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

1. One Standard to rule them all?: Descriptive Choices for Open EducationOCWC2010 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

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. The UKOER approach

8. 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

9. Required descriptive set Tag: UKOER Title Author Date URL File format (auto) File size (auto)

10. Recommended descriptive set Language Subject classifications Keywords Tags Comments Description

11. Descriptive set (2)

12. Hoped for outcomes Institutional change Release of OERs Freedom of choice allows opportunity to assess: Selection Suitability Impact Sustainability

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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]

17. 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...

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. Patterns: system type

23. Patterns specific choices

24. Patterns: descriptive standards

25. Patterns: dissemination standards

26. Patterns: packaging formats

27. Patterns: resource types PDF DOC PPT SWF QTI MP3 MP4 FLV JPEG PNG SVG WMV OGG WAV AVI WMF AAC ?

28. Impact of choices Existing technologies used 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. The standards being used are often embedded in systems and their selection of a standard is often derivative The pilot programme points to ways forward to using both web2.0 applications and digital repositories for sharing and managing OERs.

29. Impact of choices (2) Projects have chosen multiple platforms to support different functions such as: preservation, streaming, marketing, advocacy. 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. 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.

30. Impact of choices: aggregation (in JorumOpen) Author names have been recorded differently. The JorumOpen deposit tool will provide some form of standardization by requiring a minimal set of descriptive fields. 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. 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. Project led creation of a short cataloguing guide to address issues they noted. (UK Centre for Bioscience, 2010).

31. Next steps Investigate details of deposit options Informing next programme and future work Xcri use/ course codes Work with JorumOpen

32. 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