Community Dimensions of Learning Object RepositoriesPeter Douglasp.douglas@intrallect.com

CD-LOR project

• Funded by the JISC (June 2005-2007)• Lead by the Glasgow Caledonian

University (Prof. Allison Littlejohn, Dr. Anoush Margaryan)

• Collaborators:– University of Strathclyde (Dr. David

Nicol, Dr. Colin Milligan)– Intrallect Ltd. (Dr. Peter Douglas)– 8 Associate partners– 18 national & international collaborative

partners• http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/

Project Activities

• CD-LOR was interested in enablers and barriers to successful uptake of LORs:– Desk Study– Survey of Repository Users (and PRMS Survey)– Community Consultation:

• Elicit barriers• Develop Use Cases• Trial and Implement

• Outputs– Guidelines for Curators and Managers setting up

new repositories– SRU client (Open Source)– Recommendations (for policy and further work)

BarriersSocio-cultural

Pedagogic

Organisational & info management

Technological

• Norms of sharing & collaboration• Size and scope of community• Roles and hierarchies

• Diversity in approaches to learning• Discipline-specific resources• Curriculum standardisation• ICT skills and information literacy

• Incentives and rewards• IPR, DRM, metadata• Quality assurance of resources

• User friendly interface• Effective search, storage, preview• Interoperability standards

Community Dimensions

Purpose - shared goal/interest of the communityDialogue - modes of communication, e.g. online, face-to-

face, or mixedRoles and responsibilitiesCoherence - whether the community is close-knit or

loosely confederated/transientContext - the broader ecology within which the

community exists, e.g. professional bodies, governmentsRules – e.g. ground rules of conduct, rewards and

incentives mechanisms, control of access and use of resources

Pedagogy of the community - for example, problem-based learning, collaborative learning.

Repository Dimensions

Purpose – e.g. for sharing audio-files, or for preservation of institutional educational resources

Subject area – e.g. social work, medicine

Scope - departmental, institutional, national, or international

Educational sector - school, higher education, further education, lifelong learning

Contributors - teachers, students, publishers, support staff, JISC-funded projects

Business model - business, trading and management framework underpinning repository

Structured Guidelines

• A “how to” guide to implement a repository which meets the needs of your users and their communities (or evaluate existing repository)

• Ask the right questions• Consider the likely answers• Understand how ‘Community Dimensions’

inter-relate.• Know how to interpret the answers you get• Take an iterative approach

Recommendations

• Better alignment between repositories and communities

• LORs should only be introduced if they are a solution to a problem meaningful to users

• Appropriate user support strategies should exist

• Product innovation should involve process innovation

• Curators should try to build multidisciplinary teams

Recommendations

LO Repositories would benefit from: • Stronger integration with institutional

systems in particular VLEs– ‘the easiest place to put my stuff’– Integration into personal workflows

• Web 2.0 type capabilities, which would facilitate: – Personal management/tagging– Recommendation and usage

Relevant links

• Structured Guidelines for Setting up Learning Object Repositorieshttp://academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/documents/CD-LOR_Structured_Guidelines_v1p0.pdf

• Recommendations for future research and development in the area of Learning Object Repositorieshttp://academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/documents/CD-LOR_FinalRecommendations.pdf

• Peter Douglas: p.douglas@intrallect.com• Anoush Margaryan, Allison Littlejohn

Colin Milligan

Community Building Approaches• How do you define/identify your communities?• Existing communities vs. Building new

communities• Single community vs. Multiple communities• Communities changing repositories/repositories

changing communities• Introducing new communities• Open vs. closed repositories• External tools vs. internal functionality• What can Intrallect do?

– More services/Tools integration/Additional functionality?

The questions!

• Question 1. Why are you setting up a learning object repository? [R-Purpose]

• Question 2. How many communities do you serve? [C-Composition]• Question 3. What is the purpose of the community that the

repository will serve? [C-Purpose]• Question 4. Who are the key actors in the community and who, of

these, will contribute to the repository? [C-Roles and R-Contributors]• Question 5. What is the pedagogic approach of the community? [C-

Pedagogy]• Question 6. How coherent is the community? [C-Coherence]• Question 7. What are the modes of participation and communication

within the community? [C-Dialogue]• Question 8. What is the ecology of the community? [C-Context]• Question 9. What is the business model of the repository? [R-

Business model]• Question 10. How do you envision the evolution of your LOR?