cetis one john robertson

One Standard to rule them all?: Descriptive Choices for Open Education

OCWC2010 Hanoi, May 5-7 2010

R. John Robertson1, Lorna Campbell1, Phil Barker2, Li Yuan3, and Sheila MacNeill1

1Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement, University of Strathclyde, 2Institute for

Computer Based Learning, Heriot-Watt University 3Institute for Cybernetic Education, University of Bolton

UKOER Programme

The Open Educational Resources Programme

is a collaboration between the JISC and the

Higher Education Academy in the UK.

The Higher Education Funding Council for

England (HEFCE) has provided an initial £5.7

million of funding, (April 2009 to March 2010)

which will explore how to expand the open

availability and use of free, high quality online

educational resources.

UKOER Programme

The UK OER programme consists of 29 pilot

projects divided into three categories:

individual (i.e. personal) projects (8);

institutional projects (7)

multi-institutional subject-based consortium

projects (14).

Support for the programme is being provided by

a number of existing JISC services and the

Open University (UK) Score project.

JISC CETIS

JISC CETIS is one of three JISC

Innovation Support Centres (ISC),

supporting the sector through:

participating in standards bodies,

providing community forums for

sharing experiences in using

particular technologies and

standards

providing specific support for

JISC funded development

programmes such as the

UKOER programme.

Stereotype: the ‘Learning Object’

The „classic‟ model

the reusable learning object (RLO).

to strive to create context independent learning materials

IMS Content Packaging or ADL SCORM , IEEE LOM.

Description of pedagogy in metadata

VLE‟s and refined search tools

Examples: Ariadne network ,

But

real use of detailed educational fields, can be limited

seen as complex, requiring support from learning

technologists

often closed networks ~learning object economies

Stereotype: the ‘light touch’

Blogs, web 2.0 tools, websites

Minimal metadata

often author, title, license

often applied at site level

Frequent use of CC licenses (often integrated with tools)

RSS

Enthusiastic individuals

Examples:

But

Can be „closed‟/ unknown groups of people

Discoverability of specific items / unknown items can be

tricky

The UKOER approach

Guidelines

“any system capable of delivering content on the

open web”

Strongly encouraged to use platforms that can

create RSS for collections

Utilise existing technologies - not develop

Some descriptive information required

Required descriptive set

Tag: UKOER

Title

Author

Date

URL

File format (auto)

File size (auto)

Recommended descriptive set

Language

Subject classifications

Keywords

Tags

Comments

Description

Descriptive set (2)

Hoped for outcomes

Institutional change

Release of OERs

Freedom of choice allows opportunity to assess:

Selection

Suitability

Impact

Sustainability

Factors: CETIS

Seminar and presentations

Encouragement to consider local resource

description requirements

Presented context of wider OER initiatives

Did not promote any particular system, standard, or

other approach

Influence of CETIS‟ experience with standards

Factors: System Choice

Single biggest factor: native standards supported/

implemented in the system.

Pattern somewhat visible in project bids/plans

emerged clearly in technical conversations

True for both LO repositories and for web2.0 tools

Partially result of explicit prohibition of development

Some exceptions:

Support for multiple standards

Creation of mappings

Factors: project team background

Parallel to influence of system choice, teams will

use what they know

but lesser influence:

No budget for new systems

Though unlikely, staff turnover more likely than

system turnover

Factors: role of network/ community

Some communities have entry requirements

But relatively few projects engaged – most had

existing connections, or had deliberate aim to

engage.

Some examples:

OpenSpires – Matterhorn, iTunesU, and more

Berlin – OCWC RSS [predating programme but

revised]

Factors: aggregator services

Discovery tools

Often-based on OAI-PMH and RSS

But not as much of an influence as expected

Note: aggregation does not need to dictate local

standards; mapping is often possible, but system

dependent

One major exception...

Factors: iTunesU

Participation in iTunesU is

by agreement with Apple,

specific and somewhat idiosyncratic metadata

set granularity of materials

associated cover images

Issues around openness (license, software, reuse)

Massive draw for faculty contributions

Aside: institutional channels and individual channels

Factors: JorumOpen

National repository for learning materials

Launch of JorumOpen

Slightly different descriptive requirements to

programme

Influence of deposit tools

Version 1

Version 2

Bulk options

Influence of perceptions on both platform and

standard

Influence on international participation

Patterns of use: one standard?

Is there [with apologies to Tolkien]:

‘One [standard] to rule them all,One [standard] to find them,

One [standard] to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them’?

20

Patterns of use: preliminary notes

Data gathered from technical review calls as part of programme

support

All 29 projects recorded.

Projects may occur more than once in any given graph if they use

more than one of the technologies listed.

The graphs refer to the number of platforms that support a given

standard; they do not refer to or imply active use of the standard.

CMS refers to Content Management System and not to Course

Management System.

The data itself is available from the tool CETIS project monitoring

tool, PROD. http://prod.cetis.ac.uk tag ukoer

Patterns: system type

Patterns specific choices

Patterns: descriptive standards

Patterns: dissemination standards

Patterns: packaging formats

Patterns: resource types

PDF

DOC

PPT

SWF

QTI

MP3

MP4

FLV

JPEG

PNG

SVG

WMV

OGG

WAV

AVI

WMF

AAC

?

Impact of choices

1. Existing technologies used

2. Diverse technical responses to the challenge of

managing and sharing OERs. A mixture of

elearning platforms, repositories, and innovative

approaches to sharing have been used.

3. The standards being used are often embedded in

systems and their selection of a standard is often

derivative

4. The pilot programme points to ways forward to

using both web2.0 applications and digital

repositories for sharing and managing OERs.

Impact of choices (2)5. Projects have chosen multiple platforms to support different

functions such as: preservation, streaming, marketing,

advocacy.

6. Choices made mostly reflect an emphasis on resource

management and sharing; few projects are using technology

that supports course delivery. Tendancy to focus on other

academics, rather than students, as the consumers of the

materials produced.

7. Although many projects can produce RSS feeds, the ability to

use these feeds to support any form of bulk import into

JorumOpen has been problematic as the content and format

of these feeds varies dramatically.

Impact of choices: aggregation (in JorumOpen)1. Author names have been recorded differently.

2. The JorumOpen deposit tool will provide some form of

standardization by requiring a minimal set of descriptive fields.

3. The infrastructure of JorumOpen will be able to generate some of

the required information, e.g. file format, size, etc; across the set

of resources it holds.

4. The redevelopment of the deposit tool has resulted in some

issues regarding the inclusion of contributing institution details.

As a result the author field of some resources will also include

institutional information.

5. Project led creation of a short cataloguing guide to address

issues they noted. (UK Centre for Bioscience, 2010).

Next steps

Investigate details of deposit options

Informing next programme and future work

Xcri use/ course codes

Work with JorumOpen

Further Information

http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Educational_Content_OER

http://jisc.cetis.ac.uk//topic/oer

Contact details robert.robertson@strath.ac.uk

s.macneill@strath.ac.uk

lmc@strath.ac.uk

L.Yuan@bolton.ac.uk

philb@icbl.hw.ac.uk