Learning
Object Repositories: January 10th, 2003
By Paul Stacey
For
centuries teachers have created lessons, course content, and learning
activities. To a student the value of the learning experience has been largely
tied to the teachers ability to make these engaging and empowering.
Given
that teaching is a "learning profession" it is amazing to me that
exemplary lessons, content and learning activities have not historically been
distributed or exchanged. The duplication of effort by teachers is astounding.
There is no best-of-breed English 101 course shared between schools or teachers.
Each new teacher of English 101 develops a new version of the course. Unlike any
other profession, teaching uniquely reinvents the wheel over and over and over
again.
In
an era when budgets for education and training are being cut and education
efficiency and effectiveness called into question the continuation of this
practice seems questionable.
Learning
Object Repositories may change all that.
In
information technology a repository is a central place where data is stored and
maintained in an organized way. A repository may be directly accessible to users
or may be a place from which specific data, files, or documents are obtained for
further relocation or distribution in a network.
Learning
Object Repositories apply database, data warehouse, and data mining concepts to
learning. In its simplest form a Learning Object Repository is a database of
learning content.
Canada
is playing a leadership role in Learning Object Repositories. For an excellent
overview see the CANARIE report "A Report on Learning Object Repositories -
Review and Recommendations for a Pan-Canadian Approach to Repository
Implementation in Canada" http://www.canarie.ca/funding/learning/lor.pdf
To
quote from the report, "Object repositories are seen as key enablers for
bringing increased value to learning resources by providing opportunities for
reuse, repurposing or reengineering to suit a variety of purposes and end-user
needs. Creating learning resources in object formats is seen as a way to bring
about increased flexibility, customization, ease of update, searchability, and
manageability to rich stores of content and learning resources that are
available from publishers or that have been created by faculty members or
teachers."
For
companies, teachers, and schools Learning Object Repositories offer a mechanism
for the management, exchange and distribution of exemplary learning. For
students Learning Object Repositories offer the possibility of a higher quality
learning experience. For private sector publishers of learning content Learning
Object Repositories are a whole new market extending their product lines beyond
print-based textbooks and workbooks.
CANARIE
is a key partner in the $9.4 million dollar eduSource project currently
underway. The eduSource project will create a testbed of linked and
interoperable learning object repositories across Canada and provide leadership
in the ongoing development of the associated tools, systems, protocols and
practices that will support such an infrastructure. see www.edusource.ca
Some
of the issues eduSource will research include:
Meta-data
Like
a library index card for a book, meta-data are descriptive fields or tags
attached to learning objects. Searching, management, and reuse of learning
objects are all done using the meta-data attached to the learning object.
The
idea is that e-learning producers will use meta-data as a common worldwide
system for labeling and describing not just courses but individual chunks of a
course - particularly useful or illustrative animation's, images, videos or
audio clips for example. It will be up to the creator to decide which elements
to tag as objects and how big or small they are.
A
great deal of work has already been done defining learning object meta-data
including the worlds first e-learning standard, the IEEE standard for learning
object meta-data http://www.ieee.org,
the IMS Meta-data specification http://www.imsproject.org/specifications.cfm,
and
Cancore http://www.cancore.ca.
Selecting
which meta-data tags to use, developing tools for attaching meta-data to
objects, and operationalizing the workflow for application of meta-data require
further development.
Digital
Rights
Tracking
learning object digital rights is an imperative. For learning objects to be
utilized and freely flow, issues related to ownership, copyright, and rights to
use must be cleanly managed.
As
we all know anything digital can be easily duplicated and transferred. But for
teachers, publishers and others to create and put learning objects in a
repository for distribution they need to know that there will be proper
attribution, recognition, and recompense.
Digital
rights management has been a hot topic, especially in the music and movie
industry. Music and movies have been flying across file trading networks (Gnutella
and Kazaa for example)
available to millions of users around the world. Napster had 70 million users at
the time when it was sued and forced to shut down. The Recording Industry
Association of America claims $4 billion in losses, the Motion Picture
Association of America claims $3 billion in losses (although both claims are
highly suspect.)
Its
a bit of an conundrum. One the one hand computer owners are looking for more and
more of their content online and many of the companies that own today's most
popular content are eager to sell their content online. On the other hand there
is no easy, convenient e-business model for completing this transaction.
This
area is fraught with all kinds of legal issues. Laws governing these issues were
written in the pre-digital area and differ from country to country. Over
regulation runs the risk of making learning objects more expensive, less
distributable, and less customizable - impeding adoption and use.
At
this point digital rights for a learning object can readily be defined. What is
more complicated is digital rights enforcement. Permissions and fees for using
digital content require a system for tracking and collecting. The use of digital
rights expression language XrML (http://www.xrml.org)
appears to offer some solutions but a great deal more work is required.
Repository
Content Facilitation
eduSource
is not gearing itself to be a 24/7 learning object content production network.
It is focused on linking and repurposing existing content. A mechanism for
aggregating and linking repositories across the country (and internationally) is
needed.
The
POOL project (http://www.edusplash.net)
has laid an interesting foundation for this architecture including a network
tying together peer-to-peer repositories (splash), local enterprise repositories
(pond) and central or national repositories (pool).
The
relationship of learning object repositories to Learning Content Management
Systems (LCMS) must also be explored. A core component of all LCMS's is a
central repository. How will these application specific repositories
interoperate with public or enterprise repositories?
Defining
and assessing quality attributes of learning objects will also be essential.
When a user is faced with multiple options how will they decide which learning
object best fits there need?
Another
critical element is not just how to get content into the repository but how to
get content out of the repository. Learning objects will need to be dispensed
out to users individually or used as components to assemble larger learning
modules or full courses. The same object may be used as many times and for as
many purposes as appropriate. Furthermore the learning object will need to have
the flexibility to be deployed in multiple ways - in a web browser on a
computer, on a mobile device, a CD-ROM or even on paper.
Defining
an open, interoperable, standards based repository structure that others can
begin to use will also be helpful. eduSource is working on developing a
"repository in a box" that ties together tagging tools, rights
management, search engines, and user interfaces with modular software
components.
Business
Models
Realizing
the dream of reusable learning objects is as much a business issue as a
technology issue. Currently the e-learning marketplace is based on courses not
objects.I am delighted to see that eduSource will spend some effort researching
learning object repository business models.
What
is the market? Who are the buyers - teachers? schools? students? parents? How
will transactions be enabled? Will learning object use automatically generate
royalty micropayments to appropriate developers? What does a learning object
economy look like? Will there be learning object brokers who search for,
sequence, and knit together learning objects from multiple authors? What is the
Return on Investment in terms of reuse, searchability, customization and other
stated benefits of repositories?
If
we can develop learning object business models Canada will be poised to be a
major player as the market for learning objects develops. For a technical
exploration of how learning objects might be bought and sold see Stephen Downes'
article "Paying for Objects in a Distributed Repository Model" at http://www.downes.ca
Some
of you may still be wondering just what a learning object repository might look
like. Interesting examples to peruse include:
The
National Science Digital Library (NSDL) - http://nsdl.org
Multimedia
Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) - http://www.merlot.org
Campus
Alberta Repository of Objects (CAREO) - http://www.careo.org
Learning
Object Repositories offer the promise of higher quality learning experiences at
reduced costs. Working out the details is a necessary precursor to realizing the
promise. Once realized Learning Object Repositories may fundamentally change the
teaching profession and provide students with an opportunity to learn from the
best.
Paul
Stacey, is an e-learning specialist in corporate and higher education. Paul
works in Simon Fraser
University's eLearning Innovation Centre (eLINC). A frequent e-learning
speaker and workshop leader Paul collaborates with Jonathan Finkelstein in
providing and hosting a free online learning community for educators called LearningTimes.
Contact: Paul Stacey
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