Draft PCF6 Contribution

8/7/2019 Draft PCF6 Contribution

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Innovations in ODL in Agriculture using the Practices in Re-usable Learning Objects and

Semantic Web Technologies

B S Hansra, Professor and former Director, School of Agriculture, IGNOU, New Delhi

Surya Gunjal, Director, School of Agriculture, YCMOU

V Valluva Paridasan, Director, ODL Directorate, TNAU

Praveen K Jain, Reader, School of Agriculture, IGNOU

Venkataraman Balaji, ICRISAT (currently with COL, Vancouver)

Open and Distance learning to promote new and sustainable livelihoods is emerging as a keydevelopment in the context of India where more and more farmers are moving towards non-subsistence

farming. Such groups require access to new learning materials to augment their skills and knowledge

base and to participate in market-related and output quality-sensitive practices in farming. A pilot

project has been jointly launched by a Consortium of OUs, an agricultural university (with an

established ODL directorate) and an international agricultural research center. This project makes use of

the practice of semantic web technologies to build and manage a collection of re-usable learning objects

which can be accessed in easy-to-navigate ways. These are used to generate learning materials at a

participating institution which enrolls and mentors farm-based learners. The entire chain of generic RLO

creation, validation repository and its re-use in a local context and assessment of its value in learning is

in practice in this project.

Review of Literature

Introduction:

Owing to past lack of investment, higher post-secondary and highereducation in agriculture is

currently simply unable to supply the training that is needed, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa

and South Asia. A 2007 World Bank report described five constraints on agricultural education:

(1) the numbers enrolled in postgraduate education are declining and too few women are

enrolled, (2) higher education and training institutions tend to be isolated and fragmented, (3)

many institutions face shortages of trained staff, and (5) teaching methods and resources are

often inadequate. The recent global report of the global Inter-Academy Council (2004), the

World Development Report 2008, the report of the International Assessment of Agricultural

Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (2008), and even the leaders of the G8

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countries at their July 2008 summit all emphasize the importance of strengthening higher

education systems in agriculture in developing countries.

Given the limitations of higher education in many developing countries, reaching potential

learners with high-quality agricultural content is going to take innovative methods of content

development, management, and delivery. Open educational resources (OERs) (see Box 1) and

new collaborative online spaces such as Web 2.0 have the potential to open up traditionally

closed educational systems by taking advantage of the growing availability of digital networks,

improved access to computing in learning centers in many countries, and new forms of

intellectual property protection. The bibliography in the Annexure 1 and the table of online

resources reveals new opportunities.

Although innovative models are now making many university-level courses available as global

public goods, no comparable initiative allows for the collaborative creation and unrestricted use

of learning materials in the agriculture and food sectors. New models need to be built. In this

paper, we describe briefly an initiative in India that attempts to build such a model.This

Consortium will offer a new, practical model at a national level in India.

Open Educational Resources

The term open educational resource (OER) was first adopted at UNESCOs 2002 Forum on the

Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries. OERs are

educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and, under

some licenses, to remix, improve, and redistribute. OERs include learning conten t; software

tools for developing, using, and distributing content; and implementing resources such as open

licenses (Atkins et al. 2007; DAntoni 2008).

The Open Course Ware program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(http://ocw.mit.edu) was a pioneer among higher education institutions in making learningresources available as a global public good, focusing on engineering education. The Connexio ns

project of Rice University (www.cnx.org) in the United States is another example of unrestricted


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access to online educational resources, although it does not focus on agricultural topics either.

The hugely popular Wikipedia has inspired the development of the Wikiversity

(www.wikiversity.org), which uses Wikimedia server technology to write and share learning

materials. In developing countries, the National Project on Technology Enhanced Learning of

India (http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/Webcourse-contents/IIT-MADRAS/Hydr/left_mod1.html)

is one example of a national educational institution making learning resources freely available.

The growing number of such initiatives has led to an OER movement that aims to increase

access to knowledge and educational opportunities worldwide through sharing educational

content.

Reusable Learning Objects: A New Way of Thinking about Learning

An RLO is an independent unit of learning content that is designed for reuse in multiple

instructional contextsthat is, the smallest standalone unit of learning on a specific topic

(Polsani 2003). Research has shown that a combination of different media can help stimulate

learning, and some RLOs include photos, audio, video, and animation as well as text. RLOs are

digital and Web-based, so they are accessible 24/7. They are self-contained and usually small in

order to focus the learners attention. Because they help avoid duplication of learning

materials, they are easy to update and cost-effective. RLOs can be made available in an offline

mode as well. They can be combined and used in any number of ways to meet a wide range of

learning objectives.

Methodologies

This project will beis developed by a consortium of Open Universities, an agricultural university

with an ODL directorate, and an international agricultural research center which is a member of

the CGIAR. It is oriented towards stimulating and enhancing farmer entrepreneurship through

knowledge and skill empowerment. Contemporary methods and techniques based on ICT and

KM will be are deployed to strengthen ongoing or conventional processes of ODL. The

innovation is primarily in two areas: in learning material generation, and in a din learner

support. In the area of material generation, the new technique of re -usable learning objects


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(RLOs) will beis being deployed, and the philosophy of Open Educational Resources (OER) will

has been beadopted. They both complement on going NAIP-KM projects and investments in

the area of e-learning and knowledge sharing. In the delivery side,we will makethe consortium

partners make use of multi-modal delivery using online availability of RLO, or offline using

DVD/CDs or print.CD and Self Instruction Materials (SIM).The standard practice of designing

self-instructional material is followed.

This project will be implemented in a consortium mode, with the YCMOU serving as the lead

partner. The core activities on this project are:

yLearners needs assessmentyGeneration of learning materials using contemporary methods like. (RLOs).yDelivery of such materials in the distance learning mode to learners DL modeyyProvision of ding learning support through technology-enhanced and conventional modes.yCapacity strengthening of faculty of the participating universities in design of learning

materials (in RLO format) and in offering support to learners in multiple modes.

yDesign, development and maintenance of linked digital repositories of learning materials atnational as well as at the university level (using the two -tier architecture ofthe aAgropedia,

http://agropedia.net, developed by a team led by Professor T V Prabhakar at Indian

Institute of Technology, Kanpur).

yOrganization and implementation of impact assessment.

For each of these activities, well-tested and well-founded methods and techniques will be are

used.


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Learners needs assessment: This process will beis being carried out in accordance with the

standard practices in Open and Distance Learning Universities

(http://www.colfinder.org/materials/

Education_for_a_Digital_World/Education_for_a_Digital_World_part1.pdf). Three partner

universities will identifyhave identified two 2 Hhigh Vvalue Hhorticultural cCrops important in

their respective areas of project implementation.

RLO approaches in material and curriculum development: The methods already developed

and tested by the consortium partners in association with the University of Florida and with the

Commonwealth of Learning will be used. A description is available in the publication of

S.Grunwald and V.Balaji, at www.ecolearnit.ifas.ufl.edu (see Ecolearnit site). All these

methods were further refined by UFL -ICRISAT on an Indo-US AKI partnership.

The approach here is to develop the framework of modules which are identified with units and

sub-units. Such sub-units that normally have a specific learning outcome in a reasonably

limited time (about 20-30 min on an average) will be developed as RLOs. The five modules are:

1.Horticulture Nursery Management2.High Value Crops Production3.IPM in Agro-horticulture4.INM in Agro-horticulture, and5.Post-harvest Value Addition in Agro-horticulture

Together, they will comprise about 500 Re -usable Learning Objects. This method is already

implemented in AGORCURI Project.

Design of Course Modules using RLOs: an innovation in agricultural education


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There is a limited amount of discussion in the literature about the use of RLOs in development

of course modules. A detailed analysis is found in the work ofGrunwald (Grunwald and Reddy,

2007). While the availability of digital information resources is substantial via the Internet, the

amount of online learning resources are much smaller in comparison. The volume of

educational resources readily available for immediate use or rapid adaptation is significantly

smaller compared to digital learning resources. Our understanding is that this is partly in the

nature of the online learning materials which are often created without the intention of serving

any particular curriculum. There is no single engineering solution to effect the tr ansformation

of an online learning resource, which has good pedeagogic attributes, into an educational

resource that has well structured assessment in relation to a curricular framework. We propose

to make use of a process of building a curriculum up from chunks of learning to allow for use

of re-usable learning objects more easily.

imple

Data Object

Example: Efficiency in irrigation

Intermediate

Information Object

Example: Water use in citrus cultivation

Complex

Learning Object

Example: Efficient management of irrigation in citrus production



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In our effort on this project, we are attempting to do two things: One is to build a collection of

RLOs which, by themselves, will have sound pedagogic value and can be used in various

learning/instruction contexts: instructor-led, learner-managed or facilitated by a community.

The other is to develop a curriculum that enables meaningful grouping of such RLO s to provide

the educational resources needed to fulfil credit requirements in a certification process.

Bringing together of these two separate processes in our judgment, constitutes the innovation

in our effort. The other innovation consists in linking the combined process with enabling

learner access through enabling local print material generation, online spaces for socialization,

mobile telephony-based interaction and delivery.

Semantic Web Approach: bringing the two strands together

The semantic web approach is rapidly gaining attention in many quarters as the next generation

web. Tim Berners-Lee, widely regarded as the inventor of the World Wide Web, has pointed out

that the future evolution of the Web in the direction of computer -based applications

communication with each other more autonomously. Emphasis shifts from syntax in the

present to meaning in the semantic web. Concepts and relationships between them become

critical to the functioning of Web-based services. In our view, this approach is best suited to

bring together a software application, namely an online repository of RLOs, with another

software application that comprises the curriculum structure and assessments for

accreditation. When such communication between the software applications occurs, a number

of possibilities can emerge that allow mix-and-match development of learning content to fulfil

slightly varied educational or credit requirements.

The Agropedia platform (http://agropedia.net), already built with support from the ICAR, is a

unique platform of its kind in agriculture, especially in extension. This platform is built with

many collaborative and sharing features that are characteristic of Web 2.0 and includes

elements of online social networking features (Figures 1). Quite important, this platf orm is

semantically enabled; the content in Agropedia is organized using the practice of Knolwedge

Models and nine crop KMs have been developed collaboratively by crop science and agronomy

experts across India (Figure 2 contains a section from the crop knowledge model for chickpea).

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The approach here has been to identify comprehensively all the sub and sub -sub topics under a

topic, and to position them in fairly precisely stated relationships with each other. Such models,

represented here by a technique called concept maps (closer to the more popular Mind

Maps), can be rendered in many human languages while retaining the relationships intact. As

content is generated in different languages, on depositing it in Agropedia, online tagging allows

content to be conceptually related to one or more segments of the knowledge model. Thisenables the software to group content by meaning. Because of this feature, one can locate



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material in the Agropedia in different languages even while querying only in one language

(Figure 3).

These are the critical features and methods in Agropedia we are making use of. The RLOs can

be grouped and organized in a new repository using the equivalent of knowledge mode ls. For a

topic such as Agro-horticulture, the theme of this project, a comprehensive KM is under

discussion and it will cover all the five sub themes of this project (see above). The sub themes

will be developed as concepts and the relationships amongst them. Any RLO developed,

irrespective of its format (text, or slideshow or HTML pages with or without Flash elements),

will be placed in the repository while specifying its tags using the online tool. Once described

so, the RLO is visible in a variety of searches; locating any related RLO is enabled as well (as in

Figure 3 above).



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We have thus separated the process of authoring an RLO (using multimedia or other authoring

tools) from the process of identifying an RLO for its pedagogic value in this effort. We make

available the RLO with its meta-data (generated using the knowledge model) to a search via the

repository design. We believe this practice of separating an RLO access from its authoring

platform has long term advantages and benefits.

Over the knowledge model of Agro-horticulture which enables tagging for ease of search and

access to an RLO, we propose to add a curriculum layer. In our approach, a module in the

curriculum (there are five on this project), consists of units which are in turn compsed from sub

units each of which will have well-defined educational outcome. The sub units will be a

combination of RLOs, depending upon the simplicity or complexity of the outcome intended.

This is described in Figure 4. Our effort is to project the curriculum as a map -like structure, as a

an arrangement that shows relationships between the module-unit-sub unit hirerachy while

employing specific tags that relate to the subject matter (the theme and the sub themes). There

will be additional tags that relate to the educational and accreditation values. This overlay acts

as a filter to view and access the RLOs for use or for re-purposing to suit a particular

educational requirement. The engineering aspects of this overlay are in development by the

Agropedia team. When completed, a user would be able to access the learning resources

directly, using a semantically-enabled search (based on knowledge model of the theme and sub

themes) or through an education-related view. The contributors/authors will be trained initially

in development of knowledge models, concept maps and tags.

Delivery/Exchange with and among learners :

The Virtual KVK is a pilot program operated by the Agropedia team in select areas of the State

of Uttar Pradesh where an interface for an expert is available to create highly specific SMS/text

messages for a particular group of farmers. The messages, in text or voice format, can be

created from a desktop computer using a web interface by anyone with suitable credentials.

Such messages are delivered to the specific group of recipients either as an SMS/text message

or as a voice call or both. The trials conducted over the period May-September 2010 by the

Agropedia developers indicate high levels of efficiency in terms of user responses. It is proposed



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to make suitable variations on this platform to suit the purposes of reaching learners in

dispersed communities by teachers/instructors in different levels.

Conclusion:

This is an ongoing effort that has just commenced. The lessons and analysis from this effort will

be useful to ODL experts and institutions in the developing countries where there is s trong

need to build economies-of-scale in generation of content and to develop methods for access

to them and to learning support services using affordable technologies such as mobile phones .

Acknowledgements:

Financial support from the National Agricultural Innovation Project of the Indian Council of

Agricultural Research is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to record our appreciation of

the partnership of the Agropedia team at the Indian Institute of Tech nology Kanpur (IITK).

Learning Support and Engagement in Multiple Modes: The University partners on this

consortium have been operating several contact centers that enable the learners to meet

teachers for support. On this project, we shall further enhance this arrangement by enabling

learner access to faculty time and expertise through a digital forum that can be accessed using

mobile phones or using PC-based web browsers. Online social networking techniques will be

experimented with. These will be fully complemented by on-station and on-farm

demonstrations, which are now standard part of ODL in agriculture.




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Capacity Strengthening of Facultyand Extension Personnel in Content Matters: In ODL

systems, the course material generation proceeds with the involvement of many experts, a

large part of them outside the institutions. They play roles as writers, editors and reviewers.

They need to have their capacity augmented for using the new approaches involving the RLOs .

Training in such matters will be organized hands-on programs and will involve technology-

resource institutions who designed and built technologies for the NAIP. Extension personnel

from NGOs and private sector especially agriculture input dealers will be covered wherever

feasible.

Maintenance of Learning Material Repositories: This is a core activity of the project. The

content in the form RLOs becomes an on line asset available to anyone, anywhere in the

country for carefully-considered re-use in local or national projects. We propose to use the

NAIP-supported agropedia architecture; it allows for closed -group review and publication of

expert-derived RLOs, while allowing sharing of practitioner tips and notes, from learners and

faculty, in a different space. Such two -track approach is necessary to sustain dynamism in this

knowledge space. While a national repository based onagropedia will be designed and

developed, each partner organization will maintain a local installation more to capture and

analyse and publish practitioners tips and information, constituting the Jan dhara track of

agropedia

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Draft PCF6 Contribution