EdSpace Kick-off

1. EdSpace Kick-off Hugh Davis University Director of Education (eLearning) ECS, The University of Southampton, UK www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~hcd

2. What do people want (1)? • place where people can put things concerned with education (resources + admin ++) • place where they can go to find stuff to use in their teaching • place where they can go to look what others do in their teaching (inc QA) • place where things survive and might be curated • place where they can share things with chosen subsets of people • somewhere that stores the definitive copy all the things people might want (e.g. quality documents, course descriptions, module notes)

3. What do people want (2)? • place where the outside world can go to see what they want about education at Southampton. • Someway that people can add value to resources by describing them (Folksonomy/metadata) to improve search effectiveness AND recommendation • Some people (not many!) want version management so they can look at e.g. the different programme specifications that applied to different cohorts.

4. Why do we care (1)? • we want teachers to be able to find useful resources • (e.g. how someone else organised a course, how someone else taught a particular difficult concept, a picture or video that illustrates a point, a case study they could adapt for their purposes) • NOTE – these are not classical LOs. Maybe we will need to support them too, but there is not yet a shred of evidence that they work in HE) • we want to be able to have shared workspaces (wiki – like) • The concept of the Monolithic VLE is running out of credibility.

5. Why do we care (2)? • The implementation of Blackboard that we have is broken in that no-one can see what’s in a course except those on the course (not DHoS, QA, External examiners, students who took the course last year) • Also you can’t link within Blackboard (DOI’s change at every re-install!) • Having one place where people keep things is good – avoids the <multiple versions so which one is correct?> problem • We are proud of our educational system – we have little to lose by showing it to people (but lots to lose by not doing so)

6. Why do we care (3)? • We want people to be able to gain esteem for their educational outputs (as with research outputs)

7. So What is the problem (1)? • technically not all that much (although don’t underestimate this) • people don’t want to share • too time consuming (cognitive overhead) • frightened of what people might think • worried about their plagiarism/using of other’s materials • worried about other people re-using their materials out of context incorrectly • worried about protecting their own IPR • Anyway, nothing is ever finished • Some people are not that competent with IT, and use all the above as a smokescreen

8. So What is the problem (2)? • The University is frightened of the IPR issues if people did share • The University is not clear about IPR of teaching materials. (Who owns what when someone leaves?) • The University is maybe worried about what people might think?

9. Making this work with Blackboard will be *central* to the technical success An easy to use and clear interface will be essential to uptake There are other repository initiatives using the same code-base. Keeping the developments in sync will add challenge The Solution – Technical

10. The Solution – Social and Political • We need to formulate a plan to engage with people in the university to identify their needs and to understand how to deal with: • Lack of staff competency in information management • University IPR policy • Achieving Network Effects • Persuading people of the benefits of sharing internally • Persuading people of the benefits of sharing externally • Persuading QAE folks throughout of the benefit of making things visible • To show the added value of the “semantic web” to QAE people in particular • Initially we will ask for schools keen to participate – work with the willing and wait for dinosaurs to die. Targeting Geography, Nursing, ECS, SOES …. • (Not allowed to target Languages)

11. The (paid) team • Debra Morris (80% of 80%) University Engagement and Project Manager • Jessie Hey (80%) University Engagement • Tim Miles-Board (EPrints Manager) 20% - Technical Manager • [Existing member of EPrints implementation team] 100% - shared between ECS and ISS • Feng “Barry” Tao – 3 months - semantic annotation issues • Sepi Chakaveh (40%) – Usability and interface issues

12. The University Team • Hugh Davis – ECS – Project Director • Mark Brown – Library - Co-ordinating with other repository initiatives • Les Carr – ECS – Technical Director • Bob Price – ISS – Director for Deployment • Su White – ECS – Advisor on Institutional Change • Andy Gravell – ECS – Administrative/QA demonstrator • Shakeel Khoja - Visiting Academic from Pakistan. Working with Andy. • Also • the director of student services (Marion Philips) • the educational representative from the Student Union (recently currently being re-elected, Cath?) • the Chair of the e-Learning Implementation Group (Rosalynd Jowett) • Plus LATEU (Adam Warren and Fiona Grindey) Plus ELIG Plus L&T co-ordinators

13. Short – term objectives • The Project runs for 18 months • We would like to see the platform available for use • Some shared resources from the early adopters • Selected courses using it from Blackboard • A “demonstrator” of the added value that could be achieved by putting regular educational administrative materials in the repository • A University IPR policy that is understood and disseminated • Good practice guides and success factors (and what went wrong) • Increased Esteem for the University • Some Network Effects starting to show • Links with other repository projects • Academic Papers 

14. Long –term Objectives • We will need to demonstrate continued use for 1 year after funding – but would like to see the work fully embedded • If we get it right JISC will want us to do lots of dissemination, evaluation etc. • We will wish to seek further funding (JISC? Eduserv? HEFCE? University?) for the next phase of the development. • We will wish to see EPrints distributing the code to others – and real network effects kicking in • We want to see user demand for further innovative uses • We want Southampton on the map as the University that demonstrated what it took to solve the repository deadlock.