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Open Source Objects for Teaching and Learning
11/6/2001
At first glance, one might think that piecing together a course from a number of small fragments would require a large investment of instructor prep time, but in actuality that isn’t the case. Kortemeyer says that the granularity options allow teachers to get as detailed in developing the course syllabus as they wish and that building the syllabus takes as long as adopting a new textbook. Once the course gets going, he notes, “there’s no homework to grade, which saves a lot of time.” As with any online course, however, instructors using the platform should expect to spend some time communicating with their students via e-mail or the built-in communication tools.
At the moment, 18 institutions belong to the LON-CAPA network, and the group hopes to have at least 30 partner institutions within a year. Kortemeyer hopes that in addition to contributing content, many of the users will contribute open source tool code as well, ensuring that the platform will be self-sustaining. Member institutions have to agree to maintain a “library server,” storing some of the content, and larger institutions host an access server as well.
Member K-12 institutions have actually been given a server as part of the NSF grant supporting teacher research within the project. MSU has hosted a two-week training session of the first four school districts to join the program, and plans to continue training new partner institutions. Next year’s LON-CAPA conference will be held at Florida State University, where Kortemeyer says they hope to draw at least 80 participants.
Their long-term goal is to spin the program off into a not-for-profit self-sustaining organization that maintains the network, manages content royalties, handles maintenance of the library, and provides technical support and regular training sessions. With NSF funding, the group hopes to attract the attention of potential member organizations and quickly build a large base of participants.
For more information, contact Gerd Kortemeyer at korte@lite.msu.edu or visit www.lon-capa.org.
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