Sharing in practice

As sharing learning objects is the raison d’être of SLOHSIG, it would be worth exploring what ‘sharing’ means, and how it might be implemented. The rationale for sharing is clear:

• on the supply side, there are uncountable zillions of e-learning resources that have been developed by universities, the NHS, colleges and other institutions, and by individuals, which the creators are happy to share with the healthcare community. And that’s just within the UK.
• on the demand side, teachers, students and healthcare workers want and need to access free-to-use high-quality (in terms of content as well as technical quality) online learning resources, and to find them quickly and easily. A very clear theme to come out of the Sharing Learning Objects in Healthcare conference was that of a ‘one-stop shop’, a simple and searchable repository of usable resources [1]

Behind these two desires lie a mountain of logistical, political and above all technical challenges which this SIG will be addressing. Issues that need to be explored include, in no particular order:

• what is meant by “sharing”?
• what is it that we want to share?
• the role of digital repositories
• the role of metadata harvesters [2]
• dissemination of learning resources
• how to ‘harvest’ resources not in repositories
• collaboration and cooperation amongst existing sharing projects (eg Jorum, Intute, CIPEL, IRISS)

Note that I’ve been careful to use the term “resource” rather than ‘learning object’ as there’s no agreed definition of ‘learning object’ [3] and, more importantly, I don’t want to pre-empt discussion on the above by excluding larger e-learning resources.

So the questions I’m asking are:

1. Are these issues which we need to address? Or are some red herrings? What other issues need to be looked at?
2. How do colleagues think that these issues can be resolved, and sharing implemented in practice?
3. What other questions need to be asked?

Discuss

References

[1] In the electronic poll taken in the final conference session, available on the conference site (Powerpoint, 342kb), the following questions were asked:

Question: How can we encourage them to share their resource?
Response: 59% voted for “One stop search”

Q: What would/should national sharing look like?
R: 56% voted for “One stop shop”

It was also very clear from the plenary discussion that this was a common wish.

[2] A famous ‘one-stop-shop’ based on harvesting is OAIster.

[3] The Learning Object FAQ on the SONET site links to some papers exploring possible definitions of the term.

Slide 6

How can we encourage them to share their resource?

Post-conference meeting

A meeting was held immediately after the Sharing Learning Objects in Healthcare conference on March 24th, 2009, where interested delegates gathered to plan future activities on topics that had emerged during the conference. The following are brief notes from that meeting:

Present: Nicola Siminson (Jorum), Heather Wharrad and Richard Windle (SONET-ARC & RLO-CETL), Elinor Clarke (CIPEL), Richard Hayward (Canterbury University), Ian Watson (IRISS), Bernie Davies (CIPEL).

The conference had highlighted that there were lots of open educational resources and repositories available to academics, and also a willingness to share materials though sometimes there was a reluctance to accept offers of free resources due to worries about breaching copyright and licence agreements. There is a real issue of ‘discovery’ of the materials. It was recognised that this conference was attended largely by ‘knowledgeable’ delegates and there was a need to help those new to the elearning field understand the terminology and processes of producing and finding resources. There was a need to have single sign on to access resources (the issue of NHS/HEI access was raised during the conference).

This group would like to move forward some of these issues in a number of ways as listed below.

• Look for funding opportunities: Open Educational Resources via subject centres and JISC
• Publish in newsletters and journals: THES, Community Care magazine, HSAP newsletter, HINow, CAIPE newsletter, Social care publications
• Post issues that emerged from conference to Discussion lists
• Open letter aimed at high level policy makers Council of Deans, HEFCE
• Run workshops on RLO discovery aimed at non-experts
• Code of practice/assessment of RLOs
• Use of LOAM tool to guide practitioners about pedagogical attributes/design

(Notes taken by Dr Heather Wharrad.)

Welcome to SLOHSIG

Welcome to SLOHSIG, the blog of the Sharing Learning Objects in Healthcare Special Interest Group. This SIG was conceived at the Sharing Learning Objects in Healthcare conference held at the University of Nottingham on 24th March, 2009 which was attended by some 70 delegates from all over the UK, and a few from overseas, with an interest in Learning Objects and e-learning repositories and their application to healthcare education. Some of the delegates attended a post-conference meeting in order to take things forward and maintain the momentum of the conference, and to organise similar future conferences annually, and this blog is part of our ongoing project.

The SIG is primarily focussed on the use and reuse of learning objects, and indeed e-learning resources in general, in the teaching of healthcare inUK Higher Education and and the National Health Service. We are also seeking to build sharing and collaboration with colleagues outside the UK. Areas of interest include, but are certainly not restricted to:

• development of learning objects
• embedding learning objects in teaching practice
• e-learning pedagogy
• the use of digital repositories of learning objects
• building Communities of Practice
• facilitating content sharing

The strategic aim of the SIG is to integrate the vast number of teaching resources online into a ‘one-stop shop’ for teachers and students of healthcare, so that they can ‘pick and mix’ from a massive store of e-learning resources to use in their teaching and learning. It quickly became very clear at the conference that there are masses of resources developed, and under development, in UKHE institutions and the NHS, but very few people outside the institution are aware of them. The SIG aims to promote sharing and reuse of these materials, and to promote collaboration amongst colleagues and institutions engaged in learning object development and repositories, both within and outwith the UK.