Resource description, discovery, and metadata for Open Educational Resources

1. Resource description, discovery, and metadata for Open Educational Resources R. John Robertson UKOER 2 Programme start-up meeting London, September 22nd 2010 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

2. Overview • Introduction • Requirements • Lessons learnt • Support Slides heavily influenced by: http://www.slideshare.net/philb/jisc-cetis-support-for-ukoer

3. JISC CETIS • JISC Innovation Support Centre: Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards • provide strategic technical advice to JISC, supporting its development programmes • representing JISC on international standardisation initiatives • work with the wider educational community to facilitate the use of standards-based eLearning. • support various JISC Programmes

4. JISC CETIS areas of interest • Accessibility • Achievement Information • Aggregated Content • Architecture And Modelling • Assessment • Cloud Computing • Competences • Curriculum Design • Learning Opportunities (XCRI) • Learning Platforms • Lifelong Learning • Mobile Learning • Open Educational Resources • Portfolio • Relationship Management • Repositories • Resource Description And Discovery • Semantic Technologies • Standards • Virtual Worlds

5. The UKOER approach

6. UKOER technical requirements - systems • “any system capable of delivering content on the open web” • Strongly encouraged to use platforms that can create RSS for collections • Most OER specific discovery tools and organisations use RSS to collect information about resources; For example, DiscoverEd, OCWC and the Open University, Steeple (Oxford), and Xpert (Nottingham) • RSS metadata deposit an active area of discussion • Strand A projects: utilise existing technologies – development not funded • Implement some approach to tracking the use of released content

7. UKOER technical requirements - descriptive set • Tag: UKOER and a project specific tag • Title • Author • Date • URL • File format (probably auto) • File size (probably auto)

8. UKOER technical requirements - recommended ‘extras’ • Language • Subject classifications • Keywords • Tags • Comments • Description

9. UKOER technical requirements - licences • Licensing • Creative Commons • Ideally BY but find the option that best suits your local requirements • CC: BY NC SA was common • Embed licence in materials if possible • Recommended: MS Research CC-License plug-in for Office • Often an option to assign licence in tools used – some may embed

10. UKOER technical requirements - deposit • You have to make you content available through JorumOpen and another service – for example, a local repository or a web 2.0 service • Deposit in both places (and not just representation) is strongly advised

11. UKOER Patterns from phase 1 - systems

12. UKOER Patterns from phase 1 - description

13. JPEG PNG SVG WMV OGG WAV AVI WMF AAC ? UKOER Patterns from phase 1 - formats • PDF • DOC • PPT • SWF • QTI • MP3 • MP4 • FLV

14. UKOER Patterns from phase 1 – other stuff • Tracking • No clear patterns yet but possibilities identified: • http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Resource_Tracking_for_UKOER • Ongoing work by Scott Leslie and Rob Pearce • Versioning... • A active discussion, but perhaps a non-issue? • Guidelines for common practice • RSS – Jorum’s paper (and debate) http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/lmc/2009/12/09/oer-rss-and-jorumopen/ • RSS – OCWC guidelines http://wiki.ocwconsortium.org/index.php?title=RSS_feeds • RSS – DiscoverEdguidelines http://wiki.creativecommons.org/DiscoverEd_Metadata • Cataloguing – eg Bioscience http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/oer/jorumopen.aspx

15. Principles of CETIS programme support • Support for UKOER uses models of support we provide to other JISC development programmes. • Treat the programme as a whole • Engage with individual projects but use specific issues to also produce general advice • Create a high level overview of the technical approaches, technologies and standards in use within and across funded programmes. • Synthesise, reflect, and make recommendations.

16. JISC CETIS • Blogs • Technical calls • Wiki • Topic pages • Events • Publications

17. JISC CETIS • Blogs • Technical calls • Wiki • Topic pages • Events • Publications

18. JISC CETIS • Blogs • Technical calls • Wiki • Topic pages • Events • Publications

19. JISC CETIS • Blogs • Technical calls • Wiki • Topic pages • Events • Publications

20. JISC CETIS • Blogs • Technical calls • Wiki • Topic pages • Events • 2nd Tuesdays • CETIS What Metadata meeting? • Accessibility and OER (with TechDis) • CETIS conference sessions • Others to come • Publications

21. JISC CETIS • Blogs • Technical calls • Wiki • Topic pages • Events • Publications • Open Educational Resources – Opportunities and challenges for higher educationLi Yuan, Sheila MacNeill, Wilbert Kraan (Sept 2008) http://tinyurl.com/kkek7r

22. CETIS support for UKOER • Other stuff • It really helps if you blog • Subscribe to our blog rss feeds or keep an eye on the main CETIS feed/page • If you’re on twitter, follow the tag #ukoer ; follow us and let us know who you are • If you have a question – get in touch • We follow up issues from interim reports • We’ll try to connect the dots between projects • We’ll represent the tech side of the programme to a wider audience and try to keep highlighting relevant developments

23. Further Information • http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Educational_Content_OER • http://jisc.cetis.ac.uk//topic/oer • Contact details • robert.robertson at strath.ac.uk @kavubob • Lmc at strath.ac.uk @lornamcampbell • Phil.barker at hw.ac.uk @philbarker • L.yuan at bolton.ac.uk • @jisccetis