METIS

Institutional Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are mainly used as content repositories or for administrative purposes, and there is not a wide uptake of innovative pedagogies. Research on learning design addresses this problem by providing teachers with ICT tools capable of collecting their pedagogically-informed decisions, making designs explicit and shareable (and therefore transferable and adaptable), and setting up the enacting ICT environment accordingly. This research has by now produced a rich set of learning design tools, and evaluation shows that these tools do shift teacher practice towards innovative pedagogies. METIS aims to build on this work and enable a wider spectrum of teachers and institutions to incorporate these resources into their practice. 

This project brings together partners from the higher-education, vocational training, and adult education levels, as well as institutions with expertise in learning design research. The project goal is threefold:

1. Provide an Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE) based on existing free and open source solutions, including authoring tools; co-design support for teacher communities; and deployment of learning designs on mainstream VLEs;
2. Run a series of workshops for teachers using ILDE to train teachers in learning design and the orchestration of ICT-based learning environments according to innovative pedagogies;
3. Disseminate the project's outcomes in the form of workshops for learning design training, and to promote the creation and maintenance, beyond the project's financial period, of a teacher community using learning design.

Role of i5 ACIS Group

The main tasks of the ACIS Group in the METIS project centered on the specification and development of the Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE), as well as the adaptation of the open-source IMS Learning Design authoring tool OpenGLM to interoperate with ILDE.

i5 Outcomes

OpenGLM integrated with ILDE

Open Graphical Learning Modeller (OpenGLM) is an open-source learning design authoring tool which supports IMS Learning Design (LD) at levels A and B. The tool was conceived to facilitate non-IMS LD experts in creating, sharing and reusing units of learning. To achieve this, OpenGLM focuses on two features that differentiate it from most other IMS LD authoring tools. First, it adopts a visual modelling metaphor that conceals the complex and unintuitive elements and structures of IMS LD from the graphical user interface. Second, it provides built-in search, import and export access to open educational resource repositories which hosts several thousand educational resources ranging from single learning objects to full online courses.  These repositories include the Open ICOPER Content Space (OICS) and -- developed as part of the METIS project -- the Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE).

See also the OpenGLM prototype page for details.

SyncMeta Metamodeling Framework

SyncMeta is a framework for and implementation of near-real time collaborative modeling and metamodeling on the Web. SyncMeta is an abstraction of SyncLD (see below). See the SyncMeta page for full details, demos and links.

SyncLD - Synchronous Collaborative Learning Design Authoring Tool

SyncLD is the first available tool on the market to support synchronous collaboration on IMS Learning Design units of learning. Concurrent edits by multiple authors on the same model are synchronized in realtime using the ROLE SDK's interwidget communication features. The tool runs in all major web browsers without any installation. The SyncLD collaborative IMS LD editor widget can be used together with other widgets like chat, sketching tools, etc., to improve the collaboration experience. Different authors can simultaneously edit the same or different portions of the unit of learning. Every single change (even single characters typed into text boxes, or checks made in checkboxes) is immediately synchronized and visualized in the interface of all users participating in the authoring session.

SyncLD was integrated with the METIS Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE). IMS LD designs stored on ILDE can be imported to SyncLD, and designs created with SyncLD can be exported to ILDE. This import/export was implemented as a synchronization link between the tool and the ILDE platform. Changes done in the SyncLD editor can be sync'ed to the respective ILDE design at any time with a single mouse click. 

A screencast demo of SyncLD was recorded and published on Youtube (see below). SyncLD can also be tested live in the widget sandbox.

Deliverables and Reports

• Hernández-Leo, D., Chacón, J., Abenia, P., Asensio-Pérez, J. I., Prieto, L. P., Hoyos, J., Derntl, M., Nicolaescu, P., Uppal, R., Jahns, K. (2015). Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE) Software. METIS Deliverable D2.2, February 2015.
• Hernández-Leo, D., Chacón, J., Abenia, P., Asensio-Pérez, J. I., Prieto, L. P., Hoyos, J., Derntl, M. (2015). Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE) Documentation. METIS Deliverable D2.3, February 2015.
• Brasher, A., McAndrew, P., Chacón, J., Christodoulaki, K., Serrano M. A., Asensio Perez, J.l., Dimitriadis, Y., Pozzi, F., Derntl, M. (2015). Final workshops packages: workshops for different educational levels and education contexts. METIS Deliverable D3.4, February 2015.
• ACIS Group: SyncLD Authoring Tool for Learning Designs in ILDE. 5th METIS Newsletter, February 2015.
• ACIS Group: ILDE infrastructure featured in SIIE conference keynote. 4th METIS Newletter, November 2014.
• ACIS Group: Enhancements for Learning Design Authoring Tools. 4th METIS Newletter, November 2014.
• ACIS Group: Gamification of the Integrated Learning Design Environment. 3rd METIS Newsletter, May 2014.
• ACIS Group: OpenGLM integration with ILDE released. 3rd METIS Newsletter, May 2014.
• ACIS Group: METIS getting in touch with the collaborative computing community. 2nd METIS Newsletter, October 2013.
• ACIS Group: RWTH experiments with real-time collaboration technology for Learning Design. 1st METIS Newsletter, April 2013.
• Hernández-Leo, D., Chacón, J., Prieto, L.P., Asensio, J.I., Derntl, M.: Report 1 on meeting with stakeholders: early feedback on ILDE requirements. METIS Deliverable D2.1, March 2013

Publications

2015

• Petru Nicolaescu, Kevin Jahns, Michael Derntl, Ralf Klamma

  Yjs: A Framework for Near Real-Time P2P Shared Editing on Arbitrary Data Types

  Published in Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE 2015), Rotterdam, The Netherlands, June 23-26, 2015 (Best Demo & Best Poster Award)

• Michael Derntl

  OpenGLM: Integrating Open Educational Resources in IMS Learning Design Authoring

  Published in M. Maina, B. Craft, Y. Mor (Eds.): The Art & Science of Learning Design (pp. 157-168), Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2015

• Michael Derntl, Petru Nicolaescu, Stephan Erdtmann, Ralf Klamma, Matthias Jarke

  Near Real-Time Collaborative Conceptual Modeling on the Web

  Published in Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2015)

2014

• Michael Derntl

  Design narrative: Lab course on Software Architectures and Web Technologies

  Published in Y. Mor, H. Mellar, S. Warburton, N. Winters (Eds.): Practical Design Patterns for Teaching and Learning with Technology (pp. 23-30), Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2014

• Davinia Hernández Leo, Juan Ignacio Asensio-Pérez, Michael Derntl, Luis Pablo Prieto, Jonathan Chacón

  ILDE: Community Environment for Conceptualizing, Authoring and Deploying Learning Activities

  Published in Christoph Rensing, Sara de Freitas, Tobias Ley, Pedro J. Muñoz Merino (Eds.): Open Learning and Teaching in Educational Communities - 9th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2014, Graz, Austria, September 16-19, 2014, Proceedings. Springer 2014 Lecture Notes in Computer Science

• Diana Laurillard, Michael Derntl

  Learner Centred Design - Overview

  Published in Y. Mor, H. Mellar, S. Warburton, N. Winters (Eds.): Practical Design Patterns for Teaching and Learning with Technology (pp. 13-16), Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2014

• Michael Derntl

  Pattern: Spotlighting Learning Processes

  Published in Y. Mor, H. Mellar, S. Warburton, N. Winters (Eds.): Practical Design Patterns for Teaching and Learning with Technology (pp. 61-66), Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2014

• Michael Derntl, Susanne Neumann, Petra Oberhuemer

  Lost in Interaction in IMS Learning Design Runtime Environments

  Published in Educational Technology & Society, 17(3): 332-342 (2014)

• Michael Derntl, Diana Laurillard

  Scenario: Interactive Lecture

  Published in Y. Mor, H. Mellar, S. Warburton, N. Winters (Eds.): Practical Design Patterns for Teaching and Learning with Technology (pp. 97–100), Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2014

• Michael Derntl, Stephan Erdtmann, Petru Nicolaescu, Ralf Klamma, Matthias Jarke

  Echtzeitmetamodellierung im Web-Browser

  Published in Fill HG, Karagiannis D, Reimer U (Eds.) Modellierung 2014. Lecture Notes in Informatics vol. 225, 65-80 (2014)

2013

• Petru Nicolaescu, Michael Derntl, Ralf Klamma

  Browser-Based Collaborative Modeling in Near Real-Time

  Published in Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing, Collaboratecom 2013, Austin, Texas, October 20-23, 2013

• Davinia Hernández-Leo, Tobias Ley, Ralf Klamma, Andreas Harrer

  Scaling up Learning for Sustained Impact - 8th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2013, Paphos, Cyprus, September 17-21, 2013. Proceedings. Springer, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8095, 2013, 978-3-642-40813-7

• Michael Derntl, Petru Nicolaescu, Bezunesh Terkik, Ralf Klamma

  SynC-LD: Synchronous Collaborative IMS Learning Design Authoring on the Web

  Published in Davinia Hernández Leo, Tobias Ley, Ralf Klamma, Andreas Harrer (Eds.): Scaling up Learning for Sustained Impact - 8th European Conference, on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2013, Paphos, Cyprus, September 17-21, 2013. Proceedings. Springer 2013 Lecture Notes in Computer Science

• Luis P. Prieto, Yannis Dimitriadis, Brock Craft, Michael Derntl, Valérie Émin, Mary Katsamani, Diana Laurillard, Elizabeth Masterman, Symeon Retalis, Eloy D. Villasclaras

  Learning design Rashomon II: exploring one lesson through multiple tools

  Published in Research in Learning Technology, Vol. 21, Supplement 1, 2013

• Davinia Hernández Leo, Jonathan Chacón, Luis Pablo Prieto, Juan Ignacio Asensio-Pérez, Michael Derntl

  Towards an Integrated Learning Design Environment

  Published in Davinia Hernández Leo, Tobias Ley, Ralf Klamma, Andreas Harrer (Eds.): Scaling up Learning for Sustained Impact - 8th European Conference, on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2013, Paphos, Cyprus, September 17-21, 2013. Proceedings. Springer 2013 Lecture Notes in Computer Science.