Quality Assurance and Reassurance January 28, 2010
Posted by vickimcgarvey in : Comms , trackbackQuality assurance cropt up in two meetings this week. The first meeting was our E-learning User Forum meetings, some concerns were aired regarding the reuse of content that was published in the Learning Object Repository, as well as, the issue of attribution and drawing users attention to version of the object. We will be discussing how to make the version of an object clearer to the user and will probably suggest that individuals put to something in the description, which is clearly displayed with the learning object, this may, also, be a field that could draw a user’s attention to copyright restrictionsand any issues to do with accessibility – to complement the other metadata.
The issue also arose in the Development and Implementation Wider Group, this morning. As I have mention previously each School has their own repository and then there is a University repository. Academic staff can publish to the School LOR in which their course runs. Publishing to the University LOR for academic staff will be via a NTULOR Coordinator which is mapped to VLE Coordinator Role.
There were concerns at both meetings re: quality assurance of objects that would be available to a wider audience e.g. the whole of the University or beyond, if we manage to implement Creative Commons, which will facilitate the University in making some objects open. The project has decided with regards the quality assurance of objects we can provide guidance on Copyright and Accessibility which we do anyway with regards the delivery of online content, as well as, guidance on metadata. With respect to QA of content the project thinks that this should sit within the School, as academic colleagues are best placed in deciding whether an object is of a quality to share more widely, as they have the subject and pedagogic expertise. I think generally academic colleagues agree with this approach but the dilemma is how to do it. One approach is to trust the professionalism of academic colleagues and allow them to make the decision with regards what they want published beyond the School, then there would be no need for an NTULOR Coordinator. The alternative approach is for Schools to come up with their own process for QAing e.g. via School quality assurance group, School exec. etc.
We have therefore decided to talk through this issue at our next wider meeeting. In the meantime I will be writing my briefing paper on LOR which will also include something about QA. Whatever approach we take all I know is that we cannot make these decisions in isolation and having the engagement of colleagues via our Development and Implementation Wider Group is of great help to me.
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