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MyPlan – Personal Planning for Learning throughout Life

http://www.lkl.ac.uk/research/myplan

Alex PoulovassilisSchool of Computer Science and

Information Systems, Birbeck; andLondon Knowledge Lab

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MyPlan Background

• MyPlan is developing, deploying and evaluating new techniques and tools that allow personalised planning of lifelong learning

• It is funded by the JISC e-Learning Capital programme, 1/9/2006 – 30/11/2008

• It is building on and extending the earlier L4All project and software prototype, funded by the JISC Distributed e-Learning Pilots programme

• The MyPlan project partners are: Birkbeck, Institute of Education, Community College Hackney, UCAS, Linking London Lifelong Learning Network

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L4All Project Aims

• Support lifelong learners in London• Provide access to information facilitating

progression to FE/HE• Planning of future learning• Share experiences with peers• Reflect on learning throughout life

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L4All Project Partners

• Birkbeck College• Institute of Education• London School of Economics• Community College Hackney• Advisors: John Cook (LMU), Gareth Dent (UfI),

Graeme Atherton (Aim Higher), Paul Welch (Prospects), Jill Johnson (UCAS), Suzanne Overton-Edwards (City Westminster College), Stuart Swann (Greenwich Learning Centre), Richard Rayne (BBK), Sarah Vaughn (BBK), Sue Jackson (BBK)

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Motivation for L4All

• Widening participation in HE• LLL important due to high-skills needs of the

knowledge economy• Holistic view needed of individuals’ life, work

and learning experiences• Importance of timely, relevant careers

guidance and support

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L4All Approach

• Taking a holistic view of lifelong learners’ work and learning

• Based on the notion of learning pathways• Sharing learning pathways with others:

– identifying learning opportunities that may not otherwise have been considered

– positioning successful learners “like me” as role models

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L4All Methodology

• User requirements elicitation, via interviews with HE and FE students, focus groups (educators, recruitment & careers specialists), workshop events, consultation with advisors: – use cases– examples of learning pathways– identification of critical decision points

• Technical requirements elicitation:– development of tools and standards– use of existing e-services where possible

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L4All Methodology (cont’d)

• Functional Specification• Development of pilot version 1• Metadata provision and generation• First evaluation phase• Development of pilot version 2• Second evaluation phase

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Service Scope

DELTA (Essex) searching over the RDF metadata resources

ISIS (Hull) providing sequencing over a set of lifelong learning activities

LearnDirect searching and retrieving content from the LearnDirect database of courses

Existing services integrated into L4All

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Timeline Creation and Search in L4All

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For more details please see L4All project deliverables

Tomcat 5.0.28

Course Metadata

DELTA Search Service

Java Beans

User MetadataISIS Sequencing Service

LearnDirect Search ServiceWeb Services

Portal

Flash applicationRegistration

Pages

L4All architecture

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Java B

eans

User Search

Timeline ManagerLearnDirect

WebService Interface

Course Search

User Profile Manager

Timeline Search

CourseRecommender

User Authentication

Course Manager

MySQLdatabase

L4All S

yste

m S

erv

ices

Jena2

RDF Repository Manager

searchTimelines

searchCourses

authenticateUser

getRecommendations

getCourseDetails

searchUsers

L4All U

ser

Inte

rface

HTML/JSP pagesFlash Client

LearnDirectWebService

createTimeline

removeEpisode

editEpisode

getTimelineDetails

addNewEpisode

getUserDetails

createUser

manageUserProfile

RuleBase

DELTASearch API

ISIS API

L4All service-oriented architecture

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MyPlan Aims• MyPlan has three major aims:

– To develop and evaluate user models that reflect the needs of the diverse population of lifelong learners

– To enhance individual learners’ engagement with the lifelong learning process by developing, deploying and evaluating personalised functionalities for searching and recommendation of learning pathways and management of their personal record of progress and attainment

– To allow learners to role-play different learning and career progressions in order to give better understanding of the possible implications and consequences of different career decisions and educational choices, by integrating a game-based application into MyPlan

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MyPlan Main Work-packages

• WP2: Development of User Models and an Ontology for Lifelong Learning

• WP3: Specification of personalised functionalities for planning of lifelong learning

• WP4: Development and deployment of the personalised functionalities (in L4N, CCH and within the UCAS web portal)

• WP5: Evaluation with stakeholders (L4N, CCH, UCAS, IoE, BBK)

• WP6: Development of the Game Application

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Periods of Work & Deliverables

• WP2 Sept 2006 – August 2008: – D2.1 Preliminary report on the User Models

and Ontology, at Month 12 (Aug 2007)– D2.2 Final report on the User Modelling

Ontology and on user data for personalisation, at Month 24 (Aug 2008)

• WP3 Sept 2006 – March 2007 – D3.1 The Specification, at Month 7 (March

2007)

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Phases of Work & Deliverables

• WP4 April 2007 – May 2008– D4.1 Report on the development of version

1, at Month 12 (Aug 2007)– Deployment within the L4N and UCAS portal

(Sept – Nov 2007)– D4.2 Report on the integration with the

UCAS web portal, at Month 15 (Nov 2007)– D4.3 Report on the development of version

2, following user feedback and early evaluation outcomes, at Month 21 (May 08)

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Phases of Work & Deliverables

• WP5 Sept 2007 – October 2008– D5.1 Preliminary evaluation report, at Month

20 (April 2008)– D5.2 Final evaluation report, at Month 25

(September 2008) • WP6 Dec 2007– May 2008

– D6.1 Report on the specification and development of the Game Application, at month 21 (May 2008).

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Summary

• MyPlan aims to: – provide a personal space for lifelong learners– offer learners personalised features allowing control

over their learning pathways, reflection on where their learning is taking them, and a holistic view of their learning and career pathway throughout life

– facilitate community building and information sharing with other individuals and organisations

– a personal space for lifelong learners such as this contrasts with other learning environments which focus on learning at a single institution