User Evaluation of a Graphical Modeling Tool for IMS Learning Design

IMS Learning Design is said to be highly technical language that is hard to understand and apply by teaching practitioners. The modeling tool Graphical Learning Modeler was built to bypass this problem for level A and partially level B of the IMS Learning Design specification. Its graphical interface with drag and drop allows easy setup of learning designs that can be made conformant to IMS Learning Design. This article presents the results of an evaluation of the Graphical Learning Modeler performed with instructors at a higher education institution. Results showed that instructors were generally successful in building learning designs, but that they still had problems with transferring concepts from their teaching environment to the concepts of IMS Learning Design. Furthermore, they had trouble grasping the meaning of an editor environment that is outside the runtime environment.