1. LORO (Languages Open Resources Online): Academic and stakeholder engagement Anna Comas-Quinn Lecturer in Spanish, The Open University Educational Repository Exchange Community Start-up meeting – Southampton, 2 September 2009

2. Languages at The Open University English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Welsh & Chinese (beginners to final year undergraduate) Students: 7000+ language students Course developers: 50+ academics plus support staff Teaching staff: 330 part-time tutors

3. Aims of the project To create an online repository, based on the Language Box, that will allow course developers, tutors and staff tutors easy access to tutorial materials for all languages and levels. To link LORO to the Language Box so that materials deposited in LORO can be automatically shared more widely through the Language Box.

4. Project outcomes Users are able to access all materials for all levels and languages, and share their own materials with the user community. A cultural change in tutors’ practices and course- production systems.

5. Stakeholders Internal: teaching staff (tutors), staff tutors (managers), course developers (academics and managers), students, Faculty & University, technical staff External: University of Southampton, language teacher community, JISC & JISC community

6. Engaging academic stakeholders Course developers & staff tutors Ensure key decisions relating to LORO are backed (and enforced) by Faculty and Department. Involve in project, demos, presentations & testing (several members in the steering committee and all members of the project team). Keep them informed (announcements, updates, presentations, Newsletter, put LORO in the agenda of all key meetings).

7. Engaging academic stakeholders Tutors Keep informed (announcements, presentations at Staff Development events, Newsletter) Environmental assessment (130 respondents to survey, 65 applicants to fill 33 places in focus group discussions) Recruit project staff from pool of tutors (researcher, uploader/testers, peer supporters, trainers, etc.) At a later stage, involve tutors in dissemination activities at their other institutions.

8. Engaging external stakeholders University of Southampton Providing a user test case (benefits realisation) Populating the Language Box Language Teacher Community Increase attractiveness of Language Box (good quality OU materials – iTunesU) Dissemination through tutors at their other institutions

9. Any questions? Contact FELS-Repository@open.ac.ukFELS-Repository@open.ac.uk or Anna Comas-Quinn LORO Project Manager A.Comas-Quinn@open.ac.uk