Reusable, Interactive Learning Objects in an Engineering Digital Library

Reusable, Interactive Learning Objects in an Engineering Digital Library: the Grow-Ncerl Project Authors: Muniram Budhu, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering & Engineering Mechanics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721 USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract  The US National Science Foundation has created a National Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Digital Library (NSDL). One of the digital libraries within NSDL is the National Civil Engineering Educational Resources Library (NCERL). The first phase of NCERL is the collection and creation of digital educational resources in three areas of civil engineering – Geotechnical, Rock and Water Resources Engineering (GROW). GROW-NCERL’s mission is to transform the way we teach and learn. One of the key attributes of GROW is the creation of interactive, visual learning objects at different levels of granularity ranging from an element level to a thematic level. Each learning object has properties that allow it to be reusable, self-contained, aggregated and tagged with metadata using established standards such as Dublin Core. Users can access dynamic, engaging educational materials using dynamic text, images, passive and interactive animations, digital videos and sound. Students can now explore related topics using in-house or web accessible materials rather than following conventional linear instructions. Instructors can mix-match learning objects to meet desired learning outcomes. Virtual laboratories for students to conduct experiments interactively are part of the resources in GROW. GROW system architecture provides the ability to store, maintain, retrieve, identify, and use learning objects anytimeanyplace. GROW-NCERL is intended for universal access and international collaboration is needed for all to benefit through shared experiences.

Index Terms  Digital library, interactivities, learning objects, learning module, simulation, visualization. INTRODUCTION Libraries have always played a key role in education. They provide a place for the storage and retrieval of a large body of human knowledge. Digital technologies are now transforming and expanding the traditional roles of library. Digital libraries provide an assortment of tools for a user to search, retrieve, create, customize and share content that are available anytime, anyplace. Teachers, students and faculty can now utilize the environment provided by digital libraries to transform the way we teach and learn. Various content can now be shared, integrated and customized to enhance learning. Educators are no longer tied to static graphics and text but can customize media-rich (interactive visualizations, simulations, speech, sound, text, etc.) content from a large repository to produce dynamic, engaging educational materials. Delivery of instructional materials is no longer confined to real estate and scheduling but can be delivered anytime, any place using a variety of digital devices – desk and laptop computers, mobile phones, PDAs, webpads and consoles. Users can form on the spot communities or continual communities of learners for collaborate learning. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a digital library for civil engineering and the creation of learning objects at different levels of granularity. A key attribute of these learning objects is metadata tagging that enables these objects to be searched, retrieved and customized for different learners.

THE GROW-NCERL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROJECT The US National Science Foundation is funding the creation of a National Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Digital Library (NSDL; http://www.nsdl.org/). NSDL is a central system of integrating various digital libraries, each with a collection of digital objects in a specific field of information. NSDL provides information services and universal access to high quality educational resources. One of the digital libraries within NSDL is the Geotechnical, Rock and Water Resources Engineering Digital Library (GROW; www.grow.arizona.edu). GROW is the first phase of a National Civil Engineering Educational Resources Library (NCERL). The resources in GROW are collected from the Web, created by developers at the University of Arizona, and contributed by users. The emphasis in this paper is on the creation of learning objects with a certain size of granularity. Learning objects have several definitions in the literature. In this paper, a learning object is “any digital resource that can be reused to support learning” [1]. Each learning object within a group have

International Conference on Engineering Education

July 21–25, 2003, Valencia, Spain. 1

properties that allow it to be reusable, self-contained, aggregated and tagged with metadata (http://www.wisconline.com/Info/FIPSE%20-%20What%20is%20a%20Learning%20Object.html) GROW learning objects are intended to make a paradigm shift from linear, static, text-based oriented course material to non-linear, dynamic, visually oriented material. Non-linearity widens the knowledge landscape and allows a student, if he/she prefers, to get related materials on the World Wide Web.

GRANULARITY OF GROW-NCERL INTERACTIVE LEARNING OBJECTS There are two hierarchical classes of granularity within GROW learning objects. Class I is the coarse granularity class and consists of four sub-classes – element, learning unit, module and theme. An element is a base piece that may consist of an image, a text piece, a data file, etc. It has the lowest level of granularity. A learning unit is a smallest self-contained learning lesson made from elements that has at least one learning outcome. A module is a collection of learning units with one or more learning outcomes. The learning units in a module can be sequenced to accomplish different learning objectives. A theme is a collection of modules that address a global topic and is the coarsest level of granularity. For example, one of the themes in GROW-NCERL is ‘Effects of Water on Soils.’ Class II is the fine granularity class; it is the subdivision of each sub-class in Class I. The characteristics of a Class II level of granularity as expressed in a module are presented and discussed in this paper. The learning units in a module are sequenced to accomplish different learning objectives. The didactic construction in each module revolves around learning outcomes. The key pedagogy items are (1) Introduction - Gain attention, learning outcomes, expectations and description of assessment (2) Pre-test – testing on pre-requisite materials (3) Content presentation – interactivities, multimedia format, assessment, feedback (4) Exploration – extending knowledge base, use knowledge in practical applications (5) Assessment – quizzes to test short term knowledge retention. Each of these items has lower levels of granularity. For example, an instructor can change the learning outcomes and use different parts of the content to achieve new learning outcomes. In the next section, an existing module is described and the content is then repurposed.

A GROW-NCERL MODULE A particular module is now described and then changes are made to accomplish different learning outcomes. Undergraduate students in civil engineering normally performed laboratory tests in certain courses. One of these courses is geotechnical engineering. Students are required to perform several soil tests to determine the properties and characteristics of soils such as their strength and deformation properties. The test results are interpreted and then used to design foundations for buildings, roads, bridges, dams for water storage, drainage, irrigation and power generation, etc. The module to be described is a simulation of one of these soil tests called the triaxial test. This is an elaborate test that requires a sample to be carefully prepared in an apparatus and then tested by applying loads or displacements. Sample preparation can last as much as two hours for a simple test and some tests require many days of slow load application. Often, a teaching assistant or a technician prepares the sample and setup the apparatus and only simple tests are conducted either by the teaching assistant or a technician and a group of students observe and record data or the group of students may conduct the test. Thus, the students do not participate in all phases of the tests and would not get first hand experience on the intricacies of the test, sources of errors, etc. The virtual test allows each student to have his/her own apparatus, prepare the soil sample, setup the apparatus, conduct the test, interpret the results, and prepare a report that can be e-mailed to his/her instructor. In addition, the virtual test has rich pedagogy to enhance learning. What-if situations are built into the pedagogy to allow students to extend their knowledge through exploration. The general layout of the virtual test is shown in Figure 1. For this module, each of the menu items Introduction, Review, Pre-test, Sample prep (sample preparation), Apparatus, Setup appar (setup apparatus), Run test and Quiz can be changed by an instructor. For example, an instructor can change the learning outcomes or grading scheme or mission in the introduction by simply preparing a new text file. Another example is that an instructor may only wish to show the test apparatus in a lecture, he/she can then extract the apparatus from the complete test or navigate to the apparatus section as illustrated in Figure 2. The module shown here was developed using Authorware. Other modules were developed using Flash and Flash MX. The draw back is that the user must have the Macromedia’s Authorware and Flash plug-ins. However, these plug-ins are free and are available for installation at the GROW site if a user does not have them installed already. A key attribute of these virtual tests is interactivities. At the module level, the users interact with the digital learning objects while at the GROW-NCERL digital level – the highest hierarchal level - the user interacts with the managed collection, services and other users [2]. For example, at the module level the user would be instructed to use the mouse to drag and drop 3-dimensional images to prepare soil sample and set it up in the apparatus as illustrated by a frame shot in Figure 3. In this frame shot, the user will drag the chamber and position it on the apparatus and once successfully completed



he/she would be advised on the next step. Feedback is provided to the user and records of user-interaction and assessment are kept for the instructor.

METADATA TAGGING, USER SERVICES AND PEER REVIEW One of the keys to success of a digital library and the reusability of learning objects is standard metadata tagging. GROW metadata scheme is the international standard Dublin Core with education elements dubbed DC-Ed Qualified. In addition, 4 elements from the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) framework to tag interactivity, and an additional element called Keywords (www.grow.arizona.edu) are used. A total of 20 fields (title, description, interactivity level, etc) are used to identify each object. A complete list of fields is available at http://www.grow.arizona.edu/ A contributor of resources completes about 4 fields and other fields are completed by GROW cataloging team to ensure accuracy. Figure 4 illustrates the metadat entry process. Resources by GROW team members are tagged internally with all fields. All the digital library projects within NSDL are using the DC or DC-Ed Qualified standard. This commonality in metadata tagging allows NSDL to readily harvest resources from all of the digital libraries. A user can locate resources in all the libraries through NSDL (www.nsdl.org) or through individual digital libraries like GROW. GROW also provides search, contribute and customization services to its users. Presently, each object is reviewed by an internal team consting of students and faculty knowledgeable in the subject matter before they are placed on the GROW site. An external peer review process will be implemented shortly following the process shown in Figure 5. In addition to these two review processes, users can submit reviews of objects and services that are accessed. A ranking scheme based on the three reviews (internal, external peer and user) will be attached to each object.

CONCLUSIONS Digital resources within GROW-NCERL and NSDL as a whole have the potential to enhance engineering education. They expand the role of libraries from a repository and accessible source of information to one in which a user can receive educational instructions anyplace, anytime. Learning objects that are tagged using standard metadata scheme allow them to be searched, retrieved, reused and repurposed for education. The usefulness of the resources in GROW-NCERL and other digital libraries will only be known after several years of use. Collaborative efforts from the international community are required to foster an environment for the use of these media-rich, engaging digital resources to transform the way we teach and learn.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT GROW-NCERL is funded from a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant #DUE-0121691. The help of Dr. Lee Zia, NSF program manager, is gratefully acknowledged. Some of the resources on the GROW-NCERL web site were developed under NSF grant #DUE-9950906. More information on GROW-NCERL is available at http://www/grow.arizona.edu

REFERENCES [1] Wiley, D. A. Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy, in D. A. Wiley, ed., The Instructional Use of Learning Objects: Online Version, http://reusability.org/read/chapters/wiley.doc, 2000. [2] Budhu, Muniram and Coleman, Anita. The Design and Evaluation of Interactivities in a Digital Library, D-Lib Magazine, Nov. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november02/coleman/11coleman.html, 2000.



FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURE 1 LAYOUT OF VIRTUAL TRIAXIAL TEST.

FIGURE 2 THE APPARATUS COMPONENT OF THE VIRTUAL TRIXIAL



FIGURE 3 A FRAMESHOT OF AN INTERACTION IN “SETTING UP” A VIRTUAL TRIXIAL APPARATUS

FIGURE 4 FLOW CHART OF THE MATADATA ENTRY PROCESS



FIGURE 5 FLOW CHART OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

