F5-O/LT3-3 - Object-Oriented Approach for Quick Preparation of Learning Materials in Conditions of Digital Transformations and Rapid Updates of Scientific Results

2. Research-to-Practice Full Paper
Alexey Dukhanov¹ , Leonid Gorokhovatsky¹, Aleksei Pershutkin¹, Sergei Koniukhov^1
1 ITMO University

Introduction
The digital developments and transformations influence on educational processes significantly. The scientific results and technologies appear and update very fast. As a result, the use of traditional approaches to design and implement learning resources is noneffective for major courses, because received materials become obsolete.

To mitigate this problem, we offer the object-oriented approach to annotate hybrid learning resources  (HLR) on the base of existing scientific, informational and learning objects. This approach allows us to create, develop, and update learning resources rapidly. Besides, the use of one resource in different applications is possible. These applications depended on educational purposes, technical possibilities, and domain areas.

Consider the object-oriented approach (OOA) to annotate HLR. We use the notion «HLR» because we invoke both learning objects and information objects (including scientific application software). OOA approach based on the three concepts: incapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism.

Incapsulation.

The annotation of learning resources starts from the declaration of the class with properties and methods. There are two types of properties: (1) parameters, which define educational and domain applications, technical possibilities of related software, (2) links to informational and learning resources. Methods describe the use of the linked resources for educational purposes: theoretical learning, practical learning, and learning outcomes evaluation.

Inheritance.

To hold fix the designed class and create a new child class to extend the area of application, we use the inheritance concept. A child class may contain overridden and new parameters/methods to change and supplement the application of related instances. For example, we may design the class for learning the simplex algorithm in general and create two children’s classes for learning the same algorithm in financial and food domains (each child class complemented with the new links to required informational and learning resources).

Polymorphism.

The use of the polymorphism concept allows us to design learning resources to teach for general-purpose methods and technologies, including cross-cutting technologies. We design the base class with abstract methods here. To provide students with skills in cross-cutting technology in general and the application of it in different domain areas, we create the children, which contain same-name methods with required executable contents. For example, we should design classes to provide students with skills in clustering. Let the base class contains the abstract method to present the related algorithm on the lecture (“LectDemo”). In this case, we may create three children for general learning and study the algorithm’s application in financial and social domains. It can be observed that the method “LectDemo” is defined in each child differently.

We annotated and used approximately one hundred HLR (including for cross-cutting technologies in machine learning). Statistical data shows the multiple reduces of time-consuming in learning materials’ design. Besides, students receive the experience to use source materials (scientific papers, technical reports, scientific software, etc.).