Collaborative Development of Educational Modules - E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning - page 193

should be conducted in a given academic insti-
tution and the resulting modules can be applied
either as part of an one-semester course, at the
academic institution itself; as a short-course, a
tutorial or an invited talk, in scientific events; or
as a training course, at industrial organizations.
To instantiate SP-DEM we defined, among
others: (1) the human resources and their roles
in the process; (2) the produced and consumed
artifacts; (3) the life cycle model and development
methods and techniques; and (4) the automated
tools and supporting mechanisms for the process.
Regarding the human resources and their
roles in the development process of educational
modules, the following actors were selected
to compose the development team (Barbosa &
Maldonado, 2008b):

◦ Instructional designer: Models the

educational content and designs the
module interface.

◦ Implementer: Implements the mod-

ule, i.e., edits the content, integrates
the media components, verifies and
tests the module.

◦ Operator: Provides operational sup-

port for the users.

◦ Maintainer: Maintains the module.

• Technician: Establishes and manages the

technological and computational resourc-
es used in the project. Provides technical
support to the module development and
delivery.

• Instructor: Establishes the instructional

needs, delivers the module and monitors
its use. Also, can help on verification and
validation activities. • Domain expert: Provides support and

clears doubts related to the establishment
of components and relevant parts of the
educational module. Plays a fundamental
role in content modeling, particularly on
the construction of the conceptual model
and on the determination of the related
knowledge categories. Also, performs the
instructional validation of the module.

Figure 3 illustrates the relationship among
the team members and the main roles assigned
to them. Produced and consumed artifacts are
also illustrated.
As the life cycle model to be adopted through
the projects we chose the ADDIE model (Gagné,
1992; Dick et al, 2001). It is specifically designed
for the development of educational products,
establishing mechanisms for the systematic ap-
plication of practices and principles of instruc-
tional design. For modeling the educational
content, we chose the IMA-CID approach (Bar-
bosa, 2004; Barbosa & Maldonado, 2006a), de-
scribed in the next section.
In terms of technological and computational
resources, tools and mechanisms to automate
and support the instantiated process should be
selected according to the roles they would play
in the context of each specific project. Two basic
categories of tools should be analyzed (Barbosa
& Maldonado, 2006b, Barbosa & Maldonado,
2008b):

• Project manager: Assigns activities, inte-

grates results, specifies the module's meta-
data, and defines the validation mecha-
nisms to be adopted.

• Team coordinator: Coordinates the devel-

opment team, fostering communication
among the team members and the project
manager.

• Version manager: Maintains the different

versions of the module.

• Developer: Develops the educational mod-

ule. Several different roles can be assigned
to him/her:
◦ Analyst: Specifies the module re-

quirements. Also, performs the mod-
ule validation.