Instructures

Instructures is a term used in education technology to describe modular, interoperable units of instruction designed to be recombined across courses and platforms. An instructure typically codifies a learning objective, a sequence of learning activities, an assessment plan, and metadata describing prerequisites, difficulty, alignment to standards, and licensing terms. The design emphasizes reusability, portability, and adaptability for different learners and contexts.

In practice, instructures are intended to be platform-agnostic, compatible with interoperability standards and learning analytics, enabling institutions to share and remix content. They may be created by instructors, instructional designers, or content developers, and stored in repositories that support versioning and attribution.

Origins and usage: While not a formal standard, the term has appeared in educational technology discussions and vendor documentation as a way to describe granular building blocks of instruction distinct from entire courses. It is often discussed alongside learning objects and modular curricula.

Technical context: Instructures align with metadata schemas, such as keywords, tags, and alignment mappings to competencies, and with data interchange protocols to facilitate integration with learning management systems, assessment engines, and analytics tools.

Impact and critique: Advocates argue that instructures support personalization, rapid content authoring, and cross-institution collaboration. Critics point to fragmentation risk without widely adopted standards and clear licensing.

Alternative terms: Some scholars use "instructional units," "learning modules," or "instructional structures" to convey similar ideas.