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direct observation, using the thinking aloud
and contextual inquiry techniques, with
task-based scenarios. All these techniques
made up the user evaluation strategy.
•
Auditing
: this phase closes the cycle and
provides reports on the actual use of ser-
vices. During this phase, results from ex-
perts, users' evaluations and automatic
processing of interactions are analyzed to
feed back the life cycle. For the latter, data
mining techniques can be used to extract
the knowledge from the interactions and
analyze and categorize the sequence of ac-
tions followed by learners.
etc. They provide the two sides of the match
needed to address the needs and preferences of
learners. The first one specifies what the learner
prefers and concentrates on the display, control
and selection of learning content, so that learners
with alternative content or interface requirements
can be supported (ISO/IEC 24751-2:2008: Part 2:
“Access for all” personal needs and preferences
for digital delivery). The second labels resources
with metadata using the same terms to facilitate
searches for content with accessibility support
(ISO/IEC 24751-3:2008: Part 3: “Access for all”
digital resource description).
Application in pilot scenarios shows that
implementing in real situations preconceived
design approaches, where adaptation is a required
feature, is perceived as a complex task (Boticario
and Santos, 2007). There exist also some limita-
tions that make not possible to simply follow
the universal design approach. On the one hand,
the information about the user preferences and
needs is not static, neither their learning needs (as
considered by the specifications), but evolve over
time. On the other hand, there are indicators used
to define user preferences that cannot be known
in advance, even by the user herself (such as the
collaboration level) (Anaya & Boticario, 2009),
and these preferences are useful when adapting
content to learner's preferred behaviour.
An approach to cope with the life cycle of ser-
vice provision is to extend the IMS-LD guidelines
to articulate the service description and operation
along the cycle, including the personalization
support. This support can be achieved by syn-
chronizing the properties used to compute the
IMS-LD conditions with the attributes that model
the users. In this way, adaptive and inclusive ser-
vices can be delivered to users in HE institutions
by extending the activities workflow defined by
the IMS-LD specification. Work on this line has
already been carried out (Rodriguez-Ascaso et
al, 2008a), which differentiates the services in
HE institutions into two groups: (i) traditional
learning services (those that can be described by
As commented below, standards and specifi-
cations can be used in the design phase to try to
cover the wide variety of needs. Since it is not
possible to cover everything in advance, dynamic
contextual recommendations can be applied during
the course execution (use phase).
Approaches for Service Provision
Universal design or design for all promotes think-
ing in advance the possible needs of the users to
produce a design that copes with the functional
diversity. It follows existing guidelines (Sloan et
al., 2006), such as the W3C WAI guidelines to
provide accessible contents for all (WAI, 2009)
or workflow-based specifications, such as the
IMS Learning Design (IMS-LD), to describe
different activity sequences considering the dif-
ferent needs for the learners. Other specifications
such as IMS Access For All (IMS-A4A, 2003) or
ISO/ Individualized adaptability and accessibility
in e-learning, education and training (ISO/IEC
24751, 2009) provides a common language for
describing the primary resource for a content and
equivalent alternatives for that resource in a way
that matches a user's stated preferences for the
presentations and controlling of resources. These
preferences include diverse accessibility needs,
such as mobile computing, noisy environments,
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