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A LOM Research Agenda
Erik Duval
Dept. Computerwetenschappen, K.U.Leuven
Celestijnenlaan 200A
B›3001 Leuven, Belgium
erik.duval@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Wayne Hodgins
Autodesk Inc. & Learnativity
258 Eucalyptus Rd.
Petaluma, CA 94952, USA
wayne.hodgins@autodesk.com,
wayne@learnativity.com
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a research agenda on Learning Objects. The
main intent is to elaborate on what the authors consider important
issues for research on learning objects and their use in education
and training. The paper focuses somewhat on metadata related is-
sues, but does not restrict itself to only those aspects that have a
direct relationship with metadata.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
K.3 [Computing Milieux]: Computers and Education; H.3.5 [In-
formation Storage and Retrieval]: On-Line Information Systems
Web-based services; H.4.m [Information Systems]: Miscellaneous
General Terms
learning objects
Keywords
metadata, learning, training, education, knowledge management,
eLearning, library and information science, information manage-
ment, content management, adaptive hypermedia, learning technol-
ogy standardization
1. INTRODUCTION
In a very general sense, it has repeatedly been observed [13] that
the actual impact of ICT on education and training is rather limited.
As an illustration, the Grand Challenges conference in 2002 iden-
ti ed A Teacher for every Learner: Scaleable Learner-Cemtered
Education as one of the grand research challenges in computer
science. The panel envisioned building the technological infras-
tructure to support dynamic, ad-hoc communities of lifelong learn-
ers who interact within an environment of learning objects through
a creative blend of advanced computing technologies, high perfor-
mance networks, authoring and collaboration tools ’ [28]. It was
estimated that a Manhattan project approach, with sustained ma-
jor funding over a decade or longer, would be needed to nally
realize this long standing dream.
Since recent years, much of the research in this area has focused
on the notion of reusable multimedia content components, referred
to as learning objects . The driving force stems from the notion
that reuse of such components can lead to important savings in time
∗To appear in WWW2003 - Twelfth International World Wide Web
Conference, 20-24 May 2003, Budapest, Hungary
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
WWW2003, May 20 24, 2003, Budapest, Hungary.
ISBN 963›311›355›5.
and money, and enhance the quality of digital learning experiences:
the end result would be faster, cheaper and better learning.
In fact, different kinds of reuse can be distinguished:
• multiple output/distribution formats, media, outputs;
• multiple purposes (training, performance support, documen-
tation, marketing, sales);
• multiple delivery;
• multiple disciplines or market segments.
A somewhat more speci c term is repurposing, which can be
thought of as the ability to use, without any (signi cant) changes,
the same piece of content for a purpose signi cantly different than
that it was originally intended for when created.
Early work in this area included the Educational Object Econ-
omy [21, 4] and Ariadne [15, 1]. Since then, and spurred by
the development of the Learning Object Metadata standard by
the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (IEEE LTSC
LOM), numerous initiatives have been launched in academic and
corporate contexts - though these two worlds remain more isolated
from each other than the authors consider necessary or healthy [20].
This paper tries to identify the main research issues in this area,
grouping related issues together, and indicating the main barriers
for widespread learning object reuse at this moment. As such, this
proposal is part of a long tradition of papers such as [16] and [24].
In the following sections, we rst deal with the notion of Learn-
ing Objects (LO’s) and Learning Object Metadata (or LOM). In
section 4, we deal with authoring aspects of LO’s and LOM. Sec-
tion 5 deals with access to LO’s. In order to enable widespread
re-use, interoperability issues are extremely important. They are
dealt with in section 6. Sections 7.1 and 7.2 deal with issues that
have a high impact on the actual adoption in practice of a LO based
approach: the development of powerful tools and appropriate busi-
ness models.
2. BEYOND DOCUMENTS
2.1 Introduction
There is a widespread tendency to equate LO’s with documents ,
typically represented as a le or a set of les. The authors believe
that it is quite appropriate to consider documents and les as a form
of output and delivery of LO’s. However, it is very restraining to
only think of LO’s in this way. In fact, the more exible and ad-
vanced applications of LO’s go well beyond the simple document
paradigm.
A simple kind of extension is to think of more sophisticated LO’s
than simple, static documents. A simulation, for instance, allows