LOR Overview and BCcampus Initiative

Scott Leslie

July 28, 2005

Outline

State of Play in RepositoriesPossible approaches and common

featuresBCcampus Repository Initiative

LO/LORs on the Gartner Hype Cycle

We were here

2004

Maturity of Problem LORs address

LORs still struggling to define precisely the problem that is trying to be solved with them?

Is it discovery and sharing of resources? Is it the management of content development? Is it the facilitation of content re-use? Is it the creation of communities of practitioners? Is it the archiving of learning materials? Is it the ingestion and re-composition of complex

multimedia objects? All of the above?

2004

Maturity of Problem LORs address

LORs getting better at defining the problem they are trying to solve

Is it discovery and sharing of resources? Is it the management of content development? Is it the facilitation of content re-use? Is it the creation of communities of practitioners? Is it the archiving of learning materials? Is it the ingestion and re-composition of complex

multimedia objects? All of the above?

2005

Maturity of LOR Market

The market for learning object repository technology is very immature and has some fundamental risks involved

unclear how large a market there will ever be for repository technology

vendors are trying to amortize their R&D efforts across too few customers and too short a period leading to hefty licensing prices considering the actual technology involved

if the problem is expanded to include the LCMS field, it becomes a broader and deeper market, but pricing for corporate-style LCMS out of line with higher ed expectations and abilities to pay 2004

LOR Market Maturing…Slowly

While the market for learning object repository technology is still quite immature

Had a number large RFPs and purchases occur over the last 12 months

UNAM system in Mexico – 1million+ seats for Harvest Road Flordia Virtual School System – also Harvest Road JISC JORUM Repository – UK-wide - Intrallect BC/Alberta RFP – The Learning Edge

Starting to see some leaders emerge and certain different approaches to sharing/re-use problem (DAM, LCMS, LOR, IR)

2005

Open Source LORs

Very few examples (outside of library world) of open source repository software that has been widely taken up by community of implementers

Many initial projects were developed institutionally on soft money and haven’t been transitioned that well to being inclusive ‘open source’ projects

2004

Open Source LORs

Still too few examples of open source repository software that has been widely taken up by community of implementers

Lots of the money is drying up/moving on to other areas

As problem space gets better understood, people looking to related technologies (Content Mgmt Systems, P2P, referatories, IR) as alternative approaches

Large consortial approachs to LORs, where instead of sharing risk through open sourcing, sharing risk through size of project team and initiative2005

LO/LORs on the Gartner Hype Cycle

2005!

Some phenomena shaping directions of LORs

Service Oriented Architecture/ApproachesModularizationE-Learning FrameworksCourse Management SystemsPeer-to-Peer Computing‘Social Software’

Seeing some evolution from ‘Repository as Application’…

Repository

CMS

To ‘Repository as Service and Application’

Repository

CMS

Archival (IR)

Types of Repository Approaches we’ve seen in Edutools project

‘Referatories’ ‘Classic’ Repository Learning Content Management System Generic Content Management System Digital Asset Management Institutional Repository Repository as part of Course Management

vendor solution Repository as “Service”

We found that the defining characteristics of these systems, in terms of widespread feature support, were:

Support for searching and browsing of records

Metatagging tools, and standards-based schema support

Support for federation and harvesting

2004

2005, we found that the defining characteristics of these systems, in terms of widespread feature support, were:

Support for searching and browsing of records Metatagging tools, and standards-based schema

support Support for federation and harvesting More support for content packaging and aggregation,

content management Increased support for syndication, and notification

Overall, we found support lacking for the following features across all of the products:

Syndication and Notification

Community & Evaluation features (e.g. evaluation system, wish lists and context of usage illustrators)

Time-based Media support

Content Aggregation and Packaging tool

2004

In 2005, generally we found support lacking for the following features across all of the products:

Time-based Media support

XML Content Supports

DRM, specifically Payment and Fulfillment

User Profiles

Edutools Research Results

More details available at

http://www.edutools.info/lor/

BCcampus LOR Project

Began as joint project between BCcampus, Open School BC, later joined by Alberta Online Consortium

Project began in February 2004

Joint project to select and implement (open source) learning object repository software

Project will result in 2 repositories for BC, one for the K-12 system, one within the post-secondary

About the OrganizationsBCcampus established in 2002 mandate to provide British Columbia learners with a

web-based access point to online learning programs and services delivered by the 26 post-secondary institutions themselves

OpenSchoolBC (OSBC) provider of K-12 distance educational materials Operating as a managed partnership between the

New Westminster SD No. 40 and the Queen's Printer of B.C.

Motivations for Starting the ProjectBCcampus administer system-wide Online Program Development

Fund fund mandates content be shareable with rest of system ‘BCcommons’ or CreativeCommons licenseOSBC transition from older print and full course-based models

to more atomic ‘learning objects’ both a way to distribute their own content and a service

to other K-12 publishers and school boards to share content

run as a cost recovery service

Initial search led us to partner with University of Calgary around software named ‘Apollo’.

7 months later, we cancelled our involvement due to the lack of progress in deploying a solution

But not all was lost…

Project History…

First Phase Outcomes Metadata profiles for both K-12 and Post-secondary

sectors were developed Based on Cancore application profiles, with some

variations on vocabulary to reflect local needs

Workflow pattern established for both K-12 and Post-secondary sectors

Interfaces for both the K-12 and Post-secondary repositories have been prototyped and can easily be implemented on new software

Phase IIRecently issued a RFP for a repository

system

May 17 - Decision on successful bid

Selected The Learning Edge (http://www.thelearningedge.com.au/) an LCMS originally developed in Australia

Initial deployment up by October 2005

Key Attributes of System• Handle all types of content, from simple

links, to individual images and binary files, and on up to exports of WebCT courses and IMS Content Packages

• Provide searching and browsing using recognizable B.C. K-12 categories and terminology

• Host both restricted content (that would require a subscription or some other condition to be met) and content open to all

Additional Goals of the Project Provide *easy* means for instructors and institutions to

contribute new items

Provide support for cataloguing items so that they are easily findable

Include mechanisms for user evaluation and feedback

Integrates with delivery environments (e.g. CMS)

Tracking of usage, at very least of downloads, ideally of use within courses