Stand-alone and prerequisite modular content are fundamentally different in that the former is intended to introduce a topic to the audience, but not teach them to master it. The latter is the opposite; it provides learners with a learning pathway or course syllabus to follow to master a specific topic.

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Self-contained educational content that doesn't require additional resources for learning. Examples are TikTok or YouTube videos that are not in a series, StackExchange or Quora posts, Wikipedia articles, ...

Stand-alone Learning Content

Prerequisite learning content that has a prerequisite relationship to define its structure. In this case learners have an assigned structure to the content where they are in superordinate and subordinate relationships. Status as superordinate or subordinate is relative and based on which concept must be understood to understand another concept. The learning content guides the learner through learning pathway(s) to achieve their learning objectives. Examples are textbooks, school courses, online courses, lecture notes, ...

Prerequisite Learning Content

Stand-alone vs. Prerequisite Modular Learning Content

There is a range of information duplication and overlap that occurs due to the nature of stand-alone knwoledge entities and how they are produced. Because stand-alone knowledge entities are self-contained pieces of information, they will often use information used in other knowledge entities to contextualize their subject. This is a weak form of knowledge entity duplication because it is not a direct copy of other knowledge entities. Rather, they often summarize or paraphrase information covered in other knowledge entities causing an overlap of content. However, in some cases information can be duplicated in its entirety. 

Duplicate and Overlapping Knowledge Entities in Stand-Alone Learning Content

In online communities where the objective is to create and share step-guided learning content, there is a need to emphasize the links between knowledge entities. This is due to the fact that they intend to provide their users with learning pathways to follow from one section/chapter/module/page to the next one to achieve a specific learning objective.

Even before starting the learning journey, they also often emphasize the prerequisites that one should have covered before starting to study the learning content that they offer. Sometimes, they also suggest follow-up courses that the learners can go through after completing the learning material.

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