Repositories and the Open Web: Reflections from the Core-Materials and OER Pilot Projects

Repositories & the Open Web Reflections from Core-Materials and OER Pilot Projects Lisa J Rogers Institute for Computer Based Learning Heriot-Watt University Monday 19 th April 2010 Presented at #cetisROW

Core-Materials
20 Partners
Led by UKCME
HE Institutions
FE Colleges
Industrial Organisations
Professional Bodies
E-Learning Specialists

Dissemination
Large collections of organised resources (100s of images, videos, documents and Flash animations)
Copy of all resources on core.materials.ac.uk website
Dissemination through file sharing platforms
Flickr (for images)
YouTube (for videos)
Scribd and SlideShare (for documents)
JorumOpen (copy or link)

Resource Description
Many resources already had descriptions in various databases
Used to create one central database, with additional metadata including licensing
Not feasible to manually upload resources and descriptions to external services

Bulk Upload
By central project team
One Core-Materials account per file sharing platform
Used APIs of Flickr, YouTube, SlideShare and Scribd to upload resources and metadata
URLs of external resources then saved to database

Core-Materials Resource Finder
Central searchable database (PHP & MySQL)
Each resource page contains links to all copies of the resource
Project developed a taxonomy to classify resources by: Science approaches, Material, Process, etc.
Semi automatic cataloguing interface to allow partners to contribute descriptions

JorumOpen
Deposited copy of Flash Animations
Want to upload descriptions and links to each resource page on core-materials resource finder
Not feasible to do this manually, data already available electronically
Testing deposit via RSS, hope to have all resources represented in JorumOpen soon

OER Pilot Project
Partners
Led by HEA Engineering SC
6 Universities
1 College
Engineering Council (UK)
Engineering Professors Council

Dissemination
Contributors were individual academics or departments
Resources did not have existing descriptions
Dissemination through file sharing platforms
Flickr (for images)
YouTube and Vimeo (for videos)
Scribd and SlideShare (for documents)
Zoho (for Spreadsheets)
JorumOpen (copy or link)

Resource Description
Partners given guidelines on how to describe and tag their resources
Each partner allocated a tag to identify their resources e.g. LoughboroughUniOER

Upload
Each partner created accounts and uploaded their own resources on file sharing sites
Project team available to give advice or help with upload
Partners will be able to continually disseminate OERs after the project
Using experience gained from Core-Materials project to upload 170 images to Flickr using API. Images from an earlier project

Engineering OER Search
Did not want to create yet another database of resources
Instead used the APIs of Flickr, YouTube, SlideShare, Flickr, Scribd and Vimeo (based on tags ukoer and engscoer)
Used Google to search JorumOpen
Can filter by contributor based on tags

JorumOpen
Partners encouraged to upload their own resources or links to JorumOpen
Project team available to provide help
Investigating ways to get metadata out of JorumOpen
Would be nice to get RSS Feeds of all resources with a particular tag

Benefits of File Sharing Sites
Easily embed resources, in websites, blogs, personal home pages
Good web presence and search ranking
Target audience familiar with these sites
Get statistics on use
Suggested related resources
Create own collections or playlist
Easily share resources on social networks
Automatically generate RSS Feeds
Batch upload and editing features
Provide APIs for upload and search

APIs
Many services have PHP clients for interaction with API
Each API is different, spent a lot of time getting to grips with each one
Functionality of each API is different
For example: Needed to alter licences on 149 documents. Took 5 minutes in Scribd through API. Had to be set manually on SlideShare

Links
Projects
Core Materials http://core.materials.ac.uk
OER Pilot http://www.engsc.ac.uk/an/oer-project/oer-project.asp
APIs
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/services/api/
SlideShare http://www.slideshare.net/developers/documentation/
Scribd http://www.scribd.com/developers/
YouTube http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html
Vimeo http://vimeo.com/api/
More Info
Cetis wiki OER Platforms http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Distribution_platforms_for_UKOER_resources

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Repositories and the Open Web: Reflections from the Core-Materials and OER Pilot Projects

by azami on Apr 16, 2010

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Repositories and the Open Web: Reflections from the Core-Materials and OER Pilot Projects — Presentation Transcript