ICOPER Reference Model - Final Specification

The eContent+ Best Practices Network, ICOPER, aimed at contributing to a more effective and efficient implementation of technology-enhanced learning in higher education with a particular emphasize on outcome-oriented teaching and interoperability based on standards and specifications. With March 2011 the project released its core report, the ICOPER Reference Model (IRM) for Outcome-based Higher Education. The report provides a common frame of reference for stakeholders who wish to contribute to the design and development of outcome-oriented teaching and content for re-use. Driven by this objective the IRM is designed to improve interoperability of educational systems and applications both at the processes level, as well as at the technical level (i.e. data and services).

• a domain model of competence-driven higher education that puts the concept of "shareable educational resource" in the centre of all thinking;
• a data model explicating the key concepts of the domain model, associations and attributes - here an emphasize has been put on providing data models for artefacts such as Personal Achievement Profiles, Learning Outcomes, Learning Opportunities, Instructional Models, Learning Content, and Assessment Resources; and
• a service-oriented architecture connecting repositories of sharable educational resources based on web services.

The proposed data and service models were based on existing standards and specifications as far as these standards and specifications supported our requirements. The following standards and specifications were investigated:

• ADL SCORM
• CEN MLO
• CEN SPI
• CEN SQI
• HR-XML Competency
• ICOPER PALO
• IEEE LOM
• IEEE RCD
• IMS CP
• IMS LD
• IMS QTI
• JISC LEAP2A
• ISO/IEC 19796-1
• ISO/IEC 19796-3
• OAI PMH

• Learning Needs Analysis and Learning Opportunity Definition
• Instructional Modelling
• Content Development for Re-use
• Assessment, and
• Evaluation.

The implementation of the data and service models, including the processes connecting the various artefacts, are demonstrated in14 ICOPER applications. These applications range from extensions to open source learning content management systems (e.g. DotLRN, Moodle) and commercial products (e.g. Clix, LearnExact), over modifications to existing brokerage infrastructures for content, to software-as-a-service solutions (e.g. 2know2.com). Installations of e-portfolio tools were also subject of our implementation work, like operational learning management infrastructures in universities (e.g. Learn@WU). To illustrate the power of e-learning standards we devoted one implementation case study to a full authoring round trip, where a commercial authoring tool was extended in order to support content re-use via the brokerage infrastructure Open ICOPER Content Space (OICS).

The ICOPER web site was also connected to the OICS. At the time of writing the website provided access to 83,824 shareable educational resources with more than 20,000 hours of typical learning time. The following types of shareable educational resources are provided via the OICS (in brackets are the number of resources currently provided):

• Instructional Models (34188)
  • Assessment Methods (2)
  • Assessment Designs (1778)
  • Learning Designs (26628)
  • Teaching Methods (5780)
• Learning Content incl. Assessment Resources (45549)
  • Learning Content (45368)
  • Assessment Resources (181)
• Learning Outcome Definitions (3304)
• Learning Opportunities (783)
  • Learning Opportunity Instances (481)
  • Learning Opportunity Specifications (302)

Based on the evaluation of the ICOPER applications we came up with recommendations for

1. higher education management when it comes to implementing outcome-oriented learning,
2. faculty members when it comes to preparing courses or developing content for re-use,
3. implementers of all kinds of tools ranging from full fledge brokerage infrastructures over learning management systems to content authoring tools,
4. standardization bodies when it comes to enhancing state-of-the-art from an outcome- oriented perspective.

From these recommendations it can be concluded that introducing learning outcomes has certainly the potential to improve higher education in Europe, for example, by improving the transparency of learning opportunities, but also for supporting quality management. However, a significant number of challenges on
a) the technical (e.g. extending e-learning standards as proposed by the IRM),
b) the individual (e.g. qualifying educators writing learning outcomes), and
c) the organizational level (e.g. introducing curricular design processes based on learning outcomes) remain in order to make outcome-based education keeping up with its promises.