Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 921 de 957
inserted. After finishing each of the assigned tasks, they were asked to evaluate the ease in
accomplishing the task. We also measured the time it took for them to complete all of the
tasks. At the end of the evaluation, we conducted a questionnaire to the participants.
Analysis
Teachers/lecturers who create maps for the course they teach did not have problems in
selecting the appropriate learning topics and resources when we gave task. However
multimedia developers and instructional experts were not familiar with the whole subject,
therefore they had difficulties in structuring the relationships between topics and
classifying learning resources.
Identifying Topics
Authors can add any number of branches and sub-branches to a MindBook to represent
different topics. There are no rules to limit the authors to use specific information for
describing content. Various vocabularies make it easy to create information but shift the
load of interpretation to the users.
Among the principal problems with naming topics are:
• Lack of standardization
• The topic titles may not be informative enough
These problems are related to browsing and searching for topics and relevant learning
resources. An example in this context is the use of different titles to represent the same
topic. A search for “data” will not pick up topics named with “information”. We conclude
that we have to define the core set of topics that students should learn before developing a
curriculum. Guidelines for authors for choosing topic name have to be distributed as well.
Constructing relations
The hierarchy (parent-child) reflects the sections-subsections which is established by the
traditional textbook organization and reflects MindBook authors have to follow same
hierarchy. The surveyed users had difficulties in deciding what type of relationships to use
for linking the nodes. They generally try to follow the content structure of the school
textbook. But if they adhere to the national or school curriculum, they might not generate
own topic node and continuously refine the learning structure.
The order in learning content classifications is often subjective and arbitrary and could
easily be reversed by curriculum designers. Predefined generic relationships of the topics
can be suggested but it could be modified, for example, by industrial experts who have
good experience and knowledge.
Classifying learning content
Users (curriculum designers) can add learning resources such as image, movie clip,
questions etc. The content of digital textbooks is one of the most crucial components. In
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011