Design Support for non-expert authors in the creation of units of learning - a first exploration

Diverse approaches have been proposed to model educational resources using design rules into IMS Learning Design units of learning. Although varied, these approaches have found limited practical application by teachers, in today’s e-learning. The tools remains tied to the specification with little to no design support for non-experts in the specification. As a result, today’s IMS LD tools cater to LD experts and serve as reference implementations of the specification rather than supporting the non-experts’ engagement in the design process. Consequently, non-experts in the specification cannot undertake the creation of units of learning and remain outside the fold of the IMS LD community. This paper presents features and characteristics of an IMS LD authoring environment to actualize the active participation of non-expert authors in the design of instruction using IMS LD, by addressing the paucity of support afforded to this group with the application of learning design rules to capture the their knowledge. The paper presents an alternate classification of the approaches used in IMS LD authoring tools to support the engagement of non-experts, and based on the salient features of the approaches proposed, the paper reviews the state-of-the-art in IMS LD tools, exemplifying the paucity of IMS LD tools for non-expert authors.