"The IIURL brings the skills of students, faculty and staff together to facilitate advances in teaching, learning and the sharing of ideas."

Information relating to current activities can be found in the links at the left. For the latest developments and upcoming events, visit the News page. A description of the current goals for the IIURL are listed below. To see what the future may hold, view the items in the Future Projects list in the left column. If you are looking for the Learning Objects that have been developed in the PRAXIS Wisconsin project, click here.

Because of the multi-dimensional nature of the environment surrounding the creation and assessment of digital teaching and learning materials, the Institute will provide an innovative arena in which to assess content development, faculty development and student learning. Relevant content knowledge will be acquired along with collaboration, technological, and critical thinking skills; real-world products and publications will result.

The Institute will focus on the following fundamental goals. It will:

  • Find innovative ways to capitalize on technology to make very simple the storage, retrieval and sharing of digital content for teaching and that enhance digital content development, sharing and publication.

  • Meaningfully incorporate students into research and development of educational tools, products and infrastructure;

  • Incorporate faculty development as an integral part of the educational process of the students;

  • Ensure that the processes address teacher preparation in new and innovative ways; and
    Address specific elements of PI 34 as stated by the DPI.

Current objectives of the Institute include:

  • Involving UW System institutions in projects it supports.

  • Complete the development of PRAXIS modules currently underway as part of UW System LTDC grant support. These learning objects (LOs) are based on the academic subject-matter areas within the PRAXIS II exams. The expectation is that there will be a set of the LOs completed sufficient to create a practice exam for a section of the PRAXIS II.

  • Facilitate the creation of at least two online courses that utilize the completed LOs. Examples of these include a sample PRAXIS exam, a content course and possibly a course dealing with how to take high-stakes exams such as the PRAXIS.

  • Continue the evaluation process. We have conducted a preliminary assessment of the LOs and have developed templates and a training process. All of these components will be evaluated for their learning value as well as usability.

  • Directly address the challenge of building capacity through the implementation of a model of authentic learning. While it is anticipated that these products and their related processes will evolve, the basic processes and design required for the creation of the LOs has been established. UW System faculty, representing education and letters and sciences, work in partnership with their students to create the learning objects.

  • Involve UW Computer Science and other students and faculty in a real-world project to further develop the Wisconsin Federated Registry for Developers; the goal of this is to crate an open-source, production tool for collaboration, creation, sharing and publication of LOs.

  • Continue and improve the Open Source Federated Registry Architecture (OSFORA), an open-source software project having the particular goal to support the Wisconsin Federated Registry (WFR.wlearn.com).

  • Ensure that the development of the all open-source software products including and related to OSFORA meet international standards for interoperability and usability. Development of OSFORA is ultimately under the approval of the Academic ADL Co-Lab. The technical aspects of the development will be coordinated with and final changes must meet the approval of Academic ADL Co-Lab.

  • Ensure that the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents holds the final copyright for the developed software products and LO content.

  • Ensure that the development of the tools and learning objects developed for the PRAXIS WI project adhere to working standards for instructional design, interoperability and shareability. Changes to the various aspects of the development around these tools and objects will be coordinated with Academic ADL Co-Lab who has final approval.

  • Promote the Institute’s goals, mission and research agenda through conference presentations and scholarly publication.

  • To promote communication, and ensure that goals and outcomes remain relevant to the mission of the Institute, they will be reviewed yearly over the course of the institute and modified as necessary.

Funding for the IIURL is provided by the UW System
Office of Learning and Information Technology (OLIT) and the
UW System PK-16 Initiatives