SURF X4L
Repurposing of Content for Use in VLEs
Who are SURF X4L?
Staffordshire University, Shrewsbury
College of Art & Technology and
Stoke College
 Other Partners are RNCB, WM-RSC,
FENC and vendors
 VLEs include COSE, Learnwise and
TekniCAL
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What is SURF X4L doing?
All about finding, reusing and
repurposing content in VLEs
 Looking at tools, pedagogy and
methods
 Looking at standards
 Staff development and Culture
Change
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What will SURF X4L do?
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Train staff to find, acquire, reuse & repurpose
content to:
Put into SURF VLEs
Put into repositories for others to reuse &
repurpose
Produce pedagogic and good practice guides
Produce new versions of COSE and other tools
SURF X4L @ Staffordshire University
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Main technical effort in investigating tools & systems and writing code
to enable COSE content to be exported as standalone content. Content
produced in COSE can now be saved as specification conformant
content packages, needing only a javascript enabled browser for
navigation & viewing. Such packages can be viewed in RELOAD,
uploaded to the JORUM Intralibrary repository, and, as demonstrated
using the ADL Sample RTE, with some modifications, run a SCORM
conformant environment.
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See screenshots below, or ask for a demo to learn more
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Still much work to do, but the first project phase has been quite
encouraging. Priorities now addressing structuring the content for
aggregation & disaggregation to aid re-use, investigating changes to
COSE architecture to progress with SCORM, more work in exchanging
content with the proprietary VLEs (Blackboard, Learnwise and
TekniCAL) used by project partners.
SURF X4L
<< Standalone COSE content
package loaded into
RELOAD
Standalone COSE content
package in the RELOAD
viewer >>
SURF X4L
<< standalone COSE content
packages uploaded into
Intralibrary
standalone COSE content
package in the Intralibrary
viewer >>
SURF X4L
<< COSE content package in
the ADL SCORM RTE
standalone COSE content
package in the Intralibrary
viewer >>
SURF X4L @ Shrewsbury College
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Wide range of learning materials, tools &
learning objects made available to staff:
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NLN Materials
FENC Materials
JISC Collections
RDN Materials
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SURF X4L @ Shrewsbury College
Produced
range of
materials for each
curriculum area
•Word documents
(converted using
authoring tool)
•PowerPoint
•Web page creation
•Hot Potatoes
•Teknical question
designer & authoring
tools
A range
of sample
materials for each
subject:
•Introduction
•Resources
•Quizzes
•Summary
A learning
package
created from a series
of learning objects or
‘chunks’ of learning
SURF X4L @ Shrewsbury College

Use of Teknical authoring
tool
 Standard word document
 Creation of an interactive
learning package
SURF X4L @ Shrewsbury College
Uploaded
a range of
materials onto Shrewsbury
College’s VLE
Virtual Campus (Teknical)
Structure set up for each
curriculum area and school
Staff beginning to produce
more material & use the
system
Integration of collaborative
tools
SURF X4L @ Shrewsbury College
NEXT…
 Continue production of
learning materials in
various formats
 Assisting staff to produce
materials /objects
 Further development of
metadata and compliancy
 Transfer of learning
packages from one VLE to
another
SURF X4L @ Stoke College
Evaluation of Authoring Packages
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Standalone Packages  Plugins for Applications
–
–
–
–
–
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Recombo
LWP
Lectora
LRN3 Toolkit
Canvas
Crocodile Clips
– PPT/Frontpage LRN
Export
– Teknical
– courseGenie
SURF X4L @ Stoke College
Authoring Packages & Delivery Environments

Standalone Packages
– Recombo
– LWP
– Lectora
– LRN3 Toolkit
– Canvas
– Crocodile Clips
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VLE
– Learnwise
– COSE
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Plugins for Applications
– PPT/Frontpage LRN Export
– Teknical
– courseGenie
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Standalone
– LRN3 Toolkit
– ADL RTE
– Teknical Viewer
– Black Arrow
SURF X4L @ Stoke College
Methodology
Data Sources
Subject Areas
Mixed
Legacy
Food
Sample
topics
–Variety of subject
areas/levels
–Differing
Media/delivery
requirements
–Wide range of data
sources
Materials
Technology
–FENC
AMSPAR
–In House Authored
Meetings Skills
Free Public Libraries
Web Design
NLN Resources
Electronics
I & II
Dyslexia Awareness
Granada Media Libraries Brickwork
In House created Media
CIMA Accountancy
–Sound/Video/Flash
Foundation Degrees
(with Staffs Uni)
SURF X4L @ Stoke College
Findings so far…
•Interoperability currently rather poor
•No one authoring environment or delivery
system copes well
•Some not at all
SURF X4L Contacts at Warwick
Mark Stiles m.j.stiles@staffs.ac.uk
 Eddie Clarke
e.a.clarke@staffs.ac.uk
 Richard Booth
richard.booth@shrewsbury.ac.uk
 Steve Blakemore
SBLAKE1SC@stokecoll.ac.uk
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