UserPage:pennygardner

1. Project Title:
Learning Objects: creating a repository for teaching and learning in accounting

2. Rationale and Scope of Project
I work at Napier University, Edinburgh Scotland UK as a Senior Lecturer in Accounting in the School of Accounting, Economics and Statistics. We use WebCT extensively in module (course) delivery, yet each member of staff works independently, developing materials for teaching and learning. Although we all co-operate and share materials when needed, there is no mechanism for doing this, nor is there any formalised way of celebrating our achievements and ‘best practice’.

When I started working at Napier in 1987 we had paper-based banks of questions and answers in every staff room. As a new member of staff, this was a tremendous resource which continued to be useful for many years. This proposal aims to investigate the feasibility of setting up an electronic equivalent: a resource bank / repository for accounting teaching and learning. It could include interactive examples, quizzes, lecture notes, weblinks, articles etc. These will all be in the area of learning and formative assessment, since our final assessment instruments are tightly controlled by professional accreditation requirements – however accounting is very much a ‘learning by doing’ subject and all will hopefully contribute to our students’ eventual success.

Within the parameters of this project, I envisage the creation of the ‘container’ – the environment in which the material would be collected, discussed and evaluated and some sample ‘contents’ – learning objects in the field of financial accounting / financial reporting (my specialism). I would aim to have a ‘pilot’ version ready for testing within the time available.

As a follow on from this project, different staff members could contribute to it and material could be used for lectures, WebCT, putting together distance learning packs etc. Eventually I would like to see it become a model for other areas and subject disciplines.

I have spoken to colleagues in the School and staff in our Educational Development Unit and all have indicated their support of this project. It will be linked to the TESEP project (JISC, 2005) and exemplary learning objects may be showcased later through the UK national online repository (Jorum, 2007).

3. Project Questions / Goals / Objectives
3.1 Overall Aim:
• To produce a pilot version of a repository for teaching and learning in accounting.

3.2 Objectives to Achieve the Aim:
• To investigate theories of collaborative environments / repositories and learning objects;
• To investigate various collaborative environments / repositories and assess their suitability;
• To investigate the learning objects currently available in accounting;
• To identify the most appropriate environment for the purpose and create one for the project;
• To create learning objects in financial accounting / financial reporting;
• To lodge sample learning objects ready for evaluation and testing.

3.3 Future Objectives outwith the Scope of this Project
• To invite colleagues to test and evaluate the environment;
• To invite colleagues to contribute to the repository;
• To submit exemplary learning objects to Jorum;
• To present a paper at a staff conference on the project;
• To encourage other Schools and disciplines to develop repositories.

4. Intended Outcomes
The submission will be in the form of a website and a formal report.

5. Preliminary Literature Review
5.1 Repositories – Theories
There are many web-based options for repositories, including wikis, learning management systems and shared workspace. Stephen Downes (Downes, 2002b) and (Downes, 2006), discusses many aspects of learning repositories including wrappers, learning management systems, libraries and networks. Both Stephen Downes and Curt Bonk (Bonk, 2006) link this topic to opensource materials and open courseware in general, and are strongly in favour of freely sharing information. The benefits of the open source movement to education appear to be generally accepted in the community (Online Education Database, 2007). For example, a university approach to managing resources at Brigham Young University (South & Monson, 2002) suggests strategies and tactics, and structured guidelines are proposed for setting up Learning Object repositories at Strathclyde University (Margaryan, Milligan & Douglas, 2007).

At Napier University we have the WebCT portfolio tool, a shared drive for School staff on the main computer and the opportunity of webspace for a variety of online environments such as wikis: existing and potential technologies will be explored.

5.2 Learning Objects - Theories
A preliminary search of the literature revealed a wealth of opinion on learning objects. BECTA (the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency) defines learning objects as: “an item of content directed towards a particular learning outcome” (BECTA, 2007). Stephen Downes states that learning objects should be “shareable, digital, modular, interoperable and discoverable” (Downes, 2002a)

A number of papers in the online publication The Instructional Use of Learning Objects (Wiley, 2002b) cover the following issues:
• Learning objects in a constructivist context (Wiley, 2002a), the nature and origin of instructional objects (Gibbons, Nelson & Richards, 2002), learning object systems as constructivist environments (Bannan-Ritland, Dabbagh & Murphy, 2002), designing resource-based learning (Hannafin, Hill & McCarthy, 2002) and learning objects to support inquiry-based online learning (Orrill, 2002).
• Learning objects and people: Designing learning objects to mass customize and personalize learning (Martinez, 2002) and the evaluation of learning objects and instruction using learning objects (Williams, 2002).
• Learning objects and the future: Collaboratively filtering learning objects (Recker, Walker & Wiley, 2002) and the future of learning objects (Hodgins, 2002).

An EDCAUSE presentation on learning objects (McGee, Wager & Kolitsky, 2003) discussed the potential of learning objects to support deeper learning. In ‘a rose by any other name’ the problems of searching and retrieving learning objects and their possible demise was mooted: “the question of whether educators are willing to change their age-old teaching practice and to develop, use and share knowledge in the form of learning objects still begs to be answered” (Metros, 2005)

5.3 Repositories and Learning Objects – Specific
There are a few papers on the use of repositories in an accounting context: for example ‘Student perceptions of e-learning in accounting’ (Concannon, Flynn & Campbell, 2005), ‘Transformation of a face to face tax course to an online course’ (Dunbar, 2004) and ‘Flexible e-learning through learning objects in a modular scheme’ (Lasseter & Rogers, 2004).

An extensive search for online accounting material reveals that most of the freely available material is at a very low level and generally poor quality. Nothing was found on UK advanced accounting suitable for degree year 2 and up.
Sites providing lists of web links were Ferl (Ferl First, 2007) and WannaLearn (WannaLearn.com, 2007). Sites with a limited amount of learning materials online were Biz/ed (Biz/ed, 2007), OpenLearn (Open University, 2007) and a book’s companion website (Pearson Education, 2007).

A recent development in the UK is the establishment of the collaborative repository scheme Jorum (Jorum, 2007) as explained in the leaflet ‘Give and take with Jorum’ (Davey, 2005). This ‘community for sharing’ is in the very early stages and has no accounting materials yet. Maybe we can become a contributor in the future.

6. Method & Approaches
The learning repository (the container) will be created as a website. Sample learning objects (the contents) will be created and / or adapted to provide a
range of examples appropriate to the subject area and level (university degree level years 1 – 3).

Word Count: Approximately 1,000 excluding references

7. Proposed Timeline (weeks)
It is expected that there will be some overlap between these activities:
1 & 2: Arranging a suitable supervisor and preliminary searches.
3 & 4: Further reading and preparing project proposal.
5 & 6: Completing literature review.
7 & 8: Starting repository design
9 & 10: Designing / adapting learning objects.
11 & 12: Completing repository and sample learning objects.
13 & 14: Preparing report.

8. References
Bannan-Ritland, B., Dabbagh, N. & Murphy, K. 2002, 'Learning object systems as constructivist learning environments: Related assumptions, theories, and applications', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

BECTA 2007, Glossary of Terms, viewed 24 March 2007, available at: http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/display.cfm?section=21&id=5061.

Biz/ed 2007, Welcome to Biz/ed, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://www.bized.co.uk/index.htm.

Bonk, C. J. 2006, OOPS, Did You Mean to Share That? Opensource, Opencourseware, and the Learning Objects of Tomorrow, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://www.trainingshare.com/pdfs/SFX5326.pdf.

Concannon, F., Flynn, A. & Campbell, M. 2005, 'What campus-based students think about the quality and benefits of e-learning', British Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 501-512.

Davey, P. 2005, Give and take with Jorum, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://www.jorum.ac.uk/docs/pdf/JORUM_from_Inform.pdf.

Downes, S. 2002a, The Learning Object Economy, National Research Council Canada, NAWeb, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/the-learning-object-economy/.

Downes, S. 2002b, Towards a Distributed Learning Object Repository Network, viewed 24 March 2007, available at: http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/toward-a-distributed-learning-object-repository-network.

Downes, S. 2006, Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=33401.

Dunbar, A. E. 2004, 'Genesis of an Online Course', Issues in Accounting Education, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 321-343.
Ferl First 2007, Teaching and Learning Resource Bank, Ferl / BECTA, viewed 24 March 2007, available at: http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?page=628&catID=107.

Gibbons, A. S., Nelson, J. & Richards, R. 2002, 'The nature and origin of instructional objects', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Hannafin, M. J., Hill, J. R. & McCarthy, J. E. 2002, 'Designing resource-based learning and performance support systems', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Hodgins, H. W. 2002, 'The future of learning objects', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

JISC 2005, TESEP:Transforming and enhancing the student experience through Pedagogy, Joint Information Systems Committee, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_sfc/sfc_tsep.aspx.

Jorum 2007, What is Jorum?, viewed 24 March 2007, available at: http://www.jorum.ac.uk.

Lasseter, M. & Rogers, M. 2004, 'Creating Flexible E-Learning Through the Use of Learning Objects', Educause Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 4.

Margaryan, A., Milligan, C. & Douglas, P. 2007, Structured guidelines for setting up Learning Object Repositories, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/DraftStructuredGuidelines.pdf.

Martinez, M. 2002, 'Designing learning objects to mass customize and personalize learning', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

McGee, P., Wager, E. & Kolitsky, M. 2003, Keeping the Learning in Learning Objects, Educause Live, viewed 24 March 2007, available at: http://www.educause.edu/KeepingtheLearninginLearningObjects/2853.

Metros, S. E. 2005, 'Learning Objects: A Rose by Any Other Name . . .' EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 12-13.

Online Education Database 2007, How the Open Source Movement Has Changed Education: 10 Success Stories, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://oedb.org/library/features/how-the-open-source-movement-has-changed-education-10-success-stories.

Open University 2007, Introduction to the context of accounting - Learning Space B680_1, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1589.

Orrill, C. H. 2002, 'Learning objects to support inquiry-based online learning', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Pearson Education 2007, Student Resources - Financial Accounting and Reporting Companion Website, viewed 24 March 2007, available at: http://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/ema_uk_he_elliott_finacc_11.

Recker, M. M., Walker, A. & Wiley, D. A. 2002, 'Collaboratively filtering learning objects', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

South, J. B. & Monson, D. W. 2002, 'A university-wide system for creating, capturing, and delivering learning objects', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

WannaLearn.com 2007, Business and Careers: Accounting, viewed 25 March 2007, available at: http://www.wannalearn.com/Business_and_Careers/Accounting/.

Wiley, D. A. 2002a, 'Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Wiley, D. A. 2002b, The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, Agency for Instructional Technology and Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 2007, available at: http://www.reusability.org/read/.

Williams, D. D. 2002, 'Evaluation of learning objects and instruction using learning objects', in The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, ed. D. A. Wiley, Association for Instructional Technology and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology,