeal to a broad diversity oftarget audiences. For example, school teachers willfind case studies in Chapter 8 (tools for supportingthe K-12 instructor), Chapter 12 (a case study inthe use of learning objects in teacher education),Chapter 15 (case study of the use of QuickScience,that support tool for teaching science), and Chapter16 (the use of video analysis to “capture and codify

teaching practice”). IT support personnel will finduseful discussions of design principles in object-oriented software engineering (Chapter 5), thedesign process and organisational issues of meta-tagging and asset naming (Chapter 7), and criteriato guide learning object design (Chapter 11).

The downside of such a broad appeal to diverseaudiences, however, is that a reader’s particularinterest will be satisfied by a small portion of thewhole text.

Also, as with any printed publication, some informa-tion will be out-of-date when the reader seeks facts,web links, and other time-sensitive material. Forexample, a quick check of the dates in the variousreferences lists reveals that the latest print publica-tions cited appeared in 2006, and the latest accessesto Web links were in March 2007.

The following examples are not meant as criticisms,as there is no way to “future-proof ” a printed pub-lication in such a fast moving field in this era ofinstant, always-on, network-accessible world-wideinformation. But even a few years’ distance in timereduces the value of the book’s contents. Forexample, the LoLa Exchange at Wesleyan Universitynow appears to be dormant. In a discussion inChapter 6 on “future trends”, the authors explainhow cd-rom storage is being superseded by dvd; Iwould guess that this transformation has beenlargely completed in the intervening years. Chapter 9discusses a distributed learning application devel-oped for the US Coast Guard deployed on a personaldigital assistant (pda); with the meteoric rise in popu-larity of smartphones, however, the pda market hasessentially collapsed, and I have no doubt that soon itwill be gone. And the Pachyderm Project (Chapter14)—a multimedia authoring tool developed for cre-ating Flash-based, interactive presentations at muse-ums—has been superseded by an OpenSourceproject, PachyForge.

Last—and perhaps this is a small point, but the usethroughout the book of text printed in approxi-mately 6 to 7 point font (such as in tables andAppendix B), requires us older readers to reach toooften for the reading glasses.

Scott Brande (received July 2010)Associate Professor, University of Alabama at Birming-ham, [email protected]



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