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Analysis, the first phase of the typical instructional design process, is often downplayed. This paper focuses on the analysis concerning a series of e-courses for collaborative adult education in semi-formal settings by reporting and generalizing results from the REVIT project. REVIT, an EU-funded research project, offered custom e-courses to learners in several remote European areas and received a 'best practice' distinction in social inclusion. These e-courses were designed and developed for the purpose of providing training in aspects of the learners' professional domains related to the utilization of information and communication technologies. The main challenge was to prove that it is possible and economically feasible to provide meaningful training opportunities via distance education, by utilizing existing infrastructure ("revitalizing schools") and by making use of modern digital technology affordances coupled with suitable distance learning techniques and Web 2.0 tools. ADDIE, the generic instructional systems design model, enhanced with a rapid prototyping phase, was put forth in order to allow stakeholders to interact with a prototypical e-course, which served as an introductory lesson and as a reference point, since its evaluation informed the design choices of all subsequent e-courses. The learning needs approach adopted in REVIT combined learner analysis, context analysis, and needs analysis into a coherent analysis framework in which several methods (observation, estimation, document analysis, survey, and dialogue) were exploited. Putting emphasis on the analysis phase and decoupling the design from the delivery of the e-courses facilitated adaptation and localization. Adaptation and localization issues concerning the adoption of the REVIT distance learning framework, taking into account the socio-cultural and pedagogical context, are discussed. A central result reported is that the analysis phase was crucial for the success of the whole endeavour and that carrying it out properly is not straightforward or easy. The analysis framework presented in this paper could be useful in other similar e-learning situations whose "educational-identity" also involves distance and adult learning in a semi-formal setting.

This paper presents a comprehensive usability study conducted within the context of a Europe-wide project. The design of the evaluated e-learning platform is based on an innovative approach to the education of young Europeans by integrating into the curricula of a Europe-wide network of 14 schools different state-of-the-art technologies in e-learning. The evaluation methodology brings together end-user assessments and expert inspections, thus providing a detailed students', teachers' and experts' feedback. User testing integrates six empirical methods into a laboratory-based test. Usability inspection ascertains usability problems by means of recognized heuristics and enables an "educational evaluation" of the platform by means of three sets of criteria. The paper aims to present the effectiveness of the engaged evaluation methods as applied to e-learning platforms. It offers implications from the empirical findings of the user-based methods together with a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the employed inspection methods. Special attention is given to the aspect of educational evaluation. The conducted critical usability examination of a large-scale e-learning system across several countries in Europe revealed which of the chosen assessment methods should be combined to provide constructive and valuable improvement suggestions. A more significant contribution of this research is that the used evaluation approach proved successful, providing some general findings and know-how from the experience and could be reused by other researches because of its thorough structure. As there are relatively few existing accounts of usability assessment in the e-learning context, this paper adds to the body of knowledge. (Contains 15 figures.)

With the expansion of e-learning, the understanding and evaluation of already created e-learning environments is becoming an extremely important issue. One way to dealing with the problem is analysis of case studies, i.e. already created environments, from the reuse perspective. The paper presents a general framework and model to assess UNITE, the unified e-learning environment for schools, from the reuse perspective. UNITE is the e-learning environment of the ongoing EU project (FP6 IST-26964, 2006-2008, http://www.unite-ist.org/). UNITE assets are described using feature diagrams (FDs) telling us about the internal structure of UNITE; representing relationships among the compound and atomic features, thus enhancing better transparency of UNITE and in this way empowering reuse. The factors of UNITE influential to reuse with some concrete results are also presented. We provide analysis aiming to extract from the model the relevant information of two kinds: (1) which is influential to reuse in a positive sense, i.e., enhancing reuse (e.g., application of meta-design methodology for the scenarios description, classification of subjects in metadata, use of content management tools (e.g., Course editor, Metadata editor), multi-linguistic approach, international and local collaboration between teachers and students in e-learning scenario implementation and delivery, and methodological support, etc.) and (2) which is hindering reuse (e. g., age of the students, differences in national syllabus and national educational programmes, language, cultural and communication problems). Despite of some limitations of FDs, we found this notation useful because it allows the explicit representation of various aspects of the complex system (i.e., UNITE) focusing on variability of features and possible relationships and constraints. We focus on the aspects such as evaluation of the UNITE platform including tools, scenarios and content variability. (Contains 3 figures and 6 tables.)