Collaborative Development of Educational Modules - E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning - page 203

as the hierarchy of DD-superstates of the Mutant
state. According to this hierarchy, from Mutant we
can reach all OR DD states of MutationAnalysisDe-
tails. To define the full set of states we can reach
from Mutant, the same analysis should be carried
out for all states of the hierarchy of DD-superstates
of MutantGeneral. Notice that we cannot get to the
states AlternativeApproaches and ApproachesClas-
sification from the Mutant state. Indeed, Ap-
proachesGeneral does not pertain to the hierarchy
of DD-superstates of Mutant.
Besides the open specification, either a par-
tially open specification or a close specification
could also be considered in order to define the
didactic model for mutation analysis. In a partially
open specification, while some sequences of
presentation are established in “execution time”,
others are previously defined by the domain expert
and/or the instructor during the development of
the module. Indeed, instead of having just implicit
transitions, the idea is to make some of them be
explicitly represented in the didactic model. On the
other hand, in a close specification all sequences
are predefined, i.e., only one fixed sequence of
presentation is available in the module. In this
case, the transitions are explicitly represented.
Notice that the sequences of presentation de-
rived from partially open specifications and from
close specifications represent subsets of the total
set of sequences established by an open specifi-
cation. As highlighted before, a didactic model
defined in terms of an open specification can be
seen as the basis from which all sequences of
presentation are derived. So, based on the didactic
model of Figure 9, several implementations of
the same content about mutation analysis can be
obtained. Such characteristic is essential to gen-
erate differentiated, personalized content, whose
topics, depth and sequences of presentation are
established according to some particular aspects
(e.g. learners' profiles, instructors' preferences,
course length, pedagogical goals).
The decision on which kind of specification
to use should be based on: (1) the learning ap-

proach to be considered; and (2) the users of the
module. For instance, considering a traditional
learning approach, one strength of using open
specifications would be the flexibility to navigate
through the material according to the feedback
and questions of the audience. Nevertheless, the
instructor would have to make sure to achieve the
objectives of the lessons in order to keep the learn-
ers localized. Indeed, while for less experienced
instructors a close specification seems to be the
better choice, for the most experienced ones an
open specification would be an adequate alterna-
tive too. On the other hand, from the point of view
of a collaborative lifelong learning approach, the
adoption of an open specification would make the
learners “free” to dynamically decide which topics
to navigate, progressing more or less deeply into
them according to their own motivation and needs
for new knowledge. A close specification, in this
case, could narrow the possibilities of exploring
the subject of study, frustrating the students re-
garding their learning expectations.

Evaluating the SoftTest
Educational Module

To provide a preliminary evaluation on the Soft-
Test effectiveness, it was applied as part of a
three-hour short-course on software testing for
a group of about 60 undergraduate students with
previous knowledge of software engineering. We
focused on theoretical aspects of software testing,
providing an introductory perspective on the sub-
ject. Practical aspects were illustrated but, due to
time constraints, there was no direct participation
by the audience on using any of the materials.
The effects of applying SP-DEM and IMA-
CID were informally evaluated by applying a
voluntary survey to the students after they had
finished the course. The survey was composed
by four sections, covering the students' attitude
toward: (1) content, regarding to the concepts,
additional information, examples and exercises
used in the module; (2) usability, in terms of the