Ideal solution

This is where we dream about the ideal solution: one versatile platform containing all media that allows students to co-create the course material with the professors and where students can easily communicate with each other on top of the course. Have a look at the COCOON proposal for more information on our vision and the learning benefits such an environment could generate.

Overall, our goal is to reduce the distance between:

• fragments of the course material
• various courses
• the course and the conversation about the course
• pioneers at the UGent (Community of Practice)
• students and fellow-students (learning community)
• students and professors (learning community)
• student feedback and course improvement (co-creation + speed of feedback)
• the course and society
• the UGent and future students
• the UGent and future collaborators
• software and hardware (slides on a mobile device)

Overarching goals

Here is a list of the big goals we have in mind that apply to the open webslides, but also to the Jupyter notebook courses and the annotation project.

Open-source mindset

• New mind set for the students (attitudeswitch) in which open is the default: open education, open data, open science. Ideally, open source should be a deal-maker or deal-breaker.
• We have great tools to develop and debug software, why don't we collectively debug courses too?

Co-creation in a learning community

• Courses are no longer a one-way story.
• Students co-create the course and boost each other's learning experience.
• The best teachers learn from their students.
• Course material is no longer a closed off phenomenon, but a portal to society at large.
• Feedback from society quickly reaches the course material (course material is validated and completed in an international context): increased quality and visibility

Technology that aids learning

• Cause a mini-revolution in course materials at the UGent.
• Group assignments get the structure they deserve.
• Integrated course material at the center of the conversation.
• By disconnecting content from layout, a course and the slides could be two sides of the same coin, making the course material truly integrated.

Evidence-based education

• The learning experience of the students is measurable and we can move towards evidence-based education. We are a research institution, right? So this is a logical step!

Specific vision for the annotations

We could use an illustrator to help visualize this part because a full-fledged version of this technology is currently lacking.

Dare to debate

• annotations can be private or public
• annotations can be made anonymously

Start a conversation

• users can respond to each other's public annotations
• users are notified when their annotations is responded to
• unread annotations are highlighted in the margin of the text and thus automatically draw the attention

Structure the conversation

• annotations can be labeled (e.g., open question, answered question, added material, suggestion for course correction, course notes)
• annotations have their own URL so you can easily link to them
• annotations can be voted on or liked

Filter out what matters

• because the annotations have a lot of metadata we can customize views (e.g. side stream)
• in a separate view, annotations can be listed according to e.g., date, number of responses, number of likes, number of times read.
• users can use multiple filters (e.g., show no annotations, only show my own annotations, only show the annotations made by a specific person (e.g. the professor), only show the unread annotations, only show the personally tagged annotations)