Reload Learning Design Editor - The Process

The process of creating a Learning Design, or "Unit of Learning" (UoL), in the Reload Learning Design Editor is as follows:


The Editing Process

 

  1. You first create your workspace for your Learning Design "Project" - the Project Folder. This is a new, empty directory that will contain the XML files, a "content" folder for file resources and a "metadata" folder for Metadata files (these two folders are automatically created).
  2. You create a New Learning Design file in that Project Folder. This is accessed and managed from the Projects View.
  3. You edit the UoL file, adding and editing content files in the "content" folder and adding and editing Metadata files in the "metadata" folder.
  4. Finally, you check the integrity of the UoL, parse the resources for dependent files, and Export the UoL as a package.

An example Project folder looks like this:


An example Project Folder

 

The key thing to remember when you use the Editor is that you are not editing the final "imsmanifest.xml" file. There are a number of reasons for this:

  1. You can work on more than one version of your Unit of Learning (UoL) in a Project Folder, then export the one you want to use. This way, you don't have to care about whether the UoL is a Content Package or about the process of parsing dependent files. This is done for you in the "Export" tab of the Editor. Simply create a UoL, edit it, check it, and export...

  2. You can re-use Metadata files at various points in the UoL and in different versions of the UoL. Metadata is added to the UoL by referencing stand-alone Metadata files in the "metadata" folder. Create stand-alone Metadata files in the Reload Content Packaging and Metadata Editor and save them in the Learning Design's "metadata" folder. The Metadata file can then be referenced in the UoL as a file location by clicking on the "Metadata" button in the LD Editor. When the LD is finally exported, the Metadata is automatically added to and embedded in the "imsmanifest.xml" file.

  3. File references to content files can be just that, a path to a file in the "content" folder. If you were to directly edit the "imsmanifest.xml" file you would have to create an <item> element that references a <resource> element that has to parsed for all of its <file> dependencies that finally points to the file you want to reference... If you then went on to change the content of that referenced file, for example by adding a new image file to the html file, you would have to repeat the process. Packaging is done in the "Export" tab as a one-off process.

    The "imsmanifest.xml" file is actually an IMS Content Package file that requires its resources to be parsed for file dependencies. The following simplified XML fragment demonstrates how a Learning Design is wrapped in a Content Package "imsmanifest.xml" file.

    <manifest>

    <organizations>
    <learning-design identifier="ld" level="A" uri="http://www.reload.ac.uk>

    <learning-objectives>
    <title>My LO</title>
    <item identifier="item1" identifierref="resource1" />
    </learning-objectives>

    ...

    </learning-design>
    </organizations>

    <resources>
    <resource identifier="resource1" type="webcontent" href="my_file.html">
    <file href="my_file.html" />
    <file href="assets/image1.gif" />
    <file href="assets/image2.gif" />
    <file href="assets/bkgrd.jpg" />
    <file href="file2.html" />
    <file href="file3.html" />
    </resource>

    </resources>

    </manifest>

    Note that in the <learning-objectives> element, the <item> element points, via the "identifierref" attribute to the <resource> element which has been parsed for its <file> elements, and which in turn points to the file called "my_file.html". If you were to edit "my_file.html", by changing, removing or adding any new links or image files, the resource would have to parsed all over again.

    This is the reason why the Reload Learning Design Editor does not directly edit the imsmanifest.xml file, but instead creates an interim file where the absolute file references are stored. The file parsing is done in the "Export" stage to allow for possible changes in the the content files.

 

See also:

Reload Learning Design Editor Concepts
Projects View