Digital Learning Lab-Foundation for the Future of Learning: Project Plan By Drs. Tracy Hurley, Cherry Li-Bugg, Jennifer Spohrer (Team innov8)
Requested funding amount: $3,530,800 Abstract
Higher education instructors, attempting to improve student engagement and learning outcomes by adopting blended or other technology-enhanced pedagogical strategies, are hamstrung by current digital learning object (DLO) options. Most faculty lack the time and skills needed to make their own materials, so they must either force students to purchase expensive commercial textbook supplements or cobble together an assortment of open educational resources, which although free, are often technologically out-of-date or lack data-tracking features that make blended learning effective. dLab is an alternative publishing platform that incentivizes and supports the iterative design of high-quality, low-cost learning objects. The entire dLab catalog is available to students and institutions on a subscription basis and subscription revenues, and in turn, support a data-driven editorial peer review process that ensures effective pedagogy, universal access, subject-matter accuracy, modest royalties for content authors whose materials are accepted for publication, and on-going platform development and technical support. In other words, unlike other digital learning object repositories, dLab has a self-sustaining business model that supports continual improvement and innovation, without passing prohibitively expensive costs to learners. dLab is a meta-institutional model that provides opportunities for collaboration between higher-educational institutions, k-12, and employers to effectively improve student learning at a minimum cost to the institution and the learner.
Goals
dLab’s goals are to provide an alternative to current textbook publishing which encourages and supports research-driven pedagogical reform in higher education, enables faculty to contribute to pedagogical innovation and the scholarship of teaching, and engineer a dramatic reduction in student spending on course materials. The platform and business model are designed to
develop and promote a community in which scholars, teachers, and students interact, assess, critique, and review digital learning objects (DLOs) in order to improve student learning
outcomes, produce knowledge in specific content areas, and promote the scholarship of teaching and learning and pedagogical research.
Our objectives include specifically to do the followingl:
1. Provide a platform in which faculty, students, and other stakeholders can collaborate across institutions in developing and sharing DLOs;
2. Provide a reporting process for the documentation of student learning outcomes;
3. Provide a platform for peer review and documentation of DLOs and associated pedagogical research; and
4. Ensure that all students have access to high-quality, interactive, and customized required course material.
What is dLab?
dLab is a repository of digital learning objects that has a built-in business model for
sustainability. The initial funding request of $3.5 million will seed the project which develops the collaboration platform for faculty, designs the retrieval platform for learners, create social learning communities for both faculty and learners, and establish assessment and reporting processes. Thereafter the sustainability of dLab will be based on a subscription model. We propose a three-tiered subscription model:
1. Institutional - annual subscription,
2. Faculty/courses - annual or semester subscription paid for by the student or institution, and
3. Independent learner – monthly subscription.
The revenue will allow the payment of royalties to content developers, provide technical support to learners and content developers, and to sustain a peer-review editorial infrastructure. This process will provide the foundation for continuous improvement and innovation of the content in dLab so that all students regardless of ethnicity, income, disability or geographic location, will have access to required course material at dramatically reduced prices.
See Appendix A for a graphic that illustrates the dLab process.
Key features of dLab
• Faculty driven. Faculty develop and solicit content.
• Scholarly & Peer reviewed. All content will undergo a rigorous peer review process prior to publication in dLab.
• Royalties. Content developers receive royalties based on the use of the learning objects they develop.
• Scholarship of Teaching & Learning. Content developers can utilize pedagogical data collected in dLab as a resource for scholarly publication.
• Accessible. All learning objects in dLab will be developed using the principles of Universal Design so that materials are accessible to all regardless of learning styles or abilities.
• Engaging. Learning objects will be developed with the latest multimedia technologies that incorporate gaming and social media.
• Assessment and Analytics. All learning objects will have an assessment component built-in that can be adapted by instructors to meet the needs of their students and to provide reports relevant to course and program outcomes.
• Affordable. The collection of quality learning objects developed and peer-reviewed by faculty at a fraction of the cost of traditional textbooks.
Exclusions
dLab is not a learning management system. On the contrary, it is designed to distribute learning objects and built-in assessments via an integrated, authenticated bridge to institutional learning management systems.
Ownership
The three institutions (Texas A&M University-San Antonio, Bryn Mwar College, and Santa Rosa Junior College) will sign an MOU to establish an institute with one of the institutions acting as fiscal agent.
Timeline
Year 1: Program staff will be hired and partner institutions will be identified. Once partner institutions and subject matter experts (SMEs) are identified, SME teams (expert faculty and librarians) will begin developing the metadata ontology for the repository and designing the peer review system. Royalty systems and processes to handle Intellectual Property Rights and Digital Rights Management will also be determined. SME teams will begin testing the DLO discovery and metadata creation processes for the DLO Repository items. The focus of DLO content development will be on learning outcomes for the General Education core.
Simultaneously, at the beginning of year one, the process of identification, selection, and testing of products for development of a scalable repository prototype – including social networking and assessment reporting tools -- will begin
Year 2: Year two will include a full-scale discovery and creation program for DLOs including developing the content authoring and collaboration tools. The repository will be built and populated as DLOs become available. A training program for faculty at partner universities will begin. A small number of universities will be solicited to be a part of a pilot project which will focus on General Education core coursework. Marketing of dLab subscriptions will continue.
Year 3: By the beginning of year three, more faculty will be able to start populating their classrooms with DLOs. This will be facilitated by an integration of the repository into their Learning Management Systems. Subscriptions to colleges and universities will be phased-in.
dLab marketing and training programs will continue.
Major Dependencies
The biggest dependency is funding. Without the needed funding, the project will not be launched. The second major dependency is institutional buy-in. Because this is a meta- institutional projects, it will require collaboration and partnerships from all who have a stake in dLab’s success. The third major dependency is faculty. The nature of dLab is faculty-driven- faculty develop, publish, peer-review, collect assessment data and are awarded if their learning objects are used. Without faculty in the center of dLab, it would not even get off the ground.
Resources
Although faculty and students will be able to use dLab immediately, the first two years of the project are devoted to developing the infrastructure to ensure its success. Key personnel will need to be recruited. Appendix B outlines the projection of revenue and costs for the first three- year period. In short, the project is not expected to be revenue positive until year three; hence the request for a funding amount of $3,530,800.
Significance
This project has the potential to fundamentally change the way in which course materials are developed and distributed.
• Each DLO contains an embedded assessment tied to the specific learning outcomes targeted by that DLO. Instructors and administrators can select the DLOs that address specific learning outcomes that best meet their needs in terms of delivery mode,
convenience, and alignment with their syllabus. DLOs will be tagged and indexed based on a variety of constructs including learning outcomes, accreditation standards, and content areas. Assessment reports will provide evidence at the institution, program, course, and DLO levels for specific learning outcomes. Assessment data can be aggregated and shared among partner institutions for reporting and comparison
purposes, reports to accreditation agencies as well as feedback to faculty. The Learning Management System (LMS)-integrated solution will provide a single sign-on, easy and comprehensive solution to assess learning across the curriculum.
• Since learning rarely takes place in a silo – especially with the many avenues of social media currently available – it is important to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by social media when developing a digital repository. To foster the development of collaborative learning, this project will provide opportunities for social networking among members, allowing controlled access by students, faculty, and other stakeholders.
• In addition, stakeholders, students, and faculty will be able to rate DLOs based on their effectiveness and usefulness in the classroom. This will provide metrics and common reference terms which can be used to search for and adopt specific DLOs and
encourage collaborative learning and pedagogical research. The project allows for the creation, use and re-use of items that can be used at any level within the educational pipeline to ensure consistency and reliability of learning outcomes and teaching
effectiveness. A variety of DLOs for each construct will provide an opportunity for at-risk
students to learn skills and knowledge via a designated progression of targeted DLO- levels from “novice” to “expert”.
Most significantly, this project addresses some of key concerns in Higher Education Reform, including but not limited to:
• Higher educational institutions are under great pressure to improve access to higher education and ensure more students successfully complete meaningful degrees. With this in mind, dLab will provide assessment mechanisms which give students feedback on their learning and enable the instructor to monitor mastery. These materials will be modular and flexible, so that they can be customized to match the needs and abilities of a particular set of students and the curricular goals of a given course, department, and institution.
• Most faculty lack the time, technological resources and skills, or pedagogical expertise to create interactive materials on their own. In order to adopt more effective teaching approaches, faculty need access to high quality, pedagogically effective course materials.
• Although textbook publishers have begun producing digital materials, they are of limited use when educational reform goals include improving access and completion as well as enhancing student learning. Textbook costs have greatly contributed to the rising costs of higher education, and present a significant barrier to higher education access and higher education reform. According to 2013 study by the American Enterprise Institute, college textbook prices are 812% higher than they were a little more than three decades ago1. Textbook costs have outpaced the 559% increase in tuition and fees over roughly the same period. Interactive digital course materials developed by textbook publishers are currently sold as addenda to, rather than replacements for traditional textbooks -- effectively doubling the cost to students.
• Non-commercial repositories of open-access learning objects, such as Merlot and MIT Open Courseware attempt to provide an alternative to commercial textbooks, however, they cannot sustain wide-scale higher education reform. First, few of the objects within such repositories are actually interactive and even fewer allow faculty and students to track student learning. Many of the objects in these repositories are dated, do not capitalize on the latest learning theory and/or best practices, and lack a solid foundation of peer review. Most importantly, none of these repositories have mechanisms for incentivizing improvements and innovation, providing technical support and
documentation, or even basic technical upgrades to ensure objects remain compatible with the browsers, operating systems, and devices of the future.
1 College Textbook Prices Increasing Faster Than Tuition And Inflation The Huffington Post | By Tyler Kingkade
Posted: 01/04/2013 11:11 am EST | Updated: 01/04/2013 5:39 pm EST
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/college-textbook-prices-increase_n_2409153.html
Evaluation Plan
Evaluation will be conducted on the goals of the project by a third party who will be remunerated.
The evaluation timeline will correspond with the project timeline (see above). Each year, the goals and objectives specific to that year will be evaluated with stated targets. The evaluation process will also highlight areas in which the project timeline is not being met; thereby
prompting the project owners to rectify and adjust in order to meet project goals and timeline.
Appendix A
Figure 1. Life cycle of a digital learning object (DLO) in dLab.
Appendix B
Snapshot of revenue and cost for three years of the project period Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
College & Universities 0 5 20
Students 15,000 150,000
Semester Credit Hours (SCH) 150,000 1,450,000
Fee per SCH $1 $3
Gross Revenue 0 $150,000 $4,350,000
Expenses
Variable
Royalties 0 $100,000 $1,933,333
Fixed
Management $332,800 $332,800 $332,800
Full-time Staff $243,200 $243,200 $243,200 Subject Matter Experts $864,400 $864,400 $864,400
Consulting $75,000 $75,000 $75,000
Supplies, Expenses & Travel $105,000 $105,000 $105,000 Program Evaluation $20,000 $20,000 $20,000 Repository Expense $100,000 $200,000 $250,000
Total Expenses $1,740,400 $1,840,400 $1,890,400
Net Income -$1,740,400 -$1,790,400 $526,267
Funding Needed per year $1,740,400 $1,790,400 0
Total Funding Needed $3,530,800
