Theorising the Open Learner Model as an educational tool: An Open Challenge

While the Open Learner Model (OLM) is often mentioned to be an educational tool supporting the learning process (chiefly, activities such as planning, self-monitoring, and reflection), there is a need for theorising OLMs as an educational tool. More specifically, this means 1) to theorise what it is educationally meaningful; 2) see how the different characteristics of the tool (e.g. features, types, etc.) mediate the learning process in the light of theory deployed; and 3) empirically determine the conditions under which such mediation is educationally successful. As a case in point, we performed a literature review to investigate how studies using OLMs have deployed self-regulated learning. The results show that the theorisation of OLMs as an educational tool remained rather fragmented and occasional.