El Manga

Within a linear structure more information than only a sequence of units, which has a lot of relations, is hidden. First of all, the structure has a goal, which is the

0 1 2 3 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 2.2.1 2.2.1 Title 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Chapters Sections Paragraphs Slides 10 11 12 13 14 End Author creates creates creates goal tree model Title direction

Figure 18: Structure of sectioned linear content: The linear content itself consists of slides, begins with the title slide and goes linearly to the end, which normally corresponds with the goal of learning content in terms of having gone through all the content and also understood it all. The horizontal arrow under the content shows its direction. On top of the content the tree structure is illustrated with bricks, which show the numbers of the chapters, sections, etc. Also shown is how the author of this content has created both content and structure.

end of the sequence. The direction is also clear: constantly moving forward from the beginning to the end. Additionally, content is usually structured in chapters, sections, and paragraphs, hence presenting a tree-based model. It is also important to recognise that the author (or team of authors) have created the whole content including its structure: The author’s point of view is part of each piece of content and its structure. This includes his personal characteristics and view of the domain, didactic approaches, and more. All levels of a multi layer model are merged into each piece of content and structured with different and changing weights. Figure 18 provides an overview.

To this extent, all the information can be extracted automatically from existing content. When new content is created, the author can set this structure information without changing his workflow and without any additional effort. The result so far complies with the standard flow behaviour of IMS Simple Sequencing (compare figure 8 on page 42).

3.2. The Concept: “Coherence” However, additional content must be added in order to delinearise this kind of structure. Since this research project originated as part of the Atlantis University Project, which, among other things, was a network of universities that had multiple lecturers teaching the same subject. In most instances the lecturers created their own content. Naturally, different lecturers explain and present information differently. This difference can be obvious or only slightly so. However, the content is distinct in that they vary in the way of explanation, wording, structure, assessments, didactic methodology, figures, and more. Such different content and structures can be merged by annotating related fractions (for example slides), sections, chapters, etc. across the different linear content defining interrelationships. Consequently, in this research semantic relations are used and called content types, typifying similar sections of content.

Branching to another author’s content also implies changing to his context in terms of his way of teaching and presenting. It is like changing the room to take lessons of another lecturer, comparable to a traditional higher education setting, where a student can, based on the attendance of previous modules, choose an lecturer whose teaching methodologies or way of teaching and explaining works best for that particular student. Thus, just jumping around will provide additional content, but might also confuse the learner, because the flow of the content sequence is broken. This cannot be prevented entirely, but further utilisation of the existing structure lessens the negative impact of switching the context, because the result is closer to the originally authored content including its structure, and the following characteristics (which have already been discussed in section 3.1.2 Storytelling Aspects of Interest for Adapting Linear Content Structures on page 62) are harmed as little as possible:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

11 12 13

corresponding content type

0 1 2 11 12 13 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Figure 19: Insertion of content sections that must be presented: The empty bricks are content types and repeats representing the content structure. The numbered white coloured bricks are one author’s content sections, altogether building his linear content, illustrated by the upper line of numbered white bricks. The red bricks are another author’s content sections that have been marked as must be shown. They are inserted at the beginning of the group of content sections belonging to the same content type, resulting in the path illustrated at the bottom of the figure.

• Succession of tightly interlocking mediate and immediate elements [11]. • Complex structures that must meet many hard-to-specify requirements [32,

p 14].

• Moving a part to another position changes its purpose [96].

Having discussed aspects of decomposing linear content, now aspects for recom- posing are described. As was done for decomposing the content, care is taken to change the source content’s structures as little as possible.

The key for recomposing content paths can be found in the sections (and chapters and paragraphs, etc.) of the tree structure: They describe a group of content sections. These content sections belong together more than content sections outside of the group. Thus, the margins of these groups are the preferred locations where the linear sequence can be branched.

To produce as few changes as possible, inserted content should be joined author wise. Content that must be presented should be inserted at the beginning of the corresponding group. Thus, the sequencing system has a good chance of being able

3.2. The Concept: “Coherence”

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11 12 13

corresponding content type

0 1 2 3 4 11 12 13 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Figure 20: Insertion of alternative content sections: As in figure 19, the empty bricks are content types and repeats representing the content structure. The numbered white coloured bricks are one author’s content sections, altogether building his linear content and illustrated by the upper line of numbered white bricks. The green bricks are another author’s alternative content sections. They are inserted at the end of the group of content sections belonging to the same content type, resulting in the path illustrated at the bottom of the figure.

to react to any negative impact these insertions might have, see figure 19. However, content that is inserted as an alternative should be inserted at the end of a group (see figure 20), so that the system can react to user behaviour. For example if the user needs longer than expected, the previously inserted alternative content might be changed or dismissed.

In the case of inserting another author’s content fractions, the other author’s context must also be taken into consideration. As a consequence, the content that is necessary for understanding the current content sections should also be part of the inserted group before the actual section that it is branched to. However, this does not mean that all the prior content needs to be shown. Instead only those parts are needed that have not yet been explained by the author of the path that is being branched from. Hence, only content sections that are not related to previously presented sections will be taken into account.