LET standardisation – framing the activity space using the JITSR special issue

The simple framework of Wand and Weber (2002) (Figure 1) could be used to position standards, methods and contexts; and the special issue on LET standardisation of the International Journal of IT Standards and Standardization Research (to be published 2010) to give us the accounts of the current state of affairs.

Figure 1 Framework for Research on Conceptual Modelling, from Wand and Weber (2002)

The specifications and standards are the “conceptual modelling scripts” this community work towards. However, there is no consensus on how to define these outputs among the authors of the special issue papers. Cooper’s definition is wide: “the word “standards” is used (…) for virtually any multi-laterally agreed set of technical conventions” (Cooper 2010). Pawlowski & Kozlow reuse the 1990 IEEE definition of a standard as “a set of mandatory requirements employed and enforced to prescribe a uniform approach in a specific area” (Pawlowski & Kozlow 2010). This leads to the definition of a reference model as being “a framework that can be used as a blueprint for system development” (ibid.). Between a “convention” and a “(mandatory) blueprint there is space for a range of ontological and epistemological considerations. We would claim that Cooper’s definition opens more up for the discursive and consensus process aspects of standardisation, while the definition of a standard as a technical blueprint is more part of technical engineering tradition looking for a true representational model of the domain.

The choice of conceptual modelling grammar is seldom raised as an issued within the standards community. “Language skills” seems to go with the territory, and information scientists are equipped with a toolbox that make it routine to turn out information and data models in notations universally understood. However, in the European discussion on concepts and standardisation in areas related to competence we have seen more focus on conceptual modelling  as a means of communicating with the stakeholders and to better scope the work in LET standardisation projects.

Conceptual models provide a vital underpinning for information models, helping ensure that the concepts represented in different information models are compatible, and that specifications built on those information models will actually help with interoperability and portability. (Grant & Rowin 2010)

The broader conceptutal modelling method discussion is mostly focussed on the process aspects of standardisation, e.g., if formal standards setting bodies are the appropriate means to come up with the specifications that the LET community needs (Wilson 2010).

Related to conceptual modelling context Wand and Weber (2002) point to individual difference factors, task factors and social agenda factors. Reviewing the JITSR Special Issue related to these factors we see that we deal with a domain where the boundaries are still under negotiation. Some authors seem to presuppose that they work with sub-domains that are well scoped and where more targeted approaches could apply (e.g., approaches that could be subject to automatic conformance testing) (Dahn & Zimmerman 2010; Najjar et al. 2010, Pawlowski & Kozlow 2010). Other authors envisage a domain that is emergent, complex and unruly (Cooper 2010), that is more adapt to a pragmatic and community-driven approach (Wilson 2010), in which collaborative modelling building up common conceptual models is needed (Grant & Young 2010) to explore the new boundaries of learning technologies (Livingstone & Hollins 2010).

This short overview of the LET standardisation domain, based on recently published research, shows that there is no unified view on how we go about to design the building blocks we need to innovate learning technologies. This underline the need for a continued discussion based on models and constructs that will help us to improve both the process and product of this activity.

Wand and Weber’s simple framework is a starting point for building a research agenda. The next step is to come up with an approach for building concepts to deal with the scripts and their development, the methods used and the contexts that frame the activity.

In this blog post I will point you to where to find the activities leading up the next version of MLR Part 5, with a deadline of 18 December for the next Working Draft. I will also give some brief comments on the framework and principles for development, closing with some comments on this current model from WD3.

Work towards WD4 (to be turned into a First Committee Draft right after the Osaka meeting in March 2010)

We will have three online meetings, the first Friday, October 16th. If you want to contribute, please do so by joining the FlashMeeting. A wiki is set up to support the work and provide background information.

In the first meeting we will concentrate on conceptual models, looking at what is happening in projects like ICOPER, European Learner Mobility project, etc.

Where do metadata live – the MLR approach

With the most fierce fights over MLR behind us, we are now pretty sure that MLR will support some sound principles for developing the new parts and application profiles that the communities need. First, we don’t think that metadata are restricted to repositories of well defined and conforming complex metadata records. We think metadata live on the web in the cloud somewhere, and that they come in bits and pieces without some benevolent metadata schema that is so kind to explain to us how all the elements are to be interpreted. In a future semantically enabled web of information and resources we will be able to make sense of the fragments of metadata we come across because they are identified in a way that allows us to search for more linked data.

In this approach the concept of interoperability is not so much on a record level. The emphasis is on a semantic level. We need to make sure that we are talking about the same thing, using the same concepts. And if we don’t understand the detailed concept we have got, we should be able to track back to a higher level concept that we recognise from the international standard at hand. This does not mean that we don’t care about interoperability between repositories. But we think that the value of such interoperability is within well defined communities that agree upon developing their own application profiles. Interoperability on a global scale for learning resources is just a dream that is never come true. Between very different cultures we should be happy if we are able to reuse some of the concepts and definitions, to make the global conversation about learning, education and training a little bit more easy to facilitate.

So, what are the sound principles of MLR? In my opinion it boils down to some very simple guidelines.

• Every resource (and data element specification) shall by identified by a URI.
• We should reuse data elements, especially the generic ones, using Domain and Range to make sure that elements “do their job” in the context they are used.
• All elements should be extendible to allow “graceful degradation”, i.e., where refinements of an element is used, it should be possible for implementations to be able to identify and use their supertypes.
• The different parts of the standard need an Applications Profiles. This is where you where you restrict your model and define structures. The standard itself should be as simple as possible, capturing the elements needed to build applications for a varied group of users.

Implications for development of the Educational part

When building the Educational Part of MLR we should continue our work on trying to come up with some high level conceptual model of educational aspects of the use of learning resources. First we should try to map out the high level concepts, knowing that the finer granularity will be taken care of in the application profiles, given that we are able to create the necessary elements to connect to. Second, when we have a pretty stable conceptual map, we should put it to test to see if it possible to accommodate the different usage scenarios we have identified. (For instance, if we have only the two concepts of Context and Learning Outcome related to a learning resource we will not be able to make a useful inference of the relation between one resource and two contexts and outcomes. To make that happen we would need some kind of usage or activity element, as Pete Johnston demonstrated in an earlier discussion in the MLR Part 5 online meeting series.

What I find particularly interesting is the way Simon reflects on the process of modelling, working towards a deeper understanding of what is expressed in the modelling notations we use. Simon is using CMap tools for his models, a tool that I am glad I have helped to introduce to the standardisation community in CEN WS-LT and ISO SC36.

I am no encouraging colleagues to store their map at the ICOPER CMap server at the ICOPER Discourse Tool. If we succeed to host most of the conceptual maps the standardisation community is working on here, we will have a unique resource for negotiation concepts and re-using definitions. Simon has stored his map in the European Learner Mobility folder at the ICOPER CMap server.

Four aspects of metamodel-based environments (Jarke et al. 2009, p. 52)

Every time I see a triangular model, the activity system model of the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory comes to mind. So, are there any similarities between the two models? Well, there are. Both models are kind of object oriented, directed towards an outcome, a goal. “The diamond shape of the model is intended to illustrate that the model’s three aspects are neither exclusive nor orthogonal” (Jarke et al.). In CHAT this would be stated as the dialectical aspect of the model; you always study one aspect, e.g., the actors’ actions in the light of the others aspects, i.e., the mediated nature of the actions and the ways they are oriented towards an object and an outcome.

Activity system model (Engeström)

If you turn the models around you may even find that they overlap quite well. The Process aspect is pretty much congruent with the Subject entity of the AT model; the Notational aspect is clearly about the mediating artefacts (tools) we use; the Ontologies are about the way we capture the subject domain the ISD process is all about, i.e., the Object in the AT model.

So, why mixing and matching activity theory and metamodelling theory? It is just a hunch, driven by the fact that I find AT a very nice framework for describing human and social activities, especially the LET (Learning, Education and Training) aspects of these activities. And the fact, that I find AT (or rather the AT believers) to have a rather limited vocabulary when it comes to describing what’s going on when for example technology meets learning activities.

From a AT perspective, what would be the contribution from this metamodelling framework to a better analysis and understanding of the LET domain?

• Treating the object as an ontology will give a better understanding of the nature of the object. At least it will lead to an exploration of the different aspects of the object, instead of just treating it as an endpoint for the activities.
• AT has a very good grasp of the role of artefacts. However, looking at notations as tools might give AT a more formal language or constructs to express relationships in the AT triangles .
• Furthermore, adding process models to the AT toolkit might enrich how we understand activities - or at least give a better way (or some tools) to describe these activities.

From a metamodelling perspective, what would be the benefits to have AT as a backdrop for the modelling exercises?

First, AT could be seen as a particular metamodel that is well suited for making sense of certain activities or domains. It is used in design and workplace development research; it explains well technology enhanced learning, etc. As such, AT could inform metamodelling activities within these domains.

Second, at a more methodology level I would say that AT could

• give a better understanding of the role tools, e.g., notations, play in the design of information systems.
• AT has methods to tease out the contradictions in activity systems, and thus capturing the dynamics of the design process itself.
• AT could shed light on the goal aspect of metamodelling, which according to Jakre et al. is the least-studied aspects of metamodelling.

The book Metamodeling for Method Engineering is available from MIT press.

Graham Attwell summarises the students’ comments seem to indicate that the presenter skills of the lectures were not that great. But overall, the experience was very nice, with a lot to learn both for young and not so young PhD students. The Flickr photos tell their own story!

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If you want to participate, please vote for date and time for the first workshop

Please inform others in you community that will be interested in contributing to the success of this standard.

You will find more information on the workshops at http://wiki.teria.no/confluence/display/mlr5/Developing+MLR+Part+5+Educational

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The chance to address some of these issues was given both Bruce and myself in a resolution from last Wellington meeting in SC36. A Ad Hoc group is formed on JTC1 Training Coordination. In the terms of reference it is stated:

• The Ad Hoc group will identify existing training modules used by ISO, IEC and NBs of ISO/IEC. It is noted ISO/IEC JTC1 has requested inputs from ISO, IEC and NBs of ISO/IEC.
• The Ad Hoc group will identify system requirements for ISO/IEC JTC1 including but not limited to training and performance support systems for Delegates, Project Editors, Conveners, and ISO/IEC JTC1 process.
• The Ad Hoc will consider making recommendations based on identified requirements and training modules available to fulfill those requirements.

I am appointed co-rapporteur together with Bruce Peoples and Tae In Han. Hopefully, this will give us an opportunity to discuss some of the ideas Paul Hollins and I had in a paper to the ICALT 2008 conference, with the title Learning technology standards adoption – how to improve process and product legitimacy

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So when Meditel offers mobile Internet for a sensible price (75 € for a modem with 2 month free use, and thereafter less than 20€ a month or 2€ a day). After having seen their modem working on a MacBook I went to the shop, only to find that the version in the ad was out of stock. But, Alcatel had a new version One touch x020 HSDPA usb modem - that was very nice - with one little catch: Works on Windows all versions. Well, there should be a driver available on the net somewhere for a Mac, so I bought the thing.

And spent the whole day searching for a driver that does not exist.

This is the second time I experience the same problem. Netcom in Norway does not know any other computers than Windows either. What is it with the telecom business - do they not want customers?

The support guy of Meditel made my day, though. He said he was sorry about the lack of Mac driver for the modem. However, the solution was to change operating system. Being a guest here, I thought I should be a little pedagogical in my response: - Well, this will be the same as asking me to change my wife. You cannot do that overnight, I said. The support conversation ended there.

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I bet the integer versus the real number problem is important when your doing eBusiness big time (even I don’t really see the point here either), but searching for learning resources? No way! It seems like the project is being hijacked by the eBusiness community and the learners and educators sidetracked. We should look more to the library community; ebusiness has very little to do with it! At least the library community is grappling with the same problems of going from the second order of things to the third, where everything is miscellaneous and what matters is not what fits on a library record card any more.

To me, the current MLR thinking has not yet reached the digital age. We are still thinking from the perspective of the content owner, who wants to control her resources, to allow the users to search, evaluate, retrieve and re-use the learning objects. But it is not about control. It is not about filtering what the users should be allowed to see. Filtering on the way out, not on the way in, is a new strategic principle of the third order of things, according to David Weinberger in his Everything is miscellaneous (p. 102). He has three more principles, one already mentioned: Give up control!

The two other principles, Put each leaf on as many branches as possible; and Everything is metadata and everything can be a label, addressed the very model of the MLR. We should not create a huge, complicated structure bound to a XML tree, trying to capture the essence of the physical learning resource itself. Instead we should be very aware of identifiers, and then try to capture as many small bits of characteristics as possible, storing them in as many places and ways a possible. Living with learning resources is not a question of exactness (in the eBusiness manner), but in finding the just right level of fuzziness (in the learning for life manner of using resources). We then need a system that identifies what we are talking about, and leaves the other aspects up to the users to negotiate. If a community wants to be very specific in their negotiation, they should be allowed to do so. However, if others are coming by, the conversation should be digitally captured in a way that degrades gracefully. If my system cannot make sense of the value of the element “semantic density”, it should at least let the user know that the discussion is about Educational Context. The choice of tags should be left to the user communities. The constraining technology should be as general as possible; however, based on principles that allow computers to reason and suggest combinations and results to the users.

It is time for the MLR work to realize that computers are great for finding and combining, if they have anything to work on. Providing metadata is just about this: Spreading leaves of information around, to give the computers stuff to work on. Not exact to the 10th decimal; it is enough that it is about something, and is identifiable.

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