Establishing a learning and teaching materials
repository service for UK F/HEIs
Education and Training in UK e-Science Workshop
Monday 1 November 2004
Presenter
• Moira Massey
JORUM Project Manager
EDINA Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator
– Moira.Massey@ed.ac.uk
• Based at EDINA’s office in Merseyside, at St Helens
FE College
• Tel: 01744 623816
What does JORUM mean?
• JISC Online Repository for [Learning and Teaching]
Materials
– NOUN: Large bowl containing drink; its contents
(http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/difficultwords/d
ata/d0007233.html)
• Research project started October 2002, part of JISC’s
Exchange for Learning (X4L) Programme
• Now setting up service to all UK F/HEIs from August
2005
JORUM projects
• Partners: EDINA and MIMAS
• Advisors: Centre for Educational Technology
Interoperability Standards (CETIS)
– http://www.cetis.ac.uk
• Undertook requirements exercise 2003 and reported
January 2004
• Completed procurement exercise under European
Union rules in July 2004
• Selected intraLibrary from Intrallect Ltd
– http://www.intrallect.com
What does a L&T repository do?
• Hosts any digital resource that
can be used to support education,
teaching and learning
• Provides “virtual objects” that
reference materials (on and
offline) held elsewhere
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Offers the same facilities as a
library i.e. search, browse,
locate, preview and borrow
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Offers additional facilities e.g.
upload and publish, myLibrary,
annotation, workflow
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Supports all file formats for L&T
and delivers content packages
that can be played in a VLE, or
resources for use by tutors
Images from EDINA website home page are copyright Getty Images Inc, © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
Why a
Repository?
• Provides long-term retention for publicly funded project outputs
• Will take learning/educational/training materials and staff
development/teaching support materials
• Supports staff involved in learning and teaching in their work,
provided they are willing to share content with colleagues
across the UK
• Promotes the sharing, re-use and re-purposing of content
• Likely to form part of a “landscape” of distributed repositories,
sharing information about content via exposure of OAI
metadata to portals
• Stands as a national statement of the importance of creating
interoperable, sustainable materials
Browse intraLibrary
Preview in intraLibrary
Key Challenges
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Supporting interoperability
Providing quality assurance
Collation of materials
Licensing
Service model
Fulfilling our duties as service providers
Interoperability
Interoperability
“…
the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange
information and to use the information that has been exchanged..”
Aims:
• users not locked into proprietary systems
• content transportable between different systems
• production of conformant reusable and re-purposable materials
• accessible to a range of tools and Learning Management Systems
Standards and Specifications
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IEEE LOM (Learning Object Metadata) Standard
Developed specifically to describe learning resources
Mapped to Dublin Core
Use of this standard, or sub-sets of it, mean that content can be
shared between distributed systems
Metadata can be “harvested” by portals to direct users to
content
Application Profiles of the IEEE LOM standard are sets of
metadata elements for use in particular contexts
Various JISC and other publicly funded bodies have worked
together to produce Application Profiles for use in UK Further
and Higher Education
Others including IMS Content Packaging Specification
What is JORUM doing?
• JORUM Application Profile (next slide) to support export of
materials and re-use in other systems
• Exposing metadata via Open Archives Initiative (OAI) for
harvesting by portals and other repositories
• Developing functionality to harvest metadata from other
repositories
• Developing RSS functionality e.g. to provide alerts on new
materials direct to portals and users, and from website
JORUM Application Profile
• Minimum common core of elements from the standard +
associated vocabularies
• JORUM will have an AP derived from:
– the X4L
– RDN/LTSN
• JACS and Learndirect subject classifications
• Subject specific schemes such as MeSH
• UK Educational Levels
• RDN/LTSN Learning Resource Type Vocabulary
• LTSN Pedagogic Terms Vocabulary
• LTSN Policy Themes Vocabulary
– http://www.cetis.ac.uk/profiles/uklomcore
– JORUM report at http://www.jorum.ac.uk
Quality Assurance
What is JORUM doing?
• Quality Assurance of what?
– Metadata?
– Technical requirements?
– Educational content?
QA of Metadata
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Use of community-agreed Application Profile
Awaiting report from CDLR at Strathclyde
Workflow modelling
Expert intermediaries for cataloguing
QA of Technical Requirements
• Workflow will include 2 stages for technical checks:
– Automatic at repository at upload e.g. to check that content
packages deposited have all the files they should have and
comply with specifications
– Final check at data centre before go-live (human check)
QA of Educational Content
• Workflow likely to include stage for institutions to add
pedagogic check of their own materials (if wanted)
• Not feasible for this to be undertaken at the data
centres
• Provision of annotation fields and star ratings
• Consideration being given to support for more formal
peer review processes
Collation of Materials
What materials will JORUM hold?
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Simple materials
– Excel spreadsheet with data for
lab exercise
– Word document with lesson
plan, or schedule of work
– Images
– Powerpoint presentations
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More complex materials
– 3D Flash animations illustrating
complex concepts e.g.
chemical, geological etc
– Learning objects, containing a
number of files, some of which
may provide student
interactivity
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Virtual objects
– Files that contain a reference to
materials not held in the
repository
From Where?
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JISC-funded projects e.g. X4L Strand A, JISC DeL Programme
HE Academy Generic Centre
HE Academy Subject Centres
Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs)
Open University staff development materials
Digital Curation Centre
National Centre for e-Social Sciences (NCeSS) – virtual objects
ESRC Research Methods projects (possibly)
Regional Support Centre Scotland North and East Image Engine
programme
• RSC Scotland South and West project proposals
• Other consortia in England and Wales – under discussion
currently
– These are approaches that have made to us already
– We have not yet started our formal promotional programme
Legacy/Migration Issues
• X4L content not always cleared for use in long-term service
• Alteration in subject classification schemes between research
project and long-term project
• Project staff no longer in post
• Content from JISC content services not always cleared for use
in JORUM
• Content from past programmes and other sources rarely
developed in line with interoperability and content packaging
specs
• Licensing (next section)
What about individual/institution
deposit?
• Facility for community deposit requested under JORUM Scoping
Study
• Many challenges (next section of talk refers)
• Likely *not* to go live with this facility in August 2005
Licensing
What are the issues?
• Scoping Study found that community wants as many rights for
re-use and re-purposing as possible
• “More radical even than Australia”! – end user contracts
• Supporting the permissions, and combinations of permissions,
that IP rights owners are willing to give to end users – licences,
schedules …
• Ensuring that IP rights holders are listed, including third party
rights holders
• Who owns the IP rights anyway???
– Employment contracts are key
More issues …
• Who/which function represents the institution if the institution
owns the IP rights (different in HE and FE)
• Are institutions prepared to provide indemnification against third
party claims?
• What happens where HEFCE is potentially both Licensee and
Licensor?
• What would institutions think about having a “global”
institutional deposit licence (for community deposit function)?
• Technical implementation in system and workflow modelling
• Technical issues with content packaging and what happens to
content when “out there”
– And our responsibilities as service providers
• Provision of good online support and training materials
What is JORUM doing?
• Discussions with JISC and solicitor advising JISC
– Next meeting 8 November
• Deposit licences and end user contracts have been drawn up
• Symbols have been prepared
• Using rights expression language i.e. ODRL to store licence
permissions
• Working with Intrallect on technical implementation and
workflow – but depends on some decisions yet to be made
• Given issues with IP rights, employment contracts etc at
institutions, too early to go live with community deposit
function?
• Likely to go live with collated materials from other project and
publicly funded sources
• Likely to investigate community deposit function, and work
directly with institutions, as part of R&D work
HTML mock-up showing “search results”
and symbols
Service Model
Service Model
• JORUM will be a service like other data centre services – 24/7
service delivery, data management, user support, training,
helpdesk etc
• Athens authenticated
• No charge for first 3 years and further consideration thereafter
(would be cost recovery only)
• Always free at the point of use for staff
• Institutions will be asked to subscribe to the service
and create service teams locally, containing for example:
– Site reps
– Learning resource centre staff
– Librarians
– Learning technologists
– ILT Champions
– Local “experts”
– Legal departments
Our additional responsibilities as service
providers of a repository
• Provided by Charles Oppenheim:
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Breach of confidentiality and official secrets
Personality and image rights
Data protection
Copyright
Database rights
Moral rights
Defamation
Obscenity/race hate material
Contempt of court
Trade marks and domain name disputes
• JORUM needs a policy statement covering all of these areas
Further Research Areas
Further research areas
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Web services and fitting with JISC developments
Watch on other repository developments
How JORUM fits with local, regional etc repository developments
Accessibility/Disability Discrimination Act
Open Source repositories
Long-term retention/preservation/lifecycle of materials
Digital Rights Management (with JISC)
Opening up to students
Peer review systems
Incentives for depositors
To help you …
• JORUM Scoping Study report (Jan 2004) available at:
http://www.jorum.ac.uk/research/publications.html
– Includes overview and recommendations, and separate
reports on requirements work, metadata, DRM, accessibility
and JISC Information Environment
• Training and support materials, and best practice guides, will be
made available at JORUM website next year
• Review under way of internal reports for external publication
• Contact Moira Massey at moira.massey@ed.ac.uk