LEARN@WU

The Teaching Environment of the Vienna University of Economics and BA (WU)

Gustaf Neumann(neumann@wu-wien.ac.at)

Department of Information Systems

Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration

Overview

LEARN@WU Organizational Issues

and Background Information Challenges for Mass-Courses Content Model, Content Creation Tools,

Quality Assurance Experiences

3

WU: Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration

University = Business School One of the largest Business Schools

worldwideabout 25.000 students in totalabout 4.000 freshmen each yearmore than 2.000 different courses every

semester

Situation leading to LEARN@WU

New Study Program: Development of six new degree programs sharing a large common body of knowledge in the first year

Idea: Mass courses (up to 600 students/class) in the first year Small classes (up to 30 students/class) in the later

courses

E-Learning Approach: Support of mass courses, improve processes,

transparency and quality No Distance-Learning!

First Study Year at WU

80% of the courses of the first year are for all degree programs identical, 20% specific

FirstStudy-Year

ISBachelor

ISMaster

BusinessAdminMaster

Int.Business

AdminMaster

Econo-mics

Master

BusinessScienceMaster

BusinessEducation

Master

First Year Courses 18 Mass Courses for about 4.000 Freshmen at

least 7 parallel classes for every course (about 500 introductory classes per year)

Wide Range of Courses: Law Business Admin, Marketing, Human Resources, ... Mathematics, Statistics, Information Systems Economics Languages

LEARN@WU Project: Technology based learning to improve efficiency and effectiveness Provide full coverage of first year courses

LEARN@WU Project Key Facts:

Start: autumn 2001, 2 years, budget: 3,4 Mio Euro Project leader:

Gustaf Neumann (Deptartment Of Information Systems) Wilfried Schneider (Department of Business Education)

36 full time content developer (2 per course) 2 people didactic support, 2 people technical support (incl. help desk)

Goals: Year 1: Full content coverage Year 2: Personalization, Collaboration

Deployment: October 2002

Current State About 17.000 learning resources developed

Broad Acceptance About 14.000 registered students Up to 2.5 Mio requests (hits) per day Last 14 days before exams: more than 1.2 Mio online exercises were solved

by students Up to 8000 exercises solved per hour Average response time less 1 sec

Further Developments E-Learning is a strategic goal of the university Development from project status to a permanent Infrastructure Expanding Knowledge Corpus to higher semesters Find more effective ways of technology based knowledge delivery (blended

learning)

Overview

Differences to other E-Learning Systems Content Model Development Model Special Features Server Infrastructure Current Development

Differences to other E-Learning Systems (1)

One of the largest E-Learning systems: High number of Students Highly integrated into the Curriculum Heterogeneous requirements from teachers High number of requests (up to ~40 req/sec.

before exams)

Mass Problem

Asymmetric Usage Peaks

Start of courses: High number of

downloads (upto 16 GB/day)

Before exams: High number of

interactive requests(up to 200,000 exercises solved/day)

Differences to other E-Learning Systems (2)

Emphasis on Content Large knowledge corpus (about 17,000 learning

resources) Example: Course Information Systems

Electronic text book: 1,500 pages About 600 MC-exercises 9 one hour exams Glossary with more than 3,000 definitions

High number of content developers (about 36) High requirements on authoring tools and

content management

Developed Learning Resources

High Percentage of interactive learning resources (self assessment)

Usability Requirements

Beginner Courses Low effort for students and teachers Consistent user interface over all courses

Potential Dangers De-personalization of University Time consuming interactions over electronic media Unwanted usage of the platform resources (students

learn exercises rather than content)

Countermeasures Staged communication channels (buddies, moderated

forums, …) Personalization of platform

Content Model

Types of Learning ResourcesLearning progress: 6 types of exercisesOnline exams (for self assessment)Electronic textbooksGlossaryDownloads (slides, programs, ...)LinksSyllabus

Content Model Concept Space

Hierarchical definition of learning concepts per course

Learning resources are associated with concepts

Support for learner-centric knowledge acquisition

Base for recommender systemEases linkage between different courses

Concept Space

Learning Resource

Electronic Textbook Glossary Self Assessment Downloads Links

Database Systems

hierachicalnetwork relational

Object oriented

Data Structures

Page

1

*

Exercise Exam

**

Multiple choice Fill-in

. . .

Concept Space Node

Collection

LR 2

*

*

*

*

LR 3

LR 4

LR 5

LR 6

LR 7LR 8

LR 9

LR 10

LR 11LR 12

LR 13

. . .. . .

instance of

associated to

Concept Space

Instances (Learning Resources)

Classes

. . .

Learning Objects interlinked via Concept Space

Collections

Glossary System of networked terms

asymmetric encryption

Öffentlicher Schlüssel

PrivaterSchlüssel

public key secret key

encryption

symmetric encryption

Development Model

For all types of learning resources

Definition of XML-Schemata Separation of Content and Presentation Interface for Legacy systems

Definition of Microsoft-Style Sheets Eases incorporation of Legacy documents Relatively high editing comfort

Automatic generation of Schema-conformant XML-Dokuments

Rich metadata, server-side interactive support

Microsoft Word Text with

special Style sheets

XML Format

Import into Content

repository (relational DB)

Presentation in Web Browser

Legacy System

Content Development

HTML-Styles in MS-Word

HTML-Styles - Browser View

Special Features

Personal Learning Environment Annotations Learn@WU Buddy Finder Online HTML-Editor Real World Exam Support

Personal Assessment Statistics

Personal Assessment Statistics

For every student, for every course For every course topic: coverage + success

Annotations Students can assign several types of annotations on

learning resources Bookmarks Personal Notes Feedback

Students get return information about the feedback they provided

Annotations

Content Developers manage feedback Online List (several filter options), Print version Ratings, Status (open, closed, in process)

Learn@WU Buddy Finder

Students can register Instant Messaging Contacts find Buddies online that are currently learning the same

topics contact colleagues via IM-Systems or traditional E-Mail

Online HTML-Editor

Browser Plugin for Mozilla/Netscape Allows WYSIWIG editing of various elements

(description,..) directly in the browser application

Real World Exam Support

Exercises developed for the platform can be used in paper based exams Latex Output -> converted to HTML Exercises and answer alternatives are scrambled

for the paper based exam Integration with a mark reader (55 exams with

totally 28.000 answer sheets processed since November 2002)

Easy information retrieval for students Students get their grading information online Students can inspect their answer sheet

System Architecture Based on OpenACS

Open-source software AOL-WebServer

Developed for America Online’s most busy sites Thread-pooling Database-connection pooling

Content repository in PostgreSQL or Oracle Access control for all resources Component-based architecture

Several non-standard AOLserver modules in use XoTcl (Object oriented Tcl) Kerberos Authentication Special Threading Module

System Architecture 3 servers for the platform

Pound SSL-Reverse-Proxy Several AOLserver instances for static images and OpenACS Database Server

2 servers for testing and real-world exams

InterNet

LDATA(PostgreSQL

Database

HTTP-Connection

Redirect to

HTTPS-Connection

DB-Connection

Reverse-Proxy(Images)

Reverse-Proxy(OpenACS)

tlf-basicAolserver3.3+ad13

tlf-imagesAolserver3.3+ad13

poundSSL-Reverse-Proxy

tlf-v0-devAolserver3.3+ad13

databasePostgreSQL 7.2

OpenACS: The E-Learning-Plattform

DotLRN (.LRN) MIT Sloan School (business school) Enhanced Version of ACES Developed by Openforce for the MIT Available as Open Source DotLRN = OpenACS + Course Management + Portlets

Already in use at several universities worldwide Universität Heidelberg University of Cambridge University of Bergen Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia -UNED (Spain) University of Sydney (Web Engineering Group) Berklee College of Music (Boston)

Current Development dotLRN Customization

Separate Classes from Departments Lightweight Version of the Portal System Develop Course Catalog Integrate Learn@WU´s Learning Object Repository with dotLRN

classes and class instances Integrate WU´s Course Information Systems

Additional Packages for Learn@WU Homework Module Grade book Acknowledgements

Primary Benefits Learn@WU develops towards a communication platform between

Students and Teachers Students and Students Teachers and Teachers

Benefits for Students Standardization of Content High number of available resources Learner-centric course materials Self-assessment Improved preparation for exams

Benefits for Teachers High Transparency of Learning Materials

Introspection of other courses Linkage between courses Clear definition of pre-requirements

Exams Mark-reader Highly automized exam organization

Summary Highly active learning portal

High number of primarily interactive learning resources, constantly growing resource base

Capable to deal with high load Integration of multiple-choice exercise database with a mark

reader

In many respects still at the beginning Better infrastructure needed Integration of courses in semester 3+4 desired Better strategies to facilitate self-organized learning to students Integrate technology-based learning with university system