Study on the use of metadata for digital learning objects in university institutional repositories (MODERI)

Metadata is a core issue for the creation of repositories. Different institutional repositories have chosen and use different metadata models, elements and values for describing the range of digital objects they store. Thus, this paper analyzes the current use of metadata describing those Learning Objects that some open higher educational institutions' repositories include in their collections. The goal of this work is to identify and analyze the different metadata models being used to describe educational features of those specific digital educational objects (such as audience, type of educational object, learning objectives, etc.). Also discussed is the concept and typology of Learning Objects (LO) through their use in University Repositories. We will also examine the usefulness of specifically describing those learning objects, setting them apart from other kind of documents included in the repository, mainly scholarly publications and research results of the Higher Education institution.En prens

A vision of quality in repositories of open educational resources

In the future, Open Educational Practices (OEP) will facilitate access to open materials by promoting collaboration among educators, who will share, reuse and evaluate digital pedagogical content using Repositories of Open Educational Resources (ROER)

Questions of quality in repositories of open educational resources: a literature review

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials which are freely available and openly licensed. Repositories of OER (ROER) are platforms that host and facilitate access to these resources. ROER should not just be designed to store this content – in keeping with the aims of the OER movement, they should support educators in embracing open educational practices (OEP) such as searching for and retrieving content that they will reuse, adapt or modify as needed, without economic barriers or copyright restrictions. This paper reviews key literature on OER and ROER, in order to understand the roles ROER are said or supposed to fulfil in relation to furthering the aims of the OER movement. Four themes which should shape repository design are identified, and the following 10 quality indicators (QI) for ROER effectiveness are discussed: featured resources; user evaluation tools; peer review; authorship of the resources; keywords of the resources; use of standardised metadata; multilingualism of the repositories; inclusion of social media tools; specification of the creative commons license; availability of the source code or original files. These QI form the basis of a method for the evaluation of ROER initiatives which, in concert with considerations of achievability and long-term sustainability, should assist in enhancement and development. Keywords: open educational resources; open access; open educational practice; repositories; quality assuranc

Recursos educativos abiertos: repositorios y uso

Open educational resources: repositories and use. A bibliographic review, state of the art, history, characteristics, development, projects and research lines of open educational resources (OERs) are presented, as well as their storage in repositories and their use in university educational practice. OERs have had two phases: an initial one concerned about providing access, and the more current one, focused on their incorporation into educational practice

Simple Strategies for Broadcasting Repository Resources

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : Conference PostersNSDL's data repository for STEM education is designed to provide organized access to digital educational materials through its online portal, NSDL.org. The resources held within the NSDL data repository along with their associated metadata can also be found through partner and external portals, often with high quality, pedagogical contextual information intact. Repositories are not, however, usually described as web broadcast devices for their holdings. Providing multiple contextual views of educational resources where users look for them underscores the idea that digital repositories can be systems for the management, preservation, discovery and reuse of rich resources within a domain that can also be pushed out from a repository into homes and classrooms through multiple channels. This presentation reviews two interrelated methods and usage data that support the concept of â resource broadcastingâ from the NSDL data repository as a method that takes advantage of the natural context of resources to encourage their additional use as stand-alone objects outside of specific discipline-oriented portals.National Science Foundatio

Organic.Edunet Web Portal: User Satisfaction Analysis

The Organic.Edunet Web portal is a multilingual federation of educational repositories, developed in order to enhance the availability and retrieval of quality educational resources about Organic Agriculture (OA) and Agroecology (AE). This paper presents the results of an online survey that took place from March to August 2010 in order to evaluate the user satisfaction from the Organic.Edunet Web portal. A standard methodology was followed in this survey, which was based on the WebQual questionnaire with the required modifications. The collected results were analyzed and statistically processed in order to lead to the corresponding conclusions

NSDL EduPak: An Open Source Education Repository Solution

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : Conference PostersEducational organizations and institutions focused on establishing specialized digital collections, conducting educational research, or providing students, teachers and instructors with discipline-oriented pedagogical products and tools require basic technology to begin building educational digital repositories. To help meet these needs, the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) has announced the release of NSDL EduPak. Specifically designed for education, NSDL EduPak packages technology for digital storage, access, and workflow into a convenient bundle. This poster reviews three core EduPak components with examples of how they are used by education communities.National Science Foundatio

Transformation for an open education repository: issues associated with IT and computing distance learning course materials

The number of Open Educational Resource Repositories available worldwide continues to grow and many contain course materials from campus-based institutions. The Open University in the United Kingdom (UK) has influenced the OER movement by releasing traditional distance learning course materials as OERs. This paper discusses issues associated with the transformation of Open University distance learning course materials in the IT and Computing subject area into OERs

Digital educational resources repositories in lower and middle education in Portugal: quality criteria in the international context

The thematic of Digital Educational Resources (DER) and digital educational repositories at primary and secondary education levels is of growing centrality in the educational themes in the international debate. In order to make it easier for teachers and students to find the best and relevant learning resources and to encourage teachers’ uptake of innovative materials and learning styles, authorities and/or companies in European countries have launched web based educational repositories. Following this trend, about two years ago, three major institutions in Portugal have launched their repositories: Portal das Escolas (ME), Casa das Ciências (FCG) and BOA (INESC-ID). After examining the state of the art of educational repositories in Europe, it was found that those three Portuguese repositories are not mentioned in recent European reports and so the study here presented seemed to be very relevant. This work aims to develop a descriptive and comparative study, in order to characterize the reality of the Portuguese repositories and compare it with European examples of good practices. To guide this investigation, the following question was theorized: “How are the Portuguese institutional repositories, for primary and secondary education levels, positioned in what concerns international quality criteria?” Our methodology design is a qualitative one and of type i) descriptive, as it is intended to characterize the main Portuguese institutional DER repositories for primary and secondary school education, aiming to assess the key dimensions that affect their quality and ii) comparative since it has in view comparing those repositories with reference European ones. In this sense, Lektion in Sweden and Scoilnet, Portal for Irish Education in Ireland are considered. The study was undertaken from the view of the DER producers and users. As a tool for data collection it was used a framework of analysis built on the Guía para la Evaluación de Repositorios Institucionales e Investigación (GERII), a joint publication of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and other organizations in the fields of Education, Science and Technology (Villar et al, 2010). The GERII guide includes a set of guidelines for the creation and evaluation of a repository, bringing together a battery of 31 evaluation criteria, distributed over seven dimensions that any repository must accomplish to meet quality and therefore was considered an excellent basis for our analysis. Comparing the three Portuguese repositories, target of this study, with two reference European repositories in order to contextualize the national reality in the international arena will stand for the Portuguese institutions that hold the repositories as an opportunity for improvement. Thus, Portuguese teachers will have an increased chance to access an eclectic collection of quality resources, in order to diversify their teaching strategies.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio