UNIVERSAL - UNIVERSAL - Universal exchange for Pan-European Universal exchange for Pan-European Higher EducationHigher Education

Borka Jerman-Blažič

Laboratory for Open Systems and Networks

Institut Jožef Stefan and Faculty of Economics

University of Ljubljana - SLOVENIA

UNIVERSAL is a project from the V. Framework Program

V.Framework program is funded R&D program by the Commission of the European Union

The program last four years, from 1998 to 2002 It has several subprograms, UNIVERSAL

belongs to the program: Information Society Technologies or IST

URL: http://WWW.IST-UNIVERSAL.ORG

http://www.cordis.lu/5fp/

Project clusters

Testbeds

Future and emerging technologies 9%

Key action4 38%Essential Technologies

and Infrastructure

Key action 1 18% Key action 3 16% Key action 2 15%

Total initiative budget: 3 600 MSupportactivities

Take upmeasures

Shared costR&D

Activities Integrated Key Actions Complementary Initiatives

4%Researchnetworking

UNIVERSAL CONZORTIUMUNIVERSAL CONZORTIUM

Bureau for International Research and Technology Co-operation (Austria)

Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Austria) Institut National des Télécommunications (France) University of Lancaster (UK) NCSR Demokritos (Greece) Hellenic Open University (Greece ) Iceland Telecom (Iceland) Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (Spain) Hautes Etudes Commerciales (France) Helsinki University of Technology (Finland) Warsaw University of Technology (Poland) Infonova (Austria ) Aachen University of Technology (Germany) Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) T-Nova Deutsche Telekom Innovationsgesellschaft mgH (Germany ) Institut Jozef Stefan (Slovenia) Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zürich (Swizerland)

Th

e Un

iversal project u

nites lead

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ell as research cen

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igh-tech

comp

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g a p

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DE,UK,GR,BE,

AT,FI,IS,FR

ES,PL,US and SI

UNIVERSALpartners are from

UNIVERSAL MAIN CONCEPT: UNIVERSAL MAIN CONCEPT: connect consumers and connect consumers and suppliers of learning resources through a brokerage and delivery platformsuppliers of learning resources through a brokerage and delivery platform

Consumer

Individual

Provider

Institution Institution Individual

User

The content providers - suppliersHEI - Higher Education Institutionsalliances of HEIother content brokers, such as commercial consortia

The customers - consumersHEI facultyHEI staffthe individual user without enrollment in a HEI

The major goals

The goals is to put together the consumers and suppliers in a common platform and in addition to that... Universal aims to become the reference platform throughout

Europe, attracting the best educational content from the best institutions

Universal intends to provide a brokerage platform which can be adapted to the needs of :

degree-granting consortia such as the Cems Master academic educational content providers rival educational content brokers large corporations federating educational content from their

world-wide sites Universal aims to become a key player in the E-education

market, allowing European initiatives to co-operate with North American projects

Universal aims to provide richer content through the use of remotely-sourced course units and enabling:

Easier co-accreditation of courses by allied HEI in Europe

Interactions transferred to a business model

Basic interactions transferred to a business model Content requestor

Content provider

Delivery Profile Engine

CourseProfile Engine

Contract Engine

The design of the business model is a product of the business process in education

Generation ofContent

Bu

sin

ess

Pro

cess

: T

eac

hin

g

Creation ofCourse Strategy

Feed

back

Consumption ofContent

Distribution ofContent

Course Deliverers

Course Consumers

Main properties of the business model

Universal is focused mainly on a B2B approach : the users of the brokerage platform are mainly HEI, not end-users

Nevertheless, the platform allow access, in a second phase, for individual users, acting not only as catalogue browsers, but also as potential customers, without any link to an existing HEI

This evolution takes into account the evolution of the E-education market during the length of the project and the growing orientation towards the individual citizen of European Union initiatives enabling life-lomg learning resulting in:

Business-2-Business Platform of UNIVERSAL where==> Content requestors are primarily Course deliverers (i.e. Instructors in HEI)

Business-2-Consumer Platform of UNIVERSAL where==> Content requestors are primarily Course consumers (i.e. Learners)

What is new - The innovation in UNIVERSAL

The key innovation : service vs technology the brokerage of educational content between

Higher Education Institutions (HEI) the brokerage implies

a market with providers with consumers within a legal and contractual environment

the technology applied is merely a means to provide a brokerage engine interfaces with delivery engines

The type of Learning Resources regarding delivery mode

“Live” learning resources are referred to as learning resources, which are delivered in a synchronous.

“Packaged” learning resources are used in an asynchronous mode. Packaged courses are also referred to as “canned” courses. The term “packaged” does not imply that a packaged learning resource is used for self-directed learning (i.e. learning without the help of an instructor).

Types of Learning Resourcesregarding granularity of the content

Course: is defined as a set of lessons and/or modules contributing to one learning goal and lasting not longer than one semester (term).

Module: is part of a course and comprises of lessons contributing to one learning goal.

Lesson: is part of a course or a module. Lesson is also referred to as course unit.

Fragment: is the smallest learning resource. A lesson can comprise of multiple fragments.

Provision of granularity of learning resource - is an adaptation to the market

Example - Learning resource with different granularity

FragmentCourse LessonUnit

Introductionto Word

Processing

CreatingComprehensive

Documents- Part I

CreatingComprehensive

Documents- Part II

IntroductoryLecture

Tab StopExercise

ComputerWorkshop

Spread-sheets

InternetTechnology

WordProcessing

PresentationTools

Data Model - Learning Resources - building the catalogue

IEEE standard on Learning Object Meta Data

UNIVERSALGeneral platform architecture

UNIVERSALEngines

AssessmentEngine

DeliveryManagement Engine

User ProfileEngine

Learning ResourceMetadata Engine

AdministrationEngine

UNIVERSALData Resources

Log Data,

User Data,

Learning Resource Metadata,

Contract Data,

Assessment Data

ContractEngine

Us

er

Inte

rfa

ce

/ U

se

r In

terf

ac

e

En

gin

e

UNIVERSALEngines

AssessmentEngine

DeliveryManagement Engine

User ProfileEngine

Learning ResourceMetadata Engine

AdministrationEngine

UNIVERSALData Resources

Log Data,

User Data,

Learning Resource Metadata,

Contract Data,

Assessment Data

ContractEngine

Us

er

Inte

rfa

ce

/ U

se

r In

terf

ac

e

En

gin

e

High activity

Lower activity

No activity

Current level of activities

Administrative issues in UNIVERSAL

Platform host: grants access rights, maintains user profiles, supervises billing process Multimedia service providers: support the delivery process in complex settings Roles derived from the business model

(e.g. advertising manager, etc.) Provision of legal framework Provision of security - encryption, data integrity and authentication

The legal framework - administration engine

UNIVERSAL provides full IPR and ownership The legal framework for IPR provides:

contract between the HEI and the brokerage platform

contract between the brokerage platform and the delivery engines

contract between the HEI and their customers

contract between the brokerage platform and the individual customer

ASSESSMENT is a part of the delivery system

LearningResourceProvision

OfferPlacement

Advertise-ment

Booking Delivery

AccessibleLearningResource

Termsand

Conditions

Listing inUNIVERSALCatalogue

ContractLearningResource

DeliveredLearningResource

Assessment

LearningResourceProvision

OfferPlacement

Advertise-ment

Booking Delivery

AccessibleLearningResource

Termsand

Conditions

Listing inUNIVERSALCatalogue

ContractLearningResource

DeliveredLearningResource

LearningResourceProvision

OfferPlacement

Advertise-ment

Booking DeliveryLearningResourceProvision

OfferPlacement

Advertise-ment

Booking Delivery

AccessibleLearningResource

Termsand

Conditions

Listing inUNIVERSALCatalogue

ContractLearningResource

DeliveredLearningResource

Assessment

Platform components in the assessment service

•Success rate in each courseware analysed by cohort of entry, as well as major demographics.

•Attendance (live courses) and exam pass rates.

•Correlation between entrance qualifications and subsequent course success.

•Distribution of number of assignments submitted by module and programme.

•Correlation between assignment submission rate and success rates for each module/programme on a cohort basis.

ASSESSMENT OF THE USABILITY AND EVALUATION in terms of

Assessment in terms of Grade Distribution Profile

   Distribution of grades awarded for modules within a programme and for the major demographics such as study centre, region, gender and previous qualifications.

   Distribution of grades awarded by assessors on the same module/programme, for moderation purpose.

   With respect to students in identifying the most and least successful aspect of “courseware”.

   With respect to external relevant information regarding:

                            i.     Courseware offered by similar “open” systems.

                            ii.     Pass rates of other organisations.

                           iii.    New developments in distance teaching

                           iv.    New developments in non-formal adult education.

   With respect to the extent and nature of public awareness of programme/units offered by the system.

   With respect to student feedback on study habits and intentions i.e. those who study on their pace, those who are temporarily resting and those who do not intend to continue.

   With respect to general course issues such as workload, level of difficulty, whether the material is motivating, etc.

Monitoring procedures and assessment

Communication Systems

Department

3. Provision of course specific assessment

in terms of

- Course aims

- Contents

- Level

- Length

- Pace

- Workload

- Presentation and media utilisation

- Quality of access etc.

 

CONCLUSION

Universal is still in development Specifications and implementation of the platform

finished First entries (35) in the catalogue data base of

learning resources Live trials planning finished - to begin in March 2001,

packaged trials - on going First review in front of CEC reviewers in April next

year Home page: http://universal.infonova.at and

http://www.ist-universal.org