Abstract:

In a previous publication we introduced the concept of structural templates (ST) which are a further development of the Authoring Tools introduced in earlier publications. STs are defined as a possibility to define the structure of a course, a study program or a serious game in an abstract way. The idea of STs is based on the structure of IMS Learning Design (IMS-LD), which is a quasi standard for modeling learning structures. We have shown what STs are useful for and that there is a need for an editor for STs in order to make the work easier and therefore less time-intensive for the producer of recurring learning content with the same structure.

The STs have been combined with the concept of Qualifications-Based Learning (QBL) in order to make it possible to define machine-readable prerequisites and learning goals on the elements (method, play, act, activity structure, activity, learning object) of the STs. In future work this will be used to add qualifications to a learner, check, if a learner has the qualification to take part in a specific learning content or for recommendation services which show the learner an individual learning path to reach his learning goal.

In this paper we will go into deeper detail of STs and present the prototypical implementation of the editor for STs. As an evaluation we will show two different scenarios in which the STs are used and useful: first implementing an STs as a Moodle course and secondly a hybrid solution, namely a Moodle course containing a game which will return the learning result back to Moodle. In both scenarios we will use the same ST. Another scenario in which the same ST will be used as structure for a serious game will be future work.

Therefore this scenarios will show that it will be possible for a learner to switch between different implementations of a specific ST and the learner having an the same learning progress as if he had used just one of the implementations of this specific ST.

Keywords:

IMS Learning Design, IMS LD, Structural Templates, Qualifications-Based Learning Model, QBLM, Qualifications-Based Learning, QBL.