Repositories for Teaching and Learning Materials

1. Repositories for Teaching and Learning Materials Workshop facilitated by Sarah Currier SCONUL Conference 2009 Bournemouth, England, 12 June 2009

2. Workshop plan • Introduce myself • Find out who’s here? What are you interested in? • Landscape of t&l repositories • Issues for planning, setting up, managing and evaluating t&l repositories • Some examples Discussion throughout!

3. An initial note You’ll notice I didn’t call this talk: Learning Object Repositories • The term learning object is no longer used much in relation to repositories • Learning objects are only one type of teaching and learning resource • It’s a technical-sounding term that is off-putting to the intended user community

4. What do we want to achieve? • How many already have formal repositories for teaching and learning materials? • How many of these are integrated with institutional research outputs repositories? • How many are institutional repositories? • How many are faculty or subject department repositories? • How many are members of wider consortium repository (e.g. Jorum, WM-Share, IRISS LX)? • How many are integrated with VLEs? • How many are open to the Web? (vs. staff only?)

5. What do we want to achieve? • How many are thinking about or planning repositories for t&l materials? • How does your institution currently deal with educational materials? • Who is involved in the planning/set-up? • Library? Educational development dept? Subject depts / academics? Students? Others? • Are you planning to use same repository system as for research outputs?

6. What do we want to achieve? • Anyone just started a JISC Open Educational Resources project? • Any other reasons for being here?

7. Institution VLE Other VLEs Web sites In the beginning… eLearning Slide by Charles Duncan, Intrallect Ltd.

8. Institution VLE Open access portals Wikis, Blogs Other VLEs Scanned RAE evaluation Web sites CLA reporting requirements “Collection” Portal Fully-functioned… eLearning Research outputs ePrints Images Private Slide by Charles Duncan, Intrallect Ltd.

9. Landscape: some models • Two JISC outputs to help with planning, setting up and evaluating t&l repositories: • CD-LOR Structured Guidelines • Focus on the communities of users and stakeholders you intend to support with your repository • Good Intentions: Business Models for Sharing Educational Materials • Focus on how to develop an appropriate business case and business model for your repository

10. Landscape: dimensions (1 of 4) • Stand-alone repository system • Focus on specific functionality for educational technologies, integration with VLEs, Web services integration and Web 2.0 support • Blended repository • Bring together research outputs and t&l materials? Other resource types?

11. Landscape: dimensions (2 of 4) • Commercial system • intraLibrary, Equella, Hive, CoRE • All built to support t&l materials (including LOs / content packages); all still require technical work, technical support, possibly spend on development • Open source system • ePrints, Dspace, Fedora (DuraSpace), Digital Commons • Not set up for t&l materials, require your own developers or spend on their developers, a lot of flexibility about how to implement • Homegrown system • VLE’s built-in “repository” • Any good ones yet? Not that I’ve seen! • Look out MrCute for MOODLE though. • Distributed, personalised, Web2.0 approach?

12. Landscape: dimensions (3 of 4) • Implement locally on your own server • Use hosted service ... also: • Institutional repository • Subject/faculty-level repositories • Work with national or regional service, e.g. use Jorum to store all your local materials • Join up with or start a multi-institutional subject consortium, e.g. IRISS LX (social work/social care), IVIMEDS

13. Landscape: dimensions (4 of 4) • Sharing resources with ... who? • Within institution only? • Within subject/faculty level only? • Open: share with other UK HE/FE? • Open: share with the whole world? • NB: JISC Open Educational Resources Programme will be encouraging latter two- does anyone here have an OER project? • JorumOpen planned- Beta deposit service for trial now!

14. First things first What is the problem to which the repository is a solution? And who identifies this as a problem? What will be the measure of success for your repository? Margaryan, Milligan and Douglas, 2007

15. Thinking outside the repository box “We have used the term 'service' to describe the various infrastructures that exist to support sharing, but must stress that this includes a wide range of activities including those supported by formal repositories and/or open social software services, as well as informal mechanisms within or across institutions, between lecturers and/or students. This term [...] was deliberately chosen to highlight the wide range of activities, mechanisms and support that are offered to encourage and facilitate sharing, including, but not limited to static storage of content.” McGill, Currier, Duncan & Douglas, 2008

16. Thinking outside the repository box Implications: • Think about the places, ways your intended community works, socialises, shares and communicates • Think about interoperability • What if you need to migrate your content in 5 years? • What metadata specs and standards to you need? • Think about a service-based approach (Web services that is): what components do you need to interact with? • Facebook? Twitter? Delicious or Diigo tagging? Widgets? Most importantly: RSS feeds! • Student and staff records? • VLEs and other campus systems?

17. Thinking about communities (1 of 5) If you build it, will they come? “[...] the pedagogical, social, and organisational aspects of these communities have not been at the forefront in the design and development of [learning object repositories]. Research has consistently demonstrated that the most substantial barriers in uptake of technology are rooted in these factors” Margaryan, Milligan and Douglas, 2007

18. Thinking about communities (2 of 5) Community dimensions to think about (1) Purpose: the shared goal/interest of the community; the reason why the community was formed in the first place (2) Composition: the number and types of (sub-)communities to be supported (3) Dialogue: modes of participation and communication (online, face-to-face, or mixed) adopted by the community (4) Roles and responsibilities: of community members (5) Coherence: whether the community is close-knit or loosely confederated/transient (6) Context: the broader ecology within which the community exists (for example, professional bodies; governments; implicit and explicit rules that govern the functioning of community; ground rules of conduct; rewards and incentives mechanisms; etc.) (7) Pedagogy: teaching and learning approaches used in the community (for example, problem-based learning, collaborative learning, etc.)

19. Thinking about communities (3 of 5) Repository dimensions to think about (1) Purpose: including t&l repositories created to support professional development of teachers, or for the exchange of specific resource formats, such as sound files, learning designs, or student assignments (2) Subject discipline: including t&l repositories created to support mono-disciplinary or multidisciplinary communities (3) Scope: including t&l repositories supporting departmental, institutional, regional, national, or international communities (4) Sector: for example school, higher education, further education, hobby-based learning, work-based, or lifelong learning (5) Contributors: such as teachers, students, publishers, institutions, funded projects (6) Business model: concerning the business, trading, and management framework underpinning the repository

20. Thinking about communities (4 of 5) Thinking about engaging communities • Iterative, agile design: be ready to change tack, make mistakes • Multi-disciplinary team from the start: • Educational development, library, staff development, learning services, technical services, academic and student representatives • Engagement and support vital from line managers at departmental, school, faculty, institutional level: gives people permission to put time and effort into working with repository, sharing materials • Talk to others doing the same thing (JISC CETIS Repositories Community, JISC-Repositories list, software user communities, international contacts) • If you can, have a designated repository manager from the start. Can be librarian or educational technologist, as long as they are keen!

21. Thinking about communities (5 of 5) Thinking about engaging individuals • How do they currently store, back up, share and discover t&l resources? • What pain points can you solve first off, to get them engaged? • What’s juicy for them? E.g. Showing off their good resources on the front page of your website! (E.g. ALT Learning Object Competition). • Be aware of time & other pressures: sometimes engaging with new technology/processes takes more time at the start; make sure it pays off for them fairly quickly re supporting their work and saving them time. • Identify champions in user communities to mentor others • Mentor and support users by choosing a specific task they can easily achieve, or a specific problem they can solve with your repository

22. Thinking about your business case for sharing t&l materials • 70% of respondents to a 2006 survey re-purposed resources created by others - CD-LOR Personal Resource Management Strategies Review Margaryan, 2006 BUT: • “there is little tradition or articulated desire for sharing learning materials in the sector in the ways made possible by these technologies” - TrustDR Casey, Proven & Dripps, 2007

23. Using “Good Intentions” • Good Intentions project developed a template to gather different existing business models for sharing t&l resources, and evaluating affordances, successes • Created a matrix to map different elements of business cases to different business models • Too big to show it all here: worth following up, but here are examples

24. Business model template

25. Finance models

26. Service models

27. Supplier/consumer models

28. Issues affecting models

29. Impact of business cases • Significant impact • Some impact • Possible with right conditions • No impact

31. Business cases - Global

32. Business cases - National

33. Business cases - Institutional

34. Business cases - Teachers

35. Business cases - Learners

36. Some examples of current, successful repositories IRISS Learning Exchange: • Built on intraLibrary, using their open source SRU search tool • Leeds Met and others are adapting for their own use • Social work education across Scotland (HE, now WBL/CPD and FE also) • Started closed to members only, now completely open http://www.iriss.org.uk/openlx/

37. Some examples of current, successful repositories EdShare (Southhampton) • Built on ePrints: first formal attempt to make ePrints a learning materials repository • All subjects at Southampton Uni, open • Worked closely from the start with academics http://www.edshare.soton.ac.uk/ New article out yesterday on Ariadne: Morris, 2009

38. Some examples of current, successful repositories CURVE (Coventry University) • Won an IMS Learning Impact award this year! • Built on Equella to interoperate with their VLE Oxford Brookes University • Also building on Equella • Track down Jan Haines here for more info! Staffordshire University • Consortium with local institutions • Built on Hive: bulk migration of materials out of VLE Newcastle University Medical School • Institutional and discipline-based • Built on intraLibrary, integrated with WebCT Keele University • Institutional: CLA materials and t&l materials in one repository • Will use for specific material collections, e.g. Architectural images • Built on intraLibrary, integrated with WebCT • Really cool direct deposit tool on academics’ desktops (utilising SWORD)

39. Some examples of current, successful repositories Your chance to share about your work...

40. References Casey, J., Proven, J., Dripps, D. (2007) Managing IPR in Digital Learning Materials: A Development Pack for Institutional Repositories. JISC. Available: http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/outputs.php Charlesworth, A. et al (2007) Sharing eLearning Content: A Synthesis and Commentary. JISC. Available: http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/46/1/selc-final-report-3.2.pdf Margaryan, A. (2006) CD-LOR Deliverable 7: Report on Personal Resource Management Strategies. JISC. Available: http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/CDLORdeliverable7_PRMSreport.pdf Margaryan, A., Milligan, C. And Douglas, P. (2007) CD-LOR Deliverable 9: Structured Guidelines for Setting up Learning Object Repositories. JISC. Available: http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/documents/CD-LOR_Structured_Guidelines_v1p0_000.pdf McGill, L ., Currier, S., Duncan, C. , Douglas, P. (2008) Good Intentions: Improving the Evidence Base in Support of Sharing Learning Materials. JISC. Available: http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/265/ Morris, D. (2009) Encouraging More Open Educational Resources with Southampton’s EdShare in Ariadne, Issue 59 Available: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue59/morris/ Other Resources Sarah Currier Consultancy http://www.sarahcurrier.com/ JISC CETIS Repositories Domain http://jisc.cetis.ac.uk/domain/metadata JISC CETIS Repositories & Metadata list http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/CETIS-METADATA Special thanks to Lou McGill and Charles Duncan for “Good Intentions” slides: http://www.loumcgill.co.uk/ and http://www.intrallect.com/