Learning Objects: Are They Serving Practitioners Working with VLES?

The purpose of this paper is to present a high-level discussion based on ongoing research with the aim of providing support to educational practitioners based on real shareability and reuse of learning objects. Consequently, the discussion is centred around the need for a data-base driven architecture for VLEs that supports real reuse and sharing of learning materials within the same VLE, and not only interoperability between different products. The authors argue for the need to rethink the concept of learning object so that a real object oriented data model may be derived. Following this line of reasoning the paper then presents a model for a Learning Object Database-Driven Architecture based on behavioural and structural semantics of educational practice.