Final Experience Report

Abstract

In this deliverable experiences on community-related aspects in the ROLE test-beds are summarised. In addition to the ROLE D7.3 (‘Final Model and Methodology for Collaborative Learning Activities’) which aims at analysing learning communities in a quantitative and data-centred way, this deliverable gives an overview of community-related success stories in a qualitative way, i.e. by inspecting the background conditions in the test-beds and describing the community building approach as well as best practices, constraints and success factors identified in each test-bed. The deliverable is structured as follows. Each of the sections is dedicated to one ROLE test-bed, whereby the test-beds are analysed in the following order: (1) FESTO test-bed, (2) SJTU test-bed, (3) BILD test-bed, (4) RWTH Aachen test-bed, and (5) OU test-bed. Each section starts with a brief description of the test-bed, the methodology for the building of learning communities, experiences and conclusions based on the empirical findings, and implications for future work. Specifically, the findings on community building approaches in the test-beds can be summarised as follows: • The FESTO test-bed is an example of building communities of practice through sharing learning videos for company-wide trainings in a large, international organisation. This is a bottom-up process that proved to be a useful approach in this large, transnational organisation. As indicated by the increasing access rates to learning materials and the other positive external feedback (e.g. the Comenius-EduMedia seal of approval award), the LearningTube approach is considered to be a success story. • The SJTU test-bed showcases different kinds of communities of practice, e.g. (external) developers providing PLE-based software artefacts for the users of this test-bed, teachers learning how to apply widget-based PLEs in their courses, and learners using ROLE technologies intensively. Evidence for these three types of stakeholders is presented alongside an analysis with qualitative and quantitative methods. The application of ROLE solution in this test-bed resulted into an improved teacher-developer-learner interaction, as shown in an analysis in the respective section. • In the BILD test-bed an event-driven approach for community building was applied by offering various workshops and demonstrations to the BILD members in order to initiate and sustain different kinds of communities that make use and spread ROLE learning solutions. For instance, the ‘Build a widget’ day specifically addressed developers in order to foster the community uptake of ROLE technology (cf. ROLE D4.5/D7.4, ‘Reference implementation of mash-up personal learning environments to foster the broad community uptake’). • The RWTH Aachen test-bed is a showcase for an approach that enables students to build learning networks for realistic scenarios that go beyond the scope of one specific context, like higher education. As shown with the qualitative analysis of a selected course, this requires a lot of effort and involvement of the various stakeholders (i.e. students, the teacher and experts from industry), as well as interactions with the learning environment to achieve cross-contextual learning activities. • Finally, the OU test-bed has deployed a variety of community-enabling approaches in affecting their communities of practice, e.g. the facilitation of educational processes with many different stakeholders, the creation of courses by reusing learning materials (using Open Educational Resources OER), best practice sharing amongst stakeholders with a common educational identity, the application of ROLE widgets for learning, and the dissemination of results on these activities. By applying various methods, such as delivering face-to-face workshops, availing of dissemination opportunities and also providing tailored seminars, the outcomes of these community-enabling approaches are measurable through success stories, like workshops and presentations at conferences, publications, and the ROLE eBook. While the ROLE D7.3 (‘Final Model and Methodology for Collaborative Learning Activities’) addresses findings from a quantitative analysis of community-related research issues, this deliverable aims at examining analysing community approaches in the ROLE test-beds, thus summarising best practices and highlighting various success stories whilst also reporting some constraints at the same time. It refers to the WP objectives 1, 4 and 5 (cf. ROLE-DoW, p. 58): • Developing a methodology for building and altering networks of actors, artefacts, and activities on the basis of PLEs • Facilitating best practice sharing • Examining characteristics, constraints, and success factors of flexible, dynamically changing, and networked communities This deliverable is an outcome of the WP7 tasks 7.2, 7.4 and 7.5 (cf. ROLE-DoW, p. 59) and it is intended for facilitators of learning communities. Within the ROLE project, this deliverable attempts to fulfil the objectives RO4 and RO5: • RO4: develop and sustain an evaluation methodology to systematically demonstrate the effectiveness of different ROLEs in test-beds focused on the transition of learners • RO5: exploit and disseminate the ROLE results to wider communities and markets The document relates to the deliverables D7.3 (‘Final Model and Methodology for Collaborative Learning Activities’), D4.3 (‘Customized PLE implementations for test-bed scenario validations’), D5.4 (‘Test-bed Evaluation Report’), and D4.5/D7.4 (‘Reference implementation of mash-up personal learning environments to foster the broad community uptake’).