| ROMA focuses on exploiting collective learner progress as a feedback mechanism to aid successful learner navigation and improve educational yield. The project will develop a new technological artefact capable of revealing collective learner progress in learning networks, extending the state-of-the-art in this area. The feedback mechanism will support both learners (by giving insight into the actions of other learners to aid progress through learning networks) and providers (by giving better insight into the actual rather than anticipated use of learning materials, thereby facilitating more efficient allocation of development resources). ROMA will identify which feedback should be provided, how and when in order to support learners reaching their destinations in learning networks. These factors will be identified through simulation, experimentation and iterative evolution of a prototype tool. The project will deliver: A model of the feedback needed to ease navigation and promote self-organization in learning networks with the goal of improving yield. The model will capture which information to feedback, how and when; A simulation of the model, together with accompanying documentation; A prototype tool which implements feedback mechanisms in learning networks, together with a specification of the design of the prototype tool and A manual describing the use of the prototype tool The project will draw on and contribute to work in the areas of indirect social navigation, stigmergy and emergent interaction systems in the context of lifelong learning, and will publish its results in the form of journal articles and prototypical, open source tools. |
