Higher Education Academy/JISC Open Educational Resources Programme
Project Document Cover Sheet
Project Information
Project Acronym
Start Date
CORE-Materials
CORE-Materials: Collaborative Open Resource Environment – for
Materials
End Date
1st May 2009
26th April 2010
Lead Institution
The University of Liverpool
Project Director
Professor Peter Goodhew
Project Manager &
contact details
Dr Diane Taktak
Tel. 0151 794 6893. email: d.taktak@liverpool.ac.uk
The University of Liverpool
The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3)
The University of Birmingham
Bradford College
The University of Cambridge
The University of Edinburgh
The European Aluminium Association (EAA)
Granta Design Limited
Heriot-Watt University, ICBL
Imperial College London
International Council on Materials Education (ICME)
The University of Manchester
Materials E-Learning Technologies (MELT)
The Open University
Queen Mary University of London (QMUL)
The University of Sheffield
Sheffield Hallam University
The University of Southampton
The University of Swansea
The Welding Institute (TWI)
Project Title
Partner Institutions
Project Web URL
www.core.materials.ac.uk
Programme Name (and
number)
OER Subject strand S4 - CORE Materials
Programme Manager
Sharon Waller
Document Name
Document Title
CORE_Materials Final Report 26th April.doc
Reporting Period
Author(s) & project role
Adam Mannis - Senior Liaison Officer
Diane Taktak – Project Manager
Date
26th April 2010
Page 1 of 54
Document title: Academy JISC OER Programme Final Report
Last updated: April 2007
Filename
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
URL
Access
 Project and JISC internal
 General dissemination
Document History
Version
Date
Comments
Page 2 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
The Higher Education Academy / JISC Open Educational Resources Programme
Authors: Diane Taktak and Adam Mannis
Date: 26th April 2010
Version: Final
core.materials.ac.uk
UK Centre
for Materials
Education
Page 3 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
2. Table of Contents
Project Document Cover Sheet .............................................................................................................. 1
2. Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................ 4
3. Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 5
4. Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................ 7
5. Background ......................................................................................................................................... 8
6. Aims and Objectives ........................................................................................................................... 9
6.1 Final Aims and Objectives ........................................................................................................... 10
6.1.1 OERs to be released ............................................................................................................ 10
6.1.2 Technical Developments to be undertaken .......................................................................... 10
6.1.3 Practices and processes to be reviewed / reformed............................................................. 11
6.1.4 Lessons to be learned .......................................................................................................... 11
6.1.5 Evaluation plans.................................................................................................................... 11
7. General approach ............................................................................................................................. 12
8. Implementation .................................................................................................................................. 13
9. Outputs and Results .......................................................................................................................... 15
9.1 CORE-Materials Consortium Agreement. ................................................................................... 15
9.2 Development of the Materials Taxonomy .................................................................................... 16
9.3 Open Educational Resources released ....................................................................................... 18
9.4 The CORE-Materials repository .................................................................................................. 20
9.4.1 The CORE-Materials search facility...................................................................................... 20
9.4.2 Resource Metadata Tagging ................................................................................................ 22
9.4.3 Keyword Generation ............................................................................................................. 23
9.4.4 Takedown Policy ................................................................................................................... 24
9.4.5 CORE-Materials hosting ....................................................................................................... 24
9.4.6 Semi-automated cataloguing interface ................................................................................. 24
9.5 Upload of Resources to File-sharing sites (Web2.0) ................................................................... 26
9.6 Upload of Resources to JorumOpen ........................................................................................... 26
9.7 CORE-Materials Resource Usage statistics ............................................................................... 28
9.8 CORE-Materials Blog .................................................................................................................. 29
9.9 Re-packaging of interactive Flash content .................................................................................. 30
9.10 Revision of ECorr ...................................................................................................................... 30
9.11 Investigation into the use of RSS feeds to create Personal Learning Environments ................ 31
9.11.1 Netvibes .............................................................................................................................. 31
9.11.2 iGoogle ................................................................................................................................ 33
9.12 Guidance on OER release and associated issues and processes ........................................... 34
9.12.1 Guidance Notes for OER release ....................................................................................... 34
9.12.2 STEM OER Group Collaboration on Guidance Notes ........................................................ 35
9.13 Dissemination outputs ............................................................................................................... 35
9.14 Outputs from the evaluation process ......................................................................................... 36
9.15 Deliverables ............................................................................................................................... 39
10. Outcomes and Impact ..................................................................................................................... 39
10.1 Innovations in practices/ processes around OER ..................................................................... 40
10.2 Lessons learned ........................................................................................................................ 40
10.2.1 Lessons learned by the materials subject community ........................................................ 41
10.2.2 Lessons learned by the CORE-Materials Team ................................................................. 41
10.2.3 Lessons learned by HEIs .................................................................................................... 42
10.2.4 Lessons learned about OER release .................................................................................. 42
11. Conclusions & Recommendations .................................................................................................. 42
11.1 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 42
11.2 Recommendations ................................................................................................................. 43
12. Implications for the future ................................................................................................................ 44
13. References ...................................................................................................................................... 45
14. Appendices ..................................................................................................................................... 46
Appendix 1. University of Liverpool Draft IPR Policy ........................................................................ 46
Appendix 2. CORE-Materials Publicity Leaflet .................................................................................. 52
14.1 Glossary of Acronyms ............................................................................................................... 53
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
3. Acknowledgements
This project was co-ordinated by the UK Centre for Materials Education (UKCME) hosted by
the University of Liverpool. The UKCME would like to thank the JISC and Higher Education
Academy Open Educational Resources programme for funding this pilot project.
The Project Team would also like to thank all partners who participated in this OER project
by making their learning and teaching resources freely available to the wider materials
community. The partners are listed below:
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The University of Liverpool
The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3)
The University of Birmingham
Bradford College
The University of Cambridge
The University of Edinburgh
The European Aluminium Association (EAA)
Granta Design Limited
Heriot-Watt University, Institute for Computer Based Learning (ICBL)
Imperial College London
International Council on Materials Education (ICME)
The University of Manchester
Materials e-Learning Technologies (MeLT)
The Open University
Queen Mary University of London (QMUL)
The University of Sheffield
Sheffield Hallam University
The University of Southampton
The University of Swansea
The Welding Institute (TWI)
The Team would also like to thank publishers Taylor & Francis Books UK for allowing the
open release of Electron Microscopy and Analysis, Third Edition by Peter J. Goodhew,
John Humphreys and Richard Beanland. (CC BY-SA)
Special thanks to the members of the Steering Group:
 Steering Group Chair – Dr Tim Bullough, University of Liverpool
 Secretary to Steering Group – Dr Diane Taktak, UKCME
 Dr Gordon Stewart – IOM3
 Dr Claire Davis – Birmingham University
 Richard Brown – Bradford College
 Dr Noel Rutter - Cambridge University
 Dr Phil Barker – ICBL
 Professor Bob Cottis - University of Manchester
 Dr Andrew Green - MeLT
 Dr Mark Endean – Open University
 Dr James Busfield - QMUL
 Professor Mike Bramhall – Sheffield Hallam University
 Chris Eady - TWI
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
And finally, special thanks go to the members of the CORE-Materials Project Team:
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Project Director and e-learning consultant – Professor Peter Goodhew
Project Chair – Dr Tim Bullough
Project Manager – Dr Diane Taktak
Senior Liaison Officer – Adam Mannis
Resource Developer - Dr Tatiana Novoselova
IPR/Compliance co-ordinator and website developers –Liam Comerford, John
Connor and Beverley Gaskell
Learning Technology Advisor – Dr Phil Barker (ICBL)
Research Assistant – Lisa Rogers (ICBL)
Support Officer – Susan Doyle
Page 6 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
4. Executive Summary
The aim of the CORE-MATERIALS project was to enable and promote the sharing of many
existing learning and teaching resources among all who teach or wish to learn Materials.
The project explored ways of achieving this simply and with a minimum of legal procedure to
provide licensed resources openly and freely shareable by all.
The major achievements of the project are:
 The identification of thousands of useful resources and the re-purposing of many of
them;
 Establishing cooperative relationships with more than 20 resource providers,
including some in the commercial sector, and key professional bodies;
 The development of a new structure and an associated faceted search facility for a
wide range of Materials content (loosely called a taxonomy);
 New methodologies for mounting resources on Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube,
Scribd, Slideshare and Flickr in addition to our own repository and Jorum Open;
 Integrating the repository so that the enquirer is led to a central site wherever their
initial discovery of the resource was made (e. g. a resource found on Flickr will point
to the larger central repository);
 A guide to the process of making a resource available on any or all of the available
sites. Monitoring of the usage via each site;
 Presentation of our achievements at ten events;
Some of the major conclusions of the project are:
 The HEI and commercial sectors are currently largely unaware of the potential
benefits of open access and Web 2.0 technologies;
 Few HEIs have in place a relevant policy on IPR for educational resources;
 Despite the existence of thousands of resources in the Materials discipline area our
taxonomy has revealed that there are major gaps in provision of resources to support
L&T;
 Small resources (i.e. those covering a limited range of concepts or illustrating only a
limited point) are more likely to be re-used than large resources which might
represent a significant fraction of a module.
 There is currently very little support for the storage or sharing of animations which
require (for example) Flash. However these resources are among the most useful in
that they offer experiences which can only be delivered by computer;
 Every resource needs the addition of metadata and a large majority require some repackaging or re-purposing before being easily re-usable. The adding of metadata
and the uploading of further resources to any site, even by quite technically-savvy
academics, is unlikely to be achieved in any significant numbers without a modest
level of technical, discipline-based, support.
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
5. Background
The UK Centre for Materials Education (UKCME) is part of the Higher Education Academy's
(HEA) Subject Centre Network comprising 24 Subject Centres based in higher education
institutions (HEIs) throughout the UK. The UKCME is based at the University of Liverpool
and is the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for the UK Materials community.
The UKCME exists to support and promote high quality education in Materials and related
disciplines by encouraging and coordinating the development and adoption of effective
practices in learning, teaching and assessment, and disseminating good practice: sharing
ideas, experience and resources amongst the Materials community.
Part of the UKCME’s work over the last 10 years has involved supporting and initiating
education development projects to enhance student learning within the Materials community.
Many small grants have been given to create or develop Materials learning and teaching
resources at the UK’s HEIs, such as Teaching and Learning Packages (TLPs), interactive
Flash-based teaching resources, micrographs, video clips and case studies. Many of these
are in electronic form.
Whilst the UKCME was aware of these resources, only a few of them had been published
online via Departmental websites, and none of these resources had been released using an
open licence so that others could use and re-use/repurpose them for use in their teaching,
learning and research.
By participating in the Open Educational Resources (OER) programme the UKCME sought
to share and promote the many Materials learning resources throughout the whole Materials
community and ultimately enhance the student learning experience in Materials. Also, as
Materials is an important STEM subject that underpins all of Engineering, much of Science
and is taught in a variety of university programmes, many disciplines would benefits from
open access to these learning and teaching resources.
CORE-Materials fitted within the OER Subject Strand programme and addressed 5 of the 8
priority areas in this Programme:
1. Materials is a vocational subject area, with applied elements of the curriculum.
2. Materials is defined by HEFCE as a ‘strategically important and vulnerable’ subject.
3. Materials has a main professional body, the Institute of Materials, Minerals and
Mining (IOM3).
4. Materials is a third stream discipline, a key contributing sector of the economy of UK
plc.
5. Materials relies heavily on multi-media technologies to enable students to better
understand the many concepts that underpin the knowledge and competencies of the
subject.
The UKCME’s rationale for taking part in the OER Programme was in its commitment to
sharing and promoting open learning resources and curricular content as a means of
enhancing the student learning experience in the subject of Materials, and partly on the
messages emerging from the interactions UKCME regularly has with its subject community.
In developing the project, the UKCME invited those institutions and industrial companies
who it knew had existing, quality Materials teaching and learning resources in a digital format
and who were likely to be interested in promoting their resources through this OER project.
The initial bid for the project attracted 21 official letters of support. The needs of students,
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
academics, industry, policy makers and the wider HE community were taken into account in
shaping the Materials OER Subject-strand project.
The CORE-Materials Project Team aimed to advance OER release by acting as a ‘specialist
service’, working both in partnership and on behalf of its project partners. The UKCME Team
provided the requisite subject-specific, technical and legal knowledge/experience to release
partners’ existing Materials learning and teaching resources for open use and repurposing
and to explore the processes and policies involved in the release of such resources. This
operational structure also took heed of feedback from the Partners, who indicated that they
would benefit in their specific deliverables from the specialist expertise, time and resource
input of the Project Team.
CORE-Materials aimed to disseminate the cleared, openly-licensed resources to the
maximum number of stakeholders worldwide by publishing resources on a discipline-specific
website (developed for the purposes of this project), via JorumOpen and also via the most
appropriate filesharing websites, such as YouTube and Flickr.
6. Aims and Objectives
The initial aims and objectives agreed at the start of the project, and definied in the bid
document, are defined here.
a. To identify and scope existing electronic resources for learners and teachers in
Materials, and to specify legal and technological protocols (drawing on recommended
sources and technologies advised by JISC and CETIS) to release content in an ‘open’
format accessible by all.
b. To scope, specify, build and pilot a ‘Materials taxonomy’ – to interpret, codify, and
possibly act as an interface to ‘a core of open access learning resources, organised
coherently to support on-line and blended learning by all HEIs, and to make it more
widely available in non-HE environments’ 1.
c. To establish a collection that would make use of JorumOpen, and also a more disciplinespecific site, and investigate their use by Materials teachers and students; users will be
encouraged to source, use, submit, share and reuse electronic learning resources from
the collection.
d. To work with the Academy/JISC, their services, and other projects funded within this
OER call, to develop a robust information architecture, resource description, cataloguing
/ collections policy.
e. To investigate attitudes of users to sharing and making resources publicly available in
Materials.
f. To gain initial feedback of viability and usefulness of the learning resources in their open
format; this will be with a range of users / stakeholders from across and beyond the
Materials community.
g. To disseminate and evaluate project outcomes; dissemination will draw heavily on
networks of the UKCME and of consortium partners, whilst evaluation will be both
formative and summative.
h. To explore the use of RSS feeds in providing content for personal learning environments
(PLEs). Also, to investigate systems for the portability of interactive resources in high
demand by users.
The overall aims and objectives, defined above, remained the same for the duration of the
project.
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
6.1 Final Aims and Objectives
6.1.1 OERs to be released
In the original project plan, the role of each of the partners was defined according to Table 1
below, with 15 partners providing resources to the project, and others undertaking technical
development work, providing dissemination mechanisms and advising on taxonomies and
the open release process.
Institution / Organisation
Role in the project
11 Higher Education Institutions
 University of Liverpool (host institution)
Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge,
Edinburgh, Imperial, Manchester, Queen
Mary London, Sheffield, Sheffield
Hallam, Southampton, Swansea
1 Further Education College
 Bradford College
 Input to materials taxonomy
 Identification of resources
 Investigation of practices and policies for
open release
 Liaison with Project Team for clearance of
resources
 Contributing resources to the repository
 Active use/testing
3 Professional Organisations
 Institute of Materials (IOM3)
 The Welding Institute (TWI)
 European Aluminium Assoc. (EEA)
2 Subject-related OER Advisers
Input to the materials taxonomy;
Advising on open release process using
 The Open University
lessons learned through OpenLearn.
 Granta Design Ltd
2 Computer-Based Learning Bodies
Technical development work for the repository;
Technical advice on constructing RSS feeds
 Heriot-Watt University – (ICBL)
and portability;
 MeLT: Materials e-Learning
Input to the materials taxonomy
Technologies
2 International Subject Federations
Project dissemination with ‘reach’ outside UK;
 FEMS: Federation of European Materials Identification of resources for ‘harvesting’
outside of the UK;
Societies
 ICME: International Council on Materials
Education
Table 1. Partner Contributions to CORE-Materials
As the project progressed, it became clear that some of the partners who had not been
identified as resource suppliers were willing to provide some of their organisation’s
resources to the project. Additional resources were received from the Open University,
Granta Design Ltd and the possibility of incorporating the proceedings from the Journal of
Materials Education is being discussed with the International Council on Materials Education
– publishers of this journal.
6.1.2 Technical Developments to be undertaken
The proposed technical developments were:
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
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development of the discipline-specific repository with search engine;
development of a cataloguing interface to allow remote classification and tagging of
partner’s resources;
developing APIs in order to batch upload resources to file-sharing sites and to
JorumOpen;
re-packaging interactive Flash content to be available for download and execution on
local systems;
investigation into methods of automated tagging / keyword generation for resources
investigation into the use of RSS feeds to create personal learning environments
(PLEs).
6.1.3 Practices and processes to be reviewed / reformed
In addition to developing and reviewing the processes involved in the open release of
materials resources, the Team also hoped to:
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investigate the host institution’s policies on IPR and possibly initiating a reformation
of the university’s IPR policy;
investigate methods of managing resources that contain a large amount of 3rd party
materials;
develop processes and strategies for ensuring continued release of resources
beyond the lifetime of the project.
6.1.4 Lessons to be learned
In addition to learning about the general process of OER release, the Project Team also
hoped to:
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uncover the range of different attitudes to open release from HE, FE and Industry;
investigate how ‘open’ (and the choice of Creative Commons licence) differing
partner institutions/organisations were prepared to be;
to investigate the most appropriate file-sharing websites for disseminating partners
resources;
to discover whether open learning resources would indeed be more widely shared,
used and developed by the materials community following their participation in the
project;
6.1.5 Evaluation plans
The Project Team intended to follow the original evaluation plan, as described in the project
plan document, as part of an overall reflective process. Factors to evaluate included:
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Strategies undertaken for engaging with Partner Consortium – evaluated by looking
at the range of useful resources given to the Project Team;
Technical developments – evaluating the operability of all technical developments;
Dissemination outcomes – evaluating whether the wider community had been
engaged
Main piloting process – looking at the impact of the release of OERs on learners;
Whole project – looking at the impact of the project on all stakeholders
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
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Sustainability – evaluating whether outputs are taken up beyond the project lifetime
7. General approach
The overall approach taken by the CORE-Materials project drew heavily on the UKCME’s
successful interaction with institutions from across the Materials discipline community. It also
took cognisance of feedback from Project Partners – initially in the development of the bid,
and then the refinement of the bid into the Project Plan – who indicated that they would
benefit from specialist expertise, time and resource input of the Project Team, working both
on their behalf and in partnership.
As such, a Project Team was assembled at the UKCME, comprising staff of requisite
subject-specific, technical and legal knowledge / experience in relation to e-learning
developments.
Partners each had a range of electronic resources they were willing to contribute as OERs
through the Project, and there was a multitude of uses to which they intended to put the
deposited OERs. The Consortium of 21 Partners included HE and FE institutions offering
Materials programmes of study and research, professional bodies / subject associations, as
well as a number of Materials-related industries.
To take stock of variety amongst both Partners and available project OERs, as well as
determine their specific requirements in detail, the Project Team established a structured
programme of Partner visits and ongoing communications. In addition, these visits enabled
the Project Team to discuss issues relating to OERs amongst key stakeholders within
Partner institutions.
During visits, the Project Team also provided guidance for Partners to help identify and
resolve IPR issues and 3rd party rights (to secure the necessary releases of their electronic
resources), and advised on the most appropriate forms of licensing (such that the resources
could be used and repurposed worldwide). They highlighted to Partners appropriate Web2.0
fileshare sites, the JorumOpen resource collection, and the CORE-Materials subject-specific
repository (all for use in disseminating the OERs to wider audiences). The use of RSS feeds
and Web2.0 functionalities was also explored during such Partner visits (to ensure maximum
searchability and highlight the use of these resources in personal learning environments).
An added benefit of the these Partner visits was that they served as a mechanism for the
Project Team to gather evaluation evidence of the impact of CORE-Materials on student
learning, as well as its impact on institutional policy relating to the open release of teaching
and learning resources.
The Project Team also worked in three main areas:

Developing the technical infrastructure associated with the project (as outlined in
Section 9.0 of this report) – the Materials taxonomy, CORE-Materials repository,
search engine, database schema, cataloguing interface, APIs for resource uploading,
etc – to maximise ‘promotional’ opportunities for Partner OERs .

Working on behalf of Partners by adding ‘value’ to the electronic resources they were
contributing to the project. This involved managing IPR and other legal issues
associated with the resources, tagging the resources appropriately, and uploading
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
them to the range of project sites on offer (Web2.0 sites, JorumOpen and COREMaterials).

Working with Partners in highlighting the use of project OERs in enhancing the
student experience through, for example, the development of personal learning
environments.
From the above-mentioned experiences gained – both during institutional visits, and from
working at UKCME on behalf of Partners – the Team has developed a number of OER User
Guides for the Materials subject community, listed in section 9.12. In addition, the Team has
showcased / disseminated project outputs and outcomes, and contributed a subject-specific
perspective to the overall UK OER Programme managed by the Academy / JISC.
8. Implementation
In order to implement the Project Plan, and to facilitate ongoing interaction with the 21
Project Partners, a structured programme of visits was undertaken by the Project Team to
each of the 16 UK-based institutions. These visits ran throughout the project timeline, subdivided into four distinct categories; each category of visit having a specific function. These
face-to-face meetings were augmented by electronic communication between the Project
Team and the three international-based Partners (EAA, FEMS and ICME). The remaining
two members of the Consortium (namely Heriot Watt and MeLT) formed part of the Project
Team that was located outside University of Liverpool, and interaction with them was
ongoing.
The following is the detail of the programme of visits made by members of the Project Team:

June to September 2009:
Project Scoping Visits were undertaken to all of the UK-based Partners, in order to
determine specific requirements of each OER contributor, and to prioritise ‘services’
to be provided by the Project Team in making selected electronic resources ‘open’ for
release.
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October to December 2009:
A series of Development Visits were conducted to these UK-based Partners, to
construct relevant learning objects from the deposited OERs, and to highlight added
‘value’ functions that had been incorporated by the Project Team into the OERs.
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January to March 2010:
Institutional Strategy Visits were undertaken, in order to capture evidence of how the
project had been impacting on institutional policies and processes in relation to the
release of OERs for each Partner.
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March and April 2010:
A series of Evaluation and Sustainability Visits were conducted to UK-based
Partners, collecting systematic evidence of impact on student learning and on
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
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Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
institutional policies / changes, such evidence feeding into the final project report and
the OER event at the IOM3.
This programme of Partner visits was critical to ensuring CORE-Materials delivered on
activities set out in the 10 project Workpackages, as well as regularly engaged with relevant
stakeholders. These visits also extended project interactions beyond the narrow confines of
OER contributors to more senior colleagues – such as Heads of Department / Section, PVCs
/ Directors, as well as legal, e-learning and library specialists.
In parallel to these visits, the Project Team undertook a range of legal and technical
‘services’ for Partners – as three main areas of activity (these having been delineated in
Section 7.0 of this report).
In order to highlight the variation that existed in the open release of educational resources
amongst the Partner Consortium, the Team explored the issue of IPR clearance across six
case study institutions – the host institution, a Russell Group university, a post-1992
university, an independent research and development (R&D) organisation, an industrial body
with multinational corporation (MNC) members, and a ‘UK pioneer’ of OERs. Lessons
learned from this analysis are defined below.
Institutional Type
Lessons Learned in relation to IPR Clearance
Case Study A:
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Host university
Case Study B:
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Russell Group
university
Case Study C:
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Post-1992 university
Case Study D:
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Independent R&D
organisation
Case Study E:
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Industrial body with
MNCs
Case Study F:
‘UK pioneer’ of
OERs

CORE-Materials raised awareness amongst senior management of
the need for an institutional OER policy, and facilitated discussions
during the project lifetime to make this happen. Contact is now being
maintained by the Project Team with staff who have developed a
draft OER policy, in order to determine progress within the
institution.
Extensive deliberations between this Partner and their senior
management greatly informed the Project Team in the development
of generic guidance for institutions / organisations when choosing
CC and open licences.
Issues relating to 3rd party materials required this Partner to consult
with staff from their Central Services, in order to gain the necessary
permissions to ‘openly’ release electronic resources they intended to
offer to the project.
Since members of this organisation pay a subscription for electronic
content, the Project Team had to be sensitive to this when a small
element of such content – offered by the Partner – was made freely
and openly available. Senior managers recognised the benefits of
openly releasing this content, in terms of enhanced promotion and
potential increases in organisational membership.
Given the highly technical nature of the electronic resources
provided by this Partner, the Project Team learned that the most
appropriate person to contact regarding IPR issues was not
necessarily the person(s) tasked with IPR within the company.
Obstacles emerged to the open release of electronic resources
provided by this Partner, due to the large quantity of 3rd party
material inherent within the resource being offered to the project.
Table 2. IPR Case Studies at Partner Institutions
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
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Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
The latter of these six institutions was a notable case study, in that it was the only Partner
where issues arose of clearing third party rights. This became a major obstacle for the
Project Team, and resulted in this Partner being unable to gain the necessary permissions to
‘openly’ release the electronic resources they intended to offer to the project. Fortunately,
such issues have not been relevant with any of the other Partners.
The Project Team have developed a private IPR database which stores all partner licence
agreements. As explained in section 9.4.4, the CORE-Materials takedown policy had been
set up so that any copyright disputes are raised via email to a dedicated ‘corem’ email
account, or by letter (marked ‘CORE-Materials Notice and Takedown’) to the UKCME
address. The team will thus be in a position to immediately address any copyright issues,
referring back to any original IPR agreements if, and as soon as, a dispute arises.
9. Outputs and Results
9.1 CORE-Materials Consortium Agreement.
The CORE-Materials consortium agreement was a critical early requirement of the OER
project, to provide a coherent framework for operational development by the Project Team.
As advised by JISC (Consortium Agreements: A Short FAQ A. Charlesworth & Anna Home CITL, University of Bristol, 2005) the drawing up of a Consortium Agreement “should be
completed in advance of” the main work of the project and serve to underpin the process.
Hence, a short deadline of 3 months had been stipulated.
One of the fundamental issues of the Consortium Agreement was that partners were to
agree to work towards releasing their resources in a suitably open fashion and licensing
them in such a way so that the JISC, the Academy and the wider sector could use and
repurpose them.
Drawing upon guidance from the JISC website, examples of basic Consortium Agreements
(www.web2rights.org.uk), previous experience from staff at UKCME who worked on the JISC
ReSET Project (see http://reset.campuskelpie.co.uk/) and the staff at the University of
Liverpool’s legal services department a draft Consortium Agreement was drawn up which
addressed the following key areas:

the overall aims of the CORE-Materials project and the manner in which the team
would achieve these aims

the responsibilities of the Project Team and all partners/parties involved in the project
and the way in which all partners/parties would interact;

identified the lead institution and all project partners and explained the lead
institutions role in administering project funding;

the management structure and composition including members of the project
steering group;

changes in members of the Consortium should partners be added or wish to leave
the Consortium;
Page 15 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010

potential solutions to problems which may arise in achieving designated tasks,
including a dispute resolution, termination of funding etc.;

the project’s approach to intellectual property, the way in which ‘background’ and
‘foreground’ intellectual property would be used and/or disseminated.
The draft Consortium Agreement was circulated to all project partners in early July 2009 to
review the content of the Agreement. Partners were asked to inform the Project Team of any
issues they felt had been overlooked or any changes that would be necessary for them to
sign up to the agreement.
It was important to the Project Team that a response was received from each of the 21
project partners to ensure that sign-up to the final agreement would run smoothly. During
this time period, partners either reviewed the document within their Department/Company or
passed the document over to their Institutional legal advisors. The review process was time
consuming as it coincided with the Institutional summer vacation period. By early
September, when all academics had returned from the summer break, we had confirmation
from all 21 partners. Only four partners asked for changes to be made to the Agreement.
One initial partner, the Federation of European Materials Societies (FEMS), felt it was unable
to sign up to this Agreement. FEMS had initially enlisted as a partner to provide
dissemination mechanisms outside the UK but did not have resources to offer. Whilst they
were still happy to act as a dissemination mechanism, they were not prepared to scrutinize
then sign up to a lengthy legal document so as to be involved as an official partner,
especially as no exchange of funding was to take place.
The ‘final’ version of the Consortium Agreement was sent out to the remaining 20 partners
on 17th September 2009 with a request that they return their signatory sheets within 1 week.
During this period, most partners forwarded the Agreement to their Contracts Services
Departments at their respective Institutions. Turn-around within the week was not possible
for all partners – this was again a lengthy process but eventually 20 signatures were
obtained. The final, signed Consortium Agreement is shown at
http://www.core.materials.ac.uk/materials.html .
The drawing up the Consortion Agreement was a useful exercise as it put open educational
release on the agenda for discussion within academic institutions. As partners either
reviewed the document with senior staff at their Department/Company or passed the
document over to senior legal advisors at their Institution, awareness of OER was raised
across the UKs materials departments/schools. This stimulated discussions regarding open
release of resources with senior staff at each partner Institution/company.
9.2 Development of the Materials Taxonomy
One of the first tasks important in providing a basis for the CORE-Materials repository was to
define a Materials taxonomy – a heirarchical subject classification system in which broad
Materials categories were to be subdivided to create many finer distinctions. A well defined
taxonomy would help by supporting browsing, accurate searching and guided navigation,
ensuring that end users of the CORE-Materials repository could easily find the resources
they were seeking.
Page 16 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
The idea of building a Materials taxonomy from scratch was quickly dismissed as the Team
were aware of many comprehensive, prebuilt taxonomies. Hence, several brainstorming
sessions were held with those members of the Team having the requisite subject
knowledge. Existing classification schemes from the Cambridge Engineering Selector
(EduPack 2008) published by partners at Granta Design, the UKCME database of
resources, the MATTER website and a well established book in Materials Science2 were all
considered. A draft version of the taxonomy was drawn up.
The draft taxonomy was piloted at the first CORE-Materials steering group meeting in early
June 2009. Comments and suggestions from over 20 Materials experts were taken into
account in shaping the taxonomy and a number of additional categories were added.
The CORE-Materials taxonomy is divided into 9 broad categories, classifying the Materials
subject area by:









Science approach
Materials
Processes
Application
Product Form
Properties
Testing, analysis & experimentation
Scale
Other topics
These 9 broad categories have been broken down into over one hundred finer subdivisions
which the Team will continue to develop should additional categories be required. The full
list of categories and subdivisions can be found at
http://www.core.materials.ac.uk/classifications.html
For the technical implementation of the taxonomy for the repository, the Team considered
both ‘adjacency lists’ and ‘nested set’ hierarchy models for the taxonomy (for more
information, see http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/hierarchical-data.html ). It was
decided that the nested set, whilst requiring a little more effort in initial set-up, provided much
better data access. This has certainly proved to have made the faceted search facility easier
to implement.
The Materials taxonomy is a unique feature of the CORE-Materials repository and has
proved to be a great success in supporting browsing, accurate searching and guided
navigation, ensuring that end users of the CORE-Materials repository can find the resources
they are seeking.
Page 17 of 54
Higher Education Academy/JISC Open Educational Resources Programme
9.3 Open Educational Resources released
Table 3. CORE-Materials resources released
Title
No of
items
Subject
Representation
COREM
DoITPoMS
Micrograph Library
696
Microscopy in
materials science

DoITPoMS Video
Library
115
Materials science

DoITPoMS
animations from
Teaching and
Learning Packages
(TLPs)
aluMATTER
portable Flash
Movies
TALAT Lectures
44
Materials science

7

ECorr: Engineering
Corrosion
CES EduPack
2009: Durability
6
Materials in Dental
Technology
10
Aluminium design &
applications
Aluminium design &
applications
Corrosion in
metals
Durability and
materials
selection
Dental
technology
Sports Materials
31
Sports materials

149
1
Page 18 of 54
Document title: Academy JISC OER Programme Final Report
Last updated: April 2007
Flickr
YouTube
Slideshare
Scribd


Content
Partners
*
The collection of materials micrographs
intended for use in teaching and learning in
Materials Science
The University of
Cambridge
*
The collection of materials videos intended
for use in teaching and learning in Materials
Science
The collection of materials animations from
TLPs for use in teaching and learning in
Materials Science
The University of
Cambridge
JO
*






 A selection of portable, interactive Flash
movies from the award-winning
aluMATTER website
 
TALAT - Training in Aluminium Application
Tech - a collection of aluminium training
materials
 A collection of cases studies, with
interactive pages to help teach corrosion
  Science notes and data on Durability from
Cambridge Engineering Selector 2009



 Set of 10 videos used to teach Advanced
Restorative Dentistry Course



Set of images and videos on a variety of
sports materials and their properties
The University of
Cambridge
MATTER / European
Aluminium Association
(EAA)
European Aluminium
Association (EAA)
The University of
Manchester
Granta Design Limited
The University of
Sheffield
The University of
Birmingham
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
Textiles
13
Textiles




Electron
Microscopy &
Analysis
Tool for
Stereographic
Projection
7
Electron
microscopy



1
Crystallography



Set of images on a variety of textiles and
their properties
 Textbook on techniques for magnifying
images in physical science
 An interactive tool for drawing
stereographic projections for different
crystal types.
The University of
Birmingham
The University of
Liverpool/Taylor &
Francis
The University of
Liverpool
* Note: These large resource packages were uploaded to JorumOpen via RSS feed on Friday 23rd April, however, the resources have not yet
appeared in JorumOpen (Monday 26th April).
Table 4. CORE-Materials resources gathered but not released
Partners
Content
Status
The Institute of Materials,
Minerals and Mining (IOM3)
Sheffield Hallam University
18 profiles from the Materials Information Service (MIS) detailing key properties and
applications of engineering materials and processes.
Two modules for postgraduate students: Competitive materials technology and
Advanced Metallic Materials
Awaiting clearance
The University of Southampton
Work in progress
The University of Swansea
The Open University
Lectures on Chemistry and Crystallography, and Materials issues in hip replacements
Set of videos on Corrosion; two sets of lectures - on Steelmaking and on Crystal
defects
Complete course on “Design and Manufacture with Polymers".
Imperial College
Research resources produced by Postgraduate students
Work in progress
Too much 3rd party content requiring
clearance. Work suspended.
Awaiting resources
The University of Edinburgh
Micrograph library - fracture & failure of materials
Awaiting resources
Queen Mary University of London
Resources from Nanoforce – a university-industry spin-out company
Awaiting resources
The Welding Institute (TWI)
Collection of images and videos on welding technology and applications
Awaiting resources
Int.Council on Materials
Education (ICME)
Proceedings from the Journal of Materials Education
Under discussion
Work in progress
As part of the £20,000 committed funding by the UKCME for sustaining the CORE-Materials website, the Project Team will be able to publish most of
these resources after project end and once clearance issues have been resolved.
Page 19 of 54
Higher Education Academy/JISC Open Educational Resources Programme
9.4 The CORE-Materials repository
As part of the project, the CORE-Materials aimed to develop its own repository to
complement JorumOpen. The project database (MySQL) was developed and tested by our
project partner at the Materials e-Learning Technology Company (MeLT) and the database
schema is shown below.
Figure 1. Database schema
9.4.1 The CORE-Materials search facility
MeLT also developed a web-based user interface in PHP, featuring a faceted search facility
to help users to easily navigate their way through the large number of resources expected
during the lifetime of CORE-Materials. Faceted searching is a technique well utilised by
online retail catalogues (such as the dabs website - www.dabs.com or eBay –
www.ebay.com ) for accessing a large collection of information. It allows users to browse
and explore the search results by filtering all the available records.
Page 20 of 54
Document title: Academy JISC OER Programme Final Report
Last updated: April 2007
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
After initial development of the search facility, all partners were asked to evaluate the
functionality of the search facility. In particular they were asked to consider:



if they thought the search was fit for purpose and whether they thought the general
public would find it easy to use;
were any fundamental changes required before the website was released;
whether a ‘search-by-author’ facility should also be incorporated.
Feedback was received from the majority of partners and the Project Team received
numerous suggested improvements. Comments, suggested improvements and the actions
taken by the Project Team can be found at www.materials.ac.uk/evaluation.
The CORE-Materials search facility offers users the choice to:
 type in their own search words which will then be used to filter the titles, descriptions,
classification and keywords for all resources;
 select resources by 8 different resource types (dataset, image, interactive resource,
software, sound, text, presentation, video/animation);
 select resources by licence type – users can search for resources that allow
commercial use or resources which can be repurposed
 browse within the search results, which are hyperlinked to allow users to navigate to
related resources
 search using a combination of all the features listed above.
The total number of results for each search criteria is displayed at the top of the page, and
also displayed are the number of relevant resources against each topic and sub-topic.
Topics with no relevant resources are removed from the listing. Users can then progressively
filter these results by one or more topics.
Figure 2. CORE-Materials search results page
To reward partners who have agreed to release their resources in an open format, all
relevant results from a search are ordered so that resources with the most open licence are
displayed first, the list progressing so that resources with the most restrictive licence will be
displayed last.
Page 21 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
An RSS feed has been incorporated on the main search page and users can set up a
customized feed based on one or more search terms.
For each of the resources listed in the search results, a page giving more detail on the
resource can be found either by selecting the hyperlinked title or clicking on the resource’s
image. The detail page shows the resource file types that are available for downloading and
the file can be downloaded by clicking on the relevant thumbnail.
The external location(s) of the resource on file-sharing websites and Jorum Open can also
be seen, and the thumbnails are hyperlinked to the resource on the chosen external
repository.
Figure 3. CORE-Materials detail page for each resource
9.4.2 Resource Metadata Tagging
Metadata tagging is the assignment of a non-hierarchical term/keyword to a resource which
helps to describe the resource, allowing it to be easily found by a browser or search facility.
Page 22 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
As described in the previous section, the CORE-Materials search facility filters titles,
descriptions, classification and keywords for all resources. Resource keywords (discussed in
section 9.4.3) would thus be more important in finding CORE-Materials resources deposited
in other repositories - JorumOpen and the file-sharing websites. Therefore, the Team
decided only to use metadata it felt was essential.
The metadata used in the CORE-Materials project is:







title
authors (this tag is not supported by Scribd, Flickr and YouTube so a list of authors
was added in the resource description)
description
keywords ( including UKOER and corematerials )
licence type (this tag is not supported by YouTube so this was added in the
resource description)
date created (this tag is not supported by Scribd, Slideshare, YouTube or Flickr)
date added (this tag is not supported by Scribd, Slideshare, YouTube or Flickr)
The ‘corematerials’ keyword was required so that the Team could trace its own resources in
JorumOpen. When the CORE-Materials resources were deposited into JorumOpen, a
subject classification for ‘Materials’ does not exist, as the classifications are based on JACS
codes. Therefore, the Team deposited all its resources under the field of ‘Engineering’.
The accounts set up to manage resources in Scribd, Slideshare, YouTube or Flickr were all
named ‘corematerials’ for ease of resource management.
9.4.3 Keyword Generation
In order to best describe the main concepts of each resource, the CORE-Materials Team
preferred that keywords / phrases were chosen personally by the resource's creator.
However, it was recognised that keywords may not always be easily available and so
methods of automatic keyword generation were sought.
Early in the project, the CORE-Materials Team met with staff at the University of Liverpool
library services to determine common practice in the assignment of keywords to a resource,
and also to discover whether any tools existed to aid automated keyword generation.
As a guide, the Team were advised to select between 6 –10 keywords for each resource.
Four methods of automatic keyword generation were investigated using free online software.
These were:




Wordle (available at www.wordle.net )
Textalyser (available at www.textalyser.net )
Keyword Cloud (available at www.tocloud.com )
TerMine (available at www.nactem.ac.uk)
Using a selection of known resources the four keyword generation methods were trialled.
The most sensible keywords and phrases were generated using TerMine - a Term
Management System which identifies key phrases in text and was developed by the National
Centre for Text Mining (NaCTeM). NaCTeM operates at the University of Manchester with
close collaboration with the University of Tokyo and is funded by JISC. TerMine was thus
used in the CORE-Materials project to help both the Team, and sometimes the partners,
generate keywords for large text documents.
Page 23 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
9.4.4 Takedown Policy
The CORE-Materials Team based their takedown policy on a similar policy adopted from the
Lincoln Learning Lab. This was online, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales. The Team adapted the policy for its own
use and the policy can be viewed at http://www.core.materials.ac.uk/ntdp.html.
The CORE-Materials takedown policy had been set up so that any copyright disputes are
raised either via email to a dedicated ‘corem’ email account, or by letter (marked ‘COREMaterials Notice and Takedown’) to the UKCME address. The Team will thus be in a position
to immediately address any copyright issues, referring back to any original IPR agreements
if, and as soon as, a dispute arises.
9.4.5 CORE-Materials hosting
The CORE-Materials repository was fully functional by autumn 2009 and is now populated
with the resources shown in Table 3.
The repository is temporarily hosted on the University of Liverpool’s MATTER server but the
Team are hoping that the database will be transferred to Loughborough University which
currently hosts the UKCME’s other two websites.
9.4.6 Semi-automated cataloguing interface
MeLT have also developed a semi-automated cataloguing interface for CORE-Materials,
allowing consortium partners to classify and tag their resources online – screen shots of the
classifier are shown in figures 4 and 5.
The classifier has been trialled with the partners at a CORE-Materials steering group
meeting where individuals were given a small ‘task’ requiring them to gain ‘hands-on’
experience with the classifier. Following this, the Project Team have encouraged the
partners to use the online remote classifier to classify and tag their own resources.
Page 24 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
Figure 4. The CORE-Materials resource classifier
Figure 5. The resource classifier detail page
Page 25 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
9.5 Upload of Resources to File-sharing sites (Web2.0)
Early on, the CORE-Materials Team identified the 4 file-sharing sites (Flickr, YouTube,
Scribd and Slideshare) which supported the types of resources the Team expected to
receive, and through which the Materials resources would be disseminated. Two further
repositories, iTunes U and YouTube EDU were also identified as potential target
repositories. However, the Project Team were unable to create depositor accounts for these
two websites as membership is limited to single institutions. The Team were unable to find a
file-sharing website that supported interactive Flash animations.
There were a large number of resources for the Team to upload to these file-sharing sites
and so manual upload of individual items was not considered viable. Therefore batch
uploading via customised Advanced Programming Interfaces (APIs) was used.
Our partners at ICBL worked closely with the central Project Team in developing these APIs.
The APIs were adapted to draw the relevant metadata from the CORE-Materials database.
These have been very successful in increasing upload efficiency.
The Project Team have prepared a series of user guides on uploading and downloading
individual resources to the 4 file-sharing websites utilised in the project - Flickr, YouTube,
Scribd and Slideshare. These can be found at www.core.materials.ac.uk/guides .
9.6 Upload of Resources to JorumOpen
In early November, the CORE-Materials Team held a meeting with staff at JorumOpen to
discuss the possibility of mass import of its resources into the new JorumOpen repository.
As CORE-Materials had over 900 resources in its database at this time, manual input of the
metadata, licensing agreements and file upload for each item was felt to be too time
consuming and a more appropriate method of upload was sought. Staff at JorumOpen
agreed to pilot the first mass import of resources with CORE-Materials in mid January, once
the JorumOpen repository was finalised, conducting a case study of this trial.
However, having contacted staff at JorumOpen in January, the Team found that Jorum
would not be able to create a bespoke solution to its mass upload request as JorumOpen do
not have the resources to do this. Staff did offer to look into the request – asking for access
to the server’s web system to look at the files/structure concerned. However, the owner of
the development server at MATTER could not allow external, unsupervised access to this
server as it contains other Industry’s confidential information.
Therefore, the three main options that were available for deposit into JorumOpen were:
 The manual upload tool (available)
 Manual content package upload (test version available)
 RSS upload of metadata (test version available)
 Upload through API (SWORD) is still under development
On the advice of our project partners at ICBL/CETIS we decided to engage with all three
options that were available. To ensure multiple deposits into JorumOpen were avoided, the
Team decided to upload resources according to the size of the compilation/package to which
they belonged: larger sets of resources, containing over 20 files, would be uploaded via RSS
feed; smaller sets, (less than 20 files) would be uploaded manually using the upload tool.
The re-packaged interactive multi-file Flash animations, (explained in more detail in section
9.9) lent themselves to content packaging. Our partners at ICBL helped the Team to use
Page 26 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
‘Reload’ to create content packages for these resources and the content packages were
deposited manually into JorumOpen using the upload interface provided.
However, when the packaged resources were added to Jorum Open, they were not
displayed as expected. The content packaged resources should have displayed the
organisation view navigation structure of the content package (as shown in figure 6), but
instead just displayed the folder structure with all individual file components, including library
files, (shown in figure 7) which would not work correctly when selected by themselves.
Figure 6. Content packaged resource from aluMATTER, using Reload
Figure 7. Content packaged resource from aluMATTER as displayed on JorumOpen
Page 27 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
The Jorum Open team were aware of the problem and were working on correcting this so
that the structure of content packages was replicated correctly. However, the resource
concerned was an industrial partner’s resource (from the European Aluminium Association).
CORE-Materials Team felt that they could not leave an incorrectly displayed resource,
particularly one which displayed all the partners’ library files, openly available to all on the
internet, and so the resource was removed. Therefore, the Team decided to upload the repackaged interactive multi-file Flash animations as zip files on Jorum Open.
As for the third upload option discussed, our partners at ICBL have tested an RSS upload of
the CORE-Materials TALAT lectures to JorumOpen in early April 2010. We were informed by
staff at JorumOpen that this feed was carried out successfully and resources were displayed
in JorumOpen correctly (although the Team could not view this in JorumOpen). The Team
have now uploaded their large resource packages (TALAT lectures, DoItPoMS micrographs,
videos and TLPs) to JorumOpen via RSS feed.
9.7 CORE-Materials Resource Usage statistics
The CORE-Materials website has been set up to use Google Analytics to generate detailed
statistics about visitors to the CORE-Materials website. The CORE-Materials database is still
hosted on its developmental website awaiting transfer to the final url at Loughborough, the
usage statistics are those from project partners, known associates of the partners and those
who may have learned about the site through CORE-Materials literature disseminated at
conferences.
At the end of March 2010, the search facility was linked to the project website at
www.core.materials.ac.uk. In the two weeks following this link, the website has had 67 visits
from 9 different countries, an encouraging result as the website had not been officially
launched. The Team will be monitoring the usage statistics and the number of downloads
from the CORE-Materials website after the database has been transferred to its final url at
Loughborough, and the website has been officially launched on 21st April 2010.
CORE-Materials set up deposit accounts with YouTube, Flickr, Scribd and Slideshare in
September 2009 and began to deposit resources on the file-sharing websites as soon as
these resources had been developed and cleared. Each file-sharing site offers the depositor
options to view the usage statistics for its uploaded files, the level of detail varying
enormously between the sites. The sites also allow other fileshare users to ‘follow’ or
‘subscribe to’ a depositor’s account should they find resources of particular interest. Table 5
summarises the usage statistics to date for each ‘corematerials’ account at YouTube, Flickr,
Scribd and Slideshare.
Total number of views
Number of
subscribers / followers
YouTube
Number of
Resources
Uploaded
128 videos
24,532
25 subscribers
Flickr
860 images
35,904
7 contacts
Scribd
158 documents
43,073 (3,447 downloads)
33 subscribers
Slideshare 158 documents, 4
45,240
3 followers
presentations
Table 5. Viewing Statistics for CORE-Materials resources (Sept 2009 – March 2010)
Page 28 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
9.8 CORE-Materials Blog
The CORE-Materials Blog spot was set up to inform partners and members of the Materials
community of any relevant events and new resources released through the CORE database.
The Team have a policy to ‘blog’ all new resources added to the database. The blog can be
accessed via the CORE-Materials website, and is available at http://corematerials.blogspot.com/. The Project Team have also set up an RSS feed from the Blog spot
so users can receive regular updates regarding new resources added to the database.
Page 29 of 54
Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
Figure 8. CORE-Materials project blog page
9.9 Re-packaging of interactive Flash content
One of the highest ‘added value’ activities has been the re-packaging of existing interactive
Flash content from the aluMATTER website to enable users to download and run on local
systems without an internet connection. This has been one of the most common requests to
staff at MATTER over the last 5 years. The CORE-Materials project has provided the perfect
opportunity to address both the legal (licensing) and technical issue involved.
Unlike all the other resources within our repository, the aluMATTER Flash content are not
single, independent files, but sets of dependent files which have to be located in the correct
relative locations. Furthermore, they are available in different languages, so the relevant text
files have to be included to make the content available in several languages.
The Flash files from 7 aluMATTER modules have been separately packaged to include all
the necessary ‘library’ files, the text file and an index file (html) from which the Flash movies
can easily be launched. A guide has been produced by the Project Team to support the
download and usage of these resources. This can be seen at
www.core.materials.ac.uk/guides .
9.10 Revision of ECorr
Although the OER project did not sanction the re-purposing of existing resources, the Project
Team undertook a student summer project to revise an important learning and teaching
resource. ECorr had been developed as part of a Teaching and Learning Technology
programme (TLTP), developed in the 1990s by staff at the University of Manchester, Leeds,
Glasgow, Aston and Nottingham. It was developed in ToolBook – an e-learning content
development application - which was no longer supported at the University of Manchester.
Although the resource was used at Manchester (ToolBook produced exe files for ECorr) the
resource could no longer be altered or updated.
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
Over the summer of 2009, two graduates from the University of Liverpool worked to re-write
the whole package in Adobe Flash – this re-purposing took 2 months of the graduates’ time.
The resulting package has been welcomed by the University of Manchester, who are now
using the package in their teaching, as are staff at the University of Cambridge.
The newly developed ECorr package was evaluated by 20 students at the University of
Manchester undertaking an MSC in Corrosion Control Engineering. In general, students
thought that the ECorr resource was an excellent program and development staff received
some suggestions for further improvements in the resource. Findings from this evaluation
can be viewed at www.core.materials.ac.uk/evaluation.
9.11 Investigation into the use of RSS feeds to create Personal
Learning Environments
A personal learning environment is a relatively new idea in e-learning where an
‘environment’ is provided for learners so that they can direct their own learning: setting their
own learning targets; managing learning content; connecting with common web services and
hence achieving their own learning goals.
Such an ‘environment’ may be a web-based or desktop application which can connect with
various existing web services (email, social networking sites, repositories, fie-sharing sites
such as YouTube etc) and often supports RSS or Atom feeds. Hence, a range of common
services and resources can be viewed and managed within a common personal space.
The Project Team has drawn on the experience of partners at ICBL in demonstrating how
RSS feeds from the CORE-Materials site can be used to create personal learning
environments using customizable personal Web-Portals Netvibes and iGoogle.
9.11.1 Netvibes
Netvibes (available at www.netvibes.com) is a free web service which allows users to
personalize their own startpage, adding customizable tabs, feeds and modules (widgets)
which have inbuilt support for features such as:
 RSS/Atom feed readers
 Bookmarks
 Notes
 To-do lists
 Email/webmail support
 File-sharing sites
 Podcast support
The selected widgets allow the user access to activities and information from across the
web, without having to leave their startpage. Netvibes has been used to demonstrate how
some of the CORE-Materials resources from the main repository, as well as from file-sharing
sites, can be used to create a subject-specific learning environment. Selected screenshots
from the demonstration are shown below and a video demonstration has been produced by
our partners at ICBL. This can be found at www.netvibes.com/pledemo .
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
Figure 9. PLE demonstration pages using Netvibes
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
9.11.2 iGoogle
iGoogle (available at www.google.com/ig) is a customizable Google homepage service. The
iGoogle homepage contains a Google search box at the top, and a choice of gadgets - small
web applications - that again allow the user to access selected applications/information all
from the iGoogle homepage. Gadgets can be added to the homepage to support a range of
different applications such as:





Email/webmail support
File-sharing websites
RSS and Atom feed readers/customizers
News/weather information
Notes & to-do lists
The following screenshot shows how iGoogle has been used in creating a demonstration
personalised learning environment (PLE) using feeds from the CORE-Materials database
and from materials resources uploaded onto some file-sharing websites.
Figure 10. PLE demonstration using iGoogle
The potential for CORE-Materials resources to be used in a personalised learning
environment was discussed with partners at the final project steering group meeting held in
January 2010. Several partners stated that they could envisage promoting the use of either
Netvibes or iGoogle in their own Institutions, and some thought that a PLE would be
particularly beneficial for postgraduate students. Ideas were discussed on the benefits of a
PLE for undergraduate students. It was felt that a possible way to introduce undergraduate
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
students to a PLE would be to pre-load a PLE homepage, leaving the students to customise
the remaining web pages themselves. Guides on using both Netvibes and iGoogle in
creating a PLE have been produced by the CORE-Materials Team and these can be found
at www.core.materials.ac.uk/guides .
9.12 Guidance on OER release and associated issues and
processes
The following table summarises the programme of institutional visits made by members of
the Project Team to each of the 16 UK-based Partners – these subdivide into four categories
of visits, each serving a specific function (as delineated in Table 6). By the end of the project,
the Team will have made a total of 60 face-to-face institutional visits that contribute towards
an iterative and collaborative process of meeting the Project deliverables.
Visit
No.
Dates
within the
Project
Visit Type
Function of Visit made by the
Project Team to each UK-based
Party
1
June to Sep
2009
Project Scoping
Visit
To determine requirements of each
Party and to put in place ‘services’
provided by the Project Team
2
Oct to Dec
2009
Development Visit
To collaboratively construct
learning resources and to critically
appraise interim Project outcomes
3
Jan to Mar
2010
Institutional
Strategy Visit
To capture evidence of changes in
institutional policies and processes
regarding OER release
4
Mar and
Apr 2010
Evaluation and
Sustainability Visit
To collect systematic evidence of
Project impact on student learning
and on institutional changes
Table 6. Schedule of Institutional/Partner visits.
Through this structured programme of Partner visits, the Team have successfully raised the
awareness among the national Materials community of issues surrounding Creative
Commons licensing and of the available range of Web2.0 file sharing sites. The Team found
that many academics, including those in the field of e-learning, tended to be unaware of
these issues and of the mechanisms available for promoting their resources.
9.12.1 Guidance Notes for OER release
In order to help our Materials community continue using and releasing resources in an open
format it is necessary to provide guidance notes / support activities for those academics who
are interested in continuing to promote/share their work with the Materials community.
The CORE-Materials Team has prepared user guidance notes on a variety of topics
including:


Creative Commons licensing clearance
Uploading and downloading resources to Flickr, Scribd and Slideshare
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010



Uploading resources to YouTube
Producing PLEs using Netvibes
Downloading and using re-packaged interactive Flash content
These are shown at www.core.materials.ac.uk/guides .
9.12.2 STEM OER Group Collaboration on Guidance Notes
It came to the Team’s attention that many OER projects were planning similar support
activities in regards to providing guidance notes on OER release. The potential duplication
of this effort raised the possibility of some form of collaboration between the OER subject
strand projects. As collaboration between all 18 projects would have been difficult to
coordinate logistically and politically, the concept of a STEM group collaboration to produce
guides was raised. By pooling the knowledge and experience gained over the course of the
project, it was hoped that jointly prepared documents could prove to be very useful
resources for the individual projects and also for the wider STEM group audience.
.
The 6 STEM OER projects from Materials, EngSC, ICS, BIS, PhysSci and Maths have
agreed to collaborate on guides for the following topics:
1. IPR Clearance
2. Preparing, Packaging and Uploading Resources
3. Evaluation and Quality Assurance
4. Release, Dissemination and Sustainability
5. User Guide to OER (for creators and users)
As part of this initiative, CORE-Materials have so far produced guides on IPR
clearance/Creative Commons licensing in Materials and user guides on uploading and
downloading resources to the file sharing websites Flickr, Slideshare, Scribd, and YouTube
(upload only) and are shown at www.core.materials.ac.uk/guides .
9.13 Dissemination outputs


The University of Cambridge invited the Project Team to contribute to its annual eLearning Summer School, based at the Department of Materials Science and
Metallurgy. Since 2003, at each Summer School, staff and students have worked
together in developing at least ten subject-specific Teaching and Learning Packages
(TLPs). A new departure for the Summer School in 2009 (during all of July and
August) was the establishment of guidance to make newly developed TLPs ‘open’ in
terms of licensing and formatting. The success of this input from the CORE-Materials
project has ensured that open educational resources will also emerge from
subsequent summer development programmes – the Deputy Head of Department
confirming: “Aspects of OERs and creative commons licensing are now an ongoing
and sustainable element of the annual e-Learning Summer School at the University
of Cambridge”.
The CORE-Materials project was presented and demonstrated at the UKCME’s
annual New Lecturers’ course in September 2009. The event was attended by 15
delegates, all in the early stage of their career in Materials, and in the process of
developing new teaching modules for academic year 2009-10. Delegates were not
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010







only given a demonstration of the project and its learning resources; they also
provided feedback on specific user needs and perceptions in relation to open
educational materials.
The CORE-Materials project was presented and demonstrated at the UKCME’s
Postgraduate Demonstrators’ course in September 2009, to 22 Materials
postgraduate students; and at a similar course to a further 14 postgraduate students
in January 2010. A new component of the training programme was making delegates
aware of project resources that would enhance their demonstrator role in reinforcing
student understanding of subject-specific concepts.
Euromat conference in September 2009. Two conference presentations on aspects
of OER were delivered by Professor Peter Goodhew and Adam Mannis.
Dissemination leaflets detailing the CORE-Materials project were distributed to
conference attendees.
Members of the CORE-Materials Team have been interviewed by staff at Materials
World - the Institute of Materials, Mining and Minerals (IOM3) official magazine. An
article was published in the April 2010 issue, which coincided with the COREMaterials launch event held at the IOM3 on the 21st April 2010. To view the article,
see http://www.iom3.org/news/core-materials?c=574 .
Our partners at Granta Design have promoted resources available through the
CORE-Materials repository at Materials Education Symposium at the Stevens
Institute of Technology, New Jersey, USA on March 20th.
Dr Andrew Green, the CORE-Materials partners at MeLT, attended the Materials
Education Symposium at the University of Cambridge in March to present the work of
the CORE-Materials Team. He presented to materials education experts from over
20 European countries and received some positive responses to his presentation.
OER10 – promotion of resources only.
CORE-Materials launch meeting on 21st April 2010 at the Institute of Materials,
Mining and Minerals (IOM3) in London. The CORE-Materials project, and the
resources available through CORE-Materials, was launched to members of the
world’s Materials Community.
Evidence of the effectiveness of the dissemination methods adopted by the Project
Team have recently come to light in a paper published in the Journal of Materials,
published monthly by The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) in the US. In a
paper by Lyle H. Schwartz3, regarding undergraduate materials education, he states
“One of the most interesting new projects is "CORE-Materials: Collaborative Open
Resource Environment - for Materials..... I suggest that at the least, all U.S. materials
departments and societies should be aware of the products of the UKCME and the
CORE-Materials project and learn from their concept and processes. At the best, there
may be ways of collaborating that could benefit all parties."
9.14 Outputs from the evaluation process
In the project bid document, the Team had planned to evaluate numerous aspects of the
project, as outlined in section 6.1.5. Having had feedback from the OER programme
evaluator, we were advised to revise our evaluation plans to ‘make them more modest’ and
to ‘focus on a few big issues‘.
The CORE-Materials Team has carried out 4 main evaluative processes:
1. evaluation of the CORE-Materials resource finder with all partners;
2. evaluation of the adapted ECorr package, detailed in section 9.10, with 20 MSc
students at the University of Manchester;
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
3. evaluation of the CORE-Materials resource finder and resources contained within it
with group of undergraduates at the University of Liverpool;
4. project evaluation by members of the Materials community at the Team’s launch
meeting at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3)
These evaluative processes are summarized below.
1. Evaluation of the CORE-Materials resource finder with all partners
After initial development of the CORE-Materials search facility, the Team asked all partners
to evaluate the functionality of this search facility. In particular they were asked to consider:



if they thought the search was fit for purpose and whether they thought the general
public would find it easy to use;
were any fundamental changes required before the website was released;
whether a ‘search-by-author’ facility should also be incorporated.
Feedback was received from the majority of partners and the Project Team received
numerous suggested improvements. Overall, the partners were happy with the search
facility, they were impressed by its speed and functionality, commenting that ‘I think that this
is going to be a brilliant resource for lecturers building new courses’. The table displaying the
partners’ comments and suggested changes and the actions taken by the Project Team can
be viewed at www.core.materials.ac.uk/evaluation.
2. Evaluation of ECorr
An evaluation of the adapted ECorr package, detailed in section 9.10, was carried out with
20 students at the University of Manchester undertaking an MSC in Corrosion Control
Engineering as part of their Unit 1 - Introduction to Corrosion module. In general, students
thought that the ECorr resource was an excellent program and the Project Team received
some suggestions for further improvements in the resource. Findings from this evaluation
can be viewed at www.core.materials.ac.uk/evaluation.
3. Evaluation of the CORE-Materials resource finder and resources at the
University of Liverpool
An evaluation of the CORE-Materials repository was carried out as part of a larger study
surveying students’ resource searching habits and related issues, along with their reactions
to using the resource finder. This was carried out by a final year Materials undergraduate
student as part of a final year dissertation.
A group of engineering undergraduates were introduced to the CORE-Materials website and
then given a short time period to search for resources relevant to their undergraduate
programme. Students were then interviewed face-to-face to find out



the students’ views on the functionality of the resource finder
how the CORE-Materials website compared to other search engines such as Google
whether the resources contained in CORE-Materials were useful or relevant to their
current engineering programme.
All students found the CORE-Materials resource finder user friendly with relevant information
and resources discovered immediately. All students preferred CORE-Materials to Google
when searching for subject-specific resources.
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
The resources accessible through CORE-Materials were thought to be relevant to the
students’ degree programmes particularly at 1st and 2nd year level. The students also gave
some suggestions for resources that they would like to see contained in the repository in
future, which included information on design and structural failure modes.
The full evaluation can be found at www.core.materials.ac.uk/evaluation .
4. Project evaluation by members of the Materials community
The following are a selection of comments made by those participating in CORE-Materials,
and collected throughout this pilot phase (for example, at Consortium meetings, and during
regular visits to Partner institutions). Since these comments have been ongoing, they have
also shaped the development of the project and its outputs / outcomes.
“Since the subject of Materials requires an understanding of multiple concepts, and in
3-D, many learning objects are based on interactive content, such as FlashTM. It is,
therefore, great to learn that the CORE-Materials website has harvested some of the
best of these interactive resources from across the world.”
“I am most impressed by the investment the Project Team has made in the search /
browse interface to CORE-Materials, and to the presentation of the diverse range of
its excellent electronic resources. This is all very user-friendly and intuitive.”
“Thanks for taking my existing [electronic] teaching resources and working with me to
add so much more to them in terms of their functionality through different [Web 2.0]
fileshare sites. This is all so new to me, and certainly to others in the Department. But
having demonstrated my enhanced electronic resources [on CORE-Materials] at our
Staff Away-Day, my colleagues now want to similarly deposit their teaching
resources.”
“The user statistics from having my teaching content promoted through COREMaterials and its Web 2.0 features, even for only a few months, is truly amazing! And
to gain such intelligence through tracking resource usage is an added bonus. My
company can clearly see the promotional and potential business opportunities that
can be gained… I am sure that universities and colleges will also benefit from this, in
terms of student recruitment and course marketing, especially given the greater
international competition in HE.”
“These CORE-Materials guides are very informative. I will now be able to upload my
teaching materials to your site and its related [fileshare and JorumOpen] sites.
Technologies such as Personal Learning Environments are completely new to me; I
only learned of them through interacting with you. But, I am completely ‘sold’ on
them. They will be great for my students to use in their project work, and to build
resource collections starting from your site.”
“I really appreciate learning from you about things I knew nothing about; OERs, CC
licences, Web 2.0. Myself and colleagues are at the cutting-edge of international
research in the Materials interface, and develop specialist training courses offered
through blended learning. But, still, we were completely unaware. We now appreciate
how you have opened our eyes and minds to CORE-Materials.”
“Having lots of small ‘bite-sized’ materials is just what I need from your [COREMaterials] website for enhancing my lectures and tutorials. As Director for Learning
and Teaching, I will be promoting these across the School, and reusing and adapting
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
them... It is also great that all legal aspects have been sorted out, so I do not need to
worry about future copyright. Your resources are certainly free and open.”
9.15 Deliverables
Specific deliverables that have emerged from the CORE-Materials project are as follows:
 Project workflows, metadata schema and project database - the ‘engine’ of COREMaterials.
 Project website, linked to JorumOpen, to Flickr, Scribd, Slideshare and YouTube, and to








partner’s institutional sites.
Project blogs and MS SharePoint for Partner – Project Team communication.
Licence agreements for the release of resources and learning objects in ‘open’ formats.
Materials curriculum ‘open’ content uploaded to the CORE-Materials project website, with
this content also ‘mirrored’ in JorumOpen, Flickr, Scribd, Slideshare and YouTube.
User interfaces for resource discovery and for the community to interact with the
collections.
A ‘Materials taxonomy’ for browsing / searching the open-release resource collections.
User guidelines for (i) clearing resources, Creative Commons licensing and populating /
using the resource collections, (ii) building personal learning environments from RSS
feeds, and (iii) the portability of interactive content.
Report on issues of institutional release of OERs from a Materials subject perspective.
Evaluation findings from user surveys / feedback and ‘open’ resource usage.
10. Outcomes and Impact
The main value of this project to its stakeholders has been in raising awareness of the issue
of Open Educational Resources; initially across the diverse Partner institutions that
comprised the Consortium; secondly, beyond the Consortium, to the Materials subject
community – not only nationally, but also internationally.
It was clear from interactions with all Partners – through regular site visits and ongoing
communications – that even staff technically proficient and at the ‘cutting edge’ of R&D in
the subject area were in need of both support and guidance relating to the many issues of
OERs.
It was also evident that opportunities being used to promote existing electronic resources
were rather traditional; only a few Partners had used Web2.0 fileshare sites, and the vast
majority of the Consortium was unaware of Web2.0 potential benefits.
As such, this project has expanded OER ‘horizons’ for Partners, and identified alternative
communication / promotional channels targeted at students / trainees and at prospective
learners:

From direct Project Team support, Partners have been able to release a selection of
their electronic resources in ‘open’ formats and through a range of Web2.0 fileshare
sites. They have also benefited from learning of alternative OERs provided by other
members of the Consortium.
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010


From the project guides provided by the Team, Partners are now able to take forward
the issue of OERs across their operations – and within their institutions.
Evidence to support these statements has been provided by Partners at a number of
meetings of the Consortium; most recently at the Final Project Meeting and COREMaterials official launch, hosted by the Institute of Materials (the main professional
body), on 21st April 2010. This evidence has also been strengthened through ongoing
institutional visits and communications with Partners, as well as from a number of user
evaluations (see previous Section 9.14 for details).
10.1 Innovations in practices/ processes around OER
We have surveyed issues of open release of resources with our partners and our findings
suggest that our industrial partners are very positive about openly releasing a selection of
their resources and can see many benefits in doing so. The host institution, the University of
Liverpool, does not currently have a policy regarding open release of resources.
CORE-Materials project staff approached senior staff at the University of Liverpool, to gain
clarity on the official University of Liverpool policy on IPR and to highlight the COREMaterials OER project. The project, and general principle of open release, now has the
support of the PVC for learning and teaching and The University's Chief Operating Officer,
and, more importantly for the project, CORE-Materials has secured the permission to make
available in open form Materials Science and Engineering learning resources ‘owned’ by the
University for the purposes of the OER project.
The University’s new policy on the exploitation of IP is now being progressed by the Director
of Legal, Risk & Compliance at the University of Liverpool and a draft policy is expected to
be ratified by summer 2010. Among other issues, this draft policy states that the University
assumes ownership of all the IP generated by its staff but ‘does not intend to assert
ownership of copyright in books, articles, lectures and artistic works’. A copy of the draft
policy is attached in Appendix 1, although the University’s legal Dept ask that we stress this
is a DRAFT and, as so, is liable to change.
The wider principle of open release is under consideration through the University’s
deliberative processes, and is being progressed by the Academic Secretary.
Our industrial and commercial partners have proven extremely supportive of openly
releasing a selection of their learning and teaching resources and understand the potential
benefits/opportunities this offers. We have had encouraging negotiations with two publishing
houses, one major American publisher, Taylor and Francis (who have agreed to release a
Materials textbook “Electron Microscopy and Analysis, Third Edition”) and another offering
free online textbooks.
10.2 Lessons learned
There have been many lessons learned by all those participating in this OER project.
Lessons have been learned from all those concerned: the materials subject community; the
partner institutions and also by the Project Team. These are summarized below.
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
10.2.1 Lessons learned by the materials subject community
Through participation in this project and through the series of project scoping and
developmental visits carried out by the Project Team (outlined in section 9.11), the Project
Team have raised the awareness on numerous issues with members of the materials
community, both in academia and in industry. These include:





Awareness of the significance of OERs at both a national and international level.
Awareness in the concepts of IPR and ownership: many academics were not aware
that their Institution was likely to own the copyright on all works that they had created
(lectures, notes, tutorials etc) during their employment at that Institution. This has
forced many academic partners to scrutinize their institution’s policies regarding
intellectual property and also to review their own learning and teaching materials.
The community is now aware of the existance of the CORE-Materials repository. The
Team received feedback at the steering group meeting in January 2010 that at least
6 partners were now regularly embedding resources from CORE-Materials in their
lectures.
The community is now more aware of the range of file-sharing websites available for
both promotion of their own resources and as an alternative collection of potential
learning and teaching resources.
The OER programme has served to highlight the benefits of open release of existing
resources – new dimensions have been added to some partners’ existing resources
which were already available on the internet. Their resources are now highlighted to
broader subject classifications.
10.2.2 Lessons learned by the CORE-Materials Team





The CORE-Materials Team has now gathered all the fundamental legal and technical
knowledge required in OER release, and fully understands the processes involved. The
Team now feels confident in passing on its combined knowledge / lessons learned to
others. For example, to cognate STEM disciplines; to subject communities that did not
participate in the pilot OER programme; to institutions and partners beyond the initial 20
in CORE-Materials; to international collaborators; to the development of OER policy and
strategy.
At present, the subject community has a nominal level of understanding in the
processes involved in OER release, both at a technical and legal level. In order to
sustain the OER release process, it is necessary that the Project Team continues to
work with the subject community to ensure the continuation of resource release.
Using the uasge/download statistics from the CORE-Materials website and the filesharing sites, the Team now has a good understanding of the types of resources which
are of interest to the community and hopes to analyse this in more detail as usage
continues.
The materials taxonomy has served to highlight potential gaps in resource provision and
will help the Team to source resources in these areas so as to provide resources which
support all areas of the materials curriculum.
The Team has held negotiations with the host institution with regards to changing
policies on IPR at an Institutional level, and a draft policy on IPR is now under review.
The Team are now in a position to move forward with the host institution in trying to
affect changes in policy.
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
10.2.3 Lessons learned by HEIs
As well as providing the operational framework for the CORE-Materials project, the
Consortion Agreement was a useful exercise as it put open educational release on the
agenda for discussion within academic institutions. Partners either reviewed the document
with senior staff at their Department/Company or passed the document over to their
Institutional legal advisors, hence raising awareness of OER across the UKs materials
departments/schools. This stimulated discussions regarding open release of resources with
the relevant senior staff at each partner Institution/company.
10.2.4 Lessons learned about OER release






The potential benefits of OER release were not obvious to partners at HEIs at the
start of the project. These partners needed to be convinced of the many benefits to
themselves and their Institutions before fully engaging with the ideas of OER release.
It took some time to reach full momentum with a few partners. Conversely, our
commercial partners tended to become immediately aware of the potential benefits to
their organisations.
Some commercial partners were reluctant to agree to a Creative Commons licence
which allowed derivative works of their resources (Granta design, EAA). Partners
were concerned about potentially damaging affect that an inaccurate derivative work
may have, given that it would still contain reference to the commercial organisation.
Following an email from JISC (David Kernohan) highlighting that resources with more
restrictive licences were less likely to be used, the Team re-visited the licence choice
by the EAA and they agreed to drop the ‘non-derivative’ part of the licence and rerelease 149 TALAT lectures under CC-BY-NC-SA.
Resources made available in bite-sized chunks – this was the preferred format for
academics, who could more easily embed such materials in their teaching notes.
Resources containing a lot of 3rd party materials may be too difficult to include in
such a repository. With one partner’s resource, the Team took the decision to replace
all the 3rd party content (images) with CC licensed replacements available through
Flickr instead of clearing all 3rd party rights. Whilst this was successful, the Team felt
that time may have been better spent focussing on alternative resources.
Assigning metadata and the process of cataloguing each resource was a labour
intensive process. It was also a process that required technical, subject-specific input
from the Project Team.
Although the OER project did not sanction the re-purposing of existing resources, the
Team found that, with the exception of images, all resources required some repurposing or re-formatting to prepare them for publication. The Team even refused
some resources on the basis that they required too much repurposing.
11. Conclusions & Recommendations
11.1 Conclusions
At the start of the project, the CORE-Materials Team made the decision to build its own
repository and database. The Team now believes that this was the best decision for the
Materials OER project. The CORE-Materials website offers more functionality than any of
the file-sharing websites and repositories (including JorumOpen) and has the following
highlights/benefits:
 The Materials taxonomy is a unique feature of the CORE-Materials repository and
has proved to be a great success in supporting browsing, accurate searching and
guided navigation, ensuring that end users of the CORE-Materials repository can find
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Project Acronym: CORE-Materials
Version: Final Report
Contact: Professor Peter Goodhew
Date: 26th April 2010
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the resources they are seeking. We are not aware of any other file-sharing site that
uses such a detailed classification system to help users navigate such a large
resource collection.
The faceted search facility provides optimal filtering of results and improved
searchability. The search facility filters the titles, descriptions, classification and
keywords for all resources. All metadata fields can be used in filtering the results
(users can search by title, author, keyword, licence type etc). This is not the case
with some file-sharing websites where the metadata may be stored, but the user
cannot search using this data (for example, Scribd stores the licence type for each
resource, but the user cannot search for resources of a particular licence type).
The CORE-Materials repository provides the only known platform for interactive
Flash animations. These types of file are not supported by file-sharing websites or by
JorumOpen.
CORE-Materials provides an additional platform for the sharing of videos. Videos can
be downloaded directly from the CORE-Materials repository, unlike YouTube which
offers video viewings only.
It was a relatively easy task for the Team to adapt APIs from the file-sharing websites so that
resources from CORE-Materials could be batch uploaded to the relevant platforms. On the
whole, the metadata from each file-sharing website was consistent with the metadata used
in the CORE-Materials resources. The file sharing websites also support batch editing, an
important feature that was utilised by the Team when agreeing a licence change for a set of
149 TALAT lectures. The only problem the Team had was in batch uploading to JorumOpen
– a feature still under development. Therefore, large resource collections were uploaded to
JorumOpen via RSS feeds.
With the exception of images, all resources added to CORE-Materials have required some
amount of repurposing, even to seemingly straightforward resources. This has required
some significant effort from the Project Team in supporting academics in this task. This may
be an important point to consider when contemplating models for the sustainable release of
OERs.
In terms of publishing resources on the four file-sharing websites, the Team have added
value to existing resources by
 Increasing the visibility of partners’ materials learning & teaching resources, which
are now published on multiple platforms and are available to a broader audience.
 Prolonging the existence of the resources in the public domain.
The Team has concluded that YouTube is not the perfect platform for distributing
downloadable learning and teaching resources. YouTube does not include a licensing tag,
so Creative Commons cannot be supported (the Team included licensing information in the
resource description).
Two more appropriate file-sharing websites for materials learning and teaching resources
were found to be inaccessible by the CORE-Materials Team: YouTube EDU and iTunes U.
The Team found it impossible for inter-institutional projects to register for an account with
these sites as they accept registration by single institutions only.
11.2 Recommendations
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The CORE-Materials Project Team recommend that those disciplines new to the
OER process adopt a similar approach to that taken by the materials Team. We
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would recommend that other disciplines talk or work with us to determine the
practices developed through the CORE-Materials project.
It is difficult in a 1 year time period to provide proof of concept and to become selfsustaining – it takes time to build up momentum from industry/private companies and
generate external income. With this in mind, the Team would recommend to
JISC/HEA that they seriously consider transitional support for projects that have a
credible chance of becoming commercially viable or self-funding in a 2-3 year time
period. A case in point was the MATTER project, initially funded for 3 years + 1
transitional year. MATTER became self-sustaining for over a decade generating
around £2 million in external funding. The MATTER Team believe that this funding
would not have been raised had the transitional funding not been available.
As explained in section 11.1, registration for YouTube EDU and iTunes U is currently
limited to single institutions. The Team would recommend to JISC to work with
Google and Apple to see if they would accept inter-institutional content.
For true openness, the Team recommend that other developers consider adopting
unicode (utf-8) to support adaptation of the website into over 600 languages
supported in unicode.
12. Implications for the future
It should be noted that there are no amendments to the planned set of activities
identified in the original project Sustainability Plan. For instance, the £20,000 committed
to this aspect of the project by the UKCME has not changed; it still remains in place.
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The UKCME will be the long-term contact for CORE-Materials, around which various
‘communities of practice’ that have been evolving from the project could get involved
with.
This Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy will be incorporating project
resources and outputs into two annual training courses it provides for the national
subject community. Firstly, a New Lecturers’ course – linked to the Professional
Standards Framework – will draw on CORE-Materials to support new academics in
putting together teaching content / modules. Secondly, an e-Learning Summer School –
hosted by the University of Cambridge – where new learning resources will be created
in partnership between staff and students for incorporation within CORE-Materials.
The resource guides produced by CORE-Materials, in collaboration with other STEMrelated OER projects, will be offered to JISC infoNet’s Open Educational Resources
infoKit.
CORE-Materials will be further disseminated by UKCME and through its networks, with
a view to (i) increasing the user base, (ii) adding to the extent and range of project
resources, and (iii) shaping OER policy at partner institutions.
Importance is also to be given to both the monitoring and tracking of OER use from
CORE-Materials beyond April 2010.
Related to the above, more detailed explorations are planned of the benefits of COREMaterials to learners / users and participating institutions / organisations. This will also
necessitate an appropriate investment of time and resource to evaluate the impact of
CORE-Materials on learning, teaching and training in the discipline, and beyond.
International collaborations will be sought that link CORE-Materials to organisations
already aware of its extensive resources – for example, TMS (the premier US Materials
Society).
To facilitate the above, explorations will be conducted of the adaptation of the COREMaterials website into other languages.
Critically, the CORE-Materials Project Team will seek to offer advice and support to
partners / institutions intending to release new OER content, both those in the subject
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area and those in other / new areas – by extending outcomes and outputs successfully
delivered within this OER pilot project.
Similarly, the Project Team will seek to explore how best to organise existing OER
collections, building on lessons learned from CORE-Materials – most especially in
relation to discoverability, searchability and presentation of OERs.
13. References
1. Cooke , Ron (2008) On-line Innovation in Higher Education at
www.dius.gov.uk/policy/documents/online_innovation_in_he_131008.pdf
2. Callister, William D (2007) Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction; John
Wiley & Sons Inc
3. Schwartz, Lyle H (2010) Undergraduate Materials Education 2010: Status and
Recommendations. Journal of Materials Vol. 62, No.3 pp. 34-70. Also at
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/1003/schwartz-1003.html
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14. Appendices
Appendix 1. University of Liverpool Draft IPR Policy
Policy on Exploitation and Commercialisation of Intellectual Property
February 2009
 Introduction
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are the legal rights associated with creative and intellectual effort or
commercial reputation and goodwill. Together the different types of intellectual property rights protect
a wide variety of property including literary and artistic works, computer programs, inventions, designs
and marks used to identify goods and services. Intellectual property (IP) can be an extremely valuable
asset and substantial income can be generated through its successful exploitation. The nature of the
University’s activities, in particular its research activities, often gives rise to the creation of valuable IP
which can benefit the University, its staff and students, as well as third parties.
 Ownership of IP
Employees
Under English law, notably the Patents Act 1977 and the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988, IP
generated in the course of a person’s normal employment belongs to the employing organisation.
Thus, in the absence of any agreements to the contrary, the University assumes ownership of all IP
generated by staff. For the avoidance of doubt the University does not intend to assert ownership of
copyright in books, articles, lectures and artistic works, other than those specifically commissioned by
the University. However, the University does not relinquish ownership of copyright in computer
software. It is generally accepted that most academic staff wish to publish articles in learned journals.
As a general rule the University will preserve the rights of academic staff to publish material arising
from research as they think fit. However, in cases where commercial exploitation of the results is a
possibility the University may require publication to be withheld until appropriate protection can be put
in place.
Non-employees
For staff holding joint appointments or honorary positions within the University agreement about
ownership and exploitation of IP should be reached (through Human Resources and Legal Services)
at the time of appointment by the University. Ownership of an invention should be formally identified
and confirmed by completion of an IP Disclosure Record.
Students
As part of the registration process students assign to the University any commercially-exploitable IP
which they generate as a consequence of their studies or research, or which is created using
University facilities. In assigning their ownership rights to the University, a student is accorded the
same rights as a member of staff, e.g. with respect to revenue sharing. It is recognised that where a
student is sponsored by a third party, the terms of that sponsorship may override this position, and
require the student to assign to the sponsoring organisation. Students are able and encouraged to
publish their research work in journals or dissertations, subject to any appropriate prior protection of
the IP in question. The policy applies to students registered at the University, whoever is their
supervisor. For the avoidance of doubt the University does not seek to interfere in students’ rights
insofar as they relate to free use of copyright in lecture notes or IP generated outside their studies or
research. Students registered elsewhere but whose supervisors include University employees are not
subject to this policy.
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Third Parties
The University frequently enters into agreements with third parties which specify ownership of IP
generated by University staff and students in research collaborations. In such cases IP may be owned
by the University, the third party or jointly. If the collaboration is likely to produce commercially
valuable IP the University, through its departments of Research & Business Services (RBS) and Legal
Services, shall liaise with UEL to ensure appropriate terms are agreed in respect of IP. University
guidelines for 3rd party contracts are attached to this policy document.
 Ulive Enterprises Limited (UEL)
The University established ULive Enterprises Limited, a subsidiary company, to exploit,any researchrelated IP in which the University has an interest. In June 2008 the University and UEL signed a
Technology Agreement (TA) which provided UEL with exclusive rights to commercialise IP generated
by the University through its research activities. Under the terms of the TA the University is obliged to
identify and offer IP generated through its research activities to UEL to enable UEL to have first option
for exploitation. Although it is the responsibility of UEL to maximise the commercial exploitation of
University IP it is recognised that such exploitation should not prejudice the University’s core activities
of research, and learning and teaching. UEL should also take into account the wider strategies and
policies of the University in determining the exploitation route.
A summary of the key terms of the TA is attached hereto. Further information (including contact
details) about UEL may be found on their website – www.ulive-enterprises.com.
 Exploitation of IP
Process
Identification of potentially exploitable IP is a responsibility of staff and students who are required to
identify such IP by completion of an IP Disclosure Record. This is available on request from UEL and
UEL Commercial Managers will be pleased to assist staff and students with its completion. Once the
Record is completed UEL will evaluate the IP and either confirm that it wishes to pursue the
opportunity or decline the offer. If it decides to pursue the opportunity an assignment agreement will
be completed between the University (through Legal Services) and UEL in order to transfer ownership
of the IP. UEL will nominate a Commercial Manager who will be responsible for the exploitation of the
IP. The Commercial Manager will liaise with the inventor(s) and ensure that the University (in
particular the inventor’s Head of Department and a Business Manager in RBS) is kept fully informed.
Any exploitation plans may also require the agreement of the original funder of the research. Formal
legal protection of the IP will be determined, administered and funded by UEL. All legal
documentation which require University approval and signature will be reviewed and approved by
Legal Services.
Externally-funded Research Projects
As well as unprompted disclosures from staff and students UEL will monitor the University’s
externally-funded research projects to attempt to identify suitable opportunities. UEL will ensure that
such monitoring is, where appropriate, carried out in conjunction with RBS, Legal Services and
academic staff to ensure consistency of approach, particularly if the monitoring involves discussions
with external funders of research.
Timescale
The timescale for exploitation of any given set of IP depends significantly on market conditions as well
as the state of development of the IP. The discussions between UEL, the inventor, and the University
should agree a reasonable initial timetable with regular review points. All parties involved have
responsibilities in achieving successful exploitation and need to be aware that circumstances will
change as the process develops. Exploitation might take the form of licensing, assignment or creation
of a spin-out or start-up company.
 IP Declined by UEL
If UEL does not wish to exploit IP offered by the University the University is free to pursue other
options as might seem reasonable. The University will not usually attempt to commercialise the IP
itself but may agree to a request that it is assigned to the inventor(s) (or a third party) for them to
commercialise. Any such assignment will be subject to suitable terms and conditions which will
include but not be limited to the following: recovery of relevant University costs, consideration of any
effects on the inventor’s ability to undertake their normal academic duties, consent of Head of
Department and provision of a royalty-free licence to the University to enable the IP to be used for
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further teaching and research. Legal Services, in conjunction with RBS, will draft, negotiate and
complete such assignments for the University.
 Further Development of IP
UEL Fund
There are a number of ways in which IP can be developed further to make it attractive to a potential
customer and to improve the return for UEL, the University and the inventors. UEL, in partnership with
the Royal Bank of Scotland, have established a Proof of Concept (POC) Fund to support
development activities in specific areas of research. The Fund is administered by UEL and investment
decisions are taken by the board of UEL. Inquiries about the POC fund should be made directly to
UEL.
University Fund
The University has established its own development fund which is supported by an award from the
Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). This is managed by the University’s Research Investment
Group and investment decisions are made by a panel chaired by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor.
Inquiries about the HEIF fund should be made directly to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor.
 Commercialisation through Spin-out or Start-up
Companies
Where exploitation involves the creation of a Spin-out company (i.e. a company formed as a
consequence of University IP) or a Start-up company (a company created by a third party in which the
University is invited to participate) the involvement of the inventor in providing ongoing or future
services to that company must be governed by an appropriate agreement, e.g. for the provision of
consultancy or research services. Legal Services will be responsible for drafting, reviewing and
completing such agreements for the University.
Inventor(s) are permitted to provide services (either as a director of the company or simply as an
advisor) subject to the University’s normal policy on consultancy and outside work activities. Inventors
may also be seconded to the company subject to the normal contracting and approval processes, and
in particular that it is subject in all cases to the full recovery of cost (including the use of University
facilities and services). In general such companies should not operate from University premises,
except under a specific licence to occupy which would normally be in a defined incubator space.
The University Conflicts of Interest policy should be complied with in all circumstances. In particular,
staff specifically employed to further the University’s commercial activities are not normally permitted
to acquire equity in spin-out companies whilst remaining as an employee of the University.
 Company Directorships
Inventors are permitted to accept appointment to directorships in Spin-out or Start-up companies,
subject to the agreement of their Head of Department and the RBS Steering Group. Individuals
undertaking such roles should note that they are personally liable as a director and should ensure that
they fully understand the legal responsibilities involved. In general, staff in senior positions and
business development roles within the University should not undertake directorships as they may be
conflicted with their University position.
 Distribution of the Benefits Arising From Exploitation
Income
UEL is responsible for collecting income from third parties in respect of exploitation of IP. Where IP
has been sold, assigned or licensed, this would usually take the form of milestone and / or royalty
payments. Under the terms of the TA UEL is entitled, after recovery of eligible costs such as external
legal fees and any revenue sharing with the funders of the original research, to retain 50% of all net
income. The balance is passed to the University’s Finance Department for distribution within the
University. UEL will transfer the balance of income for distribution to the University on an annual
basis.
Allocation within the University
The information in the IP Disclosure Record will be used to define the inventors of the IP and hence
their share of the income. This will usually be distributed by the University on the basis of 66% to the
inventor(s) and 34% to the relevant department(s) of the inventor(s) although the exact allocation of
income will be determined by the University according to the following principles:

whether the invention was made in the course of normal duties
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whether the circumstances were such that an invention might reasonably be expected to result
from the carrying out of those duties
whether, because of their special responsibilities, the inventor had a special obligation to
further the interests of the University
the nature of his/her duties, the remuneration and other advantages which the inventor has
derived from their position with the University
the effort and skill which the inventor has devoted to making the invention
the extent to which the invention was made jointly by the inventor with any other person and
the effort and skill which such other person has devoted to the invention
The funds allocated to the inventor(s) may, at the discretion of the inventor, take the form of a
personal payment (in which case payment will be made via the University payroll and cover the
University’s National Insurance contribution) or be paid into a nominated University account.
If there is more than one named inventor on the IP Disclosure Record it will be assumed that, in the
absence of anything to the contrary, each inventor has made an equal inventive contribution and
funds will be divided equally.
The University will continue to make payments due to inventors (or their estates in the case of death)
if they cease to be employees of the University whether through retirement, death or otherwise. It is
the responsibility of the inventor (or their estate) to keep the University informed of their contact
details in order for the University to continue to make due payments. Payments made to former
employees will be made gross and by accepting these payments the inventor (or their estate) will be
liable for accounting for tax and national insurance.
Equity
In those cases where the consideration for commercialisation of University IP is equity (e.g. as part of
a company formation) this will be allocated on the basis of 50% to UEL and 50% to the University for
subsequent allocation to individual inventors who will usually hold such equity in a personal capacity.
Inventor(s) should note that they will be liable for any relevant personal taxes in such holdings and
they are advised to seek independent legal advice.
Where the University, through UEL, receives a mixture of equity and royalties as payment for IP, the
sum of both will be combined to meet the overall allocation to the inventor as described above.
Approved by Council on XXX
J Fox, Legal Services
February 2009
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Appendix
Policy guidance on contracts with 3rd parties – protection of IP
The involvement of 3rd party organisations in University research programmes, be they commercial
companies, charities or public institutions, is becoming increasingly common. Such collaborations
can range from the 3rd party paying for the full cost of the research to the simple provision of some inkind support. Any 3rd party collaboration, however small the contribution made, has implications for
the ownership of IP and must be clarified in a legal agreement with the assistance of Legal Services
and UEL where appropriate. Having no written agreement is likely to be the worst possible position
not just for the University but also for the individual academic, whose ability to work with other 3 rd
parties in future could be unwittingly compromised.
Whilst individual agreements will be negotiated to fit particular circumstances, there are some policy
guidelines which the University has decided to adhere to unless there are exceptional reasons to the
contrary. Individual academics are encouraged to familiarise themselves with these guidelines if they
are contemplating 3rd party collaborations: The earlier they can start to shape discussions to conform
to these guidelines, the smoother the overall process is likely to be.
Usually IP rights are divided into two categories: Foreground IP refers to any inventions which come
about during the course of the research project being funded. Background IP refers to inventions but
also general know-how which the University and its academics possess going into the project.
The guidelines are as follows:
Foreground: Ownership with funding
Where a 3rd party is paying 100% of the full economic cost of a project, we would expect them to ask
for ownership of the Foreground IP and we would normally allow this. However, if the University is
paying a proportion of the costs, we should normally retain our pro-rata share.
Use it or lose it
3rd party ownership of Foreground IP should nevertheless be conditional on their putting it to use. It is
against the University’s wider social responsibilities to allow potentially valuable IP to lie dormant.
Contracts will normally be structured in such a way that, where 3 rd parties cease to develop IP, the
University will gain the right to take the IP back.
Rights for Teaching & Research
The University will seek in all cases where IP is transferred to a 3rd party to retain the right to use the
IP for the purposes of teaching and research. This is a standard provision adopted by all Universities.
Background: What is it and who owns it?
Where rights over existing IP and know how are being offered to 3rd parties, it is vital that the IP is
clearly defined and a formal assessment is made to establish who owns it. To do this it is necessary
to be clear as to which IP is being offered, arising from the work of particular, named academics.
Ownership rights could accrue to any funder who has contributed to any part of the IP. The rights of
visiting research staff, collaborators in other Universities or elsewhereneed to be identified. This
assessment would normally be undertaken by UEL. No promises should be made in relation to
Background IP without first establishing if we are in a position to make them.
Background: no rights without something in return
The University’s Background IP is a valuable asset. As a matter of principle, we are not prepared to
hand over rights to that asset for free. To do so would also fall short of our responsibilities to our
public funders. Handing over rights includes giving 3rd parties an option over our Background IP in a
way which would prevent us from talking to others. UEL will need to be involved in any negotiations
as to what value is appropriate for a particular package of Background IP.
Warranties as to title
3rd parties to whom we licence IP rights often seek protection from us against the risk that, having
invested large sums in developing and launching a commercial product, a claim then comes out of the
wood-work from a co-inventor of the IP of whom they were unaware. The way they protect
themselves is to seek a warranty from us that the IP we are licensing is unequivocally ours to sell.
The University’s potential liability under a warranty claim could in theory exceed whatever funds we
received many fold. Given the complexity in establishing who contributed to an invention in some
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cases, we need to be particularly careful in signing such warranties. The University will not therefore
sign warranties as to title over IP without a formal risk assessment first being undertaken. We will
also seek to cap our liability wherever possible to the amount of funds we actually receive from the 3 rd
party.
Technology Agreement - A Summary of the Key Terms
1. UEL has an option to all existing and new University IP for an initial period of 15 years.
2. The University is obliged to notify UEL of all IP which may be capable of commercial
exploitation.
3. The University will assign to UEL all IP which UEL wishes to exploit.
4. UEL will determine the most appropriate route to commercialisation.
5. UEL shall provide the University with a back licence to use assigned IP for further teaching
and research.
6. All licences and shareholdings, or the beneficial rights thereto, in existence on
commencement of the TA were transferred to UEL.
7. Net revenue is to be allocated on the basis of 50% to UEL and 50% to the University.
8. Initial equity in spin-out companies is to be allocated on the basis of 50% to UEL and 50% to
the University (to be held by individual inventors in a personal capacity).
9. UEL has rights of access to relevant information including research proposals and contracts,
and to University employees for the purposes of IP evaluation, protection and exploitation.
10. UEL is to be notified of all invention disclosures and may review relevant academic papers
prior to publication. UEL has the right to delay publication to ensure adequate protection for
the IP is in place prior to publication.
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Appendix 2. CORE-Materials Publicity Leaflet

See separate file (attached)
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14.1 Glossary of Acronyms
API: Application Programming Interface - an interface that a software program implements in
order to allow other software to interact with it.
Atom Feed: A web feed format used for providing users with frequently updated content.
CETIS: The Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards, funded by
JISC.
IP: Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works,
and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.
IPR: Intellectual property rights - rights granted to creators and owners of works that are the
result of human intellectual creativity, such as copyright, patents, trade marks etc.
FE: Further education. Post-secondary education, including any level of education from
basic training to Higher National and Foundation Degree.
Flickr: An image and video hosting/sharing website.
HE: Higher education. The level of education that is provided at universities and
colleges that award academic degrees.
HEA: Higher Education Academy. Formed in October 2004 to “work with the higher
education community to enhance all aspects of the student experience”.
HEFCE: Higher Education Funding Council for England.
iTunes U: an Apple iTunes repository for Higher Education institutions to make audio and
visual content available for download and subscription.
JISC: Joint Information Systems Committee support UK higher education and research in
the use of information technology.
JorumOpen: JISC owned national repository for learning and teaching materials licensed
under Creative Commons licences.
MATTER: A consortium of UK materials science departments, led by the University of
Liverpool , developing and integrating computer-based learning (CBL) materials into
mainstream teaching..
MS Sharepoint: Microsoft SharePoint - a Microsoft content management system.
PVC: Pro-Vice Chancellor - an assistant to a university vice-chancellor.
RSS: Really Simple Syndication – A web feed format used for providing users with
frequently updated content.
Scribd: A document hosting/sharing website.
Slideshare: A presentation and document hosting/sharing website.
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STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subject areas.
TALAT: Training in Aluminium Application Technologies – a comprehensive collection of
training material for Engineers and Researchers.
OER: Open educational resources - learning materials that are freely available for use,
remixing and redistribution.
UKCME: UK Centre for Materials Education, based at the University of Liverpool and part of
the Higher Education Academy’s Subject Centre Network which consists of 24 Subject
Centres based in HEIs throughout the UK.
Web2.0: a term for web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing where
users can interact with other users and can change website content.
YouTube: A video hosting/viewing website.
YouTube EDU: YouTube Education – a video hosting/viewing website specifically targeted
at higher education institutions.
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