5th June 2006

L4All Lifelong Learning in London for All

Prof Alex PoulovassilisDr George MagoulasDr Sara de FreitasDr Martin Oliver

George Papamarkos & Amy Chamier

5th June 2006

Project Aims

• Support lifelong learners in London• Provide access to information

facilitating progression to FE/HE• Planning of future learning• Share experiences with peers• Reflect on learning throughout life

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Project Partners• Birkbeck College• Institute of Education• London School of Economics• Community College Hackney• Advisors: John Cook (LMU), Gareth Dent (UfI),

Graeme Atherton (Aim Higher), Paul Welch (Prospects), Jill Johnson (UCAS), Suzanne Overton-Edwards (City Westminster College), Stuart Swann (Greenwich Learning Centre), Richard Rayne (BBK), Sarah Vaughn (BBK), Sue Jackson (BBK)

• Sarah Davies, JISC Programme Manager

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Motivation

• Widening participation in HE• LLN important due to high-skills

needs of the knowledge economy• Holistic view needed of individuals’

life, work and learning experiences• Importance of timely, relevant

careers guidance and support

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Approach

• Holistic approach to lifelong learners’ work and learning

• Based on learner trails/pathways• Sharing pathways with others:

learning opportunities that may not otherwise have been considered; role models

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Methodology

• User requirements elicitation:– use cases– examples of learning pathways– identification of critical decision points

• Technical requirements elicitation:– development tools and standards– existing e-services

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Methodology

• Functional Specification• Development of pilot version 1• Metadata provision and generation• First evaluation phase• Development of pilot version 2• Second evaluation phase

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Technical aspects

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Understanding the user

• Interviews with higher and further education (HE/FE) students;

• Focus groups with people aiming to get involved with teacher education, representatives from recruitment and careers specialists, course tutors and directors from HE and FE

• Workshop events; • Consultation with the project advisory group and

experts in the field;

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accommodate individual needs

Some of the findings (D3.2 User Requirements Report)

Learners requested functionalities:• Search courses and pathways• Browse courses and pathways• Case histories• Define/Edit/Modify user profile• Personalised filtering• Annotate content• Receive recommendations• Share pathways and experiences

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Collect user-related information

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User

I MS: Preferences

IMS: Personal

data IMS: Interests

I MS: Competencies

Definition Sub-

elements

Title Unique

ID

Accessibility

Device

Style Sub-

elements

Performance info

IMS: Goals

External goals

Sub-elements Type

Priority

Date

Description Sub-elements

Cognitive styles

taxonomy

Descriptor

Description

Application-specific:

User History

Content

New/Updated User Model

Managements

Updated digital object

Application-specific: Change

Detection

eduPerson: Context

Type of group

Entitlement

Affiliation

Application-specific group

• Adopt IMS specification• Encode user profiles in

RDF.

This approach:• Offers flexibility to

include elements from multiple schemas, enriching them with additional elements, when necessary

• Facilitates interoperability with other systems

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E-Learning Framework

The services are organised into logical groups but no explicit association among service functional definitions is implied.

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Service Scope

DELTA (Essex) searching over the RDF metadata resources

ISIS (Hull) providing sequencing over a set of lifelong learning activities

LearnDirect searching and retrieving content from the LearnDirect database

Services examples

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D6.2 Report on L4All system architecture http://www.lkl.ac.uk/research/l4all.html

Tomcat 5.0.28

Course Metadata

DELTA Search Service

Java Beans

User MetadataISIS Sequencing Service

LearnDirect Search ServiceWeb Services

Portal

Flash applicationRegistration

Pages

L4All architecture

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User Evaluation

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User elicitation process

• Semi-structured interviews • Individuals from targeted user groups

(studying IT, teacher training, FE)• Narratives about learning and work• Formalised as flow charts

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TIMELINE

Completed GCSEs

Wants to studyBTEC (HND)

2 years

Currently studyingGNVQ Intermediate(currently in year 2)

CompletedGNVQ Foundation

Wants to studyBTEC National Diploma

2 years

Suzie is 20, of Turkish origin, and wants to obtain a BTEC (HND) qualification and has been studying IT at various levels through the GNVQ

programmes offered at her college. She is now in her

third year in college, and has another 3 years to complete her vocational learning route. She doesn’t have any work

experience, and is very interested in computer

programming, though she is unsure about what career she wishes to venture into, upon

completing her study programmes.

CASE STUDY 1 (COLLEGE STUDENT)

How do I find out about alternative and quicker career paths for reaching university

Where do I get careers advice from?

What have other students done in a similar position?

What is the best way of getting in to a job in the IT area?

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First evaluation phase

• Observational studies• Set tasks, talk aloud protocol• Identification of errors, bugs, etc.

– Concept of ‘timeline’ used instead of ‘trail’ as more comprehensible to users

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Second evaluation phase

• Proof of concept• Users invited to complete tasks

using system• Survey to elicit reflections• Positive endorsement of the

potential of the system

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Second evaluation phase

• ‘Crystalisation’: realisation that work and study inter-related, and a path existed to their aspirations

• Suggestions for use (e.g. in group sessions, facilitated, etc)– Importance of the tool in producing

representations that could be shared and discussed

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L4All Demo

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We are going to demonstrate:– Timeline creation and editing– Searching for courses– Searching for timelines– Searching for users– The web site resources