CSI Communication (May 2005) - White paper

Integration of e-Learning with Traditional Education

Shashank Hiwarkar

ETH Research Lab

Abstract

This paper presents an approach for integrating e-learning with the traditional

education system. A conceptual map is then created for this integration leading

to a functional model for open and flexible learning. In the proposed integration,

convergence of CD-based, class-based and web-based education is

recommended and an architecture to achieve this convergence is presented. In

order to transform the existing schools, colleges and universities into digital

campuses, an inclusive system architecture is designed for digital campus. A

case study is given on actual implementation in a conventional school.

Integration of e-learning with traditional education is not only possible but also

highly effective with the proposed model.

What is e-Learning?

Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have

significantly transformed the way we live and work today. This transformation is so

ubiquitous and pervasive that we often talk about the emergence of

―knowledge economy‖, knowledge-based society‖ and ―knowledge era‖.

ICT had fundamentally three effects on human society one, the barrier of

geography has been dissolved; ―Distance is dead‖ is the new metaphor.

Second, the concept of time itself has undergone change. One can interact

now synchronously as well as un-synchronously. The events can also be simulated

and activities can take place in cyber space on pre-defined time scales. Lastly,

ICT allows us to virtualise almost any human activity, including the individual

himself along with the environment in which he is immersed in. No wonder,

advances in ICT have impacted the human civilization more than anything else

in history ever before.

Along with other fields of human activities, ICT is also having significant

transformational effects on education. e-learning strategies allow individual

learners to choose contents, time and pace of learning and in this way a new

revolution has begun in education and training. Given these transformational

roles of ICT it is important to understand how different e-learning is from

traditional education system. In other words, we must first define what e-learning

is after all .

Quite simply, e-learning should be defined as learning opportunities delivered

and facilitated by electronic means. In the e-learning mode, educational

contents are delivered by electronic technology. However, it is not correct to

assume that e-learning differs from traditional system only in the way has

contents are delivered. e-learning imparts all the three main components of

learning, namely contents, learning methodologies, and teaching or tutoring

methodologies on one hand and e-learning can supplement and complement

the traditional education system on the other hand. It can completely be an

alternative system to the traditional education system.

This paper basically focuses on integration of traditional education system with e-

learning. In e-learning, three different forms of computer based systems have

evolved, 1) CD based education (CBE), 2) Class room based learning (CEBE),

and 3) web based learning (WBE). These three approaches have their own

advantages and limitations.

Our experiments at ETH Research Lab show that the success of e-learning

strategies depends on how best we can combine all the three learning modes or

methods. We argue that this is a best method for integrating e-learning with the

traditional teaching process. In traditional education, learning approach is

through a teacher or a mediator. With the introduction of e-learning technology,

the role of the teacher gets changed to facilitator, with high quality learning

resources made available through electronic media.

The e-learning technology can create an open and flexible learning

environment with the convergence of CD based, class based and web based

education. e-learning can be easily integrated in the traditional education by

bringing learners, teachers, educational resources, libraries, schools,

administration and management system on one platform.

Conceptual Model

Traditionally our education system has two distinct processes, namely the

learning process and the learning administration or support process. Learning

system caters to the development of skills and competencies in the learners

through personal learning, group learning in class, learning from teachers and

experts, and learning from the experiences of self and others. While the learning

support system aims at supporting the learning processes of the learners. This

caters mainly evaluation and assessment process, library management

processes, seminars and workshops and the like. Traditional education system

largely focuses on the delivery of the courses and awarding certificates and

degrees to the learner.

The e-learning system architecture must address both to the learning process as

well as learning support process. In e-learning support processes are equally

important as the content and services has to be provided by educational

service providers (ESPs) as such experts normally does not exist on the campuses.

ETH Research Lab has advanced open and flexible e-learning system

architecture as shown in figure 1, providing convergence of formal, non-formal

and informal education and bringing educational service providers, activity

providers, learning resources on one single platform for achieving mass

personalized education. The conceptual model has all required subsystems

namely Learning System, Learning Support System, Delivery System,

Maintenance – Development – Production (MDP) System, and Total

Administration and QA System.

Figure 1. E-Learning Architecture for Open and Flexible Learning System

Learning system of traditional education system will be enhanced with the

availability and accessibility of virtual learning resources. Students can interact in

synchronous and asynchronous mode.

Learning Support System addresses the technology for facilitation of the learning

system. It will also include the learning from the remote tutors through the virtual

class mode, lecture on demand and formative feedback for the assessment and

evaluation.

Delivery System delivers the content in electronic form to the learners and

distributed classrooms.

Services Management (Maintenance, Development and Production) will help in

collaborating with the service providers. This enhances the knowledge repository

as compared to the traditional education system.

Total Management and QA system monitors and manages the quality education

delivery to the learner.

Functional Model

The conceptual architecture best describes the convergence of the WBE, CBE

and CEBE. With the field trials and experiments, we have observed that there is a

need for the operational support services and mini ERP services for managing the

educational institutes. Schools, colleges and universities have a whole range of

activities other than managing academics only. With technology we can make

the whole administration and management of education more effective. This

way the school, college, university can be transformed into Digital School, Digital

College, and Digital University. Our architecture aims at creating a full-fledged

digital campus driven by ICT.

The conceptual architecture of e-learning described in the previous section can

be enhanced with these services for managing the institute. Figure 2 illustrates

implementation architecture integrating all the subsystems of building a digital

campus.

Security Layer

Multilingual Layer

Message Oriented Middle-ware

LCMS

Remote

Service Authoring

Content

Management

Content

Repository

LMS

Content Authentication

User

Repository

Learning

Data

Assessment

&

Evaluation

Tracking

Learning

Administrative

System

O

S

S

CRM ERM

Service Management

Network Management.

Storage Area

S

M

S

Digital Library

School

ERP

College

ERP

SCM

Work Flow Mgt

Persistence Layer

DB DBDB

Course

Management

Service Oriented Architecture

Student School College Partner Administrator

Project Management

Billing

Modular Course

Platform

Document Flow

Resource Management.

Figure 2. Open Flexible Education Environment - Implementation Architecture.

LMS and LCMS:

Functional model for learning system and learning support systems are

implemented as Learning Management System (LMS) and Learning Content

Management System (LCMS) as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. LMS and LCMS – An Architectural Representation

Content Authoring Tool is useful for creation of the content, putting legacy

content online. With this, teachers can create their own content and publish it.

Content creation with the SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model)

standards makes it interchangeable across the LMS.

Content Assembly Tools plays an important role in packaging the content

prepared with authoring tool and publishing it. Our architecture complies with

IMS Content Packaging standards for content assembly tool thus giving

interoperability. Learning Objects published with content assembly tools are

categorized with the Learning Object Metadata and stored in Catalog

Manager.

Course Repository stores the course structures which integrates the learning

objects and sequence them.

Content

Authorization

Tools

Content

Assembly

Tools

Content Manager

Content

Repository

Course Catalog

Learner

Profile

Manager

Learning Planner

Delivery Engine

Collaboration Engine

Assessment / Testing Engine

RLO

RLO

LO

Offerings

User Info

RLO

Activity

Assessment Object

Goals

Registry Info

Registry Info

Activity Info

Registry Info

Activity Info

Registry Info

Result Info

Learning Administration System

LCMS LMS

Learning Planner assists learner with the appropriate alternative plans

corresponding to the learning objective of the learner. Finally it sends the User

Information to the User Repository.

Personalized delivery of the course to the learner is managed with delivery

engine in LAN version and WAN version.

For the individual learning and group learning various collaborative services like

special interest groups, discussion forum, virtual classroom and various

enrichment contents can be delivered through collaboration engine.

Formative evaluation will help learner to plan the learning process in the

corrective way. The assessment of every learning objective and activity is

managed in the personal folder of every learner.

In addition to the Learning and Learning Support system, we observed the need

for automation of the various operations in the schools and colleges (traditional

education system). Those operations are managed with the help of SMS (Self

Managed Systems). It is a sort of mini ERP system which covers the Purchase

Management, Asset Management, Accounts and Finance Management etc. In

this process often work flow of the educational institutes need to be

reengineered. Document flow management can help in delivering paperless

operations which is the goal of all computerization.

When we collaborate with the Educational Service Providers, we need to

provide the facility for monitoring and control of the services provided by them.

Operational Support Services (OSS) helps in service collaboration, launching,

billing, support and maintenance services.

AT ETH Research Lab, we have approached this architecture with the Open

Source technologies, independent of platform and databases. Support for

multilingual technologies is also provided. XML based integration layer helps in

data exchange and collaboration across the systems.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

With the mission of bringing Education To Home, we expect technology should

make the schools, colleges, teachers, libraries, learning resources to be

accessible and approachable to the aspiring learners.

We are implementing the ETH mission in phased manner. We have deployed the

Computer Literacy program in collaboration with Pune University. Now we are

extending it through schools and colleges. With Digital Campus, we will digitize

schools and colleges within the campus. Here e-Learning will be complementary

and supplementary to the traditional education process.

All the digital campuses should collaborate on one platform in order to build the

content and knowledge repository which can be delivered to the students

electronically. This collaboration approach will be driven through the Service

Oriented Architecture (SOA). Schematic representation of the SOA

implementation is expressed in Figure 4

Figure 4. Schematic Representation of use of SOA

Service Oriented Architecture can be applicable to the networked digital

campus as expressed in the above architecture diagram. We have used J2EE

framework to implement SOA. SOA is a collection of services on a network that

communicate with one another. The services are loosely coupled, have well-

defined, platform-independent interfaces, and are reusable. SOA is a higher

level of application development (also referred to as coarse granularity) that

focuses on business processes and uses standard interfaces. Web services use

WSDL, UDDI and SOAP. Services are published in UDDI registry along with service

providers’ information. Service Providers describe their services in a WSDL

document. The URL for WSDL is given in UDDI.

With the application of this, the Learning System of one campus can be

accessed based on the agreed terms and conditions for service sharing by other

campus through UDDI search. UDDI locates the WSDL file which locates the

service on the network. This will deliver the desired learning resources to the

learners on single sign-on. The sharing of the services, content, learning objects,

courses from different schools, colleges, and teachers is possible through this

architecture.

The common platform is portal which can be used for convergence of

educational services from the Educational Service Providers. These services can

be easily accessible to various digital campuses as the learning and teaching

resources.

Digital

School

2

Digital

School

1

Digital

School

“n”

Digital Campus

Portal

UDDI

Learner

WSDL

Binds Service

Case Study

As explained in functional model, in schools and colleges we observe the need

for computerization of administration and management to make it paperless.

Lectures can be enhanced with the electronic media and can be projected to

the students in classrooms. Interactive CDs help learners visualize and understand

the matter; teachers can make use of computers for making the lectures more

lively and effective through multimedia. In addition, documentation

management system can help issue and management of bonafied certificates,

leaving certificates and other statutory certificates for students and staff. Work

flow management system allows management of processes like lecture

scheduling; leave management, library management helps in issue and

procurement of books. Schematic representation of the implementation view of

the Digital Campus for school is explained in Figure 5.

Figure 2. Typical Implementation in Campus

We have implemented Digital Campus for School at Bhartiya Jain Sanghatna

High School, Wagholi. We have implemented the concept of the Digital School

where we have digitized the operations of the schools, CD based content of the

school syllabus for teachers and students and web based support and

enrichment material. It has got wide acceptance from the teachers and learners

as it reflected the processes and methodologies they have been following in the

school.

This system now helping in admission process, scheduling of lectures, managing

conventional and digital library resources, lecture on demand, students notes,

group learning through Special Interest Groups, pre and post examination

processes, accounts and finance management, budgetary control, asset

management of the school along with the day today administration of

attendance to payroll and also documentation management of statutory

certificates for students.

This approach was then replicated in other schools and over a period of time it

has evolved into a comprehensive system. Implementation strategies for

replication of the concept were taken with the help of the teachers themselves.

Teacher training, orientation, support, customization and management are

integral to implementation which is executed along with local agencies.

In many colleges and universities there is a growing need for the distance

learning. We have addressed this with the Learning Management System which

can cater to both formal and in-formal modes of education. For such colleges

and universities the approach can be supplementary, complementary or even

alternative to their conventional distance learning programs.

We have now embarked up a generalized e-learning product for schools,

colleges and universities. Currently the challenge lies in getting the schools into

the e-learning framework, orientation of teachers and making teachers use the

system on their own. Other challenges are installation and maintenance of

infrastructure as well as organizing budgets for the digital campus initiative in

each institution.

With Digital Campus program, schools, colleges, teachers, students, learning

resources will be able to collaborate on one platform. The convergence model

will have to be supported with the quality educational services and activities.

Some schools, colleges can themselves be the service providers for others. Best

of teachers can be accessible across the campus and through the virtual

classroom mode, they would be available to the aspiring learners across

institutions.

Conclusion

After going through the real life experience of implementation of e-learning

through several schools and colleges with the Open and Flexible Learning

Environment architecture, we feel that the success lies in the co-existence and

integration of traditional and e-learning strategies.

Current barriers for success of these convergence models are mind set, budgets

for infrastructure, preparedness of teachers and local support. However, with

marked reduction in the cost of PCs, laptops, networking and servers,

introduction of IT subject in school syllabus, spread of affordable internet and

growing awareness of the benefits of IT in education, the perceived barriers are

getting dissolved.

However, there is a great challenge of quality content creation. This must be

compliant with the emerging international standards such as SCORM / IMS to be

reusable and modifiable. This vital issue is not discussed here and it would be

presented in an ensuing paper. Our objective in this paper was to present an

implementable architecture for integration of e-learning with traditional

education in school, colleges and universities. We have also presented the results

of our implementations as a case study proving the validity of our architecture

and strategies.

References:

1. White paper on ―AN IMPLEMENTABLE ARCHITECTURE OF AN E-LEARNING

SYSTEM‖ by Xiaofei Liu, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik and Nicolas D.

Georganas

2. ―e-Learning Interoperability Standards‖, Sun white paper, January 2002 —

www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/whitepapers/index.html

3. ―e-Learning theories and pedagogical Strategies‖ –

http://www.homestead.com

4. ―Evaluating the effectiveness of E-Learning Strategies for Small Medium

Enterprises‖ - Eduardo Figueira

5. ―Triple Play Solutions for the Student Residence‖ – Allied Telesyn

Mr. Shashank Hiwarkar

Mr. Shashank Hiwarkar is a Program Co-ordinator of ETH Research Lab. He is involved in

architecting the ETH Education Environment and implementing the concept of Digital

Campus in Schools, colleges and universities. He is an engineering graduate of Nagpur

University