iCOPER Reference Model Development

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Dr. Mirja Pulkkinen | Senior Researcher, University of Jyväskylä | This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Denis Kozlov | Researcher, University of Jyväskylä | This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

We support Higher Education domain modelling for competence driven HE applications, systems and tools with a reference information model. The ICOPER Reference Model (IRM) is needed to define the shared data for its underlying systems and tools, as well as the utilization of standards in the data representations. The IRM also describes the processes of creating, using, reading or deleting the underlying data, and the services for managing those operations from remote.

The ICOPER Reference Model

The ICOPER Reference Model is concerned with managing the following key artefacts of higher education:

  • Personal Achievement Profiles;
  • Learning Outcomes;
  • Learning Opportunities;
  • Instructional Models;
  • Learning Content;
  • Assessment Resources.

ICOPER Reference Model

The IRM contains a description of key process areas for the development, use, and improvement of Outcome-based learning in higher education.
Modelling the stakeholder activity as processes enables to establish a shared understanding between the stakeholders to whom the activity concerns, and the developers of the systems and applications aiming at support for stakeholders in their activities. The IRM process models thus provide a bridge from the human activity in Higher Education, to the systems, applications and repositories that provide supporting functionality, as well as services, related to Shareable Educational Resources.

The Conceptual Model

The Conceptual Model

The conceptual model of the IRM is intended:

  • to help analysts in particular members of standardization bodies to understand the higher education domain;
  • to support communication between developers of educational technologies and experts in the higher education domain; and,
  • to provide input for the design of data models, services, and IT-supported processes.

The conceptual model is based on widely adopted concepts with a special emphasize on supporting ICOPER's vision of introducing "outcome-oriented teaching and learning" in the European Higher Education Area.

Learning Needs Analysis and Learning Opportunity Definition

Learning Needs Analysis and Learning Opportunity Definition

In order to identify learning needs, we suggest a learning needs analysis process area to collect the outcomes of the following recognized process areas:

  • In strategy and goal setting, the HEI central administration decides on the degree curricula to be offered, further down in the hierarchy the faculties and/or departments refine the degree curricula with elective focus areas;
  • In stakeholder analysis, information from employment market needs and requirements, potential students, and competitive HEIs is collected and processed. Professional associations in many fields of studies provide pre-processed information and even suggestions for curricula;
  • In gap analysis, the existing curricula are analysed for the need to revise and update the offered learning opportunities within a curriculum in order to satisfy competency development needs as provided by the various stakeholders.

Instructional Modelling and Related Activities

Instructional Modelling and Related Activities

The instructional modelling activities comprise a major part of the learning facilitator's preparation activities (preparing learning process area), for learning support to take place.

Solutions:

The ICOPER Reference Model, consisting of the following elements:

  • Conceptual Model;
  • Process Models;
  • Service Descriptions;
  • Data Models.

The IRM is constructed on the basis of the work of ICOPER's work packages 1 to 6. Each of these work packages addresses a different area within higher education. The created knowledge is condensed to:

  • a domain model of competence-driven higher education;
  • a data model explicating the key concepts of the domain model, associations and attributes;
  • a service-oriented architecture connecting repositories of sharable educational resources based on web services.

Further, the IRM provides a process model for top-level process areas such as:

  • learning needs analysis and learning opportunity definition;
  • instructional modelling;
  • content development for re-use;
  • assessment;
  • evaluation.

The implementation of the data and service models including the processes connecting the various artefacts are demonstrated in 14 ICOPER applications.

Visit

ICOPER Reference Model - Final Specification
http://www.icoper.org/results/deliverables/D7-3b