Design for collaborative contextualization of open educational resources

The paper presents an evaluation of a prototype design for collaborative adaptation of open educational resources (OER) in e-Learning platforms. Interactive mock-ups are designed for the process of adapting OER collaboratively. The overall research question is: Which functional design allows for a meaningful navigation through collaborative contextualization processes? The analysis focuses on the time (when users like to add peers), which informational needs are required to select peers, and which functions are missing more generally in the prototype. Results provide insights how a well-planned design can increase the use of adaptation tools and how to overcome the important barrier of systems complexity. Findings suggest that participants like to contact peers before having selected the resource and by sending a link or a mail. They do not need to see much information to select their collaboration partner. Furthermore, aspects which need to be added are icons that facilitate identifying collaboration spaces. Based on the results and user feedback, design principles and their adaptation are discussed in this paper.