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- Implementação de ferramentas específicas ao Modelo Pedagógico da UAb na Plataforma MoodlePublication . Coelho, José; Rocio, VitorMostra-se como foi testada e adaptada a plataforma de e-learning Moodle na Universidade Aberta, de forma a por um lado suportar um elevado fluxo de estudantes, e por outro lado a implementar o Modelo Pedagógico da universidade aberta. A plataforma não ficou um sistema isolado, foi desenvolvida uma integração com o portal académico, outro sistema essencial ao funcionamento da universidade, facilitando o trabalho de docentes e funcionários que teriam de outra forma uma sobrecarga de tarefas que poderia comprometer o sucesso do modelo pedagógico. A comunidade Moodle não ficou sem contribuições nossas. Dois blocos de utilidade geral foram desenvolvidos em software aberto e disponibilizados no site oficial do Moodle. Explica-se primeiramente de que forma implementámos no Moodle o nosso Modelo Pedagógico, de forma simples e eficiente, resultando em mais de uma centena de docentes o tenha aplicado sem problemas. Segue-se a apresentação de um estudo de performance que fizemos à plataforma de forma a assegurar que esta tinha capacidade de resposta para o número de estudantes e nível de utilização que necessitamos. Como resultado, poucas foram as alturas em que docentes e estudantes deram pela plataforma, tendo estado em baixo apenas 2 vezes em todo o ano. Passamos de seguida a descrever a integração entre o Moodle e o Portal Académico, em que minimizamos as complicações e não necessitámos de alterar qualquer uma das aplicações. Esta integração não compromete qualquer das aplicações em futuros upgrades. Terminamos a apresentação com a descrição das duas ferramentas desenvolvidas em software aberto para a comunidade Moodle, uma de carácter mais visivel, informando "on-the-fly" o nível de utilização da plataforma, e outra de interesse para administradores, de forma a serem detectadas possíveis situações anómalas, antes que dêm problemas.
- Interchanging knowledge and experiments in a learning community in a view of collaborative workPublication . Amador, Filomena; Valadares, Jorge; Coelho, José; Rocio, Vitor; Caetano, Fernando J. P.; Gaspar, Cândido Dias; Ribeiro, Carlos; Remédios, Jaime; Costa, Fernando Pestana daIn this work we describe and analyze an experiment based in a programme of permanent seminars – e-DCET organized with the objective of developing practices of collaborative work inside the Departamento de Ciências Exactas e Tecnológicas (Universidade Aberta - Portugal), valuing the active sharing of pedagogic practices and knowledge at a variety of levels. Various themes were discussed and analyzed, among them we highlighted some experiences of online teaching in formal and non-formal contexts, user management in Moodle LMS, news from international e-learning meetings, visual representations and teaching chemistry online, pseudo-code as a communication language using Notetab and interactive materials in teaching mathematics.
- iMOOC on climate change: evaluation of a massive open online learning pilot experiencePublication . Coelho, José; Teixeira, António; Nicolau, Paula Bacelar; Caeiro, Sandra; Rocio, VitorMOOCs are a recent phenomenon, although given its impact, have been subject to a large debate. Several questions have been raised by researchers and educators alike as regarding its sustainability both economical and as an efficient mode of education provision. In this paper we contribute to this discussion by presenting a case study, a Portuguese MOOC about lived experiences in climate change which piloted the iMOOC pedagogical model developed at Universidade Aberta. The iMOOC is an hybrid model which incorporates elements from existing MOOCs but adds other features drawn from UAb's experience with online learning and aim at better integrate in the larger context of the institutional pedagogical culture. The iMOOC implied also an integration of platforms - Moodle and Elgg. The course had more than one thousand participants, and it was the largest MOOC course on Portuguese language delivered so far. We discuss the effort required to design and deliver the course, the technological solution developed, and the results obtained. We registered a moderate effort to create and run the course, ensured by internal staff from the University. The technological solution was a success, an integrated architecture combining well-established, well-tested open software. The completion rate was 3.3%, but the high success of this innovative learning experience is demonstrated by the active involvement of participants, almost 50% of the ones that followed the course until the end, and the satisfaction survey results, with 90% of approval. Lessons learned from this experience and future research on the field are also discussed.
- A study on Moodle's performancePublication . Coelho, José; Rocio, VitorLearning Management Systems (LMS) are essential tools to the modern teaching institutions. Moodle is an open source LMS, widely used by open and distance teaching universities, as well as support to face to face courses. There are almost 40,000 registered Moodle sites, all over the world. Moodle can be installed in a wide range of environments: operating systems (Linux, Windows), supporting databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, ...), and hardware. This paper addresses the issue of Moodle’s performance within different environments, and under different loads. What is worth changing and what isn’t to improve performance? When load increases, what should be changed in order to obtain the largest performance gain? To answer these questions, it is important to subject the application, in a test environment, to the real conditions of use. In order to do it, we use historical data on the use of Moodle in Universidade Aberta. Several Moodle instances will be subject to different load levels and the resulting performance will be measured. It is difficult to estimate instantaneous load, even in a working site, where users’ habits are known. The number of users is an easier question to address and may be estimated by the number of teachers and students that will be using the LMS. So, in order to estimate future load, we present a conversion method according to the present level of use in this university.
- A course template for undergraduate coursesPublication . Rocio, Vitor; Coelho, José; Pereira, AldaWe present in this paper a template for Moodle courses according to Universidade Aberta’s pedagogical model. The template for first cycle (undergraduate) courses enables teachers with little technical knowledge to deliver their online courses according to a pre-defined format. UAb's pedagogical model defines several features that can be directly implemented in a VLE, particularly in Moodle: course plan, learning card, assessment decision, and assignments, with proper configurations. This gave origin to a template that saves work and avoids technical problems caused by misconfigurations. Procedural guidelines were written to help teachers in their handling of the mechanisms implemented in the template. We found that the use of the template allowed teachers to concentrate on their pedagogical activity rather than on technical details. Some teachers that already had given online courses felt an improvement in their interaction with the VLE, since they didn't have to build things from scratch, especially those resources that weren't directly connected to their teaching activities, and were common to the University's model. An institution that is changing rapidly from paper-based distance learning to online learning must provide resources and mechanisms so that teachers and students may accomodate to the new model. Change, particularly the re-organization of the institution and the training of staff takes time, so any pre-configured package such as the proposed template is welcome.
- iMOOC : building a platform from existing software componentsPublication . Rocio, Vitor; Coelho, JoséiMOOC is a new pedagogical model for massive open online courses (Teixeira & Mota, 2013), that evolved from UAb’s online model (Pereira et al., 2008), based on its four pillars of student-centered learning, interaction, flexibility and digital inclusion. It is also a software platform, that supports this model, and that was developed at UAb in close articulation with the pedagogical model. In this paper we describe the guidelines that oriented such development, and argue in favor of the use (or re-use) of well-established and robust software components for this purpose, as opposed to building platforms from scratch. The emergence of MOOCs as open courses, where participants have free access to the course, created new challenges in a closed, formatted LMS landscape. This led to the development of whole new environments that addressed those requirements (edX, Coursera). The iMOOC approach, however, was to build a platform from existing open source software components using an integration of Moodle (https://moodle.org/), which was previously adapted to UAb’s pedagogical model (Rocio & Coelho, 2009), and Elgg (http://elgg.org/), combining the advantages of both formal and informal learning modes, and addressing the pedagogical requirements in a cost-effective way. The integration was achieved using the IMS specification for LTI (learning tools interoperability) (Severance, 2010). As a result, the iMOOC platform has been successfully used both in stand-alone projects, and also in the european ECO project, where the effort to turn it project-compliant was relatively simple, due to the adoption of well-established protocols.
- Implementation of a learning card in MoodlePublication . Rocio, Vitor; Coelho, José; Pereira, AldaA credit card is the metaphor for the learning card, a device used in 1st cycle courses, as established in our pedagogical model for online learning. Through it, the student accumulates points earned in assessment activities that contribute to the final evaluation in a course. In this paper we describe the implementation of this device through the adaptation and configuration of Moodle’s features. The new grades subsystem in Moodle 1.9 enabled us to configure courses to conform to our model. This gives both teachers and students the feeling of granting and scoring points in a card, as a reward for accomplishing the goals proposed in particular activities, as opposed to globally compute a final grade as a function of its components. Additionally, code changes to the standard assignment module software were necessary, to allow finer-grained grading. The new groupings feature was also exploited so that we can accommodate in the same space both students in continuous assessment and in final assessment modes. The end result of this work is a template course that easily allows teachers to start building courses according to the pedagogical model, avoiding complex parameter configuration.