In addition to the UNFOLD project website, a second website is available at http://moodle.learningnetworks.org, under the title Learning Network for Learning Design (LN4LD) (see Figure 1). This was originally developed as the web for the Learning Designers CoP, as part of the Learning Networks programme being carried out at the Educational Technology Expertise Centre of Open University of The Netherlands (OUNL). It was seeded with five activity nodes looking for the attraction and stimulation of new users interested on IMS LD and trying to establish a operational base for potential users.

The use of this additional infrastructure enabled the project to leverage existing OUNL resources for the support of Learning Design, providing information, tutorials, worked examples of learning designs, and a growing repository of learning design units. The activities carried out on this web were very successful, and so all the forums and other interactive aspects of project work were focused on the site.

LN4LD is a pilot learning network for those interested in finding, applying and exchanging

information about IMS LD. OUNL created LN4LD to gain early feedback on functional, technical and organisational aspects of creating and maintaining a learning network and to help meet the demand for ongoing information on IMS Learning Design. Moreover, LN4LD is used to investigate mechanisms which stimulate learners to move beyond mere consumption of learning material towards active participation in the creation of learning experiences and to study the relationships between virtual activity and face-t o-face events.

There are two important concepts related to the description of LN4LD: a) a Learning Network (LN) is a distributed set of people who interact to create and share learning events while developing their competence in a particular discipline; and b) a learning event, which we refer to as an Activity Node (AN), can be anything that is available to support learning, such as a course, a workshop, a conference, a lesson, an internet learning resource, etc. All participants can create new ANs, can adapt existing ANs or can delete ANs, subject to the constraints of the policies which are operation for the learning network. Registered users having access to the UNFOLD forums and can post to and reply to the forums, cooperate on solving problems and answer questions concerning IMD Learning Design. Activity Nodes are dedicated to IMS LD topics (for example “IMS LD and metadata” or “IMS LD and SCORM”), and groups of interested parties investigate issues in the area and develop learning activities and materials.