Lectio Praecursoria in the doctoral defense, 23 September 2016. Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Helsinki, Finland. The disseration can be downloaded from https://shop.aalto.fi/media/attachments/748b6/Poldoja_verkkoversio.pdf

1. The Structure and Components for the Open
Education Ecosystem
Constructive Design Research of Online Learning
Tools
MA Hans Põldoja
Opponent
Professor Emeritus Terry Anderson,
Athabasca University, Canada
Custos
Professor Teemu Leinonen

2. The Structure and
Components for the
Open Education
Ecosystem
Hans Põldoja

3. Research context
• Technology-enhanced learning
• Open education
• Digital ecosystems
• Design

4. Research questions
• What are the main design challenges related to the open
education ecosystem?
• What are the design patterns used in designing online
learning tools and services for the open education ecosystem?
• What kind of structure and components are needed to create
the open education ecosystem?

6. PILOT

7. LeMill

8. EduFeedr

9. LeContract
Age: 26
Education: Master student
Occupation: librarian
Maria
Maria has studied information science and now she is doing her
Masterʼs studies in interactive media. At the same time she has a full
time job as a school librarian. Therefore she is interested in combining
school assignments with her work as much as possible. At the same
time she is a self-directed learner who likes to go in depth in topics that
are interesting for her.
Goals:
Personalization: “It is hard to have a full time job and be a master
student at the same time. If possible, then I try to choose assignments
that can be connected with my work.”
Scaffolding: “I feel that often it is difficult to specify all the resources
and actions that I have to make in order to achieve my learning
objectives. Good examples from other learners help me to refine my
contract.”
Awareness: “It was good that we had to review our learning
contracts. This way I was constantly aware of my objectives and
thinking about the strategy to achieve my goals.”
Photo by Alessandro Valli,
taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/liquene/4435467897/

10. DigiMina

11. (Fallman, 2008)
Design Practice
Design
Exploration
Design Studies

12. (based on Fallman, 2008)
Design Practice
Design
Exploration
Design Studies
Tools
Educational practices
Openness
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
PILOT
LeMill
EduFeedr
LeContract
DigiMina
Design cases

13. (based on Fallman, 2008)
Design Practice
Design
Exploration
Design Studies
Tools
Design patterns
Digital ecosystem
Educational practices
Openness
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
PILOT
LeMill
EduFeedr
LeContract
DigiMina
Design cases

14. Results

15. Design challenges
• 9 design challenges for the open educational resources
• 8 design challenges for blog-based open online courses
• 5 design challenges for assessment and recognition of
competencies
• Classified as pedagogical (8) socio-cultural (6) and technical
(8)

16. Challenge 1: Digital learning resources are mainly used
for individual learning and for presentations
In many cases digital learning resources are used by
students for individual learning (reading, looking,
playing, quizzes) or by teachers in their classes
(presentations). It is a challenge to design OER tools
and services that guide teachers away from the
acquisition of knowledge paradigm to the participation
and knowledge creation paradigms (Paavola et al., 2004).

17. Challenge 4: Lack of collaboration and peer production of
learning materials
European teachers are not used to sharing their learning
resources with other teachers. Often teachers think that
their resources are not good enough for sharing in
public. Also, teachers are worried about copyright
issues. Some teachers would need external motivation to
share their resources. Publishing a learning resource in
the repository is an extra step that is often missed
because of lack of time. There is always a threshold for
joining an online community and starting to collaborate
with other people. Most of the learning object
repositories are designed for searching and publishing
resources, not for collaboration.

18. Challenge 7: Providing localization and reusability while
retaining authentic context
Localizing learning resources does not mean simply
translating the content from one language to another. It
is important that the learning resources provide
authentic context for the target group. In the PILOT
project, it was a challenge to design a template
structure that would allow flexibility in localization,
so that the teacher could decide which textual content
and media elements should be edited or replaced in the
localization process. From the technical perspective,
localization is also related to versioning of learning
resources.

19. Design patterns
• 12 design patterns for collaborative authoring of open
educational resources (LeMill and PILOT)
• 12 design patterns for blog-based open online courses
(EduFeedr and LeContract)

20. Patterns for collaborative
authoring of OER’s

21. Pattern 1: Authoring template
This pattern deals with providing a clear structure for creating
new learning resources.
It may be difficult to start creating a new learning resource from
the scratch. Having a certain predefined structure for new learning
resources would help teachers to get started. A large collection of
peer produced learning resources would benefit from having a consistent
structure and layout. Consistent structure contributes to the quality
of learning resources. On the other hand, it is important to achieve
balance between predefined structure and flexibility for the authors.
Therefore: The learning resource authoring tool should provide a
set of pedagogical templates that scaffold teachers and content
producers in creating new resources. LeMill provided six pedagogical
templates for creating learning resources: web page, presentation,
exercise, lesson plan, school project, and PILOT. Web page is a generic
template while other templates provide a more predefined structure.
Authoring templates consist of different types of sections that are
called blocks in LeMill. For example, web pages in LeMill consist of
text blocks, media pieces and embed blocks. The exercise template has
additional blocks for various question types. Templates may also
scaffold the use of new pedagogical methods, such as the PILOT template
in LeMill.
This is a central design pattern, that is related to a number of
smaller design patterns. Learning resources based on authoring
templates have a DRAFT (2) status, support EMBEDDING (3) and LINKEDNESS
(4), are published under a SINGLE LICENSE (5), and could be developed
into TRANSLATIONS (6) or ADAPTATIONS (7). Two special types of
authoring templates are METHOD DESCRIPTIONS (8) and TOOL DESCRIPTIONS
(9). As a central design pattern, authoring template is addressing a
number of design challenges: (C3) assuring the quality of
collaboratively created open educational resources; (C4) lack of
collaboration and peer production of learning materials, (C5) lack of
reuse, revising and remixing, and (C2) scaffolding the use of new
pedagogical methods.
Short description
Conflicting forces
Recommended
configuration
Related patterns
and design
challenges

22. Design challenges and
patterns for collaborative
authoring of OER’s
C1 Digital learning resources are
mainly used for individual
learning and for presentations
C2 Scaffolding the use of new
pedagogical methods
C3 Assuring the quality of
collaboratively created open
educational resources
C4 Lack of collaboration and
peer production of learning
materials
C5 Lack of reuse, revising and
remixing
C6 Multilingualism
C7 Providing localization and
reusability while retaining
authentic context
C8 Limited findability and poor
usability
C9 Poor use of the underlying
principles of the Web
P1 Authoring template
P2 Draft
P3 Embedding
P4 Linkedness
P5 Single license
P6 Translations
P7 Adaptations
P8 Method descriptions
P9 Tool descriptions
P10 Collection
P11 Teaching and learning story
P12 Featured resources
Design challenges Design patterns

23. Patterns for blog-based
open online courses

24. Design challenges and
patterns for blog-based
open online courses
C10 Supporting learners with
setting up their personal learning
goals and strategies
C11 Keeping the learner
motivation throughout the course
C12 The danger of over-
scripting
C13 Establishing and keeping
the community gravity
C14 The fragmentation of
discussions in blog-based
courses
C15 Lack of coordination
structures for managing blog-
based courses
C16 Lack of awareness support
mechanisms
C17 Commenting and versioning
of learning contracts
P13 Being open for lurking
P14 Open enrollment
P18 Blogroll
P19 Course tag
P23 Learning analytics
visualizations
P15 Nicknames
P16 About page
P17 Personal learning contract
P20 Aggregated discussions
P21 Reflective assignments
P22 Summary posts
P24 Open badges for
assessment
Design challenges Design patterns

25. Open education ecosystem
For this dissertation, the open education ecosystem is defined
as a learning ecosystem that consists of tools, services,
resources and stakeholders who share a common set of values.
The core value that defines the extent of the open education
ecosystem is openness.

26. (based on Gütl & Chang, 2008)
Open education
ecosystem

27. Learning stakeholders of
the open education
ecosystem

28. Learning utilities of the
open education
ecosystem

29. Discussion
• Theoretical and practical implications: design of open
educational tools and services
• (In)validity and (un)reliability: strict replication of research
procedures
• Limitations of the study: more validation is needed
• Recommendations for further research: combining personal
learning contracts, self- and peer-assessment, and open badges

30. Thank You!