In this chapter, we will go through the complete process of designing a course for distributed open learning. This course will then be implemented using Lotus LearningSpace. As discussed in section Groupware and Combining groupware and WWW, Lotus LearningSpace is one example of groupware-based DOLE. This category of DOLE is supposed have several advantages over Internet applications-based DOLE.
Since the main purpose of this project is examining DOLE, the evaluation done will be limited to Lotus LearningSpace. The course itself will not be evaluated in depth, as it was never delivered to real learners. However, we believe the process of designing a distributed open learning course is important to standardisation efforts, so it will be done methodically.
This advanced course is intended provide guidelines and methodology in designing computer networks, specifically local area networks (LAN). As no single network will fit all purpose, the course will be based on case studies, and aim at maintainable network designs. The learners will be expected to work in teams. Each team will consist of several roles such as hardware engineer, protocol specialist, application analyst, etc., played by the learner. The target learner for this course is assumed to be familiar with the basics of computer networks and internetworking. The duration of the course is three days when done full-time and two weeks when done part-time.
The aims of this course are:
By the end of this course, the learner should:
The content of the course is adapted from (Charles, 1997) and (Smythe, 1995, chap. 15). In developing it we use a hypertext instructional design methodology from (Mengel & Adams, 1996). It is particularly appropriate for this course since it will be implemented in Lotus LearningSpace as a hypermedia document. Indeed, as most DOLE are based on hypermedia documents, it would seem that choosing a common methodology when designing courses is an important step towards standardisation of DOLE. The steps of the methodology are as follows:
At this stage we focus on determining the scope of the course.
Following these steps, we first state the thesis sentence of the network design course:
Network design is the process of designing and implementing LANs using components that provides the users with the necessary level of service and high maintainability.
The corresponding expanded paragraph of the above statement is:
Network design is the process of designing and implementing LANs using components that provides the users with the necessary level of service and high maintainability. LAN components are chosen based on evaluating their specification against the required criterias. Providing service means the users are getting what they need. High maintainability can be achieved by specifying and documenting the LAN.
From the expanded paragrah we can extract the key concepts:
For each of these concepts, we will repeat steps 1-5.
The thesis sentence for the concept of choosing LAN components is:
Choosing LAN components is the process of assessing and evaluating commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products.
The corresponding expanded paragraph of the above statement is:
Choosing LAN components is the process of assessing and evaluating commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products. The LAN components that needs to be evaluated include:
- Cable plant
- Intelligent hubs
- Network operating systems and servers
- Network interface cards
- Printing
- Messaging and office automation
- Domain-specific applications
- Network administration and management tools
From the above paragraph we extract the eight component categories listed, and make each category a separate topic. As the topics are specific enough, we do not need to decompose further.
The thesis sentence for the concept of providing necessary level of service is:
To provide the level of service required, a requirements analysis needs to be done. This involves gathering from the user three kinds of requirements: functional, operational, and performance requirements.
The corresponding expanded paragraph of the above statement is:
A requirements analysis involves gathering from the user three kinds of requirements: functional, operational, and performance requirements. Gathering functional requirements means finding out the set of LAN functions needed to support user activities. This consists of physical (such as cabling) and logical (such as office automation) functions. Gathering operational requirements means finding out how to operate the network. This includes management, security, and recovery aspects. Gathering performance requirements means finding out the operating parameters needed from the LAN. For example, parameters such as throughput, number of users, and expected data storage must be determined.
The key concepts extracted from the above paragraph are:
Since these topics are specific enough, we will not decompose them further.
The thesis sentence for the concept of specifying and documenting is:
Documenting the design and implementation process is an essential step towards high maintainability.
The corresponding expanded paragraph of the above statement is:
Documenting the design and implementation process covers creating, refining, and formalising the following deliverables:
- Configuration management plan
- Quality assurance and test plan
- Training plan
- LAN transition plan
- System operations and configuration manual
- User's manual
The concept of producing the above deliverables are specific enough, and need not be decomposed further.
All of the above concepts can now be linked together, as shown in Figure OOTD. This diagram is called an object-oriented text decomposition (OOTD) graph. The OOTD graph will be refined further in the next stage, the specifications stage.
In this stage, the OOTD graph will be refined to make it suitable for hypertext format. The steps in this stage are:
Figure Concept map shows the results of the refinement steps above. There is one concept grouping, for the requirements gathering concept. The three concept from the first decomposition are identified as key concepts, and their links from the main concept are first-order links. This map may be refined further with additional notes to allow for instructional and administrative issues or used as it is.
The hypertext instructional design methodology used above covers designing course materials from scratch, and resulted in graphs suitable for implementation in DOLE. However, the methodology does not cover designing collaborative activities, one important requirement for DOLE.
For the networks design course learners will work in teams. Each team will be given a scenario, and will be required to deliver a complete networks design specification at the end od the course. Collaboration among members of a team is important, because the required design specification will be too large for a single learner or even several uncoordinated learners.
The course above was implemented in a beta version of Lotus LearningSpace. The features are similar with release 1.0. Currently Lotus is already shipping release 2.0. This release has additional features, most notably allowing WWW access for learners.
All interaction with Lotus LearningSpace is done through Lotus Notes Client software. This software is a proprietary product that needs about 30 Megabytes of hard disk space for a typical installation.
Implementing a distributed open learning course in Lotus LearningSpace
involves setting up at least the four main modules:
These point of views corresponds to some of the roles in DOLE we specified earlier in section Enterprise Specification. For each role, we will look at how they used Lotus LearningSpace to implement the course.
The first thing to do is setting up the
The
is setup by creating the initial discussion forums.
Since this module is the repository for all information relevant to the course, the main learning material is stored here.
Course instructors will mainly use the
Learners will start at the
The learner assessor will be responsible for setting up the
Since the network design course was never actually delivered to learners, this evaluation is rather limited. Issues such as managing learners, scalability, and learner participation could not be evaluated. However, we can still evaluate the process of setting up the course. The evaluation will also be limited to the usage of Lotus LearningSpace, not the installation of LearningSpace software itself. It is assumed that LearningSpace is already installed, and ready to accessed and customised.
The main software requirement to access LearningSpace is the installation of Lotus Notes Client, which in the 16-bit Microsoft Windows version needed at least 40 MB of hard disk space for a typical installation. A full installation would need 70 MB of hard disk space. The minimum memory requirement of this client software is about 8 MB of RAM. Even then, during the implementation of the networks design course, there are occasions when the client software complained of lack of memory. So a comfortable working environment would need at least 16 MB of RAM.
Connection to a network is also essential, either directly on a LAN connected to the Lotus LearningSpace server or remotely through remote networks such as the Internet. The case study was implemented using the latter method. A PC was configured to access the Internet, and the Lotus Notes Client was set up connect the server using TCP/IP over the Internet.
Since Lotus LearningSpace uses Lotus Notes (an established groupware platform), it has excellent support for replication and asynchronous collaboration.
Replication is the differentiating feature with other model of DOLE, especially WWW-based ones. Nomadic learner can connect once to replicate the modules. After that the replication facility will only synchronise the changes. This greatly minimises connection time, and in turn minimises cost to learners. However, it should be noted that the databases are large, averaging 2 MB each. Accessing LearningSpace through the Internet, using standard dial-up facilities, it took almost an hour to complete the initial replication.
Facilities for managing and participating in discussion forums are excellent. Together with the replication facility, nomadic learners can participate in discussion forums off-line and synchronise when connected.
Strictly speaking, there are no standards as yet, so we could not say precisely whether Lotus LearningSpace conforms to any DOLE standards. However, as discussed in chapter 2, emerging trends and requirements of DOLE can already be identified.
One missing feature is synchronous communication facilities. Although successful distributed open learning can be done using asynchronous communication, this feature is desirable for a comprehensive DOLE.
For better access, it is desirable to combine WWW with groupware (as discussed in section Combining groupware and WWW). This is not available in the version used in this project. However, the current release allows learners to access Lotus LearningSpace using an ordinary WWW browsers. Course instructors and contetn authors still have to use the proprietary Lotus Notes client software.