A Generic Specification of the Data-Flow Issue in the Learning Design Field Laurence Vignollet*, Miguel L. Bote-Lorenzo**, Juan I. Asensio-Pérez**, Yannis Dimitriadis** * Scenario Team, University of Savoie, France ** GSIC-EMIC Group, University of Valladolid, Spain laurence.vignollet@univ-savoie.fr {migbot, juaase, yannis@yllera.tel.uva.es} Abstract Many studies show the advantages of using a learning design approach to help teachers and instructional designers to create technology enhanced collaborative learning activities. However, some of these studies highlight lacks in such approach. This paper addresses one of them: the representation of the flow of data in the learning activity models. A generic specification is proposed that aims at pointing out the conceptual needs that should be taken into account in the languages to improve the approaches. 1. Introduction Learning design (LD) languages have shown their expressiveness while modeling various types of e- Learning collaborative activities [1]. However, some studies have highlighted some lacks, considering in particular the modeling of the flow of data [2] [3] [4] [5]. These studies have shown that there is a need to represent this flow between activities, tools and between both. However, none of them is giving a complete view of what is missing. The goal of this work is to give a clearer view of what data-flow refers to in the LD field at the design stage. This work aims to improve the models of e- learning activities by defining the conceptual needs to represent the flow of data and by proposing a general way to model it. The richer the model, the more support might be expected from the associated environments. 2. A general view of the data-flow 2.1 Some vocabulary An activity is ‘what is going on’ in the common sense. Here, activity does not refer to any concept of any LD language. An activity is specified by a learning design. A learning design is the codified and formal description of a future activity, expressed using a learning design language. A resource is either an artifact or a tool used in an activity. An artifact 1 refers to a document or to structured data. Finally, in that context, the data-flow in the LD field does not refer to the well-known “data-flow programming” field. 2.2 The “data-flow problem” Several studies have already addressed the data- flow issue either directly or indirectly. We can find three types of studies that focus on the data-flow between tools and activities, or between just activities or just tools. 2.2.1. Data-flow between tools and activities. A previous work refers to the use of exercices within an activity [6]. Usually, exercise and activity are linked through the answer(s) to the exercice(s), provided by the participants, and therefore, the activity may be affected by such answers. Considering the IMS LD approach, IMS LD properties and IMS QTI variables are used to represent this kind of link. However, as stated in section 4.1 of [7], the proposed coupling imposes syntactic constraints: property identifiers and variable names lexically identical at design time. Moreover, such a solution only allows capturing the response of the exercice, but more information could be interesting (as the time to answer to a question). Another example described in [4], points out that IMS LD does not seem to answer to such conceptual needs: “For example, while a flow can be designed using IMS Learning Design that states that a discussion forum should be launched at a particular point within the flow, it cannot be used to determine 1 We should have used “artifact-flow” rather than data- flow, however, this last term seems to be already accepted in the field of LD. 2009 Ninth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies 978-0-7695-3711-5/09 $25.00 © 2009 IEEE DOI 10.1109/ICALT.2009.25 56