Bibliosight project website and blog

The Bibliosight project website is now online at http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/repository/bibliosight/

There is also a blog at http://bibliosightnews.wordpress.com/

JISC have indicated that the blog should be the primary mechanism for reporting on our project – in lieu of a formal final project report – there’s not much there yet but I’ll rectify that as soon as I come back from holiday!

Open Educational Resources Programme start-up meeting: What I learned

I very much enjoyed the OER programme start-up meeting on Tuesday, in spite of the 05:30 alarm and having to hoof it across Manchester on account of ‘improvements’ to the Metrolink.  I recognised several colleagues from other JISC programmes and was socially disorientated once more by the 21st Century experience of finally  meeting f2f with real people with whom I’m already well acquainted in cyber-space – more so now than ever with fellow Twitterers.

Projects in the programme are divided into 3 discrete strands: subject; individual and institutional.   In the institutional strand, UniCycle will aim to build a prototype mechanism for the import and export of OERs using our intraLibrary repository and the new JorumOpen service.  Other projects in this strand are BERLiN, Open Exeter, OpenStaffs, Otter, Open Spires and Open Content Employability Project (link?).

The agenda for the day can be viewed at http://cloudworks.ac.uk/node/1725 along with aggregated tweets tagged #oerstartup ; Cloudworks is an environment that I haven’t encountered before but it looks very useful and I intend to explore it further – it was described to us as a way of making transient events more persistent and of bringing our fragmented online communications back together.

Like many on the day I was looking forward to the presentation from Jorum to learn exactly how that service is evolving to facilitate the OER programme.  I have a particular interest, of course, as we also use intraLibrary as our repository platform and Unicycle will aim to disseminate OERs via both our own and the national service.  The experience of Jorum and the problems they have had persuading folk to sign their institution up to their extensive licence agreement, become registered users and deposit their learning resources in intraLibrary – from where they can only be discovered and reused by other registered users – has been instructional for us and I am also aware, first hand, of the training required to use intraLibrary – an undeniably powerful system albeit where flexibility can perhaps translate to complexity for the user.  In short, I was keen to discover how they plan to tackle these issues with the introduction of their three licence model and by facilitating easy deposit and (where appropriate) open access to LOs.

Current Jorum model

In her presentation (available here), Nicola Siminson first gave an overview of Jorum and JorumOpen; how the current model (illustrated above), is developing and the technical and policy initiatives that will underpin this development.

The 3 new licensing regimes are key:

• JorumOpen – for content whose creators and owners are willing and able to share their materials for anyone to use via the web, under Creative Commons (CC) licences

• JorumEducationUK – for content sharing where creators and owners need to restrict the availability of resources to members of UK Further and Higher Education institutions, authenticated via the Access Management Federation (this is most similar to the current licence)

• JorumPlus – for sharing content with additional restrictions, for example where material licensed via JISC Collections or from third parties is involved; this will require institutional authorisation

Work on the platform is ongoing and we were promised that:

• access will be open to anyone

• materials will be more discoverable – e.g. Google – JorumOpen will be exposed to search engines

• users will be able to search the whole Jorum repository via the website – no logging on to download

These are all issues that we have also been exploring and I expect that Jorum will need to develop an interface based on SRU similar to that developed by IRISS and our own research interface.  It would be very useful too if we can compare notes on facilitating effective Google search/SEO.

Then came the demonstration of the OER deposit tool – http://deposit.jorum.ac.uk – which:

• allows the deposit of a simple item, or collection of items

• a link/URL to an open educational resource from a remote site

• authenticated access and a simple one-off registration

• UK Access Management Federation – single sign-on at home institution

• upload content, submit basic metadata and select a suitable Creative Commons licence

• with option to add more metadata, for greater discoverability…and will ultimately enable the sharing and finding of OER via JorumOpen!

It looks good.  Albeit in beta.  Jorum are keen for the community to test it over the coming months and submit any feedback from the website.

I asked whether the software/code will be made available so we may implement a similar tool as part of our repository infrastructure at Leeds Met; in addition, as Unicycle will use both our own repository and Jorum to disseminate OERs, I would also like to explore dual deposit from a web based interface so users may deposit into both repositories simultaneously.  As such I would also be interested in the workflow(s) and metadata templates that Jorum are using with the deposit tool. Will resources be published directly to the library, for example, or will they go into a user’s work area or into an administrative work area for metadata enrichment?

I was advised that the software will indeed be available to other projects though not in a neatly packaged format.

NB.  I had assumed that the deposit tool was based on SWORD which I know does facilitate deposit into multiple repositories – it appears, however, that it is actually based on MrCute which does not, in fact, use the SWORD protocol so this will need further exploration.

Finally delegates were urged to join the Jorum community – http://community.jorum.ac.uk/

Other useful presentations throughout the day included Project Management
Evaluation and Synthesis project, OU-supported communities and OER infokit

(links to all presentations in one place at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/oer/startupmeeting090609.aspx)

And then, on the way back to Euston, I popped in the British museum and admired bits of the Parthenon and some Sarcophagi (Sarcophaguses?)

Open Educational Resources Programme start-up meeting

Twitter hash-tag: #oerstartup

(See http://cloudworks.ac.uk/node/1725 for aggregation)

Final project report published

The final project report for our JISC start-up project, Implementing an Institutional Repository for Leeds Metropolitan University has now been published.  Available to download as PDF or Word format.

PDF version

Word version

Implementing an Institutional Repository for Leeds Metropolitan University was funded by the JISC Repositories and Preservation Programme – Repositories Start-up and Enhancement (Strand D).

We would like to thank the programme manager Andy McGregor for his support and guidance throughout the project.

During the project, input from several user groups and supporting staff was of great value and these include:

Academic staff at Leeds Metropolitan University

The TEL team at Leeds Metropolitan University

The Streamline project team

JISC Emerge community

The project team would also like to acknowledge the support and enthusiasm of our software provider, Intrallect as well as the Repositories Support Project and Web2Rights for their expert advice throughout the project.

Thanks also to Beth Hall who used our project as a case study for her MSc in information studies; some of her results are presented as a formal element of the project.

Box of Broadcasts Launched to Institutions Nationwide

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/Home/news/stories/2009/05/bob.aspx

A new era

In my last post I suggested that Repository News would be mothballed now that the final report has been submitted (still not published but soon!). However, our JISC funding was for a start-up project and we are still very much nurturing our neonate repository which, like a human infant, still has a lot of growing up to do.  I enjoy blogging and it seems rather artificial to start again so, like an infuriating parent sending a round-robin at Christmas, here is my first update of the new era.

All in all the little fella is doing very well though we were very disappointed to miss out on enhancement funding from uncle JISC – bid feedback was positive and stressed just how competitive the call had been. All is not lost, however, and we’ve just learned of institutional success in the recent JISC call for the Open Educational Resources programme; Unicycle will be underway very soon and will necessarily use our intraLibrary repository which should put us in a very good position with respect to JORUM – also based on intraLibrary of course – and I’ve already implemented the JORUM metadata template (with permission). The repository will also be an integral component of the PC3 project funded under the e-Learning Capital programme which is already underway.  In addition,  we intend to submit a bid for the rapid innovation call – the #jiscri projects are relatively small scale timetabled for just 6 months, but it would be very nice to get one; the deadline is Wednesday so it’s fingers crossed (again!).  Finally, there may also be a project in the pipeline with the NHS looking at deposit into multiple repositories using SWORD.

The difficulty is knowing where to start!  In terms of OA research the search interface still needs a lot of work to integrate advanced search; we also need to ensure that we are properly indexed by Google and I’m ashamed to say that I am yet to register with the Open Archives Initiative. Then there is the small matter of advocacy and full text content.  We also need to integrate with SFX, our URL resolver.

I want to look at using the repository for the CLA digitisation service emulating what Keele are doing with intraLibrary and a functioning PowerLink to the VLE would be nice, something like MrCute2 and more work around the conceptual PERSoNA outputs.

We have a meeting next week to discuss priorities and project management activities over the coming months which promises to be a headache inducing affair.

PC3 Project

On Monday I attended the launch of Leeds Met’s most recent JISC finded project headed by Janet Finlay; PC3 – Personalised Curricullum Creation through Coaching – and was very excited by the fact that The Repository will be an integral component:

In a nutshell the project focuses on new markets of part-time work-based learners and the idea that traditional curriculum design, with its focus on institutionally-defined content, will not necessarily meet the specific requirements of such learners, who need provision that can be rapidly adapted to their particular and changing requirements. Instead, learners need to be able to design their own curricula and access provision at the level and within the time frame they need.

As illustrated by the diagram above this will be facilitated, in part, by a “Learning Bank” which will provide remote access to resources and will build on our 3 ongoing repository projects.

For more information visit the PC3 project blog.

JISC Event

My first attempt at a live blog post from a beautiful setting on the banks of the river Severn in Worcester. Not sure if I’ll end up with anything more interesting than a few random records/thoughts and a bunch of links to follow…

I’m at a JISC event hosted by the University of Worcester: “Using Repositories for Teaching and Learning: Can we find a Recipe for Success?”

This is a crucial question for the LeedsMet Repository and now that the software for the repository has been selected (more on that VERY soon) our three discrete projects (LeedsMet Repository; Streamline and PERSoNA) are beginning to adopt a more integrated approach that should go some way to identifying some of the necessary ingredients.

We’ve had quick fire presentations from Julian Beckton from the University of Lincoln’s LIROLEM project and Steve Burholt from Oxford Brookes University’s CIRCLE project – which I have a particular interest in for reasons that should become apparent over the next week or so. Also from Sarah Hayes and Andrew Rothery from the projects of our hosts, the University of Worcester (DRAW and WRaP)

Helen Westmancoat from Yorks St John has just delivered 10 minutes on their DigiRep project which it is good to hear is experiencing a steady uptake – this in contrast to some of the other stories we’ve heard about the relatively low uptake of this type of repository.

Now Phil Barker from CETIS – Metadata and Repository Coordinator – is here to ask us:

1. What is the Model?

(What are repositories for?) Sharing/Dissemination; Gathering; Managing

(Architecture: how do they fit in with…) …other institutional systems?/…other similar repositories?/What is exchanged: metadata or object.

2. How do you know you’ve found a reliable resource?

(Quality assurance: peer review etc)

One of the main issues that has been flagged up throughout this morning as one of the crucial differences between an Open Access research archive and a repository of other Learning and Teaching objects and that needs to be borne in mind when developing a common platform (as we are) for both types of object is the lack of formal quality control of learning and teaching objects in comparison with the well established traditions associated with published research outputs (peer review etc); this was emphasised in the first presentation of the morning by Andrew Rothery (along with a raft of the other main differences as he sees them).

Currently listening to David Millard from the faroes project – not gonna try and take notes here as it’s really hard to concentrate (!) but some very interesting stuff that may be relevant to PERSoNA N.B. PuffinShare – a novel approach to a repository – rebranded as PuffinShare (pdf) – with the emphasis on using and sharing resources rather than just storing them in a “dusty old repository”: research repositories archive things/do teachers want to archive teaching materials (as such)?

pm (after lunch!): EdShare at the University of Southampton.

Summary: Andrew Rothery is asking what you would tell someone just starting to develop their learning and teaching repository! (That’s us!) We split into 3 groups to brainstorm before coming back together for a final discussion.

For the record our group came up with 6 bullet points:

• What is it for? Identify the needs of the people actually using the system – not those that have commissioned it!
• Look at successful implementations.
• Support existing workflows.
• Search engine optimisation (possible trade off; static/dynamic content?)
• Quality control of LOs? (Don’t obsess about the peer review model as applied to academic publications)
• Seed the repository with high quality material.

Random items from the other groups:

• Third party issues; policies/procedures.
• Audit of academic staff – what do they already do?
• IPR – clear procedures.
• Audience – know who they are.
• Access decisions (OA/federated)
• Start with a small, manageable collection
• Solve problems for the user community – use case scenarios
• Make sure it works – first time use
• Interface and integration; VLE/library catalogue/portal/intranets/open web