Learning objects symposium special issue guest editorial

We are very proud to introduce this special issue of the Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia. The papers included are the best papers we received for a Symposium on Learning Objects that we organized in 2003, as a pre-conference Symposium to ED-MEDIA 2003 (Duval, Hodgins, Rehak, & Robson, 2003). The use of learning objects promises to increase the effectiveness of learning by making content more readily available, by reducing the cost and effort of producing quality content, and by allowing content to be more easily shared. However, the development and deployment of learning objects also present new challenges to designers of learning experiences and technology alike. For that reason, we took the initiative to organize this symposium to explore the benefits and challenges of learning objects. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]