TNA – A Bridge between Standardisation and Personalisation? eCASME - A Leonardo da vinci funded project Ireland, Romania, Portugal Sweden, Latvia

Introduction Personalisation allows students to attain improved results through individualised attention to their learning needs. Standardisation allows the interoperability of courses and standards imposed on course building blocks known as learning objects allows reuse of material and rapid development. However do not go hand in hand naturally

Standardisation – The Need Most successful products or industries contain standards e.g Plugs, TCP\IP eLearning standards arose as a requirement to make educational software interoperable Companies found themselves with several standalone eLearning products that could only be used in isolation and for the purpose intended

Learning Objects Allowed information to be chunked – enabling reusability More reusable, More Valuable Not a method of standardisation - does not specify how components interoperate Concept that can increase the value of e-learning through reuse

LO’s and Standards Standards are imposed on these objects Allows different objects from different vendors to interoperate Tagging with metadata makes them more accessible and reusable Definition of metadata

Learning Objects Allows them to be placed in a central repository and be easily searched for Standards by IEEE, IMS etc ensure all objects can be searched for by any system They specify runtime environments, protocols, assessment tools and learning Management Systems allowing LO’s and eLearning systems to function similarly and interoperate.

Personalisation – The Need Can vary from:  providing individuals with the relevant content to satisfy a training need  providing individuals with a course that tailors itself according the learner responses and learning styles Can be argued how much personalisation is sufficient

Personalisation – The Need Keller plan a.k.a. the personalised system of instruction states that “focusing the students attention on important material to be learned”, separating content into units that must be mastered and allowing the students to self pace themselves all provide a means for personalised learning Traditionally eLearning courses allow students to move at their own pace. However, content presented to the student is often not relevant to their learning needs.

Personalisation – The Need There is often an abundance of redundant material The breakdown of these units into learning objects to teach single ideas and piecing them together to present relevant content to the learner would provide a method of personalised learning The use of learning objects would allow the integration of standardisation and personalised learning

TNA – A Bridge (eCASME) Training Needs Analysis is an assessment conducted to ensure there is a need for training and to identify the necessary content of the resultant training program Determines the material the student needs to learn Therefore ideal for personalisation according to the Keller plan

TNA – A Bridge (eCASME) Typical TNA  Managers and employees setting skills level  Skills gap done  Manual  Annually/Occasionally eCASME decided to identify a typical structure that allows TNA to be conducted online and regularly to allow employees within industries to identify the material they need to learn.

TNA – A Bridge (eCASME) As our research extends only to companies it was important to identify a structure that represents typical organisations and that can teach single concepts, thus translating directly to learning objects. a general structure for all companies was identified through: Dissecting organisational structures Interviewing companies Examining Job Descriptions

TNA – A Bridge (eCASME) Four Levels of training found

TNA – A Bridge (eCASME) To date online tool has been implemented Tool implemented to mimic traditional TNA Discovers Training Needs to a very low level of detail. Aim to reach LO specification detail When a shortfall occurs the task is written to an individual plan for the employee with optimum method for teaching that task

TNA – A Bridge (eCASME) Future To enable rapid development and integrate standardisation and personalisation Looking at using the skills gap task to search LO repositories using metadata standards

TNA – A Bridge (eCASME) Will allow standardised learning objects to be pieced together quickly to allow only relevant material to be taught to the student Thus personalising courses as in the Kellers plan. The use of learning objects as units to be mastered, make possible the integration of standardisation and personalisation.

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