Enforcing reuse and customization in the development of learning objects: a product line approach

The growing use of information technologies in the educational cycles has raised new requirements for the development of Interactive Learning Materials in terms of content reuse, customization, and ease of creation and efficiency of production. In practical terms, the goal is the development of tools for creating reusable, granular, durable, and interoperable learning objects, and to compose such objects into meaningful courseware pieces. Current learning object development tools require special technical skills in the instructors to exploit reuse and customization features, leading sometimes to unsatisfactory user experiences. In this paper, we explore a new way to reuse and customization following Product Line Engineering principles and tools. We have applied product line-based document engineering tools to create the so-called Learning Object Authoring Tool (LOAT), which supports the development of learning materials following the Cisco's Reusable Information Object strategy. We describe the principles behind LOAT, outline its design, and give clues about how it may be used by instructors to create learning objects in their own disciplines.