LORs – Picking a Winner in the Software Derby

Bruce Landon, Scott Leslie, Andrea Eastman-Mullins, Phil Moss

November 4, 2005

Outline

Overview of Project - BruceState of Play in LORs - ScottPossible approaches and common

features - ScottUpdate from UNC System – AndreaUpdate from Oklahoma State Regents -

Phil

LO/LORs on the Gartner Hype Cycle

We were here

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?

20052004

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

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

6 Products

CWIS - Collection Workflow Integration System

Fedora - Flexible Extensible Digital Object and Repository Architecture

COL-LORBlackboard Content SystemDesire2Learn RepositoryThe Learning Edge

Edutools Research Results

More details available at

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

The University of North CarolinaTLT Collaborative

“How can we do more together in teaching and learning with technology?”

“How can we do more together in teaching and learning with technology?”

Oklahoma State Regents Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Educationfor Higher EducationOklahoma State Regents Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Educationfor Higher Education