Learning Resource Exchange (LRE) for Schools

1. Learning Resource Exchange (LRE) for Schools Frans Van Assche Senior Manager Content & Interoperability Member of the board of directors of the European IMS Network

2. CELEBRATE (IST)CALIBRATE (IST)eCOLOURS (eContent feasibility project)MELT (eContentplus)eMapps (IST)- Cultural RepositoriesLIFE (DG EAC)iClass (IST) Building a European Learning Resource Exchange for schools EUN Content projects

3. What is the LRE Concept? • It is NOT a centralised portal… but a framework that supports semantic and technical interoperability of content repositories • Adds value to national content strategies: • federated search from within national portals • access to high quality content from other MoE • an open architecture that MoE can implement locally • open source tools ( e.g. for authoring, social tagging, and curriculum mapping) • MoE can monitor/apply new standards specifications

4. CALIBRATE Semantic Interoperability Technical Interoperability Open Source Collaborative Authoring Validation & Work with Schools/Teachers

5. LeMill Collaborative Authoring

6. MELT project (eContentplus) • eContentplusContent Enrichment project (€3M funding • “enriching content with semantically well-defined metadata” • October 2006 – December 2008 • includes12 MoE and regional repositories: • Austria (BMBWK), region of Catalonia (XTEC), Germany (FWU), Hungary (Sulinet), Iceland (MESC), Estonia (Tiger Leap Foundation), MoE Finland (NBE), Ireland (NCTE), Italy (INDIRE), Slovenia (University of Ljubljana), Spain (MEC), Sweden (MSU) • ARIADNE Foundation • commercial providers (Cambridge-Hitachi, Skolavefurinn) • 37,913 resources and 124,395 assets

7. MELT - Lessons from CELEBRATE • Educational budgets struggle to cope with the demand for more/better metadata created by trained indexers • Even ‘drill and practice’ LOs could be used as part of advanced pedagogy by skilled teachers • More useful to think of LOs having ‘affordances’ or lending themselves to a particularly pedagogical method • We need metadata that more accurately reflects how LOs are actually used in different learning contexts

8. MELT Approach • Federating repositories little use if we cannot solve problem of volume metadata creation • MELT - a new ‘metadata ecology’ involving • expert indexers • automatic metadata generation • Automatic translation • folksonomies and social tagging • MELT aims to provide a scalable, cost-effective solution to meet the challenge of volume metadata creation

10. Built-in Features of the LRE • Which content • Connected to 14 repositories of MoE • 100,000 Learning Assets and 40,000 Structured learning objects all with a creative commons license • Upload of own learning objects • Accept metadata for foreign LOs • Metadata • Indexing • For experienced indexers • For casual users - Folksonomies • Existing Application Profile for the LOM + binding • Also able to deal with Dublin core • Multilingual Controlled Vocabularies • Thesaurus of 1200 terms in 14 languages • Multilingual value spaces • Automatic Metadata Generation • Automatic translation of metadata • Link with curricula + interoperability of curricula

14. Federated Search(2003 – 2007)

15. Built-in Features of the LRE • Discovery • Federated Search • Simple • Advanced • Tags • Agent based • Browse • Keywords • Tags (Folksonomies) • Other uses of Folksonomies • Organisation of my favourites • Community building based on similar tags (later) • Other features • Rating • Annotation • Ranking • Tracking based on Attention Metadata • Turn key solution • MINOR: open source Learning object repository with built in features such as federated search • See also SCAM

16. Repositories and learning resources: EDRENE • Catalogues with descriptions (metadata), actual learning resources (data), both traditional textbooks and digital materials, only digital resources? • Which types of data: files, links, streaming etc. • Decisions on which types of learning resources to include. • Which learning resources can be included in an educational repository and which not? • What is (not) a learning resource? • Learning resources that are not specifically created for education, e.g. from the cultural sector • Collecting the user’s own mix of resources • Networking repositories • The role of repositories in a Google-world • Content from producer to user • Open Educational Resources, (user-generated content)

17. Repositories and learning resources: LRE • Need for a framework of understanding • What is a resource? (wrong question) • What resource should I include (right question) • What is the right taxonomy for resources? • Metadata should be open • Need for collections: Collection Level Descriptors • Google • Try to find an educational resource that you can use freely about mathematical operations on rational numbers • OER is not the same as user generated content

18. Activities related to educational content (2003 - 2005) Discovery Search Retract Soc. Recommend. Agent based Evaluate Expose Choose Resolution Describe Get Create Integrate Reference or LO Adapt & Reuse Disaggregate Aggregate Modify the sequence Modify the content Integrate Use/Play Local Delete

19. Key questions What is the use of Educational content • if it is too hard to integrate it in my own technical environment or I can’t use it in my LMS? • if it is too hard to adapt it (although I’m allowed to). What travels well? • if it is too hard to get it • if I don’t know whether and how I could use it • if I have no means to evaluate it • if I can’t find it • if I can’t share it and expose it even if I wan’t to

20. Metadata: why Discovery Search Retract Soc. Recommend. Agent based Evaluate Expose Choose Resolution Describe Get Create Integrate Reference or LO Adapt & Reuse Disaggregate Aggregate Modify the sequence Modify the content Integrate Use/Play Local Delete

21. Different (semiotic) layers Social Political Pragmatic Semantic Semantic Syntactic Empirical Stakeholders with different concerns Technical Physical

22. Users Social Political Pragmatic Semantic Semantic Syntactic Empirical Technical Physical

23. System Developers Social Political Pragmatic Semantic Semantic Syntactic Empirical Technical Physical

24. “Content” Developers Social Political Pragmatic Semantic Semantic Syntactic Empirical Technical Physical

25. Policy Makers Social Political Pragmatic Semantic Semantic Syntactic Empirical Technical Physical

26. Researchers Social Political Pragmatic Semantic Semantic Syntactic Empirical Technical Physical

27. Structure and organisation, features and functionality: EDRENE • Repository architectures: • The organisation behind the repository, resources (labour and economy, etc.) • User/producer/public/private involvement • Exchange and import of data among repositories, other collections, databases and LMS systems • Browsing and searching, push, harvest, extract data from repositories to other web services, personalization strategies, the impact of emerging web 2 technologies • Linking to libraries and purchasing systems • Examination of the respective merits of federated search and metadata harvesting

28. Structure and organisation, features and functionality: LRE • Harvesting, Federated search, mass upload, user provided content and metadata • Not ‘OR’ but ‘AND’ • BECTA report: ‘A comparative review of federated resource discovery services’ • LOM (+ application profiles) or DC (+ application profiles) • Not OR but AND • Interoperability of application profiles • Standards based (see later)

29. Hierarchy of Application Profiles LOM Generic Appl. Prof. Generic Appl. Prof. Appl. Prof. 1 Appl. Prof. 2 Appl. Prof. 3

30. Use and usability, quality and assessment: EDRENE • Quality frameworks and criteria, including the development of quality criteria for learning resources that "travel well" in a European context • Pedagogical metadata, also including e.g. learning styles, and the variety of use of any content • Linking and mapping resources to multiple curricula • Assuring quality and ethics • User feedback, reviews and evaluation • Stimulation actions

31. Use and usability, quality and assessment: LRE • Quality + ‘travel well’ • See chapter in the quality handbook for education • MELT deliverables on quality and travel well • Personalisation & learning styles • iClass project • Linking and mapping resources to multiple curricula • CALIBRATE goes beyond that • Rating, Annotations, and Ranking • See MELT & CALIBRATE

34. Rights and regulations: EDRENE • Rights Management: • Examples of use of Digital Rights Management and identity management, • Creative Commons licenses and other relevant licensing schemes and strategies for dealing with intellectual property rights within the educational sector, nationally and in a European context. • Screening and rights clearance • Agreements with producers (professional publishers, authorities, organisations, institutions, teachers) and other repositories/databases.

35. Rights and regulations: LRE • Commercial publishers • Digitalbrain, Giunti, Hachette Multimedia, SamonaWSOY in CELEBRATE • Editis, Klett, FWU in eCOLOURS • Cambridge-Hitachi, FWU, Skolavefurinn in MELT • CELEBRATE: ODRL • CALIBRATE: pushed it back to publishers • Need for IdM • CALIBRATE, EQO: SSO • Further experiments with SAML & Liberty Alliance • Creative commons • First big institution to implement it in 2004 • Teachers don’t know how to use it correctly • Biggest problem: how to deal with variants

36. Standardisation: EDRENE • Standards of metadata profiles and data formats • Standards to allow for interoperability among repositories both within a language area and across language borders

37. Standardisation: LRE • Experience • XVD, VDEX, ZTHES, SKOS • LOM (+AP), DC (+AP) • SQI, SPI, SRU, SRW • OAI-PMH, webservices, https • IMS Content packaging • IMS QTI • IMS Common Cartridge • IMS Learning Design • ADL-SCORM • ADL-CORDRA • ACCLIP • Involvement in International organisations • CEN/ISSS WSLT • IMS co-chair of federated architectures • Board of directors of European IMS Network • Alliances: GLOBE (EDNA, Merlot, ARIADNE, NIME, EDUSOURCE, …) • FRED

38. Going Forward • “The most important Europe-wide (and potential global) player in e-learning content may become the European SchoolNet (EUN) through their European Learning Resource Exchange which is currently under development.” OLCOS Report, March 2007 • We hope it will be also due to EDRENE !!!!

39. Thank you lre.eun.org frans.van.assche@eun.org