Streamline News

Project overview

Dawn — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:11:17 +0000

Its always good to reflect they say. So as part of the checking process to make sure everything is in place I decided to go back over the blog and map what we did, when we did it and to which of the three streams it impacted on. It is quite clear from this that the primary focus has been on metadata why, how, who does this? This has been closely linked to the setting up of the repository and the discussions around learning objects in general. The following image maps to some extent the process we have undertaken and dates the main events to which blog posts are available. The information in dashed boxes are main events that, currently have no formal report or blog post attached. Some of these are still sat on the lap top and will be updated in due course.

Overview of Streamline Project

Evaluation… Part 3

Dawn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:54:24 +0000

The final part of the user evaluation (part 3) analyses the responses given on the questionnaire concerning their use of LOs and their response to the metadata generator. Enjoy J

Evaluation Study … part 1

Dawn — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:39:03 +0000

Over the last few days I have been testing the metadata generator with some willing participants (3 in total). There were four parts to this study. The first task set comprised of a series of find and complete tasks aimed at testing the intuitiveness of the interface and terminology. Participants at this stage weren’t privy to help files or detailed information about the applications processes. The following report presents the finding of this part of the study and makes recommendations regarding the interface and terminology used only. The next three parts, auto generation process, uploading to intraLibrary and the questionnaire result, will be forth coming over the next few days. In view of this study I have revisited some of the questionnaires we undertook early on, based on the paper prototyping. We had very few respondents, so statistical analysis was not warranted, however some of the comments made were taken on board at the time. I will be including a brief discussion of these and the relevant aspects and compare, if possible, to the more recent questionnaire results.

It’s amazing what you find ..

Dawn — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:57:26 +0000

… as deadlines loom. Have no idea why I haven’t previously bloged these, possibly intended to use in some report some where. Regardless, early on I went on a hunt to see what independent tools already existed out there regarding metadata. During this I came across a couple of interesting reports from CETIS:

Tools:

This last I just found while looking for the URL for LomPAD, have added as it looks interesting, but dont have time to investigate

The Sharing Vision

Dawn — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:27:04 +0000

Prompted by the visit to Belfast we decided it would be a good idea to formally examine our (Leeds met) sharing philosophy regarding LOs. As this hasn’t been previously represented I also thought it might be a good idea to model pre and post sharing with regard to the repository. Again I have fallen back on adapting UML case studies to visualise these processes. Generally these are read from top to bottom connections show potential decision points, where either, both or none of the following process may be undertaken. Actors represent roles or systems playing a role within a process.

To facilitate this development I cornered our repository officer Nick Sheppard and did a short interview. I doubt there will be time to do a full transcription of this but it did give me some insight into past and future aspirations for the repository and the workflows surrounding it. I’m uploading three of the four intended workflows now, in case time runs away, with evaluations are my top of my agenda at the moment.

Pre-repository shows some learning content being packaged as a learning object using such applications as Course Genie and eCat. Similar to Belfast theses were often used within the VLE. The predominant process was the creation of content and storage on personal or shared drives. Conversations between colleagues were the main driving force for sharing; this resulted in direct hard drive access for the resource, link sharing or a hard copy being reciprocated, depending on the nature of the content and storage facilitated by the tutor.

The current state of affairs, extracted from the conversation with Nick, again has some strong links with Belfast. As we are still discussing the various issues regarding general public release of Leeds Met learning objects, all current upload and potentially any search and download, request go through the repository officer. The repository is as yet not ready for general institution-wide access, with only small pockets currently populating it under Nick’s guidance. One of the most difficult tasks regarding this filtration through one team is the back and forth communication required to gain complete metadata particularly. This is particularly prevalent when checking the copyright of repurposed learning objects.

The vision is to enable individuals to upload and download from the repository as part of their natural content development process. To enable this, the repository needs to be accessed from what ever personal work point an individual chooses to use. This is my simplistic version of this vision with and emphases on as few and seamless connections to as many interfaces as possible. I’m sure others including Nick will add to and comment on this to give it a more robust appearance.

The final and missing diagram, I’m currently extracting form Nicks interview, tries to capture the perceived next step…..

Reporting on Belfast Metropolitan College Visit

Dawn — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:14:01 +0000

Although I originally planed to do a day by day account of our visit to Belfast Met I decided that this would not give a coherent and clear view of the workflows that they have developed. Also Nick has already voiced the more personal aspects of the visit, so I won’t be repeating them here. The following report discusses the creation, use and sharing of learning objects. Overall there is a strong culture of learning object use which has been supported by a dedicated team both technically and artisticly. As Nick has pointed out in his post, there is little metadata creation. The primary reason for this is that currently there is no real need for it at Belfast Met. Learning objects are repurposed form subscription repositories or the internet and placed within the VLE for immediate use. Bespoke creations are listed for general perusal but no formal repository has yet been required. This is very different form the culture that is developing at Leeds met and is most likely given to the different natures of teaching at FE and HE. However it has proved an insightful counterpoint to the problems we have faced and the solutions we have been developing.

Next Generation Technologies in Practice 09

Janet Finlay — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:46:09 +0000

John, Stuart, Jill, Tony and I have just spent two days in Loughborough at the Next Generation Technologies in Practice JISC conference which has been very stimulating. This morning John and I led a session entitled Social Technologies for Sharing Practice, with Wendy representing Persona and Jim Hensman Planet, where we looked at the ways in which the projects had made use of social technologies to support sharing. The session went well and we have had some great feedback. Slides for the presentation are available here:

more about “Social Technology for Sharing Practic…“, posted with vodpod

Even more use cases …

Dawn — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:17:19 +0000

Back in April last year I did a second round of use cases on LO and repository workflows from project members. One set was left till later as it wasn’t quite complete. Still not complete, there is a set of seven use cases of which I managed to get an overview and two specific scenarios finished. As time is running out am putting these up now and I’ll see if get round to the rest later. What’s interesting about these compared to the others previously presented, they give a broader view of the interaction process with a repository, rather than the detailed view of LO production. The first shows the choice of actions available to the user via a web interface to a repository. The following two, overview and detail, show different views of the process of searching for a learning object. I am revisiting these in view of the trip to Belfast next week as they will provide a good comparison with the workflows used by their tutors and developers.

All set for Belfast

Dawn — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:41:19 +0000

Had my first video conference today, which went rather well considering how I feel about cameras of any sort. Regardless, the conference was with Pat and Paul from Belfast Met who we (Nick and I) will be visiting very soon. They have a greater experience of using learning objects then we do here in Leeds. This is probably, as expressed by Paul, due to the difference in structure between a HE and an FE and the impact this puts on staff time. There is it seams a greater impetus in FE to get into anything that is going to increase productivity and free up valuable time. Something that for them LOs have clearly achieved. They have a strong repurposing culture and it will be interesting to see how they deal with versioning and re-assigning metadata on the extended LOs. They are very interested to exchange experiences on the software that is being used by both institutions. This will be good for comparison with the prototype, both from a usability and workflow perspective. They suggested we talk to various people who are heading initiatives around the institution, so that we can get an idea of how they have approached the same problems we are currently facing. All in all a very positive experience and I’m looking forward to meeting them in person and having an interesting week.

Updating the overall architecture

Dawn — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:09:45 +0000

Last time Mark and I got together to apprise our current progress on the search extender for use with IntraLibrary, we also reviewed the general architecture of the systems surrounding the repository. As with most things this creative and dynamic this was done with pen and paper over a copy of our previous design and it is only recently that I have had the time to formalise it. An image of this is here. There has been a few refinements since then and the following diagram I think gives a good overview of what we have at the moment and what **things** are involved.

There are still a few issues. On the upload side we would have loved to have had a go at adapting SWORD to take a metadata file as well as the LO. SWORD’s purpose is to ease upload of multiple objects to multiple repositories as Nick explains here. But what does the user do then if they are not uploading packed objects? Where does the metadata come from? This is particularly relevant in the use of intraLibrary.

The other question is one that has been floating around for some time. How do we authentic the actual download of the Learning Object. Unlike Research papers (shown here as a comparison, as the repository is duel purpose) there are issues and concerns about making learning objects accessible external to the institution. As a result of this the search interface is currently two interfaces rather than the one. One suggestion is that as long as the metadata is exposed individuals could enquire as to getting a copy of the LO via the authors/institution.

Current Streamline Architecture