E-Learning:
A Systems & Software Engineering
Perspective of E-Learning:
January 5th, 2001
By Paul Stacey
In
1992 I accepted a job with Hughes Aircraft of Canada and
moved from Ottawa to Vancouver. Hughes had just won a
large contract to build Canada's next air traffic
control system and I began working on the training
program for it. In the ensuing years Hughes won other
air traffic control system contracts for Switzerland,
China, and Indonesia. For six years I worked on the
technical and operational training programs that
accompany these systems - training for the engineers who
maintain the software and hardware over the life cycle
of the system, and the air traffic controllers who
operate them. In 1998 Hughes Aircraft of Canada was
bought by Raytheon and I left to help create the
Technical University of British Columbia.
The
years with Hughes ingrained in me a systems engineering
perspective. For large complex systems like air traffic
control an overall architecture is designed based on
functionally grouping requirements and breaking the
entire system down into subsystems. Subsystems are each
developed by separate teams of engineers and
periodically integrated and tested as a complete whole.
I was delighted to read in December that Raytheon has
completed work on the Canadian Automated Air Traffic
System, known as CAATS, signaled by successful site
acceptance testing. (see press
release). Canada now has the world's most advanced
automated air traffic management system. I'd like to
extend my personal congratulations to the entire
organization, in particular to the many colleagues I
worked with over the years who are still there.
Lately
I've been starting to apply a systems engineering
perspective to e-learning. What are all the functional
requirements an e-learning system must fulfill? What
does an e-learning system architecture look like? How do
you pull together all the hardware and software pieces
to get the best solution for your needs?
Functional
requirements for e-learning can be broken down in a
variety of ways. As an example, below I have listed:
-
learner e-learning requirements
-
e-learning creation requirements
-
e-learning delivery requirements, and
-
organizational e-learning requirements
Learner
E-Learning Requirements
The
learner needs to be able to find out what learning is
available. They need to quickly see the entire program
of offerings, identify the learning relevant to them,
and get a handle on schedule and costs. Having chosen
the learning they then go through a process of
application, admission, registration and payment.
Learning
Selection & Enrollment
-
learning curriculum
-
learning catalogue
-
learning calendar
-
learning paths
-
learning advice
-
admissions
-
application
-
payment
-
registration
Once
enrolled the learner begins to participate in the
learning itself.
Learning
Participation
-
log-on
-
announcements, news & events
-
e-mail
-
learning objectives
-
learning search & navigation
-
learning structure (units, modules, lessons, ...)
-
asynchronous learning
-
synchronous learning
-
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
-
learning communities
-
uplink & posting learning activities &
assignments
-
assessments (tests, quizzes, ...) & grades
-
follow-on resources, library
-
help desk, technical support
E-Learning
Creation Requirements
E-learning
creation typically involves a team made up of subject
matter experts, instructors, instructional designers,
media developers, editors, and other technical experts.
Designing
E-Learning
-
learning design, structure, & flow
-
modularizing the curriculum
-
e-learning standards & formats
-
learning objects & repositories
-
defining learning objectives and outcomes
-
instructionally designing templates & navigation
-
making build vs. buy decisions
Developing
E-Learning
-
use content authoring tools (HTML)
-
create learning activities
-
search and find existing digital resources
-
license existing digital resources
-
import and integrate existing learning
-
using media authoring tools (graphics, animation, audio,
video)
-
create tests and evaluations using assessment tools
-
develop learning communities
-
additional resources (textbooks, hyperlinks, software,
...)
E-Learning
Delivery Requirements
The
best e-learning involves a great deal of interaction
between instructors or tutors and participating
learners.
Delivering
E-Learning
-
post announcements, news & events
-
moderate threaded discussion and conferencing with
asynchronous delivery tools
-
broadcast real-time learning using synchronous delivery
tools or streaming media
-
form and manage learner groups and teams
-
track learner progress
-
assess and report learning outcomes
-
provide help desk and technical support
Organizational
E-Learning Requirements
On
top of the above requirements the organization itself
will have specific requirements related to the whole
overall implementation. The following questions reveal
typical organizational requirements.
-
How will we market our e-learning?
-
What is our e-learning business model?
-
Who is our target audience?
-
How scalable is our e-learning solution?
-
Can we integrate content from multiple providers?
-
Can we customize our e-learning?
-
Is our content interoperable?
-
Can we move content from one system to another?
-
Can we integrate e-learning with our existing systems
(HR, CRM, ...)?
-
How will we manage e-learning security and still achieve
goals of accessibility?
-
Do we have the necessary competencies and human
resources to implement e-learning?
These
lists of requirements are extensive but by no means
comprehensive. They define a complete end-to-end
e-learning application but a small e-learning
implementation may only need a subset of these
requirements
From
a systems engineering perspective the challenge is to:
-
identify hardware and software components and e-learning
solution providers that meet requirements
-
assess who provides best value for money
-
integrate selected providers into an efficient and
effective solution
At
this early stage of the e-learning market no one
e-learning provider has a complete end-to-end solution
that meets all requirements. As e-learning system
architects we must design the best solution possible by
integrating e-learning components from a variety of
vendors. Each e-learning provider can be assessed
against requirements and positioned as a potential
provider for a portion of the overall system.
A
system architecture for e-learning will be unique for
each organization based on the organizations specific
requirements. In December 2000 the U.S. Army awarded a
$453 million dollar contract to PricewaterhouseCoopers
to provide e-learning services to its 80,000 soldiers
over the next five years. http://www.eduventures.com
In
system engineering an e-learning solution for the Army,
PricewaterhouseCoopers chose a consortium of hardware
and software companies and 29 postsecondary institutions
to create degree and non-degree distance education
services for the soldiers. Technology subcontractors
include, Peoplesoft http://www.peoplesoft.com,
Blackboard http://www.blackboard.com
and Saba Software http://www.saba.com.
Compaq and Fiberlink will provide each enrolled student
with a laptop computer and an Internet connection, and
Smarthinking.com http://www.smarthinking.com
will provide online tutoring services.
Of
course all of these systems and requirements translate
into hardware and software assembled into a coherent
architecture. I'm really keen on this architectural view
of e-learning as a way of bringing clarity to bear on an
e-learning implementation. A system architecture
translates requirements into technology. For any
e-learning initiative to work you need your Information
Technology department on board and an e-learning system
architecture brings their expertise to the foreground.
In
writing this column I searched widely on the net and on
e-learning provider web-sites for e-learning system
architecture diagrams. Surprisingly there are remarkably
few. This is clearly one area where more work needs to
be done.
My
years at Hughes Aircraft also exposed me to world-class
software engineering. I am particularly excited by the
emerging practise of applying software engineering
concepts to e-learning content.
"Learning
objects" are a great example of software
engineering applied to e-learning. Object-Oriented
Programming (OOP) is a revolutionary software
engineering concept that changed the rules of computer
program development. In OOP objects are the things you
think about first in designing a program and they become
the units of code eventually written. The first step in
OOP is to identify all the objects you want to
manipulate and how they relate to each other, an
exercise often known as data modeling.
Applying
OOP principles to e-learning generates "learning
objects" - organized, packaged, chunks of reusable
learning. Learning objects are smaller than a course and
often equate to a single learning objective or concept.
The big appeal of learning objects is their potential
for multipurpose use and the ability to reuse and
exchange them. Use of learning objects holds the promise
of reduced costs, shortened development time, and
increased learning effectiveness.
The
Technical University of British Columbia, where I work,
is participating in POOL, a Canadian wide research
project to establish a learning object repository (see press
release).
One
of the larger and more developed learning object
repositories is the Multimedia Educational Resource for
Learning and Online Teaching, (MERLOT) http://www.merlot.org.
MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily
for faculty and students in higher education. Visitors
can locate learning materials within their disciplines,
as well as colleagues who share their
discipline/interests.
Bit
Learning (formerly TeachMeNow) http://www.bitlearning.com
announced in November 2000 an agreement with SmartForce http://www.smartforce.com
to make available the SmartForce catalog of e-learning
offerings in "bit-enabled" format where course
material is broken down into micro-lessons (learning
objects) as short as 5 minutes.
E-learning
is the first major application of systems and software
engineering principles to education. In a relatively
short time some amazing things have emerged and in my
view we have just scratched the surface.
Paul
Stacey is the Director of Corporate Education and
Training at the Technical University of British
Columbia, a long time education professional in the high
tech private sector, and an e-learner.
Contact: Paul
Stacey
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