VOLUME 15, NUMBER 3, 2001
Editorial
Standards and Learning Objects
Michael G. Moore
Articles (for abstracts, click
here)
Review of Research in Distance Education, 1990 to 1999
Zane L. Berge and Susan Mrozowski
Knowledge Retention as a Latent Outcome Measure in Distance
Learning
Robert A. Wisher, Christina K. Curnow, and Robert J. Seidel
Systematic and Systemic Approaches to Reducing Attrition
Rates in Online Higher Education
Seung Youn (Yonnie) Chyung
Synchronous and Asynchronous Interactions of Bilingual Hispanic
Pre- and In-Service Teachers in Distance Learning
Luisa Lara, Richard Howell, Jeronimo Dominguez, and José Navarro
Interview
Speaking Personally with Dennis Bancroft
Joseph T. Savrock
Book Review
Leadership for 21st Century Learning: Global Perspectives from Educational
Innovators
Edited by Colin Latchem and Donald E. Hanna
Don Olcott, Jr.
EDITORIAL
Standards and Learning Objects
Michael G. Moore
One of the many unsatisfactory consequences of the fragmented nature of our distance education system is the multiplicity of courses and course materials and services that are delivered by the thousands of independent providers. These products are usually very similar, but because of underinvestment they often fall short of good quality—also, because there are no common standards so that even an innovative institution that would like to integrate materials made elsewhere has difficulty in transferring them into its curricular or administrative structure. One development that indicates the beginning of a move towards dealing with this lack of standards, and eventually to help bring about some rationalization of resources and ultimately improvements in quality and costs, is the work of several new International Standards groups, prominent among them being Instructional Management Systems (IMS).
As reported in an article in a previous issue of this journal (Resmer 1998), it is some five years since representatives of a group of colleges and universities got together to see if they could create a set of standards that would lead to a better flow of educational goods and services among providing agencies. In the years since then, these colleges and universities have been working with EDUCOM’s National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII) under the name Instructional Management Systems project (www.imsproject.org). In 1998 EDUCOM merged with CAUSE, an association of managers and users of information resources on college and university campuses. They created a new nonprofit organization, EDUCAUSE (www.educause.edu), to invest in the IMS project. The membership of EDUCAUSE consists of over 1,800 colleges, universities, and education organizations, and over 180 corporations. The IMS project has become very international, with a great deal of action occurring in Europe, Canada, and Australia.
The stated goals of the IMS project are “defining technical specifications for inter-operability of applications and services in distributed learning” and “supporting the incorporation of the IMS specifications into products and services worldwide.”
The vision is to develop a universe of marketable “learning objects.” These are products that could be bought and sold for use by different institutions in assembling their differing educational programs. Learning objects are, we might say, the bricks out of which an institution could construct a program according to its own preferred architecture. By using the standard bricks, every institution would save the cost of manufacturing its own, and—just as important—would have raw materials that were of a common standard. That would allow, to stay with the analogy, for a small organization to build its course offerings module by module rather like adding rooms to a home, or to pick up the whole house and merge with another!
Learning objects include educational content as well as procedures that help students locate and use the content, but also activities that help teaching institutions track learner progress, report learner performance, and facilitate better interaction between administrative systems. Among many advantages of standardizing operations into learning objects, compare for example the cost of training an administrator or instructor who moves from one institution to another before there are standard procedures and after such standards are agreed upon and implemented. Even more interestingly, think of the saving in instructor time if and when we have a standard set of learning objects based on standard learning objectives for, let us say, Introductory Biology. Then it would no longer be necessary for every instructor to try to be an expert in designing learning objectives, or to structure the content for a given length of course at a given learner level. All the pieces would be available for assembly by the instructor. Then, think of the rich opportunity—in the time saved from such unnecessary chores—to scour the market for learning objects that you, as an individual instructor or as administrator in an institution, could knit together to make up a course, constructed with materials that came from a range of vendors, and that, because of the principle of “interoperability,” could be linked together in your own unique way.
Finally, look at the possibilities from the point of view of the learner, who should be able to put together a personally constructed learning package using materials from a variety of providing institutions, possibly using advice from student-support services from other, different agencies, all operating, of course, to common standards. The advantages in such areas as certification and transfer of credits are also fairly obvious.
A related initiative in this gradual progress towards rationalization is the US Department of Defense’s Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). SCORM is a member of another consortium of government agencies, corporations, and educational institutions called the Advanced Distributed Learning initiative (ADL—see www.adlnet.org). SCORM incorporates standards developed by IMS and also by other organizations into one content model, which it continues to develop.
It should be noted that most of the popular commercial learning management systems, such as BlackBoard and WebCT, now either claim to be IMS/SCORM-compliant or at least refer to compliance with one of the other emerging international standards.
Though the goal of producing standardized learning objects makes economic sense as well as educational sense, the procedures for harmonizing the interests of academics, administrations, and vendors are difficult and time consuming. You can easily see this if you visit one of the Web sites cited above and, from the numbers of meetings, committees, minutes, papers, etc. that are referenced there, notice there is a great deal of negotiation going on. With so many competing interests involved, it is hardly surprising that achieving the development and implementation of common standards will be challenging. If the result of all this effort is to fulfill the promise of an almost infinite number of modularized resources that can be aggregated and disaggregated at will to create courses or whole programs of study, it would give the returns to scale that are so missing in American distance education. That would lead to an enormous increase in both efficiency and quality. It is a process that I, for one, will continue to watch with interest.
Reference
Resmer, M. 1998. Media Review: The EDUCOM/NLII Instructional Management
Systems Project. The American Journal of Distance Education 12
(1): 78–82.
Knowledge Retention as a Latent Outcome
Measure in Distance Learning
Robert A. Wisher, Christina K. Curnow, and Robert J. Seidel
Two experiments investigated the retention of knowledge as a latent measure of learning outcome. Based on an analysis of previous classroom studies, a prediction of a 15% relative loss of knowledge that had been gained during original learning was made for two video teletraining courses, one concerning air traffic control and the other battle staff duties. A total sample of n=90 participated in the distance learning versions of either of the two courses; a total sample of n=137 participated in a comparable residence classroom version of either course. Retesting of the same content was conducted ten, twenty, or forty weeks after completion of the course. Results demonstrated knowledge losses of between 14% and 16%, in line with predictions. The merits of knowledge retention as a construct for examining initial evidence of learning is discussed, especially for training related to the safety of others.
Review of Research in Distance Education,
1990 to 1999
Zane L. Berge and Susan Mrozowski
This review examines the research literature in distance education over a ten-year period from 1990 to 1999. Using four prominent, peer-reviewed, English-language distance education journals and the dissertation abstracts that were related to the field of distance education, the authors found 1,419 total articles and abstracts. Only those articles reporting a research methodology (n=890) were included in this study. A categorization system based on Sherry (1996) was used to categorize the content. The patterns across journals and dissertation abstracts indicated a predominance of pedagogical issues being researched. Three-fourths of the articles and dissertations used a descriptive methodology. Implications for reviews such as this include that, while they can not correct sloppy or short-sighted research, they can begin to address gaps in past distance education research. They can dramatically show the need for a research agenda and future vision in the field of distance education.
Systematic and Systemic Approaches
to Reducing Attrition Rates in Online Higher Education
Seung Youn (Yonnie) Chyung
Prior to 1997, the Department of Instructional & Performance Technology (IPT) online program at Boise State University faced a high student dropout rate. The IPT turned to Keller’s ARCS model, Kaufman’s Organizational Elements Model, and Kirkpatrick’s evaluation model throughout the processes of improving the motivational appeal of the online course for the first-time adult learners and solving the attrition problem. In this article, the author describes a long-term evaluation case study and explains how she systematically designed and implemented various instructional interventions to reduce attrition. She also presents the results of systemic evaluations.
Synchronous and Asynchronous Interactions
of Bilingual Hispanic Pre- and In-Service Teachers in Distance Learning
Luisa Lara, Richard Howell, Jeronimo Dominguez, and José Navarro
This study investigated differences in online written interactions of bilingual Hispanic pre- and in-service teachers across two types of online discussion groups: synchronous and asynchronous. Participants were exposed to a shortened version of a wholly online special education course and participated in instructional activities as well as synchronous and asynchronous discussion groups over a six-week period. The research used both an alternating treatment design to gather quantitative data, and interviews and questionnaires for qualitative data. The results support the contention that synchronous discussion group interactions are an important feature of successful online courses with Hispanic students.
