Cloud-based Mash-up Authoring Tools for e-Learning

Ivan Madjarov

Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS LSIS UMR 7296,

Domaine universitaire de Saint Jérôme, Avenue Escadrille Normandie Niemen, 13397, Marseille, France

Keywords: Cloud Computing, Authoring Tools, e-Learning, m-Learning, SaaS, Web Services.

Abstract: The objective of an e-Learning authoring tool is the creation of an accessible and reusable pedagogical

content that is conforms to the existing e-Learning standards. We argue that this objective can be extended

when the learning content is created on a multimodal SaaS authoring and publishing platform with an XML-

based language for content and metadata description to satisfy instructional designers for a responsive inter-

activity coupled with rich and informative substance. This position paper presents a Cloud-services based

solution for building a virtual and personal learning environment that combines a wide range of technology

and tools for learning-content mash-up authoring and diffusion. The proposed service-based framework is

intended to support lifelong learning content creation and to enable mash-up of various learning services

and applications by adapting learning objects on desktop and small handheld devices.

1 INTRODUCTION

The current e-learning applications required large

investments in infrastructure systems and profes-

sional staff to maintain and upgrade systems. It is

envisioned that, in the near future, cloud computing

will have a significant impact on the educational and

learning environment, enabling their own users to

perform their tasks effectively with less cost by

utilizing the available applications offered by the

cloud service providers (Hossain, 2012). Interest in

cloud computing in the e-learning area is growing

due to potential greater cost savings from scalable

architectures and open source products, and the

possibility of higher learning outcomes (Fernández,

2012).

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a cloud service

which provides software functionality through Inter-

net and can help efficiently the management of web-

based applications and pedagogical data in an e-

learning and m-learning context. Recently, more and

more e-learning tools are migrating to the cloud. For

instance, e-learning developers access the content

authoring tools over the Internet via a secure hosted

system without thinking about IT configurations,

software set-ups and licenses. Cloud-based pedagog-

ical content authoring is an e-learning process that is

free from the constraints of typical desktop solutions

and offers many advantages. In this position paper,

we introduce the concept of e-Learning-Software-as-

a-Service for e-learning and m-learning content-

editing, storing, content-adaptation and diffusion.

All aspects of an e-learning or m-learning solution

can be delivered using the Cloud-SaaS model, in-

cluding Learning Course Management Systems

(LCMS), authoring tools, and collaboration tools

like webcasting and white boarding (Basal, 2010).

In this position paper, we present our research in

an ongoing project organized as follows: in Section

2 cloud-based content authoring tools and evaluation

criteria are discussed. Section 3 presents the devel-

oped cloud-based e-learning semantic authoring

suite. Finally, Section 4 ends the paper with conclu-

sion and future work.

2 CLOUD-BASED COURSE

DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

The objective of an e-learning authoring tool is the

creation of an accessible and reusable pedagogical

content that is conforms to the existing e-learning

standards. We argue that this objective can be done

if the learning content is created on a multimodal

SaaS authoring and publishing platform with an

XML-based language for content and metadata de-

scription to satisfy instructional designers for a re-

sponsive interactivity coupled with rich and in-

526

Madjarov I..

Cloud-based Mash-up Authoring Tools for e-Learning.

DOI: 10.5220/0004957105260531

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2014), pages 526-531

ISBN: 978-989-758-020-8

 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

formative substance.

Authoring process is an essential part of learning

process and is supported by a suite of authoring tools

for text, hypertext, graphics, mathematics, chart, and

questionnaire content creation; i.e., Learning Objects

(LOs). The purpose of an LCMS is to define the

learning process by using and reusing created and

existing LOs. This is a design process that includes:

determination of learning objectives; planning how

to assess learner comprehension, and identifying

content needed so the learner can meet objectives.

We advocate for an approach where the learning

process and the creation process are managed sepa-

rately and independently of each other, i.e.: (1) a

LOs authoring process managed by a suite of author-

ing tools; (2) a pedagogical process of course build-

ing, assessment and content adaptation managed by

a LCMS.

2.1 e-Learning Authoring

The course development authoring tools are com-

plex programs (e.g. Lectora (Lectora, 2013), Capti-

vate (Adobe, 2014), ToolBook (SumTotal, 2013),

SmartBuilder (SmartBuilder, 2014), StoryLine (Ar-

ticulate, 2014), etc.) that allows the integration of

media objects and the creation of interactive learning

materials. So many authors started e-learning con-

tent creation with off-the-shelf software e.g. word

processors, spread-sheets, desktop publishing pack-

ages, graphics packages etc.

The most famous and readily available of these

is PowerPoint, which is powerful and complex soft-

ware for slides and multimedia presentations but

with some limitations concerning different versions

and their use in the e-learning domain. For instance,

PowerPoint's interface is somewhat cumbersome

when creating pedagogical sequences that integrate

multimedia components (e.g. text, images, audio and

video). A course is designed to be integrated in a

LCMS. To be imported or exported into a LCMS an

external interface-program (plug-in) should manage

the PowerPoint non ASCII file format which is pro-

prietary and different from one version to another

(e.g. Microsoft Office, Open Office, Documents To

Go, Kingsoft Office, etc.). This lack of internal for-

mat of PowerPoint does not contribute to the mobili-

ty and interoperability of pedagogical content. In

this case, the learning object discovery process

(LODP) is hampered by the lack of metadata. The

reuse of a course or selected parts of a course by

others is practically compromised because this au-

thoring tool is not SCORM or LOs standards com-

pliant.

Except PowerPoint, for course development,

there is a list (Tools, 2012) of proprietary, relatively

efficient with several multimedia functionalities but

very complex and expensive cloud-based content

authoring software tools. We comment a few, non-

exhaustive examples:

 Lectora (Lectora, 2013) offers a suite of online

web-based, collaborative authoring tools for e-

learning course creation and publishing in a pro-

prietary format with the possibility to export in

Adobe-Flash and SCORM compliant format.

 Easygenerator is an online free authoring tool.

This Microsoft Windows application stores all

pedagogical content in the cloud. With the free

version author can have courses in an online

workspace and can import existing Power-Point

presentations for course build of.

 QuickLessons (QuickLessons, 2013) is a SaaS-

based content authoring tool, requiring the user

to only have access to a web browser. This

online collaborative platform includes also eval-

uation engine for assessments, digital repository

to manage media files and LOs. The author cre-

ates courses using libraries of templates, so it

does not need any programming and design

skills. Authors can include existing PowerPoint

presentations or export a course to Adobe-Flash

format or in HTML5 files. Multiple export op-

tions are supported for offline, online, mobile

and LCMS use including SCORM and AICC

compliance.

 ZebraZapps (Allen, 2014) is a SaaS-based au-

thoring and publishing platform. This authoring

tool allows developers and non-programmers

alike to create interactive applications quickly, as

well as share, publish, and sell objects or entire

applications.

Some activities in these software tools seem

"easy-to-use" by limiting development options. For

example, they might provide a set of predefined

interaction templates for developers to fill with con-

tent. This is really useful if those templates reflect

exactly the interactions that the author want to cre-

ate, but if the author want to customize the output

these tools appear very restrictive. In addition, these

programs have a common drawback. The authors

edit a full course in a proprietary format whose

components are not metadata described and hard to

discover thereafter. The publication in SCORM

format in a LCMS dissolves completely the created

content in the learning process.

In this paper, we propose a solution with twofold

purpose: on the one hand, it aims at presenting an

XML-based language for semantic description of a

course. On the other hand, it proposes a cloud-based

Cloud-basedMash-upAuthoringToolsfore-Learning

527

authoring tool to build learning resources applying

the defined language. The proposed solution stores

away natively courses and facilitates the reuse of

parts of a course in other courses because these parts

can be easy discovered by an XML-based search

method.

2.2 Authoring Tools Evaluation

Criteria

The main function of an e-learning authoring tool is

to integrate different media and create interactivities

required in a learning program. As mentioned above,

a number of e-learning authoring tools have been

developed with a wide range of functionalities: from

simple (e.g. template-based) to very complex with

its own programming language and multimodal user

interface. These software programs are too complex

to be used by an author who is not an IT or an e-

learning specialist. Subsequently a large number of

users expressed a real difficulty in using these tools.

It becomes clear that e-learning authors need

simpler but powerful authoring tools that could

lower the skill barrier and allow more actors (i.e.

teachers, academic authors, e-learning system ad-

ministrators) to participate in the development and

customization process. Moreover, to be really useful

these tools should be able to reduce development

time, effort, and cost, by allowing the reuse, enrich-

ment and customization of available learning con-

tents (Capuano, 2009). This necessity has motivated

research and development of MOOCs (Massive

Open Online Course) making use of cloud-based

learning tools and online tools as well as learning

support specifically for LOs creation and sharing

(Rizzardini, 2013). MOOC is an online course aimed

at unlimited participation and access via the web.

In this paper we introduce some evaluation crite-

ria essential for the appropriate operation of an e-

learning authoring tool:

 The authoring tool should be easy to learn and

use because, in general, the author is not a pro-

fessional e-learning developer and his experience

in multimedia application is limited.

 The authoring tool should have the capacity to

integrate media objects in various formats in the

learning content with maximum flexibility.

 For educational subjects such as mathematics,

informatics and science in general, some of the

contents involve mathematics equations, graphs

and diagrams. The authoring tool should provide

the functionalities for such content creation.

 The authoring tool should provide the possibility

to create quizzes for learners' assessment.

 An authoring tool should not require authors any

programming skills.

 The authoring tool should provide deployment

method for a LCMS with SCORM compliance

integration.

 The authoring tool should also provide many al-

ternative deployment methods for standalone

(XML, HML or PDF), or for the web publication

without any content reproduction during the de-

ployment stage.

 The authoring tool should avoid the proprietary

format for e-learning content for a maximum in-

teroperability and reusability of LOs. Otherwise

the LOs discovery and composition process are

doomed to failure.

 The authoring tool should be accessible as ser-

vice with standardized web browser.

To these technical criteria, we add a key techno-

logical one: cloud service-based e-learning author-

ing process. The cloud authoring is free from the

constraints of typical desktop solutions. Advances in

internet technology make appear web-based tools

with collaborative capabilities, but also with some

limitations than advantages. Some web-based tools

are cumbersome with an input process using tem-

plates and forms, which results in a limited creativity

and flexibility. The pivotal advantage of cloud-based

content authoring is not the number of connected

users but saving time, reducing rework, and sharing

learning content across all projects. Authors access

authoring software over the Internet via a secure,

affordable hosted system, and regardless of location

they can make updates and reusing content to com-

plete a course. The adaptation of a cloud-based ap-

proach brings many benefits and relieves the author

from embarrassing task (Fernández, 2012).

We argue that an effective solution for a success-

ful cloud-based authoring process passes by: (1) the

choice of a common format for the totality of the

course content, and (2) the choice of an accessible

and reachable storage format for the course. We

suggest a non-proprietary format for better LOs

reuse and to facilitate the LOs discovery and assem-

bly, i.e. XML-based. Once created, a course can be

saved in a single XML document or as a collection

of XML documents. According to the evolution of

the course, authors may need to modify its content.

Therefore, the correct operation of a collaborative

authoring system imposes the storage of learning

collections, possibly in an appropriate database, for a

better reuse and diffusion of these documents. We

suggest the choice of a native database (NXD)

which allows the storage of XML documents in their

native format. This choice, in opposition to that of a

CSEDU2014-6thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation

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relational database, is explained by the nature of

pedagogical documents which are of narrative type,

i.e. document-centric and not data-centric that is

typical for relational tables. NXD and RDB follow

two very different approaches to managing data. The

concept of XML documents is to keep all attributes

for a given LO together as one entity so that it can

easily retrieve or insert all the relevant information

for an LO in one shot. This is mostly useful for

complex LOs whose attributes would otherwise be

spread over many relational tables in the RDB mod-

el. XML is also suitable for LO whose set of attrib-

utes can evolve over time, since XML offers schema

flexibility. Although relational database products

today provide built-in XML document and query

support, NXDs are arguably the best choice for

learning content and metadata storage. As far as the

query language is concerned, XQuery is recom-

mended. Interoperability and data integration with

existing e-learning systems and LCMS can be done

by the means of cloud-based services. This solution

simplifies the LOs reuse and the process of LOs

discovery. As side effect of this approach, we can

see a marked improvement of interoperability be-

tween e-learning systems.

3 E-LEARNING AUTHORING AS

A SERVICE

This section presents a solution for building a virtual

and personalized learning environment which utiliz-

es a cloud-based technology to create a service-

oriented model for e-learning and m-learning appli-

cation service providers and learners. The concept of

e-Learning Services-as-a-Software is introduced as

software distribution model in which applications

are hosted by a service provider and distributed via

the web. In this environment we can easily combine

semi-structured data, stored in a native XML data-

base (NXD), with structured data stored in a rela-

tional database (RDB) through web services (WS).

The objective is to provide direct data and applica-

tion integration, located at distributed sites in order

to improve the achievement of learning outcomes,

i.e. integrate authoring process managed by a cloud-

service management system (CSMS) (Fernández,

2012) with pedagogical process managed by a

LCMS. This approach promotes a device-

independent gateway between different units and the

huge number of learning resources available on a

plethora of LCMSs. A semantic content adaptation

service is plugged for content standardization. It

becomes possible by combining the web-based open

semantic editor suite (WOSES) (Madjarov, 2011)

with a set of additional cloud-services to allow dif-

ferent mobile units a direct access to LOs customari-

ly designed for desktop web browsers. An alterna-

tive service is available for a speech solution, which

allows learners to turn any written text into natural

speech files, when using standard voices. This ap-

proach allows the generation and the progressive

downloading of text and audio based learning mate-

rial dynamically for m-learning and ubiquitous ac-

cess. As result, we cover the essential part of intro-

duced criteria in section 2.2. Details are presented in

the following section.

3.1 e-Learning Authoring Tools

The tools we developed are inspired by mashing-up

principles allowing an easy and fast integration, over

defined schemas, of local and remote resources.

Xesop is an open source authoring software

(Madjarov, 2012) that provides a flexible XML-

based suite of tools for author customization, edit-

ing, storage and publication of LOs compliant with

existing e-learning standards. The content aggrega-

tion specification comprises two models: a metadata

model specifying the metadata elements of learning

resources, and a content packaging model represent-

ing content structure. Both are hierarchical, which is

convenient for representing data consisting of many

elements and sub-elements. XML is perfectly suited

for representing hierarchical models, as exemplified

by the LOM and content packaging XML binding

specifications published by IMS, both of which are

adopted in SCORM.

In Figure 1 the structure of the created course

with the Xesop project’s semantic tools is presented.

The original LOM structure is extended with new

elements that seem important for more homogene-

ous and identifiable pedagogical content. For encod-

ing textual information and content assembly, an

XML semantic editor is developed (Figure 2) and a

tree structure of a generic learning document is gen-

erated, while a validation grammar of XML schema

type is used. Depending on course specificity,

(mathematics or informatics course and science in

general), the author can represent texts, diagrams,

mathematical formulas or data in tables. A MathML

editor was created for mathematical expressions, a

SVG editor for vector graphics creation (Figure 3), a

QTI editor for student’s progression evaluation, a

schema for table generation and a chart editor for

data presentation. In this case, XML is used for

encoding non-textual information such as vector

graphics and mathematical expressions.

Cloud-basedMash-upAuthoringToolsfore-Learning

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Figure 1: An extract of the Xesop course semantic.

Figure 2: Xesop XML semantic editors.

In our e-learning authoring suite, binary data of

multimedia content is embedded directly into XML

course content. During the editing process, if the

author inserts an image or any binary data into the

edited content, the semantic editor will encode it

using the Base64 encoding method. As a result, the

course collection can be managed easily since all

materials relating to the course are stored in a single

XML collection (Figure 4). For more flexibility

Figure 3: MathML and SVG plug-ins.

Figure 4: Course XML collections.

and content reuse, author can separately save differ-

ent elements of the course as LOs in the NXD as

XML collection with multiple files.

A large number of media-rich content can be

stored using the abundant set of available XML

schemas. By providing proper XSLT transformation

files, the XML content can be presented in many

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530

forms, such as HTML5 for web-based desktop or

mobile users. If necessary, formatted HTML and

PDF versions of extracted learning content can be

published in a LCMS via web services. Existing and

old pedagogical documents can be adapted in the

compliant XML format via importing web services

as external input in the XML semantic editor. M-

Learning pedagogical content can be given in the

form of a visual presentation as text, pictures, tables

in XML, responsive HTML5 format or as PDF data.

Optionally, m-learning content can be given as

sound data in the form of an acoustic presentation in

an MP3 or WAV format (Madjarov, 2012).

3.2 Implementation Scenario

The implementation scenario highlights the WOSES

cloud-based application integration with a LCMS.

The interconnection is carried out by a web services

management system (WSMS). In our scenario, the

learning-centric data and the management-centric

data are clearly separated. Pedagogical documents

are developed in WOSES framework of the e-

Learning Services-as-a-Software based Xesop sys-

tem and thereafter are stored in a NXD. The infor-

mation relevant to learner personal data, learner

profiles, course maps, LOs sequencing, data presen-

tation and general user data is stored in the RDB of

the LCMS. The publication process of learning con-

tent is carried out by WSMS. This allows integration

existing LCMS systems via a cloud-based service. In

the discussed case, web service-based modules make

the bridge in a simple and effective way through

Apache Libcloud, an open source library that pro-

vides a system-neutral interface to cloud provider

APIs. The Java version supports Amazon EC2.

For system deployment, we used AmeTice

(Moodle-based) e-Learning system deployed at Aix-

Marseille University. Our system is based on the

Apache containers suite for data storage and service

management. We integrated the PHP-based LCMS

interface via web services. For services deployment

we used Apache Axis. For storing and managing

LOs, we used eXist running in the Apache Tomcat

Servlet engine as a web application and invoked via

REST-style web services API. To integrate with

other e-Learning and/or m-Learning systems we

implemented an Apache jUDDI registry.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The developed Cloud-SaaS solution makes possible

to create adaptive and responsive e-learning courses.

Authors need to follow, in general, four phases of

course development. To satisfy the phases of analy-

sis, design, development and updating a free XML

authoring language is used. The developed editor

suite provides high-level WYSIWYM visual tools

and enables a complete course to be designed with-

out writing any programming code. We believe that

a future cloud-based e-learning system should con-

sist of a set of independent but cooperating non-

monolithic services-based applications that integrate

pedagogical data between common LCMS.

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