Organizing technology enhanced learning

Abstract

Organizational units like courses have different agendas in technology enhanced learning. They must abide by organizational regulations, obtain sustainable learning results, and limit incurring expenses. Various software systems support educational activities, but cannot observe these rules generally. This article presents a way to integrate concepts of electronic commerce for this purpose. Basic idea is to implement organizational rules with help of involved learning applications. For this purpose, concepts of technology enhanced learning are mapped on established concepts of electronic commerce. A database schema is designed that allows specifying rules and a framework is developed to ensure compliance with them. Finally, a methodology is presented to integrate this framework in various learning applications. Thus, compliance with organizational rules is ensured both within one application and cross-system. Above all, organizational units can test auspicious scenarios by specifying own rules. Already known and established applications can be extended easily and act as a testbed for further studies. Copyright 2006 ACM.