Liverpool Hope University Presentation


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 * Audio File of Presentation - Amanda Oddie, Liverpool Hope University (MP3 Format - 6.7Mb, Length: 7 minutes).
 * Notes from Presentation and Discussion on User Interface Developments - Amanda Oddie, Liverpool Hope University.
 * Transcript of MP3 Audio File Presentation by Amanda Oddie, Liverpool Hope University.

Notes from Presentation and Discussion on User Interface Developments - Amanda Oddie, Liverpool Hope University.
Amanda Oddie from Liverpool Hope University gave an overview of two projects looking at user interface design. The first project - LD4P (IMS Learning Design for Practitioners) - is looking at the RELOAD Editor from a practitioner's point of view. Part of the project involves running workshops with people from HE (Higher Education) and FE (Further Education) and doing an inital survey on ease of use of the RELOAD interface. The results of which will feed into the development of prototypes, which will be further refined and developed until an appropriate one is found. As practitioners find RELOAD difficult to use, the prototypes should address this issue. The project is currently at the workshop stage.

The second project in conjunction with the OU (Open University) and the Open Universiteit Nederland) - D4LD (Developing for Learning Design) - will provide access for students to courses developed using IMS Learning Design. The resulting software will be able to run lots of different learning designs.  The project will also look at user interface design and whether preferences can be changed.

Learning designs can also be used for blended learning. All that is required is a lesson plan and scheme of work from the practitioner for the actual learning design. Practitioners are creating new learning designs completely from scratch - some are blended designs, whilst others are totally online. RELOAD has been found to be very useful for lesson planning as it forces practitioners to think about how they want to teach the lesson.

Amanda and her team have also tried to relate the tabs in RELOAD to the terminology that practitioners use and the tabs in the prototype may reflect those terms to improve ease of use.

Learning designs cannot currently be changed on the fly as students tend to lose their positions in the original learning design if such changes are made. One workaround is to have a small module approach so that changes can be made in advance. One of the problems is that CopperCore pre-compiles, so that changes cannot be easily made.

It is hoped that there will be around 15-20 learning designs by the end of the project and that learning designs and content can be shared. However, IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) issues still need to be investigated.