- Email: [email protected]
A Conceptual Model for Adaptive ERP Courses
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Procedia Technology 9 (2013) 114 – 119
CENTERIS 2013 - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems / ProjMAN 2013 - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCIST 2013 - International Conference on Health and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies
A Conceptual Model for Adaptive ERP Courses Dirk Peters* and Jorge Marx Gómez Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Ammerländer Heerstr. 114-118, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
Abstract Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have a very high potential to illustrate the versatile use of information systems in today’s companies and help to understand the integration of business processes for students. Higher education institutes need to react on the changing demand in the employee market and offer adequate, practical courses on ERP. Existing ERP courses are ignoring the previous knowledge and the individual progress of students coming from different programs of study. Therefore, we are presenting a conceptual model for adaptive ERP courses in order to create individual learning material based on the students’ interaction with the ERP system. © 2013 The Authors Publishedby byElsevier Elsevier Ltd. © 2013 Published Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of SCIKA – Association for Promotion and Dissemination of CENTERIS/ProjMAN/HCIST. Scientific Knowledge Keywords: ERP; ERP System; ERP Education; Information Systems; IS Education; ERP Learning Material; ERP Case Studies; Adaptive ERP; Conceptual Model; Adaptive Learning System.
1. Introduction The relevance for an adequate information system-education (IS education), or enterprise system-education (ES education) in general, in the field of higher education-institutes (HE institutes) has rapidly grown in the last decade. The demand of companies in the employment market has changed in a way that today’s students need to bring skills in planning, implementing and using such systems on a very high (often strategic) level
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-441-798-4475; fax: +49-441-798-4472. E-mail address: [email protected].
2212-0173 © 2013 The Authors Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of SCIKA – Association for Promotion and Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge doi:10.1016/j.protcy.2013.12.012
Dirk Peters and Jorge Marx Gómez / Procedia Technology 9 (2013) 114 – 119
[1, 2, 3]. Especially, students coming from the fields of informatics, economics and business informatics are affected by this skills shift and they need to match a specific profile to be prepared for their future work life [4, 5]. Therefore, it is a major challenge of HE institutes (e.g. universities) to be responsive to this changing matter in IS education in a proper way that students get in contact with the systems, in theory as well as in practice [6, 7]. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have a very high potential to illustrate the integration of business processes in today’s versatile companies. Affected by different business areas, like finance, controlling, production planning, material management, etc., ERP systems can give a very good overview of the implementation of business processes in the IT-landscape of a company. Starting from gathering the requirements for an ERP implementation, going through the selection of a specific ERP software vendor and ending up in the customization and using the concrete system, ERP systems can address a huge amount of ISrelated topics. Also, more technical issues, such as the integration data and/or functions of different systems into one centralized (ERP) system, can be covered with the use of ERP systems in ERP training courses. The practical use of ERP systems is one of the major challenges when trying to offer a “hands on”experience to students on the basis of a real ERP implementation in form of case studies e.g. In the literature, there are different methods described how to (successfully) make use of real ERP systems in a training course [2, 6, 8, 9]. There are also some ERP software vendors, like SAP for example, who offer a widely accepted University Alliances Program for universities in order to bring students in contact with their products [10]. Unfortunately, the existing approaches for practical ERP training courses are lacking for different reason, which are described in detail in the next section (section 2). After presenting the objectives of our research (section 3) and having a look at related work in this area of research (section 4), the conceptual model for adaptive ERP courses is illustrated and specified (section 5). Finally, a conclusion with a short summary and an outlook for the future steps is given in the last section (section 6). 2. Problem Definition When analyzing the existing ERP training courses from different ERP software vendors, ERP training concepts from universities and existing approaches coming from the scientific area, it becomes obvious that the existing training methods do not consider the individual previous knowledge and the learning progress of the different students within a specific course. Mostly, the ERP training course material is paper-based and has a linear sequence of exercises. Furthermore, there are no different levels of difficulty so that neither the sequence nor the exercise description differs according to the individual state of the student resp. the learner. In regular ERP courses at a university, the students have a different background of knowledge and skills (depending on their experience or field of study in interdisciplinary ERP courses), but the learning material does only address a group of students, which are very heterogeneous in their style of learning as well. Some students are working on a case study-exercise very active and reach the learning target very quick. Some others need more theoretical information about the specific functions or a visual support in navigation in order to complete an exercise task with satisfaction. Another problem can arise not from the students’ side, but more from the teachers’ side: When the students are doing a practical exercise at the ERP system, errors can occur or students make mistakes while entering data or performing a specific transaction. For the tutor this can sometimes be difficult to analyze the source of error and find an appropriate solution in a suitable period of time. In general, courses have up to 30 students working at the same time on the same system and all are assisted by only one tutor. The tutors do not have an appropriate overview of the progress of the different students or students groups working on a set of exercises. A common method of teaching practical ERP content is making the use of case studies. But unfortunately, if they are delivered by the ERP software vendors, they often do not have a deeper didactical basis, because they only include technical and functional issues of the system. Therefore, the description text of the exercise is
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often in a form of brief instructions, which rather facilitate a fast “click-through” than a critical thinking by the students [6]. 3. Objectives The aim of our research (in general) is to develop an adaptive ERP learning system, which allows to track (or log) the students interaction in a real ERP system during an ERP course. Based on this tracking information, it should be made possible, to analyze the performance of a single student with respect to the overall learning target. As a result of this analyzing phase, the system should be able to offer individual learning material coming from a pool of different exercises, which vary in the level of difficulty, exercise description and/or visual format. Additionally, the technology-supported system should give an overview for the tutors of the success (or difficulties) of different students or students groups in a concrete ERP course. In order to reach this overall research target, it is necessary to define a conceptual model, which allows an overview for a future implementation of the final ERP learning system. The focus of the conceptual model – and the innovative character of the approach – is the integration of the learning system with a real ERP system. So, the main research question, which will be addressed by this contribution, is: “How can tracking information, coming from a real ERP system, be integrated into an adaptive learning environment in order to control and enhance the learning progress of individual students?” 4. Related Work and Novelty of the Approach This research is related to the widely-discussed field of Intelligent Learning Systems (ITS) [11] and Adaptive Hypermedia (AH) systems [12]. Normally, existing ITS are used in very different domains (programming, mathematics, geography, medicine, etc.) and are also designed for a very broad target group ranging from first grader to domain experts. Therefore, the success of different implementations of ITS also varies in like manner [13]. The major advantages of ITS or AH systems in general are the creation of individual learning material for a single learner, the time- and location independence and the possibility to enhance existing training courses with an interactive learning experience (e.g. blended learning). Besides these advantages, ITS and AH systems also come with some disadvantages which are mostly focusing on the very time-consuming and extremely complicated development of these systems. It is necessary to have programming experts for the development, professional tutors to design effective learning material and domain experts which can deliver the relevant content for the learning material [14]. At the moment there are no existing ITS or AH systems which cover the domain of ERP courses for HE institutes. Especially, the enrichment of the user model with trace-file information coming from the ERP system legitimates our new approach in this highly relevant research domain. In the following section the conceptual model for adaptive ERP courses is presented. 5. Conceptual Model As a characteristic of a conceptual model, the following model description is neither defined for a specific ERP system nor a concrete technology which should be used for a future implementation. Based on the requirements analysis of a former literature review in the field of ERP education and adaptive learning environments, the conceptual model in Fig. 1 was designed. As a common method, we used the widely accepted Martin-notation by James Martin [cf. 15].
Dirk Peters and Jorge Marx Gómez / Procedia Technology 9 (2013) 114 – 119
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Fig. 1. Conceptual Model for Adaptive ERP Courses
In the following, the main parts of the conceptual model in Fig. 1 are described more in detail. Due to the limitations of this contribution not every aspect of the model can be presented here. Furthermore, the attributes of the different entities have been omitted for clarity purposes. First of all, it is necessary, to split an ERP course into a hierarchy of ERP-relevant content. Therefore, it is proposed, that an overall Course, like “ERP Basics” or “ERP for Economics” is split into different Lectures. These can be for example “Finance”, “Controlling” or “Human Resources” in order to teach specific components of an ERP system and split different topics into smaller parts of a whole Course. A Lecture consists of a set of Exercises, which are generated by the tutor of the course. These Exercises can be adopted by existing case studies a tutor usually uses for his/her regular ERP course. An example for an exercise could be: “Create a material R-105 in Material Management”. In order to address to different types of students, the Teacher also needs to provide different Variations of an Exercise. A Variation belongs to the same Exercise, but has a different Description, e.g. in “easy”, “advanced” and “professional” format. The “easy” Variation can consists of are more detailed description in comparison to the “advanced” or “professional” Variation. In the end, these Variations allow the individual generation of the learning material for each single student. The Students are using the ERP System and get their learning material (respectively their Exercises in different Variations) from a Learn Management System (LMS). In the LMS the Students are assigned to one of the Courses. While the students are working with the ERP System, a Trace-File is generated, which protocols the main interactions of the Student in the ERP System. The Trace-File information enriches a User Model, which is the model of the real student. The user model is a very important part for adaptive learning systems. Furthermore, Students are able to maintain personal interests, such as previous knowledge or prior skills, within the LMS, which also enriches their User Model. Based on the User Model and existing Rules, the Adaptation of the learning material (in form of choosing the Lecture and the Variation of an Exercise) can be done. These Rules need to be defined by a Teacher and they describe the adaptation behavior. An example of this behavior can be: “Show the same exercise with a variation with the attribute easy, if the student creates an error” or “Display additional background information if the student asks for help or clicks on the wrong button”. In order to make sure that the adaptive learning system knows about the occurring errors, it is necessary to define
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Solutions for each Exercise. An Exercise can have different Solutions (the students can reach their learning target in an ERP System in different ways, because business process are not linear and be completed through different transactions), which are mapped with a so called Completion Indicator. The Completion Indicator is ERP system-specific and refers to the information in the Trace-File. If a transaction in the ERP System is completed (for example the Trace-File shows the status message: “material R-105 successfully created”), this can be defined as the Completion Indicator of one Solution of an Exercise. When a Student has successfully completed a set of Exercises in a Lecture, the learning system will save this information in the User Model. In the next session, the learning system might then propose are more advanced Lecture with a different set of Exercises. The teacher can get an overview of all students, who are part of the course and analyze the performance of the participants with respect to different aspects. Then, the teacher can optimize the descriptions of the variations for future courses, e.g. if a high amount of students get stuck at the same problem. In future, it is thinkable, that different teachers can create a pool of different ERP courses with very detailed variations and descriptions in order to allow other teachers to make use of this system. In an initial phase of the approach, it is necessary that a minimum set of different variations are delivered to guarantee the individual usage as described in the objectives of this work. The reuse of learning material is much easier within an electronic learning environment [16]. This is very important, because the systems are changing a lot due to software updates and new software releases. Thus, the user interface can have a different look in a newer version or further functions are implemented, which also should be part of future, easy adaptable learning material. 6. Conclusions and Future Work In this contribution we presented a conceptual model for practical, adaptive ERP courses. Based on a literature review, we found out that existing approaches in science and practice are not addressing the individual state of students within an ERP training course in HE institutes. In the related work, we described existing technologies, which can be used for a new solution. By enhancing the user model with trace-file information coming directly from the ERP system, it is possible to measure the performance of each single student in a practical ERP course. This information can be used to offer personalized learning material which meets the concrete requirements of this single student. Furthermore, the electronic tracking of the students’ behavior can give a better overview for the teacher of the course in order to give a better assistance in the course. The conceptual model describes how this adaptation process can be executed. The electronic learning material can be optimized and stored for future courses and shared between other HE institutes. Based on the conceptual model, the next step of our research is to develop a software system architecture, which allows the concrete implementation of the adaptive learning system. There, the focus is on the integration of a real ERP system with an existing LMS like Moodle (http://www.moodle.org) for example. For the other related topics existing standard can be used. The description of the learning material as a hierarchy of tasks can be done by SCORM, which is a Sharable Content Object Reference Model the describe course material [17]. Furthermore, the adaptation process is investigated very well by the literature. The GRAPPLE project (http://www.grapple-project.org) is one example for a successful implementation of a personalized adaptive learning environment, which already delivers an adaptation engine and associated rules [18]. The learning material can be adapted from existing courses in order to have an initial set of ERP exercises. Regarding the analysis of the transaction data, methods and tools coming from the very new field of Learning Analytics also need to be taken into account [19]. At the end of our research, a prototype can be implemented as a proof-ofconcept and tested in a real scenario within a HE institute and a follow-up evaluation.
Dirk Peters and Jorge Marx Gómez / Procedia Technology 9 (2013) 114 – 119
References [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
[7]
[8] [9] [10]
[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]
[19]
Konradin Business GmbH, 2011. Konradin ERP-Studie 2011: Einsatz von ERP-Lösungen in der Industrie. Leinfelden-Echterdingen: Konradin Mediengruppe. Cameron, B. H.,2008. Enterprise Systems Education: New Directions & Challenges for the Future. AMCIS 2008 Proceedings, p. 119–126. Boyle, T. A., Strong, S. E., 2006. Skill Requirements of ERP Graduates. Journal of Information Systems Education, 17(4), p. 403–413. Scholtz, B., 2011. A Framework for the Adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems in Higher Education. Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. Hawking, P., McCarthy, B., Stein, A., 2004. Second Wave ERP Education. Journal of Information Systems Education, 15(3), p. 327–332. Winkelmann, A., Holler, J., Püster, J., Heide, T., 2012. Lernerfolg durch ERP-System-Vergleich – Einsatz von SAP Business ByDesign und SAP ERP in der Lehre. In D. C. Mattfeld, S. Robra-Bissantz (Eds.), Proceedings Multikonferenz der Wirtschaftsinformatik - MKWI 2012 (pp. 525–536). Berlin: GITO Peters, D., Haak, L., Marx Gómez, J., 2012. Adaptive Learning Cycle to improve the Competence-Building for Enterprise Systems in Higher Education. Organizational Integration of Enterprise Systems and Resources: Advancements and Applications, IGI Global, p. 76–99. Hawking, P., McCarthy, B., Stein, A., 2005. Integrating ERP’s Second Wave into Higher Education Curriculum. Proceedings of the 9th PACIS Conference 2005, p. 1001–1008. Strong, D., Fedorowicz, J., Sager, J., Stewart, G., Watson, E. E., 2006. Teaching with Enterprise Systems. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 17(33), p. 728–755. Konstantinidis, C., Kienegger, H., Wittges, H., Krcmar, H., 2010. Planspiele in der ERP-Lehre: Eine empirische Untersuchung deutscher Bildungseinrichtungen. In M. Schumann, L. M. Kolb, M. H. Breitner, A. Frerichs (Eds.), Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2010 (pp. 1709–1721). Göttingen: Universitätsverlag. Corbett, A. T., Koedinger, K. R., Anderson, J. R., 1997. Intelligent Tutoring Systems. In M. Helander, T. K. Landauer, P. Prabhu (Eds.), Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (Second, Co., pp. 849–874). New York: Elsevier Science B.V. Brusilovsky, P., 1996. Methods and Techniques of Adaptive Hypermedia. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 6(2-3), p. 87–129. Schulmeister, R., 2007. Grundlagen hypermedialer Lernsysteme: Theorie - Didaktik - Design (4th ed.). München [u.a.]: Oldenbourg. Csizmadia, V., 2003. Constructing an Authoring Tool for Intelligent Tutoring Systems with Hierarchical Domain Models. Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Martin, J. (1993). Principles of Object Oriented Analysis and Design. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Baumgartner, P., Kalz M., 2005. Wiederverwendung von Lernobjekten aus didaktischer Sicht. In Tavangarian, D., Nölting, K. (Eds.). Auf zu neuen Ufern! E-Learning heute und morgen, Vol. 34 (pp. 97-106). New York, München, Berlin: Waxmann. Watson, J., Hardaker, G., 2005. Steps towards personalised learner management system (LMS): SCORM implementation. CampusWide Information Systems, 22(2), p. 56–70. De Bra, P., Smits, D., Van Der Sluijs, K., Cristea, A., Hendrix, M., 2010. GRAPPLE: Personalization and Adaptation in Learning Management Systems Communication between an ALE and LMS in GRAPPLE. In J. Herrington, B. Hunter (Eds.), Proceedings of the 22nd World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (ED-MEDIA 2010). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Dyckhoff, A. L., Zielke, D., Bültmann, M., Chatti, M. A., Schröder, U. 2012. Design and Implementation of a Learning Analytics Toolkit for Teachers. Educational Technology & Society, 15(3), p. 58–76.
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ScienceDirect Procedia Technology 9 (2013) 114 – 119
CENTERIS 2013 - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems / ProjMAN 2013 - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCIST 2013 - International Conference on Health and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies
A Conceptual Model for Adaptive ERP Courses Dirk Peters* and Jorge Marx Gómez Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Ammerländer Heerstr. 114-118, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
Abstract Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have a very high potential to illustrate the versatile use of information systems in today’s companies and help to understand the integration of business processes for students. Higher education institutes need to react on the changing demand in the employee market and offer adequate, practical courses on ERP. Existing ERP courses are ignoring the previous knowledge and the individual progress of students coming from different programs of study. Therefore, we are presenting a conceptual model for adaptive ERP courses in order to create individual learning material based on the students’ interaction with the ERP system. © 2013 The Authors Publishedby byElsevier Elsevier Ltd. © 2013 Published Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of SCIKA – Association for Promotion and Dissemination of CENTERIS/ProjMAN/HCIST. Scientific Knowledge Keywords: ERP; ERP System; ERP Education; Information Systems; IS Education; ERP Learning Material; ERP Case Studies; Adaptive ERP; Conceptual Model; Adaptive Learning System.
1. Introduction The relevance for an adequate information system-education (IS education), or enterprise system-education (ES education) in general, in the field of higher education-institutes (HE institutes) has rapidly grown in the last decade. The demand of companies in the employment market has changed in a way that today’s students need to bring skills in planning, implementing and using such systems on a very high (often strategic) level
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-441-798-4475; fax: +49-441-798-4472. E-mail address: [email protected].
2212-0173 © 2013 The Authors Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of SCIKA – Association for Promotion and Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge doi:10.1016/j.protcy.2013.12.012
Dirk Peters and Jorge Marx Gómez / Procedia Technology 9 (2013) 114 – 119
[1, 2, 3]. Especially, students coming from the fields of informatics, economics and business informatics are affected by this skills shift and they need to match a specific profile to be prepared for their future work life [4, 5]. Therefore, it is a major challenge of HE institutes (e.g. universities) to be responsive to this changing matter in IS education in a proper way that students get in contact with the systems, in theory as well as in practice [6, 7]. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have a very high potential to illustrate the integration of business processes in today’s versatile companies. Affected by different business areas, like finance, controlling, production planning, material management, etc., ERP systems can give a very good overview of the implementation of business processes in the IT-landscape of a company. Starting from gathering the requirements for an ERP implementation, going through the selection of a specific ERP software vendor and ending up in the customization and using the concrete system, ERP systems can address a huge amount of ISrelated topics. Also, more technical issues, such as the integration data and/or functions of different systems into one centralized (ERP) system, can be covered with the use of ERP systems in ERP training courses. The practical use of ERP systems is one of the major challenges when trying to offer a “hands on”experience to students on the basis of a real ERP implementation in form of case studies e.g. In the literature, there are different methods described how to (successfully) make use of real ERP systems in a training course [2, 6, 8, 9]. There are also some ERP software vendors, like SAP for example, who offer a widely accepted University Alliances Program for universities in order to bring students in contact with their products [10]. Unfortunately, the existing approaches for practical ERP training courses are lacking for different reason, which are described in detail in the next section (section 2). After presenting the objectives of our research (section 3) and having a look at related work in this area of research (section 4), the conceptual model for adaptive ERP courses is illustrated and specified (section 5). Finally, a conclusion with a short summary and an outlook for the future steps is given in the last section (section 6). 2. Problem Definition When analyzing the existing ERP training courses from different ERP software vendors, ERP training concepts from universities and existing approaches coming from the scientific area, it becomes obvious that the existing training methods do not consider the individual previous knowledge and the learning progress of the different students within a specific course. Mostly, the ERP training course material is paper-based and has a linear sequence of exercises. Furthermore, there are no different levels of difficulty so that neither the sequence nor the exercise description differs according to the individual state of the student resp. the learner. In regular ERP courses at a university, the students have a different background of knowledge and skills (depending on their experience or field of study in interdisciplinary ERP courses), but the learning material does only address a group of students, which are very heterogeneous in their style of learning as well. Some students are working on a case study-exercise very active and reach the learning target very quick. Some others need more theoretical information about the specific functions or a visual support in navigation in order to complete an exercise task with satisfaction. Another problem can arise not from the students’ side, but more from the teachers’ side: When the students are doing a practical exercise at the ERP system, errors can occur or students make mistakes while entering data or performing a specific transaction. For the tutor this can sometimes be difficult to analyze the source of error and find an appropriate solution in a suitable period of time. In general, courses have up to 30 students working at the same time on the same system and all are assisted by only one tutor. The tutors do not have an appropriate overview of the progress of the different students or students groups working on a set of exercises. A common method of teaching practical ERP content is making the use of case studies. But unfortunately, if they are delivered by the ERP software vendors, they often do not have a deeper didactical basis, because they only include technical and functional issues of the system. Therefore, the description text of the exercise is
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often in a form of brief instructions, which rather facilitate a fast “click-through” than a critical thinking by the students [6]. 3. Objectives The aim of our research (in general) is to develop an adaptive ERP learning system, which allows to track (or log) the students interaction in a real ERP system during an ERP course. Based on this tracking information, it should be made possible, to analyze the performance of a single student with respect to the overall learning target. As a result of this analyzing phase, the system should be able to offer individual learning material coming from a pool of different exercises, which vary in the level of difficulty, exercise description and/or visual format. Additionally, the technology-supported system should give an overview for the tutors of the success (or difficulties) of different students or students groups in a concrete ERP course. In order to reach this overall research target, it is necessary to define a conceptual model, which allows an overview for a future implementation of the final ERP learning system. The focus of the conceptual model – and the innovative character of the approach – is the integration of the learning system with a real ERP system. So, the main research question, which will be addressed by this contribution, is: “How can tracking information, coming from a real ERP system, be integrated into an adaptive learning environment in order to control and enhance the learning progress of individual students?” 4. Related Work and Novelty of the Approach This research is related to the widely-discussed field of Intelligent Learning Systems (ITS) [11] and Adaptive Hypermedia (AH) systems [12]. Normally, existing ITS are used in very different domains (programming, mathematics, geography, medicine, etc.) and are also designed for a very broad target group ranging from first grader to domain experts. Therefore, the success of different implementations of ITS also varies in like manner [13]. The major advantages of ITS or AH systems in general are the creation of individual learning material for a single learner, the time- and location independence and the possibility to enhance existing training courses with an interactive learning experience (e.g. blended learning). Besides these advantages, ITS and AH systems also come with some disadvantages which are mostly focusing on the very time-consuming and extremely complicated development of these systems. It is necessary to have programming experts for the development, professional tutors to design effective learning material and domain experts which can deliver the relevant content for the learning material [14]. At the moment there are no existing ITS or AH systems which cover the domain of ERP courses for HE institutes. Especially, the enrichment of the user model with trace-file information coming from the ERP system legitimates our new approach in this highly relevant research domain. In the following section the conceptual model for adaptive ERP courses is presented. 5. Conceptual Model As a characteristic of a conceptual model, the following model description is neither defined for a specific ERP system nor a concrete technology which should be used for a future implementation. Based on the requirements analysis of a former literature review in the field of ERP education and adaptive learning environments, the conceptual model in Fig. 1 was designed. As a common method, we used the widely accepted Martin-notation by James Martin [cf. 15].
Dirk Peters and Jorge Marx Gómez / Procedia Technology 9 (2013) 114 – 119
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Fig. 1. Conceptual Model for Adaptive ERP Courses
In the following, the main parts of the conceptual model in Fig. 1 are described more in detail. Due to the limitations of this contribution not every aspect of the model can be presented here. Furthermore, the attributes of the different entities have been omitted for clarity purposes. First of all, it is necessary, to split an ERP course into a hierarchy of ERP-relevant content. Therefore, it is proposed, that an overall Course, like “ERP Basics” or “ERP for Economics” is split into different Lectures. These can be for example “Finance”, “Controlling” or “Human Resources” in order to teach specific components of an ERP system and split different topics into smaller parts of a whole Course. A Lecture consists of a set of Exercises, which are generated by the tutor of the course. These Exercises can be adopted by existing case studies a tutor usually uses for his/her regular ERP course. An example for an exercise could be: “Create a material R-105 in Material Management”. In order to address to different types of students, the Teacher also needs to provide different Variations of an Exercise. A Variation belongs to the same Exercise, but has a different Description, e.g. in “easy”, “advanced” and “professional” format. The “easy” Variation can consists of are more detailed description in comparison to the “advanced” or “professional” Variation. In the end, these Variations allow the individual generation of the learning material for each single student. The Students are using the ERP System and get their learning material (respectively their Exercises in different Variations) from a Learn Management System (LMS). In the LMS the Students are assigned to one of the Courses. While the students are working with the ERP System, a Trace-File is generated, which protocols the main interactions of the Student in the ERP System. The Trace-File information enriches a User Model, which is the model of the real student. The user model is a very important part for adaptive learning systems. Furthermore, Students are able to maintain personal interests, such as previous knowledge or prior skills, within the LMS, which also enriches their User Model. Based on the User Model and existing Rules, the Adaptation of the learning material (in form of choosing the Lecture and the Variation of an Exercise) can be done. These Rules need to be defined by a Teacher and they describe the adaptation behavior. An example of this behavior can be: “Show the same exercise with a variation with the attribute easy, if the student creates an error” or “Display additional background information if the student asks for help or clicks on the wrong button”. In order to make sure that the adaptive learning system knows about the occurring errors, it is necessary to define
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Solutions for each Exercise. An Exercise can have different Solutions (the students can reach their learning target in an ERP System in different ways, because business process are not linear and be completed through different transactions), which are mapped with a so called Completion Indicator. The Completion Indicator is ERP system-specific and refers to the information in the Trace-File. If a transaction in the ERP System is completed (for example the Trace-File shows the status message: “material R-105 successfully created”), this can be defined as the Completion Indicator of one Solution of an Exercise. When a Student has successfully completed a set of Exercises in a Lecture, the learning system will save this information in the User Model. In the next session, the learning system might then propose are more advanced Lecture with a different set of Exercises. The teacher can get an overview of all students, who are part of the course and analyze the performance of the participants with respect to different aspects. Then, the teacher can optimize the descriptions of the variations for future courses, e.g. if a high amount of students get stuck at the same problem. In future, it is thinkable, that different teachers can create a pool of different ERP courses with very detailed variations and descriptions in order to allow other teachers to make use of this system. In an initial phase of the approach, it is necessary that a minimum set of different variations are delivered to guarantee the individual usage as described in the objectives of this work. The reuse of learning material is much easier within an electronic learning environment [16]. This is very important, because the systems are changing a lot due to software updates and new software releases. Thus, the user interface can have a different look in a newer version or further functions are implemented, which also should be part of future, easy adaptable learning material. 6. Conclusions and Future Work In this contribution we presented a conceptual model for practical, adaptive ERP courses. Based on a literature review, we found out that existing approaches in science and practice are not addressing the individual state of students within an ERP training course in HE institutes. In the related work, we described existing technologies, which can be used for a new solution. By enhancing the user model with trace-file information coming directly from the ERP system, it is possible to measure the performance of each single student in a practical ERP course. This information can be used to offer personalized learning material which meets the concrete requirements of this single student. Furthermore, the electronic tracking of the students’ behavior can give a better overview for the teacher of the course in order to give a better assistance in the course. The conceptual model describes how this adaptation process can be executed. The electronic learning material can be optimized and stored for future courses and shared between other HE institutes. Based on the conceptual model, the next step of our research is to develop a software system architecture, which allows the concrete implementation of the adaptive learning system. There, the focus is on the integration of a real ERP system with an existing LMS like Moodle (http://www.moodle.org) for example. For the other related topics existing standard can be used. The description of the learning material as a hierarchy of tasks can be done by SCORM, which is a Sharable Content Object Reference Model the describe course material [17]. Furthermore, the adaptation process is investigated very well by the literature. The GRAPPLE project (http://www.grapple-project.org) is one example for a successful implementation of a personalized adaptive learning environment, which already delivers an adaptation engine and associated rules [18]. The learning material can be adapted from existing courses in order to have an initial set of ERP exercises. Regarding the analysis of the transaction data, methods and tools coming from the very new field of Learning Analytics also need to be taken into account [19]. At the end of our research, a prototype can be implemented as a proof-ofconcept and tested in a real scenario within a HE institute and a follow-up evaluation.
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