Anoush Margaryan and Allison Littlejohn

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Cultural Dimensionsof Learning Object
Repositories

• Anoush Margaryan and Allison Littlejohn
• Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University
  
• http//www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/anoush/

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Learning Object Repositories (LORs)

• Learning object (LO) granular digital bit size
  resource developed to meet a single learning
  objective
• From images, audio files and power point slides
  to lesson plans, learning activities and whole
  courses
• Learning Object Repositories (LORs) digital
  store boxes to facilitate sharing and reuse of
  LOs

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Educational vision underlying LORs

• Learning Object Economy
• Creating and sharing resources locally and
  globally
• Collaborating with peers across boundaries
• Communities coalescing around LORs
• Transformation of learning practices
• Enhancement of learning experience

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Barriers
Socio-cultural Pedagogic Organisational
info management Technological

• Norms of sharing collaboration
• Size and scope of community
• Roles and hierarchies

• Diversity in approaches to learning
• Discipline-specific resources
• Curriculum standardisation
• ICT skills and information literacy

• Incentives and rewards
• IPR, DRM, metadata
• Quality assurance of resources

• User friendly interface
• Effective search, storage, preview
• Interoperability standards

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CDLOR project http//www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor
/

• Funded by the JISC (June 2005-2007)
• Lead by the Glasgow Caledonian University (Prof.
  Allison Littlejohn, Dr. Anoush Margaryan)
• Collaborators
• - University of Strathclyde (Dr. David Nicol,
  Dr. Colin Milligan)
• - Intrallect Ltd. (Dr. Peter Douglas)
• - 8 Associate partners
• - 18 national international collaborative
  partners

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Culture Software of the Mind

• A set of shared motives, values, beliefs,
  identities, and interpretations of meanings of
  significant events that result from common
  experiences of members of collectives and are
  transmitted across age generations
• House et al. 1999

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Categories of culture

• Organisational
• Hofstede (1991) Littlejohn et al (2003)
• Professional/epistemic
• House et al (1999)
• Disciplinary
• Masterman Lee (2005) Russell (2005)
• National
• Jin et al (1998) Watson et al. (1994)

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Dimensions of
Communities Purpose Dialogue Roles Coherence Cont
ext Rules Pedagogy
Repositories Purpose Subject area Scope Sector Co
ntributors Business model
Margaryan et. al (2006). Learning communities and
repositories. JISC-CDLOR Deliverable 1.
http//academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/learningcommuniti
esreport.pdf
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Methodology

• Data collection
• - Initial scoping questionnaire (October 2005)
• - Interviews (February-March 2006 and 2007)
• Respondents
• Curators of LORs
• Users, incl. teachers, students, and support
  staff

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Jorum www.jorum.ac.uk
Purpose Collecting all types of
resources Discipline All disciplines Scope UK
National Sector Higher and Vocational Education
Contributors Designated staff in institutions
JISC-funded projects Business model Critical
financial incentives requires separate
organisation to manage LOR (JISC)
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Jorum Community dimensions
Purpose Diverse - 4 types of communities (users,
contributors, JISC projects, intermediatories)
Dialogue Programme meetings and email Roles
Contributors collect and submit resources
curators provide training and technical
support Coherence Loosely knit Context
Government-funded so benefit needs to
demonstrated Rules Curricular differences
across sectors and disciplines. One usage
agreement and one deposit agreement. Pedagogy
Focus on content pedagogically-neutral
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Issues for Jorum

• Critical mass of high quality materials relevant
  to users needs purpose
• Culture clash across HE and FE institutions
  scope
• Scaling up user training and support scope
• Varied users IT skills across disciplines
  discipline

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Spoken Word http//www.spokenword.ac.uk/
Purpose To enhance education through use of
digitised spoken word audio Discipline All
disciplines Scope International Sector Higher
Education Contributors BBC, curators, subject
matter experts Business model Resources
provided by BBC free of charge
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Spoken Word Community dimensions
Purpose To share audio resources Dialogue
Local face2face, rudimentary community
coalescing Roles BBC provides audio Curators
add transcripts, URLs teachers annotate and
deliver to students Coherence Loosely knit
Context BBC, Institutions Rules IPR,
learning objectives Pedagogy Pedagogically-neut
ral
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Issues for Spoken Word

• Mismatches in preference for audio-based
  resources across disciplines purpose
  discipline
• Level of users IT skills varies across
  disciplines discipline
• Scaling up user training and support scope
• Tension between status of research vs teaching
  organisational
• Institutions view of legitimate work
  organisational

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DIDET http//www.didet.ac.uk/
Purpose Support engineering students group
design projects Student- and teacher-generated
resources Discipline Product design Scope UK
Sector Higher Education Contributors
Students, teachers, information
specialists Business model Not applicable, but
user commitment necessary
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DIDET Community dimensions
Purpose Learning to design products through
applied projects Dialogue Face2face, and via
blogs, wikis, chat and discussion tools within
VLE Roles Coaches students- teachers info
specialists Coherence Tightly knit Context
Links to industry Rules Learning objective and
assessment Pedagogy Collaborative,
project-based learning
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Issues for DIDET

• Mismatch between the tools and users current
  practice/needs
• Users lack of skills in information management
• Prevalent acquisition-based approaches vs.
  contribution-based principles underlying DIDET

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Key factors

• Discipline single subject repositories are
  potentially more likely to be adopted by users
• Scope the narrower the scope the closer the
  alignment with users needs
• Contributor motivation and use will differ
  according to roles

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How to realise the potential of LORs?

• Better alignment between repositories and
  communities
• Curators to develop a keen awareness of users
  needs and contexts
• Development of LORs by multi-disciplinary teams
• Curators to be aware of potential mismatches in
  perspectives of different actors operating at
  different levels

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Supporting implementation of LORs

• Structured Guidelines for Setting up Learning
  Object Repositories
• http//academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/documents/CD-LOR_
  Structured_Guidelines_v1p0.pdf
• Recommendations for future research and
  development in the area of Learning Object
  Repositories
• http//academy.gcal.ac.uk/cd-lor/documents/CDLOR_F
  inal_Recommendations_v1p0.pdf