THE JITOL PROJECT AND MODEL (Just In Time Open Learning): presentation of the
JITOL-MEDICAL field trial and the JITOL evaluation scheme
C. Gardiol (a), A. Boder (b) and D. Peraya
(a) JITOL Project, CP 172, CH-1211 Geneve 3, Switzerland
(b) Neurope Lab, IBP, Le Forum, F-74166 Archamps, France
Abstract
The JITOL project consists in experimenting and evaluating a distance, open
training environment using information technologies (CMC, knowledge base) for
the professional and personal development of individuals. JITOL set up networks
of users belonging to different communities of practice. It is based on
interactions between people (by opposition to interactions between users and
material objects as data bases). Users are both learners and "producers" of
knowledge, indeed, the interactions between the users build the different JITOL
knowledge bases. These knowledge bases feed and are fed by users; they are thus
dynamic and constantly evolving; indeed, knowledge acquisition is dynamic and
permanent. Another major feature is to focus on and to allow for the
explicitation of expertise and experiences of professionals, a type of
knowledge not much accounted for in most training programs. The presentation
covers the experimentation and the evaluation of JITOL-MEDICAL, JITOL
experimentation with the medical field.
1. Introduction
Knowledge is complex, growing and changing. These are frequent observations one
makes when examining the needs and requirements of learning in professional
environments.
To respond to these needs, new ways have to be found.
- One is to focus on the processes of organizing, formalizing and
transferring knowledge.
- Another is to bring together the context of learning and the one of
application.
- Another is to focus on know-how and practical experiences so central to
the professional practices and to allow for their explicitation.
- Another is to make the constructive process of knowledge acquisition
explicit.
- Another is to consider knowledge hoards as flexible and open to
negotiation (by opposition to books which are fixed and static).
- Another is to favour a collaborative construction of the training system
(users may be either experts or learners depending on their field of
expertise).
All of these strategies are at the basis of the JITOL project
(Just In Time Open Learning).
2. Background of the JITOL project
The JITOL project is a distance learning project from the DELTA program of the
European Community. 12 partners from 8 countries are involved. It started
beginning of 1992 and will end at the end of 1994. The JITOL is coordinated by
Neurope Lab, a research center at Archamps (on the French-Geneva border).
The JITOL project consists in experimenting and evaluating a distance, open
training environment using information technologies (CMC, knowledge base)
for the professional and personal development of individuals. The most salient
characteristics of JITOL are the following. JITOL is setting up networks of
users belonging to different communities of practice. It is based on
interactions between people (by opposition to interactions between users and
material objects as data bases). Users are both learners and "producers" of
knowledge, indeed, the interactions between the users build the different
JITOL knowledge bases. These knowledge bases feed and are fed by users;
they are thus dynamic and constantly evolving; indeed, knowledge
acquisition is dynamic and permanent. Another major feature is to focus and to
allow for the explicitation of expertise and experiences of professionals, a
type of knowledge not much accounted for in most training programs.
The JITOL model is experimented through three field trials. They are:
- training of trainers and teachers,
- training of health professionals responsible for patients suffering from
chronic diseases as diabetes,
- training of people working in banks and computer companies.
Apart
from these three field trials, JITOL is much concerned by evaluation and
quality control, as well as by the dissemination of the JITOL model, in
other words, the production of concrete tools as outcomes of JITOL (tools to be
used for other domains). To be more concrete, let us look carefully at one of
the field trials: the medical one (JITOL-MEDICAL) and then at the evaluation
and quality control scheme.
3. JITOL-MEDICAL, one of the field trials of JITOL
The network of users in JITOL-MEDICAL involves 5 medical units which share a
high level of expertise in the treatment and education of diabetic patients;
one is Spanish-Catalan (Barcelona), one is Italian (Firenze), two are French
(Nancy and Paris), the last is Swiss (Geneva). Each medical unit is provided
with a high performance PC, a modem connected through a server which is at
Neurope Lab (Archamps-French Swiss border) and the JITOL-MEDICAL multimedia
environment.
3.1. The JITOL-MEDICAL "4 windows" interface
The JITOL-MEDICAL multimedia environment is based on the "4 windows" interface.
Each window has a specific function:
Fig. 1: the JITOL-MEDICAL "4 windows" interface
In the North-West window is the EKB, the Evolving Knowledge Base.
In the North-East window, electronic debates (conferences) take place.
In the South-West window, users are provided with a note-book.
In the South-East window, e-mail is available to them.
The North sections are public (public knowledge - public debates), the South
ones private (private knowledge - private debate).
The West sections are for knowledge (public knowledge - private knowledge), the
East sections for communications (public debates - private debates).
3.2. The E-Mail window
This is a traditional electronic mail; it allows the users to communicate
personally with someone else.
3.3. The Note-Book window
This is a space where users may make and build their own knowledge, thanks to
cut and paste anything from the three other windows. They may also take some
notes.
3.4. The Evolving Knowledge Base window
1. This is a knowledge base made up of texts, figures, scanned images and soon
video-clips. Its main principles are:
- the relevance (in relation with the professional needs of the
users) rather than exhaustiveness,
- a modular approach,
- the progressive construction of this knowledge base thanks to the
"reification" of the interactions which take place in the electronic debates
window,
- an evolving principle: the knowledge is not fixed once for all, on
the contrary it is open to discussion,
- a training tool but also a professional tool to be used in the
everyday professional practice (especially, thanks to the implementation of a
computerized medical file about patients and to the presence of sixty typical
images of diabetic foot to be used as references for the medical
practice).
The unit in the knowledge base is the "topic". Each topic is approached
through a certain number of modules (which are the same for each topic). These
modules are the following:
- Presentation of the topic: brief description of the topic;
- Points of View: a variety of points of view on the topic (scientifically
validated or not), from different authors and experts. The goal is to present
different opinions on the topic so as to provide material to discuss the topic
in the electronic debates window;
- Cases and Situations: examples of practical situations and patient cases
which illustrate the topic. The idea is to give concrete and practical material
to better understand the topic;
- Glossary: critical terms with the equivalent in the different languages of
the partners, and with a definition of these terms;
- References: bibliographical references with abstract;
- Critical issues and practical solutions: most problematic issues raised by
the participants in the electronic debates, along with different solutions to
solve them
- Debate summary: synthesised presentation of the debate in progress within
the topic. Analysis giving emphasis to the claim and the different people's
arguments, counter-arguments and supporting evidences.
Apart from these
different modules which offer different entry points in the topics, the
Evolving Knowledge Base provides a "Semantic Search Network" which
offers the users a semantic representation of a concept and which allows an
inter-topic navigation (across the different modules of the topics in the
Evolving Knowledge Base). The Semantic Search Network is based on the idea that
many points of view, provided by cross-references in a hypertext-like
environment provide a better representation. This is similar to semantic
networks which help construct an overall representation of a problem or a
situation.
Its basic mechanism is to allow users to "button-click" on words, which then
generate a graphical representation of possible links with other modules or
other concepts. The links are provided with semantic value. So one can access
any related node by finding support or evidence for the given word, or an
alternative view or yet an example.
3.5. Electronic Debates window
Each topic in the debate corresponds to a topic in the Evolving Knowledge base.
The relation between the knowledge base and the debates is thus very close, the
first is a support for the second and vice versa. Some debates are launched
thanks to some reflective activities about typical situations. A synthetic
version of the debates is available in the Evolving Knowledge Base.
Regularly, the interactions in the debates are "reified", in other
words, they are analyzed, organized and put in the Evolving Knowledge Base.
These information do not acquire however a fixed and final status; as a
principle, they are open to re-discussion. This strategy allows to be as close
as possible to the constant evolution occurring in professional practices.
JITOL-MEDICAL aims at helping professionals to debate ideas, issues and
original practices not yet scientifically validated. The status of the
knowledge transiting in JITOL-MEDICAL is temporary.
4. JITOL Evaluation and Quality Control scheme
The evaluation of the JITOL project is in the hand of an international team of
approx. 20 people. Together, the team set a common framework which then was
adapted to the evaluation of each field trial. For the medical field trial, a
careful identification of its characteristics, limits and constraints was first
carried out. They are rather characteristic of any professional settings:
- the health professionals feel that evaluation is not essential;
- because of their tight professional schedule, the health professionals do
not want their time to be taken away by heavy evaluation
procedures.
Consequently the evaluators chose for JITOL-MEDICAL to perform
an evaluation:
- as unobtrusive as possible, in other words, long questionnaires,
interviews, are to be used with moderation because the danger is to have the
users quit the evaluation project as well as JITOL itself;
- as close as possible to the training system itself, in other words, the
evaluation should be partly immersed into the development and the management of
the training system itself;
- the evaluation results should first of all be of benefit to the managers
and users of the training system.
In other words, the functions of the
evaluation of JITOL-MEDICAL are twofold:
- to ensure that JITOL-MEDICAL complies with the needs and characteristics
of the users: evaluation as operational support and concomitant;
- to test the relevance of the JITOL hypothesis in relation with the needs
of the users: more traditional function of the evaluation.
4.1. Evaluation as operational support and concomitant
As such, the evaluation tends to provide to the managers of the medical field
trial a tool to help them to manage the experiment. Thanks to their more
exterior and neutral approach, the evaluators-supporters participate to a more
precise definition of:
- the different actors of the experiment (coordinators, debate moderators,
learners, experts, technical support...)
- the roles and functions of these actors
- their expectations and limits
- the contexts in which JITOL-MEDICAL is implemented.
4.2. More traditional evaluation
As such, the evaluators have selected seven aspects which will be closely
investigated. They are:
- JITOL-MEDICAL as open learning (freedom and reality of access; variety of
actors; horizontal communication)
- JITOL-MEDICAL as a collaborative learning system (sharing of knowledge;
desire to participate and share ones' knowledge; valorisation of the efforts)
- JITOL-MEDICAL as a strategy of explicitation of experiential knowledge
and of evolving knowledge basis (setting up of the knowledge basis and its
evolving nature)
- JITOL-MEDICAL based on the principle of the dynamic reification of
knowledge (management of the reification; its dynamic and recursive nature)
- JITOL-MEDICAL as a vector of change in the professional practices
(behavioral modifications; will to learn)
- JITOL-MEDICAL as a vector of change in the running and the organisation of
the different medical units (types of communication among the different members
of the units; internal, regional diffusion of JITOL)
- JITOL-MEDICAL as an appropriate system rather than a "just in time"
system.
5. Conclusion
Thanks to the simultaneous development of the field trials and the evaluation
scheme, the JITOL project hopes to provide its users an environment as close as
possible to the expectations and needs of the users, for a training as embedded
as possible in their professional practice and with a special stress on the
collaborative process of building up a knowledge hoard.
References
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177-85.
- Boder, A. & Gardiol, C. (1992), Multimédia pour
l'éducation et la formation en Europe: quelles méthodologies de
production? (Résultats du projet Start-up). Supplément 54,
Politique de la Science, OFES Berne.
- McConnell, D. (1990), Case Study: the educational use of computer
conferencing. Educational and Training Technology International, 27, 2.
- Saunders, M. (1992), Coherence & autonomy: issues in the evaluation of
an open learning project. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Vol.8,
Nr.3, Sept 1992, pp. 151-62.
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[D.P.]