the repository web: simple steps for sharing learning resources - slides from the OpenDock project kickoff meeting

04-November-2005

email this
[ kind=presentation , resources2.0 ]
I'm just off the phone from shouting a presentation down the phone lines to Barcelona, where the kickoff meeting of the OpenDock project is taking place. I attach my slides as 2 pdf files ( with screen and print-suitable backgrounds ), and include a link to a flickr online slideshow. Basically, my talk was about how the project might make best use of open architectures and emerging web2.0 style services to help make the *web itself* into the repository actually needed by the end-users OpenDock is trying to serve. It introduces the web2.0 approach with screenshots, and sketches some issues and opportunities for leveraging other services and clients to provide the features users really want, when they want them, the way they want them (as opposed to building yet another little-used database :o) This post also includes links to the services and tags shown in the screenshots.

OpenDock is a new european pilot project put together by Dai Griffiths in Barcelona. It is funded by Leonardo and thus very small, but it is a well-conceived pilot with some very good people among its partners and so we expect it to produce some useful results. The kickoff meeting is being held in Barcelona, yesterday Nov 4, and today, Nov 5.

I gave my talk down a telephone line while Dai kindly stepped through the slides in the pdf. I attach two versions of the pdf here (suitable for screen and print respectively), and include a link to the slides as a flickr slideshow.

The overall project remit is as follows (emphasis added)

Malloch Opendock Kickoff
  • Create a corpus of learning materials...
    • published under the Creative Commons license, with provision for IMS Learning Design, drawn from a range of different sectors of VET from different languages and cultures.
  • Establish a repository of learning resources
    • building on current best practice and existing Open Source repository implementations and ...standards
  • Demonstrate, evaluate, review the materials and repository
  • Valorise and disseminate the outcomes, and plan for sustainability
Printable Malloch Opendock

My talk was about how we might concentrate our resources on a few parts of the problem to effect a service-oriented solution rather than create yet another database that no-one wants to use. I think the talk might be useful as an introduction to web2.0 approaches to the web as repository. I also introduce what seems to me a fairly sensible partitioning of the problem space, which is worth using s a discussion-starter:

Isn't the web 'a repository'?

Yes, but 5 (at least) kinds of problems for most authors:

  • posting my resources
  • helping others to find my resources
  • licensing others to use my resources
  • using formats that work with other resources
  • making my resources usable and re-usable

The talk goes on to elaborate a bit on how users encounter these more particular isues, and to introduce service-oriented options for addressing some of them. It includes a number of screenshots of open, general repository-web tools and clients like del.icio.us, flickr, connotea, citeulike, netnewswire, cocoalicious, ecto, writely, gada.be, collaborative rank, guten tag, google blogsearch, WriteBoard and Video Egg.

...by the way, for those who were there in the 90's - yes, "OpenDock" the name is an homage to the wonderful docucentric middleware as was: "OpenDoc" (see this aborted knotes team-tsk in the sigossee site for more links and info about the old OpenDoc project: History: open software in education | catagory view: OpenDoc.

For more links and tags related to this issue, see an earlier post I made about how ad-hoc repository-like features can be assembled from simple tools.

PS [added Tuesday Nov 8 10:30am gmt] - I was so busy writing and presenting the talk on Friday that I forgot to explicitly include a creative-commons declaration in the pdfs. Feel free to re-use the content of this blog entry or of the pdfs, provided you give me some credit if you re-use large chunks.


Mike Malloch; 04-November-2005 12:20:23; forum (0) help

Comments please

If you are already registered here, please click the "Login" button to send your username/password with the comment. Click the "Anonymous/Join" button to leave a comment without logging in.

Please tell us who you are

E-Mail Address (Required)
We need a valid email address in order for you to post a comment. You will recieve an email containing a special validation link. The comment will not be published until validated
Name
Please leave your name
Join the site (optional)
If you would like to join the site while posting this comment, then choose a username.
Usernames must contain no spaces or special characters.
Title
Lead-in
Body Text ( HTML tags are allowed )
Validation
Please enter the text from the image above
Preview your comment

Linking and trackbacks

When linking to this weblog entry, please use the 'permalink', which is http://www.guidance-research.org/knownet/writing/elearning2.0/entries/8814290270

Some weblog systems will ask you for a "trackback link" (most systems will find this special 'hook' automatically, in the code for this page).

The trackback link for this entry is http://www.guidance-research.org/knownet/writing/elearning2.0/entries/8814290270/tb