Overcoming the presentation mosaic effect of multi-use sharable content objects

Abstract

International standards for eLearning have been under development for more than a decade (Sonwaklar. 2002) but it is only since the advent of large scale deployment of web-based learning and the subsequent adoption of Learning Management Systems (LMS) across education, private enterprise and government that such standards have attracted broad interest. Part of the promise of these standards is that they will reduce the cost of eLearning by enabling the re-use and sharing of content between standards compliant LMS (CETIS, 2002). To facilitate such sharing the separation of content from its presentation is necessary. When content and its presentation are not separable an artefact known as"The Mosaic Effect" occurs when building a course by sequencing Shareable Content Objects (SCOs) from a variety of sources together with those created as part of a new course. SCOs originating from different courses have their own individual "look and feel". As a result, the learner is faced with a series of different presentation styles and interfaces, leading to a learning experience that is interrupted by continual changes in the format of learning content. This paper details a mechanism for SCORM Style-Sheet Support (SCORM-SSS) that has successfully been used to overcome this problem by enabling SCOs to assume the look and feel characteristics of the course or session within which they are located. SCORM-SSS has minimal impact on the courseware development process and enables content presentation and interface design control that can either be specified at a centralised organisational level or devolved to business units or individuals within organisations.