Current State of Health Current State of Health of European Educational Repositories of European Educational Repositories

- As Diagnosed by the EdReNe Thematic Network- As Diagnosed by the EdReNe Thematic Network

Leo Højsholt-Poulsen, UNILeo Højsholt-Poulsen, UNI••C, DenmarkC, Denmark

2

Repositories of learning resources

External bases with collections and materials

Producers: Register, update, upload, search, read statistics on usage

Teachers, librarians, students etc.: Search, browse, download, upload, feed-back

Repository

• Repositories are key disseminators of information of available learning resources • In repositories users search or browse for relevant resources

(text books, websites, digital learning resources etc.) among the vast supply on the market

3

Many many types of educational repositories

• Catalogues of descriptions (metadata, links)• Catalogues and Containers of content (metadata & data)• Network of repositories

• Digital resources - All types of resources

• Free content – Commercial content

• For everybody – Membership based (login)

• Validated/screened (quality assurance, rights management)

• Some facilitate feedback

• Target: schools, further/higher ed., homes

4

How are they doing ?– the many European repositories

The team of medical doctors in the EdReNe network

5

The EdReNe thematic networkFounding members

• UNI•C (Denmark)

• EUN – European Schoolnet (Europe)

• EENET - European Expert's Network for Education and Technology (Europe)

• Menon Network (Europe)

• EDEN - European Distance and E-Learning Network (Europe)

• FWU - Institut für Film und Bild in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (Germany)

• EAPC - Public Administration School of Catalunya (Spain)

• TLF - Tiger Leap Foundation (Estonia)

• UNI-LJ-FMF, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Uni. of Ljubljana (Slovenia)

• ITC - Centre of IT in Education (Lithuania)

• MSU - The Swedish National Agency for School Improvement (Sweden)

• ENIS Austria (Austria)

• NCTE –National Centre for Technology in Education (Ireland)

• Kennisnet – Sticting Kennisnet Ict op School (The Netherlands)

• Becta - British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (UK)

• CNDP - Centre National de Documentation Pédagogique (France)

• Giunti Interactive Labs (Italy)

• BFU- Brancheforeningen for undervisningsmidler (Denmark)

• bit media eLearning solutions (Austria)

• AIE - Associazione Italiana Editori (Italy)

• EduLearn (Portugal)

• sDae - Sociedad Digital De Autores Y Esitores (Spain)

• IML - Umeå University Department of Interactive Media and Learning (Sweden)

Associated members

• Utdanning.no (Norway)

• Utdanningsdirektoratet (Norway)

• VETAMIX (Finland)

• Lektion.se (Sweden)

• Intrallect Ltd  (UK)  

• SLO - Netherland’s Institute for Curriculum Development  (The Netherlands) 

• CTIE - Centre suisse des technologies de l'information dans l'enseignement (Switzerland)

• APS IT-diensten (The Netherlands)

• TLU-CET - Talinn University (Estonia)

• CTE - Centre de technologie de l'éducation (Luxembourg)

• Ontwikkelcentrum (The Netherlands)

• LTScotland, Learning and Teaching Scotland (UK)

• Encyclopaedia Britannica Education (UK)

• DGIDC –Ministry of Education (Portugal)

6

7

State of Health Indicators

– A healthy repository is a platform thatmany use to find learning resources of high quality.

– Use should be regular and frequent.– Quality not quantity – Expected Usage pattern

– Not difficult to find ‘ill patients’, – instead the EdReNe teams concentrated on

identifying examples of healthy patients, trying to find out reasons for their success and proscribing possible cures to lesser fortunate cases

8

Danish national repositories cardiogram

9

• Since February 1994 online• Repository started with a database in 1996• Subject oriented repositories since 1996/1997

First subject: Chemistry• Most successful educational portal in Austria• www.schule.at adapted to this concept in 2000• Today still the most successful portals in Austria

– About 80.000 entries in the repository– 36 subject repositories– Over 800 thematic collections

www.eduhi.at / www.schule.at

10

11

EduHi.at – Page views per month

0

1.000.000

2.000.000

3.000.000

4.000.000

5.000.000

6.000.000

7.000.000

8.000.000

9.000.000

10.000.000

2005 2006 2007 2008

12

Eduhi.at – Why are we successful?

•“As our editors are teachers they know what their colleagues need and try to provide this content and links on the subject oriented platforms. The teachers like that they can access relevant content and helpful links.”

•“Students like that they find relevant content for presentations and reports, because the work of filtering the content has already been done by teachers.”

13

14

15

EDUREP value chain and communitiesModel for Succes - 3 tier solution. Specialisation is the key

16

Common remarks for the future

•Bottom–up approach seems to respond to teacher/students needs

•Content created/filtered/selected by dedicated teams ensure acceptable level of quality

•Personalization •Curriculum related•Federated search makes smaller (but quality valuable)

repositories visible•Each repository chooses its business model

17

Cures I – marketing, emphasis

The teachers do not know about the repository• Need to market to schools

– Posters, promotional material.

• We must make clear the added value of the repository. – Why are we better than Google. Age, curriculum related content, special types of content

(test, course, drill and practice etc).

• In-service courses and pre service training need to highlight to the repository

• Emphasis• Repositories must address all critical issues at once• E.g. critical mass of

– Content (& quality metadata and search results)– Users - community building.

– Shift from providing content and technology to providing services and community. – Combine the advantages of bottom-up with the top-down.

18

Cures II – functionality, reliability

• The functionality of the site needs to be directed at the needs of the teachers.

• The ease of use of the site is important. – The "subject tree" sometimes craves too many clicks (five-six clicks) to reach

the link to the content– Single interface + acces codes– Search engine may need to be improved

• A repository must be maintained and regularly updated

• Reliability - It must be there, also after one year

19

Cures ? – sharing resources

• Attitudes and tradition vary– In Sweden there is a very busy teacher-driven site (lektion.se) which allows sharing of resources– In France and Ireland sharing of content by teachers online is not common

• Many sites do not allow users to upload or share– Community is required

• Non-aligned government policies: To provide the content to teachers is a policy. But the curriculum does not always mandate or refer to teachers using the content.

• What is the need to teachers to collaborate and share?– Repositories are not the cure to all the existing woes

• A repository is just part of a group of services (sometimes) being provided by the community

20

EdReNe: SoA - Educational repositories in Europe

EdReNe:• Current status of European educational repositories

and comprehensive report• State of the Art of Educational Repositories in Europe• See http://edrene.org/results/currentState/index.html

• Should you consider learning more about or joining EdReNe:

• Consult www.edrene.org• Contact Tommy.Byskov.Lund@uni-c.dk or

Leo.Hojsholt-Poulsen@uni-c.dk

The network is co-funded by the European Union, through the eContentplus programme

Disclaimer The content of this presentation is the sole responsibility of the thematic network members. It does not represent the opinion of the European Community and the Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of information contained herein.