OPAL: outcomes for personal and adaptive learning

Rachel Ellaway1, Patricia Warren2, Catriona Bell3, Phillip Evans2 and Susan Rhind3

1MVM Learning Technology Section, 2Medical Teaching Organisation, 3Veterinary Teaching Organisation, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

OPAL

• University e-Learning Fund Project 2004-2005

• Opportunity to create staff and student focused curriculum maps for medicine and veterinary medicine

• Instantiated inside their respective VLEs

• Divergent practices following curriculum needs

• Based on learning objectives and outcomes

• But really … why do this?

Using the mapStudents

How does X link in with what I will learn later in the course ?

Where did I learn about about X ?

How will learning about X be relevant to

me in practice ?

How do I learn about about

X ?

Where will I learn about about X ?

How will I be assessed about about

X ?

Using the map Teaching Staff

When are the students

taught about X ?

What will students already have

learned about X before coming to my class/rotation ?

Do I need to include X in my classes, or has it been covered

already ?

How does X relate to other topics?

Is X being assessed?

Using the map Curriculum developers

Does the teaching and

assessment of X match up?

How does the teaching of X

match professional competencies?

Where is this particular discipline addressed in

the curriculum?

Is X being taught and assessed too much or too little?

Using the map Quality Assurance Bodies

How is X provided in

the curriculum ?

Where is X provided in

the curriculum ?

Where (and how) is X assessed

in the curriculum ?

How much assessment is there in the curriculum ?

What kinds of

physiology topics are

being taught?

Using the map Prospective Students

How is this course

different to those at

other schools ?

What would they teach me

in this particular course ?

What would I need to do throughout

the course ?How would I

be taught and assessed?

OPAL: process

• Iteratively built system

• Collecting and coding learning objectives:

– Terminal outcomes

– Session instance

– Year and module instance

– Classification - MeSH-based

– Keywords: curriculum, teaching and assessment methods

– Mapping to Scottish Doctors and Tomorrows Doctors

• Many issues encountered …

Coding and Semantics i

• Learning objective statements in many forms:

– Unitary, compound list, bulleted list, hierarchy, prose

– Needed to be unitary - comprehensible as an independent statement

– Many needed to be normalised - restructured and revalidated - in new form

• Dealing with semantic complexity e.g. synonyms: locomotor, bones and joints, rheumatology etc problematic for syntactic systems (computers)

• Medical classification using MeSH:

– US system - US language and spelling

– Subjective trees and hierarchies

– Missing terms - redefined terms - EdMeSH

– When to use tree inheritance

– How to handle resulting glossary

Coding and Semantics ii

• Required vocabularies for:– teaching method (PBL, bedside, self-directed)

– assessment mode (OSCE, portfolio, exam)

– curriculum structures (semester, rotation, attachment)

• Stability of curriculum outcomes (internal for Medics vs external for Vets)

• Versioning between academic sessions

• Relationship to ever more granular curriculum representations

• Ownership and maintenance by teaching staff

Relation to parent systems

• All OPAL management, representation and linking are fully integrated with respective programme’s VLEs

• Anticipated OPAL becoming the VLE’s underlying semantic and ontological underpinning layers (SOULs)

• Follows an object oriented architecture

• Connects with all basic system objects: people, events, resources, information etc

• Cross-connects with emerging subsystems - PPD, logbooks etc

• Cross-mapping opportunities (SDMCG, MEDINE Tuning)

Diverging and converging Practice

• OPAL for medicine and veterinary medicine differs:

– Outcome framework - internal vs external

– Keywording - structured vs unstructured

– Granularity of objectives

– Intra-system connectivity

• And converge:

– Versioning, ownership and unitary statements

– Multiple classifications

– Complexity and extent of process

– Limited ability to carry out - central support staff as curriculum cartographers

Unresolved Issues

• How to move the process to curriculum mainstream (with appropriate resourcing)

• How to get curriculum-wide buy-in and commitment from teaching staff

• How to accommodate the multi-dimensional and semantically complex nature of the task more efficiently - without losing functionality

• Resolving tensions between process and product

• Resolving inherent partialities of curriculum cartographers

• How to represent the OPAL map in many different ways to different users for different purposes

Where next?

• Complete full curriculum LO maps

• Complete system object mapping

• Complete student and staff rendering and representation and tools

• Finesse and speed up process

• Hand over LO ownership to teachers

• Link these maps with other maps elsewhere in a sustainable way …

… points to educational informatics as a discrete discipline and basis for practice

OPAL: outcomes for personal and adaptive learning

Rachel Ellaway1, Patricia Warren2, Catriona Bell3, Phillip Evans2 and Susan Rhind3

1MVM Learning Technology Section, 2Medical Teaching Organisation, 3Veterinary Teaching Organisation, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK