1. Chapter 9 Case study: tools for visualising
designs
Chapter 9 Case study: tools for visualising designs...............................................1
Introduction.............................................................................................................1
Practitioners’ approaches to design.......................................................................1
Repurposing an Open Education Resource..............................................................4
The development of CompendiumLD..........................................................................7
Evaluation of the use of CompendiumLD................................................................13
Use of CompendiumLD by practitioners...............................................13
Use of CompendiumLD by students.......................................................15
Other visualisation tools .....................................................................................16
Conclusion.............................................................................................................16
Introduction
This chapter presents a case study on the development, use and evaluation of tools for
representing learning designs, CompendiumLD. A rationale for the development of the
tool will be provided, along with a description of the tool, its functionality and use. A
comparison will be provided of related visualisation tools. The chapter will conclude with
a discussion of the benefits of such tools, along with the challenges they present.
Practitioners’ approaches to design
The extensive range of data collected in the OULDI described earlier in this book
provides a rich body of empirical evidence to inform our thinking and the development of
appropriate tools for design. In summary we have conducted a series of interviews, work-
shops and focus groups with practitioners to elicit their approach to design and any asso-
ciated challenges. In terms of guiding and representing learning designs, we have adapted
an argumentation and visualisation tool (Compendium) to create a visualising tool for
design, CompendiumLD. This section provides a summary of some of the key findings
from the empirical data, in terms of how it has informed and developed our thinking in
the development of the CompendiumLD tool, a more detailed discussion of some of the
findings from the interviews with teachers/designers in provided elsewhere Cross et al.
(2008) and Clarke and Cross (2010).
The empirical data provided a rich picture of the way in which teachers design. It was
evident from the data that there was no one perfect tool for design and that individuals
had different preferences of how they went about the design process - some sketching
ideas out and linking them, others working systematically from learning outcomes, whilst
others using the subject content as a baseline for development. Some used a combination
of approaches at different stages of the design. The interviews and case studies provided
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2. valuable insights into the design process that cluster into five overarching themes (Figure
1).
Figure 1: The five overarching themes on design approaches and methods
The most prominent finding from the interviews was that design is a messy, creative and
interactive process, and that even when working in teams there is a large element of indi-
viduality in the design process. Teachers design at different levels of granularity and fo-
cus on different aspects of design over the design lifecycle. Both the interviews and the
workshops gave us a clearer understanding of the design strategies that teachers adopt.
Foci for design include: looking at learning outcomes and mapping these to assessment
strategies, integrating the use of externally resources with locally authored materials,
designing activities to test understanding, integrating a range of tools and approaches, ad-
dressing different learner preferences and levels of competence, mapping to externally
prescribed professional requirements. The following quote is illustrative of this:
It's not in one direction. Not sure if I always start with aims, sometimes I do!
Broad aims, then thinking about the mix, go to the palette and look at existing re-
sources, what will the budget allow us to do (chairs hat on), what additional re-
sources do we need, which would be most effective to teach certain things. For
example, we need this software to help teach linguistic analysis. We might want
some video analysis, so think about how to bring in video sequences, what video-
ing needs to be done. Then start writing. It's chicken and egg. Sometimes start
with study guide and then think about activities, and then think I need this bit of
video. But you don't always have luxury of working in this direction or budget to
do filming so start looking for other sequences and build activities around those.
[Interview 160607]
The following quote gives an example of how a teacher iteratively develops their concept
of the course over a period of time and how they kept an evolving record of relevant re-
sources and materials for the course.
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3. I was building a sense of what the new course might be ... we must remember to
do x, or a url of relevance [Interview 160607]
It was also evident that design for a new course is very different to design when redevel-
oping a course based on interpretation of student feedback and evaluation. The inter-
views revealed that there was no simple route to teachers accessing support and guidance
on the design process. Little use appeared to be made of online resources and networks -
most adopted a serendipitous approach, relying on peer practitioners and close colleagues
for ideas. One interviewee from the case studies conducted by Wilson said:
This says more about me than it does about the stuff really but I preferred the cor-
ridor conversations. It was a way of ... I had invested quite a lot of money in cof-
fee and so there were a whole set of people across the university who I took to
coffee and pumped them for what I could really. [Case study Interview, 210107]
Those interviewed recognised the value of sharing and reuse, but little evidence emerged
of a significant amount of sharing and reuse. Different forms of representation of learning
activities (textual, visual, etc.) all had different pros and cons and there was evidently a
distinction between the process of producing a design and design as an artefact. When
shown visual presentations of learning activities for example, many of those interviewed
found it difficult to interpret them, to apply/adapt them to their own context. However, on
further probing they could see a genuine benefit in using visual tools as a means of map-
ping their own practice, as is evident in the following quote from one of the interviews.
[On the value of a visual representation] It always needs to be brought to life, to
have some form of enactment... Would I want to see what someone else has done,
yes I suppose so. [Interview, 141107]
The conflict between the process of dynamic creation of an activity and the associated
sense of ownership the designer has in the process, contrasts with design as a product, a
static artefact. For example one interviewee struggled to see the benefit of a visual repres-
entation of someone else’s design, even though it was an activity in her subject area. She
continued later in the interview to argue for the need for a mediation role to help interpret
designs and as she says ‘make them come alive’:
[One being shown a visual representation of a learning activity] It's such a differ-
ent context and level. This is language teaching rather than linguistic teaching.
And there isn't the contextual information, even with you having just explained a
little, which helped, without you there I'd be looking at this and thinking... I think
there'd be too much work to look in to this plus the recontextualisation. I wouldn't
spend the time to be honest.
I really think you need someone who goes to the course team, although not neces-
sarily staying with them. And sits down, not right at the start but a little way in,
and asks what are you teaching and what resources are you going to use alone or
in combination and that person would go away do some work and come back -
have some insight into bringing together their knowledge of the technologies
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4. available and which would best fit your intention and provide you with a map -
that's when a map would work, they'd be bringing it alive. [Interview, 141107]
The interactive and holistic nature of the design process came out strongly across the
data:
One of the difficulties is mapping the whole process I have tried to approach
course design using a holistic approach [Interview, 121107]
Teachers differed in the extent to which they worked visually or textually, although evid-
ently the institutional quality audit and validation processes require textual representa-
tions of some description for courses. Some used software, others sketched or wrote
ideas, one teacher had a scrapbook which he used as he was developing his design ideas:
It's in words, not diagrams a dumping ground for thoughts - [to] capture thoughts
[Interview, 121107]
Others used visualisation as a means of mapping different elements of the design process:
List of words clustered into blocks, arrows...can you have clusters link to TMAs
[Assignments] [Interview, 141107]
Start from assessment strategies and learning outcomes and get an alignment [In-
terview, 151007]
I tend to sit and doodle a map - will draw the logic and flow of the course on pa-
per and then go to Compendium. Then the problem is sharing it [Interview,
291107]
The interviews also highlighted a number of contradictions about the process of design,
forms of representation for design and the nature/type of support, which teachers wanted:
•A tension between design as process and design as artefact
•The difficulty of capturing what is inherently an implicit process
•The demand for subject-specific case studies and examples, which are then not used and ad-
apted
•The variety of influences on the different forms of representation and individuals interpreta-
tions of them
•The desire for specific, just-in-time help and support and the difficulty of capturing support
in an online tool
•How to map the evolving, dynamic and changing nature of design.
Repurposing an Open Education Resource
In related work, we explored teachers conceptions of design in terms of how they might
repurpose stand-alone Open Educational Resources (OER) to support their used in col-
laborative learning activities (Conole, McAndrew, & Dimitriadis, 2010). A series of
workshops were run, in which participants explored existing OER and used a set of col-
laborative Pedagogical Patterns to redesign the OER for use in a collaborative learning
context. The workshops were video recorded and the discussions transcribed. The find-
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5. ings from this work were similar to the examples provided above. Analysis of the data re-
vealed a number of themes that are discussed here. Part of our approach is predicated on
the notion that OER have inherent designs and that if we can make those designs more
explicit this will aid repurposing. A number of themes emerged with respect to this,
which are discussed in this section. In the following sections participants are represented
as P1, P2, etc. while the workshop facilitators are indicated as F1, F2, etc. In the follow-
ing section references to CSCL patterns are indicated in italics.
It was evident that there were a number of ways in which textual representations could
emphasise different aspects of the design – some were descriptive in nature, others were
more metaphorical and others still more operational – for example a bullet list
articulating steps in a learning sequence. A common approach adopted by the participants
was to have a temporal sequence. Another strategy was to focus mainly on the content
and associated resources. Participants started from different perspectives; some began by
considering the learning objectives, whilst others started with the content or activities.
P2: “My resource is a design by itself. So, it is the design of an activity, it is the
representation of that, a few bullet points and then a graphical representation. ….
So the resource basically represents arrows pointing into a sequence of the activit-
ies.”
It was interesting to see the extent to which each of the representations was easily
sharable with others. More often than not a dialogic engagement was necessary to help
make meaning of the design and to clarify misunderstandings. The exercise and
subsequent discussion enabled us to tease out both the main facets of design and
participants’ different perspectives and approaches. In addition to articulating objectives,
content and tasks, some of the participants evidenced a subtler level of design –
associated with the inherent principles of the design.
P3: “My resource is task-driven, so that is the principle and also it integrates
many pedagogies into the content, so, and also it is question based.”
In terms of principles we explored whether or not they had articulated a principle around
individuality/collaboration. A range of characteristics was identified as being associated
with the design – the objectives, generic characteristics, sequence of tasks undertaken,
and whether it had an individual or collaborative focus. Participants recognised that it
was important to focus in terms of clarifying what information was essential to
communicate so that the activity could be subsequently taken up and adapted by others.
F1: “Just try to think again of what elements you wrote down and what elements you
used when you tried to explain it to your neighbour and try to think whether they
were mainly based on objectives, mainly based on the characteristics of the activities,
of a temporal sequence or …”
One of the participants suggested that it would be valuable to have multiple views of the
same design each view representing a different aspect.
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6. P7: “So probably having different layers of visualization of the same structure
could help filter the relevant information if you are looking at the learning
objectives, or if you are looking at interactions, something like that, so, other
thing that we were thinking about it probably what is missing is a legend of the
different items, because we understood that there is a mixing of 2 layers, one is
devoted to the designer, for example, all the questions in blue are annotations for
the designers while for example it is very clear that the sequence for students is
talking to the student verbally, it is talking to him, so probably having the legends
saying ok, question mark annotation for the designer and the red bits are
feedbacks we had from one evaluation and then filtering visually this information
according to the task you are following.”
This participant also argued that visualisation potentially has additional power, if a
semantic dimension is included.
P7: “A semantic of visualizations, really we understood that some of the
connection are more related to cognitive activities of the design where as others
are tactical activities of the use (missing comment) and cause and some other
connection are like database connections with the resources and what they are
looking, so probably having different semantic of the connections and
representations.”
Another aspect of importance that participants mentioned was identifying the quality and
provenance of the resource; i.e. designs need to do more that display the sequence of
activities, users need some indication of how effective and fit for purpose it is. There are
two ways in which this can be included. Firstly, in the design representation itself,
however the more detail that is included in the design the more complex it is. Secondly,
an alternative is to have a wrap-around dialogue about the resource and its design, in a
tool such as Cloudworks.
The data revealed that deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction of OER is complex,
indeed it is possible to identify four layers that need to be considered to make most ef-
fective repurposing of an OER:
1.Visual representation of the design. How can the implicit OER design be made more
explicit and hence shareable?
2.Opinion of goodness. How appropriate is the OER for different contexts?
3.Transferability through Pedagogical Patterns. How can generic patterns be applied to
specific contexts?
4.Layer of discussion, critique and contextualisation. How might social networking sites
like Cloudworks act as a supporting structure to foster debate between those using the
same OER?
In conclusion describing design was seen as a difficult and unfamiliar task:
•having multiple solutions;
•many options for what to include;
•being hard to interpret in a consistent way;
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7. •only able to capture partial details in the example representations; and,
•needing additional information for clarification.
The development of CompendiumLD
CompendiumLD has been developed out of our interpretation of the empirical data sum-
marised in the previous section and a realisation that visualisation is under-utilised as an
approach to adopting a creative approach to the design process. Brasher et al. (2008) and
Conole et al. (2008) provide more detailed information on the tool and associated tech-
nical development; only the salient features are described here. Also see Cross et al.
which provides details of the technical development of the tool, the functionality and a
summary of the evaluation of its use.(S. E. Cross, 2010)
We wanted to use a flexible tool as the basis for our initial prototype. We considered vari-
ous drawing packages, as well as more specialised mind mapping tools (such as Inspira-
tion and MindManager). In the end we choose to use Compendium (http://compendi-
um.open.ac.uk/institute/), a visual representation tool, originally developed for enabling
group argumentation, which was produced by researchers at our own institution.
We selected Compendium for a number of reasons. Firstly because it was produced at the
Open University, we felt there was more opportunity for further tool development, spe-
cifically in terms of learning design requirements. Secondly, Compendium supports the
creation of a range of visual mapping techniques, including mind maps, concept maps,
web maps and argumentation maps (2008), which we felt offered the potential for a range
of flexible approaches to the design process. Compendium comes with a predefined set of
icons (question, answer, map, list, pros, cons, reference, notes, decision, and argument).
The creation of a map is simple; users drag icons across and drop them onto the main
window thus creating a node. Relationships between the nodes are built up by dragging
between nodes thus creating a connecting arrow. Each node can have an associated name
attached and displayed; if a more detailed textual description is associated with the node
an asterisk appears next to the node. If the user hovers their mouse over this the content
inside the node is revealed. Other types of electronic files can also be easily incorporated
into the map such as images, Word files or PowerPoint presentations. The reference node
enables you to link directly to external websites. Icons can also be meta-tagged using
either a pre-defined set of key words or through user generated terms. Maps can be ex-
ported in a variety of ways from simple diagrammatic jpeg files through to inter-linked
websites.
Compendium provides a utility by which users can create and share new sets of icons, for
use as nodes. These sets, know as 'stencils', contain 'items' where an item defines certain
properties of a potential node such as its image icon and label. In the standard version of
Compendium, each item inherits the behaviour of one of the standard node types. These
standard node types are node which has an icon, text label and other descriptive textual
information, link node which links from a node to another node, and view which is a col-
lection of nodes and can be displayed either as a map or a list. There are several different
mechanisms by which a user can interact with nodes. These include drag and drop (e.g. to
instantiate a node as described in the preceding paragraph), double-clicking (e.g. to dis-
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8. play and edit details of a node including its text), right clicking (to display a menu offer-
ing actions and operations to apply to the node), left-click (to select a node, or allow other
menu driven operations to be executed on the node). We adapted Compendium to make it
more explicit in terms of its use for learning design and this version of the tool is referred
to as CompendiumLD – it includes additional functionality such as tailored LD stencil
sets and in situ help. In CompendiumLD, behaviour specific to learning design has been
implemented for these modes of interaction as explained in the next few paragraphs. Fig-
ure 2 is a screenshot of CompendiumLD, showing the LD-OU stencil towards the left
hand side, and a map describing each item in the main window.
Figure 2: A screenshot of CompendiumLD
In addition to the standard icon set available in Compendium, we have created a series of
stencils specifically for learning design:
•Approaches to learning design
•LD-Conditional stencil
•LD-OU
•Learning Design icons
•Learning Design templates
•Sequence mapping – a stencil to help with laying ut learning activities
CompendiumLD enables its users to visually represent learning activities in a flexible
way. They can map connections between tutors and learners, tasks, resources and tools,
and a variety of notes and links to external websites or documents. The process of map-
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9. ping a learning activity in this way involves the user in a cognitive process of external-
ising their understanding of the learning activity. This facilitates and drives development
of their own understanding of the nature of the activity, and the map facilitates commu-
nication of this understanding with colleagues. We contend that the process of mapping
using CompendiumLD can improve the quality of activities that will be realised.
In addition to providing a visual representation of the design process, we also wanted the
tool to provide some form of in-built scaffolding and support to guide decisions at vari-
ous points in the process. This we have achieved in a number of ways - by providing sug-
gestions for each of the different types of nodes, additional resources and examples, and
access to a restricted searchable set of additional help features. As an example of the first
kind, when a user drags and drops a "role" node onto the main design area, they are
presented with a menu to select the type of role as shown in figure 3(a). Therefore this
simple prompt reminds them of typical kinds of roles which they might want to include in
their design sequence. The users are not restricted to these roles however and can choose
to type in an alternative role of their specification. This sensitive balance between guided
scaffolding and user flexibility/creativity is an important design principle for our develop-
ment of CompendiumLD. A similar form of scaffolding is available for the "tool' mode.
When a user drags and drops a tool node onto the main design area, they will be presen-
ted with a menu to select the type of tool as shown in figure 3(b). Note that the options
for tools include ‘Other’, which enables users to specify a tool of their own choosing. The
other tool types available for selection are those currently available with the Open Uni-
versity's VLE. The "Other" type allows the designer to specify a tool for face-to-face in-
teractions, or a tool not currently supported by the VLE. The tool type selected is stored
in CompendiumLD's data model, and tools to query the contents of this data model could
be used to examine tool usage.
Figure 3: Prompts presented for role and tool nodes
In terms of provided additional help, users of the system have the option of letting Com-
pendiumLD offer context-sensitive help. For example, as the designer types into a task
description label, the words typed are scanned and help related to selected verbs (e.g. col-
laborate, consider. discuss, reflect etc.) pops up. An example of such a help window is
shown in Figure 4. In this example, the designer has typed 'Discuss' into the task label:
this prompts the application to pop up a window showing tools to support discussing and
existing activities that include tasks which include the word 'discuss'. The set of tools
shown in this help window are selected using a verb-to-tool look-up table based on verbs
within a task taxonomy similar to that described by Falconer et al. (2006); the set of
activities is generated by searching the database maintained by CompendiumLD for
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10. activities including tasks with 'discuss' in their label. Further help is provided by the
'About..' buttons. These buttons initiate a customised Google search of selected web sites
(http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=000971387191123125524%3Alworuyth0qs). The
web sites were chosen because of the quantity and quality of the information they provide
about use of tools in learning and include sites such as http://www.learning-
designs.uow.edu.au/ and http://www.educause.edu/. We adopted this pragmatic approach
for a number of reasons. To create our own hand crafted text would not only be time con-
suming but would suffer from quickly becoming dated. However the alternative of a free
Google search arguably produced a daunting and untargeted set of resources. The middle
approach we have adopted enables us to focus in on a small set of quality assured sites,
which we have checked for relevance and which are likely to be sustained and updated in
the near future. Using a customised search allows means that potentially other institutions
installing versions of CompendiumLD could choose to select and include their own tailor
made set of resources, which might include institution-specific examples. In our own case
we have a set of tailored resources on tools and their uses within the OU context - 'the
learn about guides', as well as a set of institutional cases studies on specific uses of VLE
tools.
Figure 4: Help relevant to a particular activity
Help related to tools that the designer drags and drops onto the window may also be
shown. Figure 5 shows an example of help presented when the designer selects 'Wiki' for
the tool type.
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11. Figure 5: Help relevant to a particular tool
Figure 6 represents a screen shot of part of the learning activity associated with a third-
level environmental course (i.e. equivalent to the final year of a full-time, three year de-
gree course). Two roles are shown (student and tutor) along with their respective tasks.
Tools, resources and outputs (i.e. assets) associated with each task are shown alongside,
with arrows indicating connections.
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12. Figure 6: Visual representation of part of a collaborative role play activity
Our ultimate goal is to provide adaptive and contextualised information on different as-
pects of the design process, tailored to individual needs and delivered on a just-in-time
basis. We have now undertaken an extensive number of workshops enabling practitioners
to explore CompenidumLD. These have included workshops within the OU, as well as
externally (including the University of Porto, the University of Cyprus, for the EdTech
community in Canada, and at numerous conferences). Evaluation of feedback on the use
of the tool has enabled us to improve it. We were surprised at how far the participants got
in representing their designs and it did seem during the sessions that CompendiumLD ac-
ted as a useful tool to help them articulate and share their thought processes. A few parti-
cipants however commented that they did not find representing their designs visually
helpful, stating that, for them, pencil and paper/discussion would be preferable. It is
likely that such a focus on the visual aspects of the design process will not suit everyone,
but overall most participants were positive both during the session and in their evaluation
feedback.
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13. Feedback was also positive about our approach to helping teachers/designer consider in
more detail the general issues and use of visualisation and its value in improving the
practice of design. There were some disadvantages noted regarding visualisation but
these were ones we anticipated and provide further valuable food for thought (i.e.
someone said 'some designs may be difficult to describe using this visualisation'). Much
of the focus of our use of CompendiumLD during the workshops has been designing at
the level of an individual learning activity, whereas a number of attendees also saw the
value in stressing course-level design techniques and process as much as for individual
activities and felt that this would have a lot of appeal to teachers. However, whilst the
principles were appreciated those new to CompendiumLD did encounter some usability
issues and asked for more guidance and support. In view of this, it is planned that further
support will be provided within the application. For example, a movie with a commentary
describing the basics of creating a learning activity will be provided with the next release.
Evaluation of the use of CompendiumLD
Use of CompendiumLD by practitioners
CompendiumLD has being used in a range of situations with both practitioners and stu-
dents. This section provides a summary of the evaluations of the use of CompendiumLD.
Data was collected in a variety of ways: via surveys, evaluation of workshops, and ana-
lysis of comments on CompendiumLD in a discussion forum. As part of the JISC OULDI
project we have been working with four other institutions (Brunel, Cambridge, London
South Bank and Reading universities) to explore the use of our learning design tools and
resources, including CompendiumLD. This has included the running of a series of work-
shops, which are available on the Cloudworks site.
Maria Papaefthimiou, from Reading University, also carried out an interview with one of
the course participants to elicit how they were using CompendiumLD. He stated that he
found the tool useful because it enabled him to do what he was doing anyway, but in a
more directed way. It also prompted him into thinking and
We’ll probably do it on the board to begin with and then I can translate it, or do it
at the same time depending on how easy it is into this kind of thing. Which will
make people think about “How do we set learning outcomes?” will ... you know
“How does that link to that?” You know? I think the intention is to use it again
regularly as it is – you know, for other jobs to be done...you know... it should be
again part of the process
it makes you think about the different components of the learning process in a
way that is structured and it makes people address those issues and discuss them
What is particularly encouraging is that he concludes the interview by saying that using
CompendiumLD has transformed his design practice:
you could say no it hasn’t...but I think it’s actually...and my view is that its revolu-
tionised our thinking within the school of Estates and Planning to learning and
teaching
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14. A media designer had the OU used CompendiumLD to draw the tools that were being
used in a course. The benefits noted by the designer included:
•Enabled the course manager and media developer to determine that there was not likely to be
excessive demands placed on students
•Gathered the authors knowledge of the course in one place (the diagram)
•Useful for creating an on-the-fly diagram, especially as in this case time was pressing
•Clarified the course structure
•Diagram represented another vision of the specification (text only specifications often don’t
communicate what is required that well).
•The need for the template to be more flexible was one of the prompts for the creation of the
Swim-lane stencil described earlier.
We have also routinely gathered information about downloads of CompendiumLD. These
show that there has been a steady increase in the number of downloads and that the tool is
being used by both course teams, associate lecturers, as well as external individuals
(Table 1).
Table 1: CompendiumLD download statistics
B efore early Fro m 1 N ov e m b er
N ove m b er 2009 2009 to m i d-April
Total n u m b er of d ownloads 620 332
(nu m b er of d ownloads by
N u m b er of O U staff (thos e with 86 22
an @ o p e n.ac.uk ad dress)
N u m b er of Associate Lecturers 9 9
(thos e with a .op e n.ac.uk ad-
A number of surveys have been carried out after CompendiumLD workshops; these are
of two types a workshop survey and an impact survey).(S. E. Cross, 2010) Cross et al.
(2010) reflecting on the lessons learnt from the evaluations recognised the importance of
having good quality training materials to get users started with the tool. Some of the pos-
itive comments included:
•That the basis functionality of the tool is straightforward
•The value of having a background template that can be used to ensure that a design con-
forms to a set of learning design norms
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15. •It is easy to change the layout
•It is useful for communicating the overall structure of a course
•It is good for sharing ideas with others
•The drag and drop facility and the ability to link nodes
•The ability to ass time values to tasks
•The way in which you can export designs in a variety of formats.
On the negative side respondents cited the following:
•No normal cut, copy and paste facilities
•Difficult to save and export and hence share with others
•It is not always obvious what the icons should be used for
•Better quality image exports
Use of CompendiumLD by students
This section will summarise a detailed evaluation of the use of CompendiumLD by stu-
dents on the OU’s MAODE H800 course in 2009-2010. Andrew Brasher, the Compendi-
umLD technical developer, carried out the evaluation of CompendiumLD.(A. Brasher,
2010) The main points are summarised here.
The analysis focussed on student and tutor postings in the course discussion forum. 92 of
the 136 students registered on the course participated in the course forum, of these 78 cre-
ated a CompendiumLD map, 2 created a map and a visual representation using another
tool, 5 created a visual represented using another tool and 4 did not create anything.
Most students thought that the tool was user-friendly, although it required an investment
in time to become familiar with the interface. They liked the way in which colour was
used and the different nodes for different elements in a design. They also liked the way in
which the tool enabled them to produce a clear, structured output. Students felt that the
representation produced was useful in that it did summarise the essence of an activity, en-
couraging they also felt that the visual representation could reveal aspects of a design that
are not obvious from a textual representation. They stated that it was particularly useful
for brainstorming a design.
On the negative side, some students found the tool very frustrating and time consuming
to learn and use. Others felt that other mapping tools, like MindManger, Cmap or Twine,
were more intuitive. Some of the students felt that the representation was essential linear
in nature and hence couldn’t be used to produce more circular designs or ones with mul-
tiple pathways.
Potential uses cited included: sharing design ideas amongst a team of tutors, for a com-
plex design the CompendiumLD representation could provide a useful summary, for stu-
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16. dent instructions and for planning the logistics of a course – particularly for complex
courses. Negative comments about the tool included: the fact that there is a potential to
'overdesign' and hence get too focused on mechanism/process and some very sceptical of
the return on investment of mapping out learning activities, stating that a textual lesson
plan is quicker to produce and arguably more useful.
Other visualisation tools
Conclusion
The empirical evidence we gathered on practitioners’ design practice has informed our
development of the CompendiumLD tool. We believe that there is no one perfect 'tool'
for design and instead prefer to adopt a pick and mix approach to the design process. Our
initial findings are positive; however it is clear that there is a need for further research -
practitioners are crying out for examples of good practice and guidance in design.
However previous research shows that representing learning design practice and provid-
ing appropriate support for learning designers is both difficult and contested. By bringing
together both narrative accounts of learning designs with notational maps showing the
design visually, we hope to address and find practical ways of approaching the key issues
in this area. CompendiumLD seems to provide an easy to use visual tool to help represent
different learning designs.
However, it is also evident that there are a number of drawbacks with a tool like Compen-
diumLD. It is available to download to PC, Mac and Linux platforms. However the tool
is relative difficult to learn and it not always intuitive to use. We have had considerable
success in recent workshops using paper-based print outs of the icons, rather than the
software per se. Another issue is that CompendiumLD is not able to represent the full
range of design representations, which were discussed in Chapter 5. A better solution
would be to have a web-based tool, which enables users to oscillate easily between the
different design views. In addition, despite our best efforts to include scaffolded guidance
and support, the help facility at the moment is limited and is not as comprehensive as that
available in pedagogical planner tools such as DialogPlus, Phoebe and the LDSE dis-
cussed elsewhere in this book. Using Cloudworks as a form of pedagogical wrapper
around CompendiumLD is one way of addressing this shortcoming and has been used
successful in a number of our workshops. For example in a workshop at Brunel Uni-
versity on 9th November 2009, participants shared and discussed the designs they created
using CompendiumLD (http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2639).
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