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Theoretical Mode for Developing e-Course Material

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Science Series Data Report Vol 4, No. 9;Sep 2012

THEORITICAL MODEL FOR

DEVELOPING E-COURSE MATERIAL
Hameed Ullah Khan1 (Corresponding author), Diab Mahmoud Diab2, Abdullah M. Al-Faifi2
1
Department of Information Systems, 2Department of Computer Science
College of Computer and Information Sciences
King Saud University,
P.O. Box-51178, Riyadh-11543,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Tel: 00-966-1-46-95234
E-mail: hkhan@ksu.edu.sa, diabmah@gmail.com, abdullah_ah50@yahoo.com

This research is sponsored by the Research Centre (RC), College of Computer and Information Sciences
(CCIS). We are grateful for extending us all categories of support and continuous assistance during this period.

Abstract
The growth of information communication technology has brought newer opportunities and methodologies in
many fields including educational representation in e-learning. One of the major challenges in e-Learning is to
design an efficient model for creating e-course materials. This paper proposes a comprehensive and efficient
model for developing e-courses which is based on modifying one of the most classical models for designing
traditional course material. This model gives an optimal strategy for enhancing e-content process development
and minimizes the effort of most of the Instructors for designing e-content material.

Keywords: Learning Management System, Virtual Classroom Systems, Interactive whiteboards

1. Introduction
The rapid development in ICT (information communication technology) and the invention of new hardware for
text and image processing has a large influence on education and training. Universities and educational
institutions are assumed to follow, adapt and use the e-learning technology trends dynamically.
In order to understand e-learning it is essential to avoid certain confusions. Different educational researchers and
the instructors gave different definition of e-learning.

According to Bank of America Security defines e-Learning as the convergence of learning and the Internet,
where as Elliott Masie, The Masie Center defines e-learning as the use of network technology to design, deliver,
select, administer, and extend learning. Other researchers Robert Peterson, Piper Jaffray define e-learning
companies as those that leverage various Internet and Web technologies to create, enable, deliver, and/or
facilitate lifelong learning. As per Cisco Systems, e-learning is Internet enabled learning. Components can
include content delivery in multiple formats, management of the learning experience and networked community
of learners, content developers and experts [1].

In general, it is noticed that all of the definitions for e-learning converge on a single module that e-
learning uses dedicated technological innovations and methodological reconsiderations for improving the
learning quality. There are many advantages of e-learning over traditional learning; for example through an e-
learning system the e-learner does not need to keep up with the pace of the instructor as the speed of
understanding varies from individual to individual. It is also known as “self paced in e-learning”. In addition, e-

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learners can have training sessions from any location and at anytime (364/24/7). This will help e-learners not
only to save valuable time and cost but also encourages them to take responsibility and control over their
learning process. Furthermore, the e-learner can interact and adjust with learning materials. It can for improve
their understanding, so that potential of individual will increase as they develop further skills rather than
depending on the previously learned skills [2].

E-learning system not only benefits the learner but also the instructor is beneficiary. Instructor can communicate
with other instructors and students remotely via e-Forum, chatting, give instructions, make updates, marking
assignments and exams and many other things any time anywhere (364/24/7). The material also itself will be
more consistent, rich and could be supported with other valuable resources including review, questions and
summaries. All of these transactions would be under the supervision of the course coordinator. The convenience
in monitoring the e-learning traffic will reflect on the quality of learning. This could be done by using printed
readymade statistical reports. In the process of e-learning modes, there are three main modes for e-learning to
deliver information as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Three modes of e-learning

E-learning has three parts asynchronous, synchronous and blended. In Figure 1, the asynchronous learning is
self-paced which occurs at different times as determined by the learner. Self-managing learning events is how
the learners prefer to learn and it is considered as an important factor for making e-course more available. The
essential communication between the instructor and student is still being preserved in a self-paced, through
email, threaded discussion, phone and video. In case of synchronous learning events, these are events in which
instructor and student interact together at the same time in a live event with the availability of several
interaction mediums including one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many. In the third case blended learning, it
is a hybrid approach from the above two modes, and it takes advantage from their features. Some of e-learning
activities depend on synchronous and others on asynchronous [3].

All the three types of e-learning and designing e-course material were major challenges required standardization
was the requirement. The proven models were thirty years in service for design a traditional course material.
The proposed models are based on the previous experiences with modifications to make it suitable for internet
environment leading to modern approach for designing e-course material.

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The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the background study and motivation in detail.
In section 3, the e-learning technologies & systems are explained. In section 4, proposed models and
conclusion is given in section 5.

2. Background Study and Motivation

Although the use of e-learning is increasing but many e-content developers are using the same models to design
and develop traditional courses to create e-learning course material. As stated by Honey that, “Too often e-
learning simply regurgitates pages of text pulled from books and classroom courses. E-learning more often than
not amounts to e-reading”. Similarly stated by Munro that, “The final product is a copy of traditional content on
the Internet without the instructor”. There is a significant difference between on-line learning and traditional
classroom learning and most educators and researchers agree on this. As a result of this the designing of a new
and separate model for developing e-learning course material is urgently needed than for traditional classroom
material [1, 3].

The importance of using models in course material design lies on giving educators a map or guideline from
which to develop course material or instruction for use in their field. The educator can follow a process to
produce complete course material for their students on a consistent basis. Gustafson mentioned that, “An
instructional development model should contain enough detail to establish guidelines for managing people,
places, and things that will interact together, and to estimate the resources required to complete a project” [4].

There are a huge number of models available for developing an ordinary course material; these models are
specialized to fit any given situation. They are classified into three groups; Classroom Orientation, Product
Orientation and System Orientation as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Types of classical models for designing a traditional content

Comparison Item Classroom Orientation Product Orientation System Orientation
Approach Holistic Systematic Systemic and Systematic
Required Skills Low Medium to High Low, Medium, or High
Aim Improve a piece of content Improve efficiency of Production. Create an instructional
system
Output A few hours of instruction An instructional package Course or curriculum
Front end Analysis Minimum Moderate Extensive
Formative evaluation Moderate Moderate Extensive throughout
Product Management Focus Strong Strong Strong
Learner focus Strong Moderate Moderate
Usage In some business and industrial For larger amounts of material or At the administrative level
applications at the administrative level in during planning and
developing course content for a implementation stages of a
class or department new program or the retooling
of existing programs
Examples • Gerlach and Ely Model • Van Patten Model • The IDI (Instructional
• Kemp, Morrison, and • Leshin, Pollock, Development Institute)
Ross Model And Reigeluth Model
• Heinich, Molenda, Model • The IPISD (Interservices
Russell, and Smaldino • Bergman and Procedures of
Model Moore Model Instructional
• Reiser and Dick Model • Seels and Glasgow Systems Development)
model Model
• The Diamond Model
• The Smith and Ragan
Model
• Dick and Garey Model

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Many current electronic courses present the content material in textbook style or asking questions about the
content, and provide feedback to the learner [5, 6]. Interaction between the learner and the interface is crucial in
an e-learning environment. A model for designing e-content should include all four levels of interaction of the
learner as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Learner Interaction Levels

Figure 2 not deals with all types of interactions; it focuses on interaction in which the learner is a part, so there
is a need for modifying this model to be more generic. It reflects the instructor-instructor interaction, Content-
Content interaction, and the other important interactions [8 - 10].

3. E-learning technologies & systems

These technologies are currently available: either under development as opens source software, commercially
and stand-alone systems which could be integrated together to maximize the efficiency and consistency of one
another. These systems could be categorized into eight categories mentioned below [7, 11-15].

3.1 Learning management systems (LMS)

It is a requirement to use an information system or Web-based technology used to plan, implement, and assess a
specific learning process. Typically, LMS provides an instructor with a way to create and deliver content,
monitor student participation, and assess student performance. LMS may also provide students with the ability
to use interactive features such as threaded discussions, video conferencing, and discussion forums.

3.2 Online testing and e-assessments systems

Online testing and e-assessment systems are used for information technology of any assessment-related activity.
They describe the use of computers within the assessment process. E-assessment comprises two components: an
assessment engine and a questions bank. In order to create a mechanism for the sharing of high quality
assessment items, the global standard has emerged. The LMS Question and Test Interoperability specification
(QTI) provides a common format for describing and distributing question items across disparate systems.

3.3 Virtual classroom systems

This creates a learning environment in the virtual space, where teacher and student are separated by time or
space, or both. The teacher provides course content through the use of methods such as course management

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applications, multimedia resources, the internet, and video conferencing. Students receive the content and
communicate with the teacher via the same technologies.

3.4 Content authoring tools

An authoring tool is a software package which is used by developers to create and package content delivery to
end users and these are commonly used to create e-learning modules. Modules are written according to
international standard, such as, Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) or Aviation Industry
computer-based training Committee (AICC (CBT)). SCORM was created by The Advanced Distance Learning
group and sponsored by the United States Department of Defense.

3.5 Learning content management system (LCMS)

LCMS is software which helps developers, authors, instructional designers, and subject matter experts to create
and re-use e-learning content and reduce duplicated development efforts. The e-course developers convert the
course material into a collection of learning objects which includes content items, practice items, and
assessment items which are combined based on a single learning objective. These learning objects are stored in
a type of digital library enabling the educators to share, manage and use educational resources. This library is
called learning object repository.

3.6 Interactive whiteboards

In this approach a large interactive display that connects a computer to a projector. A projector projects the
desktop of the computer on the surface of board where users control the computer using a pen, finger, stylus, or
other device. The board is typically mounted to a wall or floor stand.

3.7 Student response systems

Student response system is interaction associated with the student response, to create interactivity between a
tutor and his/her students. Systems are combined with wireless hardware with presentation software and
telephones or web polls for remote students watching through television or through the Internet respectively.

3.8 Class room capture and delivery systems

A system ensures that each class recording is available for the right student every time by automating the entire
process of capturing, indexing, and storing lectures.

4. Proposed Models
Proposed models were based on two steps: the first is considering the previous, uncounted interactions which
are important in e-environment then build a new full learning interactions model which reflects all the possible
interactions needed in full interactive e-environment. The second is to study the above described classical
models and select the most consistent and proven model which could be appropriate for dealing with e-content
development material with some modifications.

4.1 Proposed Model-I

The first proposed model is referring to the model given in Figure 2. The proposed model is based on the

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potential power and efficiency of using interactive e-environments in education for the compensations of
interactions between four components of the education process as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Proposed Model-1, fully learning interaction

Figure 3 illustrates all the possible interactions between the components of the learning process which should be
taken into consideration for e-learning. This new learning interaction should be totally implemented in any
model intended to adapt the e-learning courses material. There could be a dependency between the contents of
many courses for example; a pre-request material is needed from the advanced courses but the relation between
these materials should be expressed in the model. In case of learner to learner and instructor to instructor
interactions, this could enrich the learning process and should be implemented in any proposed model; such
interactions could be implemented via forums, discussion threads, chatting, and many other ways. Some courses
need special type of software or hardware for example, in a surgical course there is a need for a special type of
interactions between the artificial simulation and the learning management system.

4.2 Proposed Model-II

The second proposed model is based on the Dick & Carey model in which four reasons are considered; the first
is goal-directed in which all the components in the system work together toward a defined goal. The second one
is interdependencies in which all the components in the system depend on each other for input and output.
Thirdly the feedback mechanism in which the entire system uses feedback to determine whether the goal is met
and fourthly self-regulating in which the system modified until the desired goal is reached.

Figure 4: Dick and Carey model

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Figure 4 presents the proposed model which is a procedural system including ten major process components
(nine basic steps in an iterative cycle and a culminating evaluation of the effectiveness of the course content
material) [11].

In second proposed model, e-course content model (ECM) as shown in Figure 5, has two different paths one for
successful e-course material design and the other is for unsuccessful one. In the proposed model, the first three
steps are the same as in Dick and Carey model but the difference began after building the course strategy. At
this step the course strategy is needed to be tested according to the new fully connected interactions graph
which will be used in e-learning environment. If the test result is successful then course strategy goes smoothly
to the following steps as the same as in Dick and Carey model.

Figure 5: Proposed model-II, for designing e-course material

In figure 5, the problem starts when the course strategy fails in the e-learning adoptability test, for the solution
two identical copies of feedback should be sent to know the reason of failure. One to the e-learning researchers,
who are in contact with the e-learning up-to-date solutions and e-learning researches database, since they need
the feedback for future treatments to solve such cases if these occur in the future. A second copy of the
feedback is sent to course strategy revision procedure. This revision is active, if small changes are needed to the
strategy in-order to be accepted by the e-content adoptability test.

The most important part in this model is the e-learning adoptability test which is dependent on the new fully
connected interactions graph as shown in Figure 6.

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Figure 6: Proposed model for e-learning adoptability test

X {learning process components}= {{learner},{instructor},{content},{interface}}

Figure 6 represents the decision making part as shown in Figure 5. This model of e-learning adoptability test
has been designed by combining Figures 1 and 4 to define levels and types of e-learning. Each of these e-
learning types should have a specification related to the four levels of interactions. Some of these types may not
deal with instructor-X interaction or any other type of interaction as it depends on the type and on the desired
level of e-learning. Activation or deactivation of X component-interaction in adoptability test is needed as a pre
requisite step before designing the adoptability test. Using activation/deactivation feature of this model gives
the designer flexibility from designing totally fully online courses (i.e. all the X component-interactions are
activated) in adoptability test to traditional offline course (i.e. all the X component-interactions are deactivated).
This makes the model comprehensive for designing courses whether they are online or offline.

According to the desired level of interactions (type of learning), this model could be used for one learning
process component each cycle and repeated with different learning process component according to the desired
specification. It should be mentioned here that the course strategy contain the entire component and the desired
type of learning. For a fully online course, each component should be tested in the four types X component-
interactions. It could be in a sequential or in a parallel manner and each time the model should change X by a
different learning process component which included in the course strategy
X {learning process components from the course strategy} è
test it according to the four bidirectional interactions
={learneróx},{instructoróx},{contentóx},{interfaceóx}}
either in a sequential or parallel manner it depends on how fast is processing.
: means belong to

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If the course strategy designer prefers traditional face to face material, than all four interactions should be
deactivated, if not all then at least some of them could be adjusted alternatively. Here it is necessary to classify
the level and the direction of interaction in the process of developing course strategy. Mainly in traditional Face
to Face course design the focus is on learner-based interactions, where the learner is the only fixed part of the
interaction and the other part could be any of the four items (i.e. instructor, content, interface, and learner).

As mentioned earlier if the model faces any failure then two identical copies of feedback should be sent, one to
the course strategy and the whole course strategy should be reviewed to cope with this failure, the second one
should be sent to the researchers to be treated as we explained previously.

5. Conclusions
E-learning is dynamic in both equipment and software. Educators must be prepared to utilize these innovations
to train students efficiently and reach them anywhere at any time. The models presented here are a combination
of several ideas which are considered as a comprehensive solution that deals with all type of learning from
traditional to fully on-line. The model needs to be practically adopted, so that its efficiency and reliability will
be proved by its performance.

Future work
The model needs to be tested and further research should be performed to check the efficiency. This model
should be proven to cope with the different degrees of e-learning; also the X-Component-X-Component test
should be improved and formalized depending on standard forms like SCORM, or AICC. A lot of focus and
study should be on the items which should be included in the course strategy and propose general
standardization for this step.

Acknowledgement
I am grateful to the Research Centre (RC), College of Computer and Information Sciences (CCIS), for
extending me all categories of support and continuous assistance during this research work. I am thankful to all
those who contributed in any form to make this research successful. Thanks are also due to the Dean CCIS and
the Chairman Information Systems Department, for their continuous support and time to time encouragement.

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