Quality assurance for digital learning object repositories: issues for the metadata creation process

Abstract

Metadata enables users to find the resources they require, therefore it is an important component of any digital learning object repository. Much work has already been done within the learning technology community to assure metadata quality, focused on the development of metadata standards, specifications and vocabularies and their implementation within repositories. The metadata creation process has thus far been largely overlooked. There has been an assumption that metadata creation will be straightforward and that where machines cannot generate metadata effectively, authors of learning materials will be the most appropriate metadata creators. However, repositories are reporting difficulties in obtaining good quality metadata from their contributors, and it is becoming apparent that the issue of metadata creation warrants attention. This paper surveys the growing body of evidence, including three UK-based case studies, scopes the issues surrounding human-generated metadata creation and identifies questions for further investigation. Collaborative creation of metadata by resource authors and metadata specialists, and the design of tools and processes, are emerging as key areas for deeper research. Research is also needed into how end users will search learning object repositories. IntroductionThe emergence of the concept of reusable learning objects has been a major recent development in e-learning (Littlejohn, 2003). Much discussion and exploratory work has been undertaken, moving us towards what has been called "the learning object economy" (Downes, 2001;Campbell, 2003), where teachers, course developers and learners can share, reuse and re-purpose digital materials for incorporation into teaching and learning. Some potential benefits of this 'economy' include: minimising duplication of effort for individual teachers across subject areas; reducing costs for * Corresponding author. Centre for Academic Practice, University of Strathclyde, Livingstone Tower, 26 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1QE, UK. Email: sarah.currier@strath.ac.uk 6 S. Currier et al.institutions (Duncan, 2003b); and providing access to a wider variety of learning materials. In the past few years, various institutions and projects have been developing repositories for these reusable learning objects supported by international standardization work, notably the suite of specifications produced by the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS). suggests that the next stage of development in this "economy of education" should be the development of a network of distributed learning object repositories.Because metadata enables users to discover and select digital learning resources suitable to their requirements, it is a vital component of the learning object economy, any future distributed networks and the learning object repositories within them. Extensive groundwork has been carried out in this area, mainly centred upon the development of the IEEE Learning Object Metadata standard, known as 'the LOM' (IEEE LTSC, 2002). IEEE worked closely with the inter...

Open educational resources repositories literature review – Towards a comprehensive quality approaches framework

“…Technological, Social Atenas & Havemann, 2014;Larsen and Vincent-Lancrin 2005;Schuwer et al 2010;Windle et al 2010;Minguillon et al, 2009;Stacey, 2007;Lefoe et al, 2009;Catteau et al, 2008;Li, 2010;Krauss & Ally, 2005;Sanz-Rodríquez et al, 2010;Sampson & Zervas, 2013;Currier et al, 2004Zervas et al, 2014Liddy et al, 2002;Waaijers & van der Graaf, 2011;Venturi & Bessis, 2006;Zhang et al, 2004 User evaluation tools (e.g. LORI)…”

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“…In the same work, the use of a graphical tool to visualize the deficiencies in a repository level is also proposed. The issue of quality assurance is treated in (Barton, Currier & Hey, 2003;Guy, Powell & Day, 2004;Currier et al, 2004) and general principles and guidelines for the creation of metadata, in order to meet the functional requirements of the application in which they are used, are provided. In the context of quality assurance, (Hillman & Phipps, 2007) discusses the contribution of application profiles as a means for exposing and enforcing metadata quality.…”

Developing e-learning experiences and practices: the importance of context

“…Readers of ALT-J would also be able to trace the origins of learning design back to articles that discussed instructional systems such as REAL (Grabinger and Dunlap 1995). The growth of learning object research in the early part of this millennium went hand in hand with the development of repositories (see, for example, Currier et al 2004; Lukusiak et al 2005) and activity theory has already been used as a tool to conceptualize particular aspects of e-learning (see, for example, Waycott 2002).So, what do the articles in this issue offer us which adds something new to our understanding of e-learning and perhaps has the potential to significantly progress practice and experience? Collectively, I believe these articles contribute to the idea that we need to understand the contexts in which learners, teachers and institutions are trying to use e-learning.…”

“…Readers of ALT-J would also be able to trace the origins of learning design back to articles that discussed instructional systems such as REAL (Grabinger and Dunlap 1995). The growth of learning object research in the early part of this millennium went hand in hand with the development of repositories (see, for example, Currier et al 2004; Lukusiak et al 2005) and activity theory has already been used as a tool to conceptualize particular aspects of e-learning (see, for example, Waycott 2002).…”