1. Cherchez the ‘Learning Object’ Workshop November 2007 David Millard, Gary Wills, (Yvonne Howard) Learning Societies Lab University of Southampton Julie Watson, Ann Jeffery, Kate Borthwick, (Kate Dickens) eLanguages University of Southampton

2. Welcome!

3. Objectives For us to show you what the Claret and Murllo projects have produced For you to have a chance to try the tools and give us your feedback To discuss the future of these tools – we are preparing to deploy a useable public version and we want to find out the best shape for it!

4. Structure of the Day 9:30 Arrive (coffees) 10:00 -10:30 Introduction 10:30 – 12:30 CLAReT tools (refreshments available from 11:00) 12:30 - 13:30 Lunch (is in building 32) 13:30 - 14:00 Introduction to afternoon session 14:00 – 15:00 MURLLO tools 15:00 – 15:15 Faroes briefing 15:15 – 4pm Feedback and Discussion 4pm End

5. CLAReT and MURLLO CLARET CLARE Tools JISC Funded Develop Usability Tools for the CLARE Repository MURLLO Management, Use and Re-purposing of Language Learning Objects EduServ Funded Develop Tools to help facilitate the creation and sharing of Learning objects

6. CLARE Version of ePrints (the Open Access Repository) Developed by the L2O (Sharing Language Learning Objects) project MURLLO (Management, Use and Re-purposing of Language Learning Objects) is a project looking at how we can encourage the reuse of Learning Objects (LOs) (IPR, Online Editing, etc)

7. The Problem General practitioner' teachers and lecturers [who] are increasingly clear about their need for meaningful contextual information about the resource to enable them to assess it and reuse it. A particularly popular request is for some kind of review process that allows users of the resource to record their usage and evaluation of it for others to examine (Rehak & Mason, 2003, Casey 2004). These requirements make clear the need for new conceptions of learning object meta- data, and new ways of using repositories—not just for search and retrieval, but as a living, growing body of shared practice. (Casey, Brosnan & Geller, 2005) How do you know what LOs to reuse? –How can you find them? –How can you trust them? –How can you provide feedback? –How do we create a living, growing body of shared practice?

8. CLAReT Aims To create tools foster community involvement and to enable that living body of shared practice In practical terms: –Developing tools to improve CLARE’s usability To make LO discovery easier? To help people share LOs? To expose LO history to help people judge quality? –Looking at Social Computing (Web 2.0) features Harnessing the wisdom of crowds (ala Wikipedia) Taking the best practise of repository interface design

9. MURLLO Tools Developed three tools –Learning Object Editing Tool –Learning Object Metadata Editing Tool –Learning Object Shopping Trolley Wiki-based Editors Interaction with multiple repositories

10. Claret Tools A Concept Map Browser –To help people find things that they may not be able to articulate Enhanced Search –Promiscuous search! No blank walls –Return as much as possible, but ordered Comments and Ratings –Gives LOs some provenance –Further info on what contexts they have been used in Everything is interlinked –Highly connected metadata –(e.g. click on a keyword to get all the items marked with that keyword) Enhanced Front Page –Open and inviting rather than an imposing search box –Suggested LOs (high rated, most recently added, etc).

11. Aim: to explore the new features in the repository Role play in scenarios –Why are we doing it this way? –We have chosen typical user roles as personas –Each persona has a scenario that is typical of their activities We will ask each of you to choose a persona that you can relate to –Work in pairs (so two personas between you) –Work through the scenario using Clare Hands on Activity: Using Clare

12. Scenarios Chrissie (teacher) Louise (independent learner) Lyn (course designer) Roland (teacher on sabbatical) Ruth (teaching assistant) Tom (secondary school teacher)

13. Have fun! Take a look around and choose a persona, and another person to work with We have given out a questionnaire, feel free to fill it in as you go or wait until the end Start when you’re ready… http://clare3.eprints.org

14. http://dash.ecs.soton.ac.uk/murllo/