SWITCHcollection The Swiss e-Learning Content Exchange Platform TNC

SWITCHcollection The Swiss e-Learning Content Exchange Platform TNC 2009, Málaga Rolf Brugger

SWITCHcollection: Learning Object Repository community repository to share various kinds of digital learning content of swiss universities © 2009 SWITCH

Goals and Motivation • Re-use e-learning content • Open access to e-learning contents • Enhance collaboration (intra- and inter-institutional) • Make teaching activities visible to peers and to the public • Make teaching activities citable and referenceable • Increase quality of education • Attract students (Marketing) • Long-term archiving and distribution of content with stable URL (content lifecyle) • Single point of entry for all kinds of e-learning contents independently from distribution platform © 2009 SWITCH

General decisions • restrictions, requirements – currently only learning objects – currently only Switzerland covered – currently limited to higher education • no restrictions or constraints – granularity: course, module, lesson, image, video clip, pdf-doc, . . . – license: creative commons, commercial, . . . – access rights: public (free), restricted (group, private) – no formal quality criteria or reviewing (content managed by teachers) • national system entirely based on open source software – Fedora, Lucene – OAI-PMH: PKP Open Archives Harvester, Harrow (developed by SWITCH) http: //harrow. sourceforge. net © 2009 SWITCH

Architecture: Federation EPFL Arch / Civil Eng. Chem / Math / Phys Engineering Inform. / Communic. Life Science Humanities Tech. Management © 2009 SWITCH Uni. ZH Math-Nat Philosoph. Vet'medizin Medizin Wirtschaftsw. Rechtswiss. Theologie FHO Tech / IT / Bau St. Gallen Gesundheitsw. Rappersw. Planung / Wirtsch. Buchs Soziale Arbeit Chur

Federation, Search Index, APIs Embedded Search and Download Community Search and Download . . . REST Federation Search Index Harvester OAI-PMH REST . . . Upload Form Applications Institutional Repository © 2009 SWITCH Institutional Repository Community Repository

Folder Concept UZH Rechtswiss. Medizin Philosoph. Gender Studies Grundlagen Themen Uni. BE © 2009 SWITCH

Metadata Model - Subset of Dublin Core • Mandatory • Optional – title – author – usage license (cc, +) – access and edit rights – discipline (contr. vocabulary) • Automatic – unique id – creation date – modification history –. . . © 2009 SWITCH – contributor(s) – publisher – rights holder – table of contents – abstract – keywords – description – language – publication date – education level – instructional method – bibliographic citation – extent (duration) – source id http: //www. switch. ch/els/collection/spec/

Folders: Multiple Associations UZH Rechtswiss. Medizin Philosoph. Gender Studies Uni. BE © 2009 SWITCH

Embedding Search Functions in Web Sites www. yoursite. org Search © 2009 SWITCH www. yoursite. org Search in Subset www. yourapp. org Browse

Customizable Interface • Simple / advanced • Adapted to content type • Adapted to corporate identity • To enforce workflows • Web-Services interface for custom front ends Uni B: CMS Uni A LMS adapter Videoportal Image Library Web Services API Repository Engine © 2009 SWITCH

First Experiences and Challenges • What works – sharing in well defined workgroups – contributions related to projects – automated ingest from attached applications / repositories • Open question – contributions from individuals? • Courses contain copyrighted material • Learning contents - personal property of teachers • Missing business models • Missing incentives: additional work without compensation • no culture established as with – Open Source Software – You. Tube, Wikipedia, . . . – Research © 2009 SWITCH

Comparison: Research and Education Research Education Funding Employer / School Publication as much as possible, support from editions usually not Quality assurance Peer-Review internal evaluation Re-usage necessary, citation rules, contents can be changed, merged, copied Text books, reluctantly or "secretly" with Google Controlling Number of publications, Citation Index, Impact Factor internal evaluation, (Studi. VZ, my. Prof) Guiding principle Research results have to circulate ? © 2009 SWITCH

Danke rolf. brugger@switch. ch http: //collection. switch. ch http: //switch. ch/els