Learning Object Repositories in Canadian Post-Secondary Education Norm Friesen National Library of Canada November, 2002

Outline - What are: Learning Objects Learning Object Repositories LOR projects underway internationally LOR projects underway in Canada: the EduSource Project

What are Learning Objects? Any digital resource that can be reused for the purposes of teaching and learning. Why learning objects? "stand-alone applications are incompatible with typical production, distribution, and usage patterns for educational software." J. Roschelle, et.al.

What are Learning Objects? Reusable Modular Free and at cost Flexible Portable Interoperable Annotation, adding value

What are Learning Object Repositories? A collection of digital assets and/or meta- data accessible without prior knowledge of the repository’s structure through a interoperable functions via a network. Adapted from IMS Digital Repositories Interoperability Specification –Assets and metadata can be separate –To prevent "silos" or "stovepipes"

What are Learning Object Repositories?

Separate resources and metadata allow for multiple and disparate resource collections to appear as one Metadata must be freely available Combined in a single search set for single- click access Provides a personalized, “portal” solution for the data access problems of the Internet

What are Learning Object Repositories? World Wide Web public repository metadata commercial repository metadata objects object Educational Portal: SHARED & AGGREGATED METADATA Educational Portal Search Results: o Movie o Animation o Website Figure 2: Repository Types and their interrelation

What are Learning Object Repositories?

What are Digital Repositories Gather/Expose: OAI Metadata Harvesting Search/Expose: SOAP with XQuery, Z39.50 (SRW/SRU) Request/Deliver, Submit/Store: FTP, Content Packaging

LOR's underway Internationally COLIS project in Australia JISC Information Environment (UK) MERLOT Universal Brokerage Platform

LOR's Internationally: COLIS LOM Metadata OAI Server SRW Server OAI Server OAI Harvest Library Catalogues InfoSeefer Z39.50 SRU Z39.50 Search Intermediary LOM Metadata CP XML E-Reserve DC+ext Metadata Web Content

JISC Info. Environment Broker/Aggregator Portal Content providers End-user Portal Broker/Aggregator Authentication Authorisation Collect’n Desc Service Desc Resolver Inst’n Profile Shared services Provision layer Fusion layer Presentation layer

Universal Brokerage Platform

LOR's underway Internationally

LOR projects underway in Canada: POOL Project Portal for Online Objects in Learning P2P and RDF – cooperating with Edutella Based on the JXTA P2P protocol Splash, Pond, Pool repository “nodes”

POOL: Peer-to-Peer

Splash Interface

LOR projects underway in Canada: BELLE-CAREO Broadband-Enabled Lifelong Learning Environment Campus Alberta Repository of Educational Objects Repository with a client-server architecture Metadata store; objects store is both central and distributed Using content packaging to provide a way of exchanging and accessing parts of aggregate objects objects

LOR projects underway in Canada: CAREO/ALOHA CAREO: Web portal of repositories ALOHA: Java client for metadata creation and cross-repository searching 3000 learning objects

aloha.netera.ca

Presented by: Norm Friesen National Library of Canada November 20, 2002

What is eduSource?  eduSource will:  Create a testbed of linked and interoperable learning object repositories across Canada  Provide a forum for the ongoing development of the associated tools, systems, protocols and practices that will support such an infrastructure

The Facts  Start Date: July 1, 2002  Completion Date: March 31,2004  Total Budget: $9.4 million  CANARIE Contribution: $4.25 million

What will eduSource do?  Be based on national and international standards  Be fully bilingual  Be accessible to all Canadian including those with disabilities through its work with the TILE (The Inclusive Learning Exchange) project  Share and disseminate its findings with all of Canada

What won’t eduSource do?  NOT a 24/7 production-quality network - it’s a research project about designing, building and evaluating prototypes  NOT about developing content - it’s about linking and repurposing existing content  NOT restricted to broadband networks - most of its content is accessible over all networks

Primary Partners NewMIC Netera Athabasca Univ. Univ. of Waterloo Technologies Cogigraph Tele Education NB

Academic Partners NewMIC Ecole Polytechnique Netera Athabasca Univ. Univ. of Waterloo Technologies Cogigraph TENB Univ. of British Columbia BCIT C2T2 Simon Fraser Univ. Univ. of Alberta NAIT Univ. of Calgary Univ. of Lethbridge Seneca College Sheridan College Brock Univ. Univ. de Montréal Univ. de Laval Univ. de Moncton ETI APCCC NBDEN

Industrial & Government Partners NewMIC Antarcti.ca Netera Athabasca Univ. Univ. of Waterloo TENB Teles Training Alberta Learning Rights Market Callisto TeleSat Télé- université NRC Bell Technomedia e-com CANARIE Technologies Cogigraph

eduSource Work Packages  Repository Content Development Facilitation  Digital Rights Management  Testing and Evaluation  Metadata Development  Software Development  Hardware Integration  Business and Management Models  Community Building  Project Management, Co-ordination and Communications

Technical Group SoftwareDevelopment(LearningCommons, U of C; Athabasca) HardwareIntegrationMetadataDevelopment DigitalRightsManagement RepositoryContentDevelopmentFacilitation

Communications GroupProjectManagement,Coordination,Communica-tions Business & ManagementModels CommunityBuilding Evaluation and Testing (ATL, U of A)

Overall Structure VisionGroup Management Committee SoftwareDevelopment HardwareIntegration MetadataDevelop-ment DigitalRightsManagement RepositoryContentDevelopmentFacilitation ProjectManagement,Coordination,Communica-tions Business & ManagementModels CommunityBuilding Evaluation and Testing

Repository in a Box National/International Standards and Practices Open Systems Specifications SearchEngines TaggingToolsRightsMgmt. UserInterfaces 3rd Party Add-ons Modular Software Components

The eduSource Team  Close to 100 individuals including:  1 software architect  2 software analysts  4 information architects  5 designers  17 researchers  22 programmers  22 faculty development coordinators

eduSource Guiding Principles  Open systems  Common standards  Interoperability  Stakeholder input and community building are essential

Thank You  For further information please visit: ca Or contact: Douglas MacLeod, Director of Projects Netera Alliance (403)