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WIKI Tidy Up Week October 29, 2009

Posted by vickimcgarvey in : Comms , add a comment

Spent quite a bit of this week trying to get my WIKI house in order. Being a project manager you get actions flying at you from various meetings and conversations. I have actions registers for catch-ups and various working groups and I have found I need to consolidate these in some way, so I have put together a to do page in the Wiki, I was using Outlook tasks for this but I thought it was more appropriate to do this in the Wiki.

I am also going to sending an e-mail to my core Development and Working Group on the weeks that we don’t meet reminding them of actions that need to be completed.

I have also had an interesting time managing permissions within the Wiki locking myself and everybody else out of pages twice. Thank goodness for the presence and help of Sarah and Marek our Wiki admins in our communications workpackage for sorting me out.

This week we have also been discussing role of the Academic LOR Coordinator and Angela Trikic is going out into the Schools discuss this with admin staff. We have also been looking at the terms of use of our institutional repository and the impact of publishing objects from the LOR to it and harvesting.

Update: Interoperability With JORUM October 27, 2009

Posted by YvonneMonterroso in : Comms , add a comment

I have been having some really good communication back and forth with Peter and Gareth at JORUM. We had initially run into an issue being able to access JORUM via harvesting. As it happens, JORUM had turned off the harvesting service on their side for an interim period. They have now turned the service back on allowing us to pass the first hurdle. Further tests uncovered the next issue which was a problem in the JORUM identify request. We’re currently working on a technical work around for this issue.

We have also engaged to understand more about how JORUM uses Shibboleth to authenticate users. Gareth indicated that JORUM does not have its own IdP and the Shibboleth implementation would use the NTU institutional IdP to authenticate users. Bill Lee, technical product manager for the Integration and Middleware team has been engaged in these conversations and using this information to ensure that our product can successfully integrate with the NTU authentication model. Bill has indicated that using the NTU IdP to authenticate is a solution that will be easier to use as the need to synchronize between a JORUM and NTU IdP would have caused added complexity to the model.

Gareth also indicated, as several people working on the project are already aware, that JORUM is launching an open service in January that does not require authentication. I think it will make sense to set up the integration with the open service when it is launched in January.

Lastly, an update on publishing objects from NTU to JORUM. Currently there is only one method of publishing to JORUM and that is using their OER deposit tool. The OER deposit tool is a user interface for depositing information and we are currently limited to using this to manually deposit materials. This process will be external to the Desire2Learn tools. In the future, as JORUM adds other options, it may be possible integrate the LOR and JORUM seamlessly through a web service call.

Terminology October 23, 2009

Posted by AngelaTrikic in : Comms , 1 comment so far

The comments about terminology highlighted in the report of the development and implementation meeting below raise issues about how we communicate as well as what words we choose.

This has prompted me to consider how to translate the excellent functional specification document produced by the Requirements Analysis Workpackage into guidance about how to publish to the LOR. This guidance will be targeted at academics.

I’m wondering whether to use the term educational resource(s) in preference to learning object(s) as staff will relate and understand this term. The project team has used the term Learning Objects because this is the term used traditionally in the parlance of object oriented  system development. It’s also the case that the repository located in the VLE is described as a Learning Object Repository and this is terminology used in the existing documentation.

Another factor to consider is that we are operating within the JISC Information Environment programme and here the language is about Educational Resources or Open Educational Resources (OER), which is the direction we’re heading. There has been a not so subtle dropping of the term, objects, in this stream of work and those of you who remember the debates on defining LOs in the 80’s won’t be sorry to see its demise. Presumably we’re learning to use the language of our user communities.

So what do you reckon – I think we should start talking about educational resources don’t you?

Next challenge – what shall we call our repository?

First Development and Implementation Wider Project Meeting October 22, 2009

Posted by vickimcgarvey in : Comms , add a comment

We had our first Development and Implementation wider meeting this morning. It was well attended and we had representatives from nearly every School, reps from professional serivces and our Centre for Effecitve Learning in Science http://www.ntu.ac.uk/cels/.

At the meeting I asked colleagues to share their interests with regards content sharing. Sarah Horrigan our Communications Workpackage Lead provided an overview of our Blog and WIKI and Trevor Pull who is part of the project team and the Development and Implementation Workpackage provided an overview of the LOR system and roles and permissions.

It was a lively meeting and those attending had lots of questions about the issues associated with sharing content in the University, mainly organisational e.g.  who has access to learning objects in the School LOR? Can colleagues provide comments on learning objects – and enhance the metadata in relation to observations of use? Who will be the School LOR coordinator? These questions/observations will go in the WIKI next week. We also had a comment about the terminology and the language we are using which I think is a hint that we need to reflect on our language and facilitate staff engagement with the dialogue of the open educational community. One colleauge did comment that the word Open needs unpacking as individuals will have different definitions of this.

I want these meetings to be informal, providing colleaugues with an opportunity to openly comment on the LOR and associated implementation issues and I think this was happening. I have now offered the opportunity for those that attended to contact me if they would like more detail or guidance on any of the issues that were raised today.

Interview with Vicki McGarvey, Project Manager October 14, 2009

Posted by sarahhorrigan in : Comms, Podcast , add a comment

Early on in the SHARE Project I spoke to Vicki McGarvey (Project Manager / Development and Implementation Work Package lead) to get a sense of what she hoped would come from the project as well as trying to see the role of the  group and understand her work package’s aims / outputs.  In this Podcast, Vicki discusses the close working relationship the group has with other work packages and some of the challenges which they face at the start of the 2 year long SHARE project.  She also discusses the benefits of the Learning Object Repository as well as considering  cultural change and staff engagement, giving a really interesting insight into the function and aims of the largest of the SHARE work packages!

We’ll be talking to Vicki later on in the project to see how things have since developed and look forward to tracking the progress of the Development and Implementation group via these Podcasts.

To skip around within the audio track, click on the grey/ white progress bar between the pause and volume button.

 

Download the mp3 file of this Podcast

Date recorded: July 29th 2009
Podcast length: 9 minutes, 26 seconds

A transcript of this Podcast is also available in Microsoft Word format:

Vicki McGarvey interview transcript, 29 July 2009

SHARE… now on iTunes October 14, 2009

Posted by sarahhorrigan in : Comms, Podcast , add a comment
Podcast Wallpaper, OllyHart, Flickr,

Podcast Wallpaper, OllyHart, Flickr,

Since putting our first podcast onto the site last week, we have also taken the step of submitting our Podcast feed to iTunes. We were notified last week that our Podcasts have been accepted and as we add to our site, you will be able to search iTunes for NTUSHARE and you’ll find us! If you want to go direct to our Podcasts on iTunes, then you can do that as well.

What’s the benefit of getting our Podcasts on iTunes?  Well, without any additional work on our part, we now have a wider means for disseminate our project Podcasts.  They’re searchable, they’re easily available for download, they can be subscribed to for free via the iTunes store and they become a rich, mobile resource for us all.

Should you want to bypass iTunes and subscribe to our Podcasts using another RSS aggregator such as Google Reader… then feel free to use http://www.ntushare.org/feed/podcast/ . Should you want to know more about feeds, subscribing, aggregation and all that sort of thing… if you’re able to make the next D&I meeting on October 22nd between 9 and 10 am… then I’ll be giving a short, plain English overview of it all.

Now we just need to get producing those Podcasts!  :)

Development & Implementation Meeting Update October 8, 2009

Posted by vickimcgarvey in : Comms, D&I , 1 comment so far

I thought it would be useful to give a quick overview of the “Development and Implementation” meetings just to keep you all up-to-date with the main discussions that are taking place and plans for activities.  If you want more information have a look at the action points in the share wiki on the Actions Register Page.

Pilots:

Copyright:

Workshop

Metadata

Making content publicly available

Development and Implementation Wider Group

I would be more than happy to receive any comments on the above and as I said at the beginning more details can be found in the WIKI.

SHARE Project Progressing Well October 7, 2009

Posted by YvonneMonterroso in : Comms , 1 comment so far

I would like to start this entry with my compliments to the NTU team. I have been very impressed with the knowledge and understanding that has come from their side. I believe strong understanding of both the big picture and the goals that build into that picture are major keys to success. The NTU team has clearly demonstrated this which is great to see! In addition to the project team, we’ve also had the pleasure to work with some additional resources at NTU. I am currently emailing with Richard Cross to break down or work around any of the barriers for integration with IRep and this work is progressing.
Here in Waterloo, I have been working to involve several team members to help our team make this project a success. Some of the areas we have been engaging other Desire2Learn team members include working with: LOR developers to build out internationalization support for Creative Commons; the marketing team to build out a communication play; the Integration team to ensure the Shibboleth authentication piece will be in place to support integration with the JORUM repository; designers to influence metadata automation development; and senior administration to ensure project needs are being taken into consideration for future roadmap development.
The opportunity to work with JISC and help NTU integrate their resources with JISC’s JORUM repository is very exciting. We’ve been working with JORUM to ensure that the integration goes smoothly when building the integration out. Investigation into the JORUM OER Deposit Tool (http://www.jorum.ac.uk/deposit/index.html) and trying to think about better enabling NTU contributors to move materials into JORUM. Most recently, I have been prototyping a custom widget to be able to display one or more of the JORUM RSS feeds on the homepage. Below is an example using the Mathematics and Computer Science feed.

JORUM RSS widget example

A suggestion may be to create individual widgets for each subject and using release conditions based on user enrollments or course homepages, users would only see relevant subject materials that have been newly added to JORUM or perhaps consolidating all of the subject widgets into a single feed may be preferred. Further investigation and discussion on this functionality will be necessary. Please feel free to send me your thoughts on this.

Learning Object Repository Release October 7, 2009

Posted by vickimcgarvey in : Comms , 1 comment so far

I can’t believe I have not blogged on this. Just to let you all know that our Learning Object Repository tool was released on 1st October. We have two pilots that needed to start at the beginning of the academic year, one in our
School of Arts and Humanities being run by Trevor Pull another is being run by Jon Fletcher one of our academic liaison librarians. Staff within Schools can now begin publishing to their School LOR. There is also an NTU LOR staff will be able to publish to that via a coordinator role within the School. Our next tasks will include:

Visit from JISC October 6, 2009

Posted by AngelaTrikic in : Comms , 1 comment so far

We were very pleased to welcome Andy McGregor the Programme Manager for the Enhancement projects to join us for an afternoon last week, which included a scheduled project meeting.

Our aim was to discuss our progress and hopefully receive some assurance that we are heading in a positive direction as well as discussing issues. We also picked Andy’s brain for similar or related work being conducted in other JISC projects. The Edshare project in Southampton and the Worcester Learning Box project are ones on our list to follow up with enquiries and possibly a visit.

We enjoyed the opportunity of an informal catch up over lunch with Andy who was able to meet the workpackage leads and gain a better idea of the detailed work going on behind the scenes.

As our NTU project is being conducted with our partner Desire2Learn, JISC requires that we have a Consortium Agreement to formalise the arrangement. We had agreed all but one point, which was ironed out with a conference call facilitated by NTU in the previous week. The conference call enabled discussion around intentions and meaning between JISC and D2L. A solution was found in principal so it was excellent to have a face to face meeting with Andy where the wording proposed could be agreed, which it was. So I think we’re all relieved that that one is ticked off the To Do list!

Our project meeting included Ian and Yvonne from D2L and used the opportunity to consider a couple of questions from the JISC six- monthly report. We discussed what meetings or events would benefit our project and what areas we would like to explore with other projects. The following suggestions were discussed

  1. exposing an institutional repository in the public domain, issues and processes associated with this;
  2. approaches to metadata management.
  3. Encouraging a culture of sharing
  4. Copyright and repositories using  creative commons licenses
  5. Harvesting content from repositories

We also considered any policy, technical or IPR issues that have arisen through your work that we felt JISC needs to explore further. The following ideas were put forward:

  1. In scope for the project is a review of University Copyright policy and investigation of the use of Creative Commons licenses informed by the Rights and Rewards Report and other studies and experiences within the sector.
  2. Policy/guideline and process development that will assist the University embrace a culture of sharing are an important dimension to the project. Exemplars and people that JISC can highlight will be gratefully received.
  3. We have developed a metadata schema adopting a minimalist approach. It would be helpful to check the feasibility of this approach with JISC.

A productive afternoon. Thank you Andy and all involved!

Angela Trikic

JISC SHARE Project Lead