Learning Object Repositories

It is important to understand what uses LORs are being put to, how they are being developed, and what standards -- if any -- they are working to.

Here is a discussion taking place in the lead up to Online Educa in Berlin next month:

http://www.icwe.net/oeb_special/news108.php

I would welcome views on this, plus alternative discussions and views.  I happen to agree with their statement about 'technology push', though I also believe there is an unnecessary 'standards push' too at times.  I think that YouTube is a great example of an Object Store -- and many of these can be classed as Learning Objects -- that is reasonably formal (it requires metadata tags) and very useable (you cut and paste the snippet of HTML to embed the objects in a web page).

The most interesting quote from here is: 'start with a community and then build the repository for them'.  Exactly what we need to think about.

Of course there is a need to capture higher level objects, such as the XML resources for a work book or the text of a course.  So the YouTube model needs to be augmented to capture these objects.  The useability, however, has to somehow be preserved.

Ken