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Improve Setting Group „Presentation Type“ and Abandon „Grouped-by-Type View“

1 Initial Problem

The setting group „Presentation Type“ in a course is hard to grasp for users because of the vastly different implications of the existing options. While the options „Simple View“ and „Grouped-by-Type View“ merely lead to a different grouping of objects in the Content tab, the options Timings View and Learning Objectives-Driven Course oopen new and quite complex didactical scenarios. Implicitly, this is also the case with „Sessions View“: It is often used for blended learning scenarios that combine real-world sessions with e-learning. But even for cases where the sessions are realized as virtual meetings, this point remains valid.

When trying to improve the wordings and labels of that settings group as part of our work at the ILIAS Language Front, we struggled with the diverging nature of the options. It seems unjustified to group them under one label. But as they are mutually exclusive, splitting the group doesn’t seem convincing either.

2 Conceptual Summary

In consequence, we make the suggestion to reorder and rename the options in order to reflect their didactical potential.

2.1 Improve Setting Group by Renaming the Labels

 IS (ILIAS 5.3 beta):

• Presentation Type
  • Sessions View: This content presentation groups all sessions first. After that the other course content is listed.
  • Simple View: This content presentation lists all items in one block.
  • Grouped-by-Type View: This content presentation groups all items by resource type.
  • Learning Objectives-Driven Course: Course for individualised studying: Performance on learning objectives organises the course work. Content might be recommended based on individual performance in an initial test. A final test can be used to prove learning objective mastery.
  • Timings View: Presentation mode for timings settings.

SHOULD BE (ILF suggestion 06.11.2017, see discussion!):

• Course Mode
  • Sessions: Sessions are grouped in the Content tab. After that, the other course content is presented. Recommended for blended learning scenarios.
  • Learning Objectives: In the new tab Learning Objectives, you define goals and assign content and tests. Each user gets a personalised learning recommendation based on their performance in an initial test. A final test can be used to prove learning objective mastery. Recommended for individualised studying.
  • Timings: Objects are organised according to a time schedule that can be set in the new sub tab Content → Timings. Recommended for [your suggestion].
  • Simple: All course objects are presented in a single list in the Content tab.
    • Grouped by Type: Objects are grouped by their type.

4 User Interface Modifications

4.1 List of Affected Views

Only one screen should be modified: Course → Settings.

4.2 User Interface Details

Pair two radio buttons "Grouped by Name" and "Grouped by Type" as sub options to "Simple". The other options only need to be renamed.

4.3 New User Interface Concepts

NONE.

5 Technical Information

{The maintainer has to provide necessary technical information, e.g. dependencies on other ILIAS components, necessary modifications in general services/architecture, potential security or performance issues.}

6 Contact

• Author of the Request: Kruse, Fabian [Fabian] for ILIAS Content Front
  
• Maintainer: {Please add your name before applying for an initial workshop or a Jour Fixe meeting.}
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

7 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• …

8 Discussion

Thomas Langkau: Sorry, I can´t agree. You are right, when you say that "group by type-view" merely lead to a different grouping of objects in the Content tab, the options Timings View and Learning Objectives-Driven Course oopen new and quite complex didactical scenarios". In consequence timing and learning view will be used by e-learning specialists and the grouped by type-view is the only was to structure a bunch of learning tools and uploaded files in an easy way with acceptable result. To abandon this option would be another step of loosing the opportunity to get an overview at first glance. BTW: Nevertheless it might be helpful to differ between those options to structure (Sessions/Type view) and those to create learning sequences in a more complex way.

Lauener, Hansjörg [lauener], 25. Sept. 2017.
Even if the "group-by-type" view is a simple way to structure the ILIAS, I personally think that this option is very seldom used. So I suggest that some institutions should publish statistics how much percent of their courses use this group-by-type view.

And I think new title "Didactic Mode" and the new wording of the simple-view: "No didactic mode" are unfortunate choices. Some teachers develop better blended-learning courses with a flat "No didactic mode"-course, and every teacher has implicit or explicit didactical concepts, so "No didactic mode" would be a bad wording?

My suggestions:

• Don`t change the main title. Presentation type is OK, and neutral.
• Don`t change "Simple view" to "No Didactic mode"
• And "Simple view" should still be the second option, because it is easy to build.  Timings- and object-driven are for specialists.
• Ask some institutions, if the "Group-by-type"-view is often used.

Kruse, Fabian [Fabian] 12.10.2017: Thank you for your feedback and suggestions!

@ Thomas: Within the (admittedly limited) scope of the Content Group/ILF, participants agreed (as does Hansjörg) that the "grouped-by-type" mode is seldomly used. That said, is it common use in Dortmund? Could you provide an example so we can get a better idea of how it is used in practice?

@ Hansjörg: That’s a good point concerning "simple" mode and you are certainly right about implicit didactic concepts. So I will take this feedback to ILF and see if we find a better solution. But the crux with "presentation type" and "views" is that it harshly understates the changes resulting from selecting Learning Objectives-Driven Course or Timings.

Within ILF, we looked at all the "views"/"Ansichten" present in ILIAS. They share a common characteristic: Different views present the same content in different ways. The exception is found precisely in the course settings, which is why we are looking for a better term. "Mode" is one promising suggestion (whether it be "didactic mode", "course mode" or something else), but we are very open for other suggestions!

Kruse, Fabian [Fabian], 02.11.2017: ILF tried to find a solution that takes into consideration the critique so far. Here is what we have come up with:

• Course Mode
  • Simple: All course objects are presented in a list in the Content tab.
    • Grouped by Name: All objects are ordered by their title from A → Z.
    • Grouped by Type: Objects are grouped by their type.
  • Sessions: Sessions are grouped in the Content tab. After that, the other course content is presented. Recommended for blended learning scenarios.
  • Learning Objectives: In the new tab Learning Objectives, you define goals and assign content and tests. Each user gets a personalised learning recommendation based on their performance in an initial test. A final test can be used to prove learning objective mastery. Recommended for individualised studying.
  • Timings: Objects are organised according to a time schedule that can be set in the new sub tab Content → Timings. Recommended for [your suggestion].

Seiler, Yvonne [yvseiler], 02.11.2017: Thanks a lot for your brainwork so far. I like the suggestion above, I only have some little concerns about the "Grouped by Name: All objects are ordered by their title from A -> Z" description. User might think, that within this course mode "Simple - Grouped by Name" there is no possibility to order "manually". How would it be to describe it like:

• Simple: All course objects are presented in a list in the Content tab.
  • No Grouping: All objects are placed in one content group.
  • Grouped by Type: Objects are grouped by their type.

Meyer, Stefan [smeyer], 06 Nov 2017:

Since the session view is nothing else than a simple view with a session block on top the following configuration would also be possible:
View Modes

• Simple View
  • Session Block on Top (checkbox)
  • Grouped By Type (checkbox)
• Learning Objectives Driven
• Timings

Kruse, Fabian [Fabian], 06.11.2017:

@ Yvonne: Yes, this could be slightly confusing. Alexandra suggested a slightly different solution whcih I will paste in now.

@ Stefan: I get your point, but would like to keep Sessions on the top level because of two reasons: One, because of the clear didactical use case. Two, because Sessions includes two other sub options (Limit Number of Sessions Shown > Number of Past/Future Sessions).

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], NOV 06, 2017: We highly appreciate this suggestion to get rid of the 'Views' and offer the different features of a course in a different way. But we still have some questions that should be tackled before scheduling this feature:

• If we separate 'function', 'grouping' and 'sorting' - do we want to allow combining all of them for all types of courses (session, LoC, timings)? Or do we focus on specific settings, e.g. course with learning-objectives does not support manual sorting and grouping by type.
• Shall we follow Stefan's suggestion and make a course with sessions a sub-type of a standard course? Or do we follow more a didactical approach and distinguish between different scenarios and offer a 'course with sessions' and a separated 'course as container'?

Fabian Kruse for ILIAS Language Front, 7.11.2017

1. As a reply to JF’s questions:

• We would like to avoid over-loading the settings form. We would NOT want any more options than are currently presented, and reduce them if possible.
• For didactical and usability reasons we would like to present Sessions as a separate course mode on the main level instead of following Stefan’s proposal. While we appreciate the logic in Stefan’s suggestion, we also see technical downsides. The course would implicitly handle sessions in another way other object-types are handles within the course. This would not be clear when switching to Standard-Course. Technically the Standard-Course then would has „special“ knowledge of its children especially the session.

2. A further elaboration of this feature request is beyond the scope of the ILF. Fabian Kruse would be happy to join forces with other interested parties to improve this feature request further after the release of 5.3.

3. For the reasons discussed earlier and appreciated by JF, we urge JF and all interested parties to improve the current implementation. We consider our suggestion superior to the current implementation. Thus, we ask JF to schedule our suggestion for 5.4, unless a better suggestion is made by March 31, 2018.

Kruse, Fabian [Fabian], 20.11.2017

A question to course users in order to improve the current suggestion outside of ILF:

Is there any usage scenario for converting an EXISTING "normal" course into a learning-objective oriented course (LOC)? If not, we could consider presenting this choice (normal course vs. LOC) when creating the course object (as is done with normal vs. 360-degree surveys). Important to know: It would then be impossible to change this later on! You would need to create a new course…

The advantage would be that it would help with this settings chaos AND that LOC would gain more attention.

Any input would be appreciated!

Lauener, Hansjörg [lauener], 8.12.2017

Is there any usage scenario for converting an EXISTING "normal" course into a learning-objective oriented course (LOC)? If not, we could consider presenting this choice (normal course vs. LOC) when creating the course object (as is done with normal vs. 360-degree surveys). Important to know: It would then be impossible to change this later on! You would need to create a new course…

Yes, there is one important scenarios:

• When courses are created automatically (from excel-sheet, from external information-system, then they actually create "Session View" or "Simple View" courses. This is a technical process. The external systems generate sometime dozens of courses, and they don`t know anything about the wishes of teachers.
• When a teacher wants to change to a LOC, then this is a didactical decision, so he must be able to change from a "Simple course" to a "LOC" and vice versa.

Lauener, Hansjörg [lauener], 8.12.2017

I also support the suggestion of FK (2.11.2017) and the wording improvement of YS (2.11.2017). Sessions should be a separate course mode on top level, cause of the different didactical scenarios.

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 09 AUG 2018 : I would like to pick up this suggestion and try to get it into 5.4 before it is too late. I think the current suggestion made above is ready for decision. A lot of input has been taken into consideration and integrated into the article. I have only one slight request for change: I don't find the label "Simple" a good choice. It implicates that all other options are difficult. Why not call it "Simple List". This gives a clear distinction from the other options that arrange the content in a specific way.

9 Implementation

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