JISC Presentation 5 th Dec 2008 Hugh Davis and Debra Morris Learning Societies Lab, ECS edshare.soton.ac.uk

People Involved Hugh Davis (PI – University Director of Education – e-Learning) Debra Morris (Manager – seconded from Library) Les Carr (Director of EPrints) Su White (ECS) Jessie Hey (ECS, Library, EPrints) Tim Miles-Board (EPrints Manager) Sebastien François (EPrints programmer) Patrick McSweeney (EPrints + Faroes programmer) Dave Millard (Faroes PI) + Assorted students and others assisting with content + Steering Group (PVC-Ed, Director of iSolutions, Manager of Core Mission and Engagement, The Librarian, Director of LATEU, LATEU e-learning lead, Director of Student Services, SUSU VPed) 2JISC Meeting December 2008

Context £300K of JISC funding to be spent by March 2009 EdShare is the product – EdSpace is the JISC funded project The objective is to provide an infrastructure that allows academics to share resources concerned with teaching with whatever audience is appropriate – built on Web 2.0 principles like YouTube etc. ECS, Eprints, Library and ISS (iSolutions ;-) 3JISC Meeting December 2008

Where we are: We are 14/15 months through the project We have – developed a pre-release prototype – engaged with early adopters – produced our alpha and beta release versions – a good amount of resources already shared (1000+) – bought a dedicated server – linked up with the Faroes team – started rolling the service out to users 4JISC Meeting December 2008

Motivations Learning Object Repositories don’t seem to work But we would like people to share – Improved efficiency – less replication – Improved resources for student – Improved communication – Large Open Content initiative on its way from HEFCE Blackboard needs a content layer. Want something lightweight, flexible and as easy to use as YouTube and flickr The UoS could be a world leader 5JISC Meeting December 2008

EdShare is a Trojan Horse Levering our resources out of Blackboard Exposing our content to the world A focus for change at UoS 6JISC Meeting December 2008

Changing the face of EdShare 7JISC Meeting December 2008

Content foremost 8JISC Meeting December 2008

Guiding principles for EdShare Eyecatching previews Capturing attention and retaining it Engaging the community in making resources visible Supporting staff in building confidence to do this Integrate links with Blackboard 9JISC Meeting December 2008

Context of a School: Psychology Blackboard PsyWeb SUSSED EdShare fits with these 10JISC Meeting December 2008

Enhancement of reputation for learning & teaching Increased institutional commitment to learning & teaching Organisation process efficiency Savings on re-invention EdShare What EdShare can do for the University 11JISC Meeting December 2008

EdShare supports access within the whole institution, across Schools and disciplines Academics provide simple tags which will make searching easier Supported by automatic generation of some metadata With a clear structure for adding more detail: courses, level, re-use EdShare’s practical approach 12JISC Meeting December 2008

Adding and describing content 13

What stage is EdShare at now? Eprints platform.soton.ac.uk URL New 1.2 version – Empowering the community Intuitive and minimal description Working with a range of people/schools to use and develop EdShare Creative Commons licenses provided Spreading the word! 14JISC Meeting December 2008

15 What we are planning to do 1.3 – Maintain the community Maintain close contacts with the people Add as much content as possible Deal with the challenges of content Respond to priorities of requested functionality: Groups & Collections/Folder Work closely with Faroes Project University policy work Elearning strategy links JISC Meeting December 2008

16 Integration and user focus JISC Meeting December 2008

17 Web 2.0 services & philosophy JISC Meeting December 2008

Engaging the academic community How to get academics to share? Which resources will academics be most happy to share? How widely? How long for? Teachers rarely finish materials for teaching Capitalising on the EPrints features – Teaching Metrics? Recognition and rewards for teaching 18JISC Meeting December 2008

Some other Issues How to represent “composites” and collections within the share. Interface to Blackboard An institutional “Shared drive” -> Drag and Drop deposit Copyright and Digital Rights – institutional policy (Institutional) Search Use for Educational Administrative materials Relationship with National Initiatives (Subject centres, CETLs and JORUM) 19JISC Meeting December 2008

Financial And about 5/6ths of the way through the time. We are about 4/6ths of the way through the money There is a big programme of targeted support interventions for specific disciplines and academics planned for January to March. Money will also be invested in Blackboard building block support in line with strategic objectives 20JISC Meeting December 2008

Sustainability at UoS Ownership across the institution (Schools and services) iSolutions ready to take-on EdShare as “Production Service” EdShare development process has informed development of EPrints Interested to understand what the secondary benefits of this project will be to academics and to the University? EdShare project and team at the heart of strategic renewal at UoS – new responsive modes of collaborating between innovators, Schools, Library, LATEU and iSolutions. Spin-off repository – SWOT There are QA and Student Entitlement Issues emerging How will things change as students start to deposit and comment and tag? 21JISC Meeting December 2008

EdShare – the Future Benefits realisation. Looking to install EdShare (and LearningBox) at other Universities and CoPs. The EPrints team will be proactively supporting the EPrints+EdShare approach Facilitates open access to UoS materials – allows different modes of external collaboration and presentation There are numerous open research questions – Technical – Change Management – Sharing and Open Access – Evaluation 22JISC Meeting December 2008

Use your EdShare card 23JISC Meeting December 2008