POCKET

On Wednesday 23 April I attended a Repository Services Day, held at the University of Nottingham by the Repositories Support Project. The event aimed to showcase key repository and search services available to the UK repository and research community.
Chris Pressler (Director of Research and Learning Resources at the University of Nottingham and Co-Director of SHERPA) introduced the event, highlighting that a sense of community was vital to this field.

The first part of the day focussed on the services available to explain and simplify research funder policies and also the policies of publishers. This included Bill Hubbard (SHERPA Manager) giving a talk on JULIET and Jane Smith speaking about RoMEO.
Bill Hubbard started his talk by explaining that funders are fundamental to the research process and fundamental on how research will utilise open access. He went on to say that open access has been slow to reach the tipping point and that repositories are only useful to researchers if they contain a lot of research. Therefore funders need to maximise their funding/their investment by releasing policies that include open access. JULIET enables researchers to see at a glance the requirements of funders and publishers in terms of open access publishing. Currently JULIET represents 11 countries, but welcome collaborations and hope to increase this figure.
Jane Smith spoke next about RoMEO, giving a demonstration of its services from the website. RoMEO is kept undated by suggestions from academics, repository staff and occasionally publishers. In the future it is hoped that journal listings and country coverage on RoMEO will be increased and more journal detail will be added.

A number of specialist search services were discussed including OpenDOAR, ROAR, OAIster, BASE and Intute Repository Search.
Theo Andrew, Project Manager for EDINA, spoke about The Depot, which he says, enables all UK academics to share in the benefits of open access and also fulfil funding requirements of publishing in open access. The Depot contains a re-direct service (Repository Junction) that works in conjunction with existing institutional repositories.

Janine Rigby (Development Officer, Communications) presented on Jorum, which is jointly run by Mimas and EDINA and promotes sharing between all educational institutions. Jorum contains single files, learning objects/content packages and virtual objects and Janine showed some really interesting content, including:

• The Healthier Nations Project (working with VLEs)
• REHASH, University of London, St Georges: 60 high quality interactive Flash objects tackling medical subjects.
• E Studio, University of Wolverhampton: A highly structured learning object in the form of a photo essay.

All content had been copyright cleared to be used in a VLE and details of this are included in the metadata. For the last learning object there is also an option for people to leave comments and feedback, which I think is a great built in peer review mechanism. Jorum can also check material before it is made public, which may be a useful service when uploading our POCKET material to Jorum.

Anthony Troman (British Library) also gave a presentation on EthOS: Electronic Theses On-Line System: a system that intends to digitalise all UK theses, including hard copies.

The final part of the day was devoted to a workshop and discussion of current services and services of the future. In small groups we were asked to consider a number of questions, including:

1. What services are working well? Could these be improved and if so how?
2. Are there any other existing services you know of that you would like to know more about?
3. What services for the repository community are missing?
4. What services for research community are missing?

The outcome of the workshop was that everyone agreed that there were a lot of useful services out there, but often people didn’t know about them, didn’t know where to find them or the was confusion about the different services and what they offered.

On Friday 18 April Sarah Malone (POCKET Project Manager) and I met with Tina Wilson at the Open University in Milton Keynes. This was my first meeting with the Open University since starting in my role on POCKET, so I was very keen to speak with them about many aspects of the project, including the content development kit and their experience and knowledge gained from developing OpenLearn.

To begin with Tina went through the existing content development kit that had been created during the transformation of materials for OpenLearn. A project outcome from POCKET will be a similar content development kit, built on this existing kit already developed by the Open University. I had been given an outline of the content development kit when I first joined the project, but it was very helpful to hear from Tina exactly what the kit would be used for and who would be using it. The content development kit is intended to be used by Learning Technologists and should clearly outline the whole process of transforming academic material into Open Content, including any necessary forms and paperwork. Although POCKET intends to follow the Open University approach to creating Open Content for OpenLearn as closely as possible, Tina explained that there was still flexibility in the development kit as it needs to reflect the knowledge we will gain from the development of content within this specific project.

This is really useful to know as within POCKET we will face slightly different challenges: a major one being that the material we are transforming into Open Content has not necessarily been written for the web or for distance learning: some of it may be brand new material altogether. We discussed the possibility of having three different content development kits available from our website: a content development kit for learning technologists that would be available only to POCKET partners; a content development kit for academics that would be responsible for the development of materials but not for technical development; and an overall process guide (see image) for academics that would be working alongside a learning technologist. It is envisaged that all of the content development kits will constantly develop as the project unfolds.

We were joined in the meeting by a Contracts Executive from the Rights Department. She was able to give us some valuable advice on the copyright issues we would face during this project. I was also able to get some copyright advice on filming, such as consent forms for actors and the inclusion of products in shots.

Patrick McAndrew was able to join us for some of the meeting and we discussed the evaluation plan and the possibility of CETIS testing the final materials for use on other VLEs. I was interested to hear about any quality control and quality assurance procedures that were implemented during the development of OpenLearn, but it looks like we will have different procedures during POCKET. Validation of XML files will take place within an XML editor and also on the OpenLearn website before the XML file can be uploaded. I am currently writing the POCKET quality plan and hope to include testing that goes beyond schema validation. We also discussed the possibility of including the Open University’s ‘Final Review’ form to be completed by the Assistant Dean of the relevant university faculty, which would form an important part of the quality control process.

We also discussed the POCKET collaboration space on LabSpace, which I had previously (mistakenly) thought would be where the final POCKET materials would be uploaded. Patrick explained that this collaboration area was just for POCKET partners to discuss the project and that the final material would be uploaded into the OpenLearn LabSpace, under the relevant subject headings. Patrick said that there had been no agreement in the project proposal for the POCKET materials to be made available on the LearningSpace.

Another area which Patrick was able to confirm was that when the module material gets split up into learning objects it is likely to require separate introductions and learning outcomes for each object. It will also be important to check the level of the material with the author and match these with the existing levels on OpenLearn.

A member of the Open University’s Technical Team was also able to join us for our meeting and answered a lot of my questions regarding the creation of XML files. She explained that the only way for partners to change details or add information to their materials once they are uploaded in XML format is to edit the XML file and upload the whole package once again to the LabSpace. OpenLearn uses software contained within the website to upload XML files. The OUXML to XHTML, IMS CP etc transforms are not yet available in a standard format and there is no generic XHTML to OUXML XSLT transform that we could tweak.

I am due to meet with Tina again on Monday before the POCKET board meeting, where we plan to continue discussing the content development kit and process guide.

I had a telephone meeting with one of the POCKET content authors, Louise Buxton on Friday 18 April, to see how she was progressing with her module material and to confirm our meeting for Tuesday. Louise has been looking at some examples I emailed to her of Open Content, mostly from the OpenLearn site, plus some examples from Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative. I especially think the interactivities used in their Elementary French unit work particularly well. By looking through these materials, Louise was hoping to gain a better understanding of Open Content and get some ideas and inspiration for transforming her own material.

From our last project meeting it was decided that we would include a range of media in Louise’s material, including film, animation and illustration. Before any animation or illustrations are created I think it’s important that Louise considers what kind of look and style would be most suitable to her audience and to her material. Louise is going to have a think about this before our meeting on Tuesday.

Louise and I will also fill in the needs analysis questionnaire that I wrote for academics involved in the project, together on Tuesday. Hopefully she will have had a bit more time to think about the kind of help and assistance that would be most useful to her and we can discuss the best ways I can work with her to achieve the transformation of her material into Open Content for the OpenLearn platform.

Louise and I plan to next meet Tuesday morning at 11 o’clock. I explained that I was going to hire out some camera equipment from the Kedlestone Road campus to take with me to the Buxton campus when we meet. I thought I could do some test filming inside the salons, where we plan to film certain activities that will be added to Louise’s material. This will hopefully prepare me when we come to film the final scenes for the activities, in terms of knowing what the lighting is like, sound quality and any other considerations. It will also give me an opportunity not just to use the university’s camera equipment, but also their editing equipment as again this is something I will need to use after we have filmed scenes for the activities. Filming for the activities will take a lot of planning – (student) actors will need to be hired, locations will need to be agreed and set up… Any planning and preparation that I can do beforehand will hopefully ensure that this process goes as smoothly as possible.

We now have an RSS feed on the POCKET website! This is useful as it means anyone who subscribes to this feed will automatically be updated on project news. Bernice Kew, Web Designer at the University of Derby, has shown me how to add news to this feed using the university content management system. As I update the website, I will keep the RSS feed updated.

Another academic involved in authoring content for POCKET is Louise Buxton from The University of Derby. Sarah Malone and I met with Louise last Friday (11 April) at the Buxton campus. Louise is Programme Leader from the Foundation Degree in Hairdressing and Salon Management and she is developing content for POCKET from the Customer Skills module.

Louise has already provided the existing content of this module to the POCKET team and has begun to work on splitting the content up into ‘units’ and make it more relevant to the Open Content context. This involves taking out references to assessment and tutor groups and also looking at copyright issues: in the material there were quite a few references to the Business Link website and also quotes from other academics and universities.

Louise is worried that the material is a bit too dry at the moment and we agreed to look at ways of making it more visually interesting, by exploring the use of images, video, animation and audio where appropriate. The use of video was seen as a desirable option as it could help to portray real people and show things like body language, which is an important part of the content. Using students as actors in any video that we shoot for this content is an option, as long as they are over 18 years old.

After looking at Louise’s content we decided to initially split it up into six units (this may well change as we develop the content): Introduction to customer service; Responding to customer needs; Introduction to market research; Analysis and presenting research data; Recommendations; Report writing. It is important to remember that in the Open Content context each of these units must be stand-alone and therefore make sense individually.

Louise and I agreed to meet up regularly in order to develop the content. We arranged to meet again on Tuesday 22 April at the Buxton campus. By this meeting Louise plans to have looked at some examples of Open Content on the OpenLearn platform and I plan to have looked through her content in detail and start planning how it can be developed, including planning the creation of interactive, audio and video material.

Another project partner who I have visited so far is The University of Bolton. Sarah Malone (Project Manager) and I went up to Bolton last Thursday (10 April). We met with Roy Attwood (who is on the project board), Dave Beddard (content author), Wilbert Kraan (Assistant Director of CETIS), Li Yuan (CETIS Research Officer), Deborah Bradburn (Project Officer), Kathryn Rochford (Project Officer) and Margaret Nelson (School of BEE).

This meeting went well: Bolton are keen to progress on the project with their content which is already in HTML format. They are developing content from their Digital Signal Processing module (which is included in their MSc Advanced Microelectronics) and their Industrial Management module. The Digital Signal Processing module contains a lot of advanced mathematics, which is difficult to provide in a digital format that will be accessible to everyone. This will provide quite a challenge when transforming the material to Open Content, but will be an interesting module to tackle. Roy and his team have previously tried to provide the mathematical equations in digital format in a number of ways but have still not found a satisfactory solution. They have tried using Latex code, which proved very time-consuming and did not give the desired outcome, and they eventually settled on providing the mathematical equations in PDF format. However this is still not the best solution in terms of accessibility so hopefully POCKET will help to find an alternative. Wilbert suggested the open source JISC-funded project, MathTran, which provides translation of mathematical content as a web service.

Bolton also has the budget to take on a Learning Technologist for POCKET, which means they will handle the XML formatting of their own material.

CETIS (Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards) is based at the University of Bolton and has an advisory role in POCKET. Wilbert Kraan made a valuable contribution to our discussion and I look forward to working with CETIS further on this project. Wilbert brought up the question of whether the materials produced during POCKET for the OpenLearn platform will be tested to assess interoperability with other VLEs.

Wilbert also mentioned a conference hosted by JORUM due to be held in May, which will look at the future of Open Content. This is definitely an event POCKET will want to be involved in and attend, so we will look out for further details of this event.

Mike Jeffries is the main contact at The University of Exeter and I had a video meeting with him using FlashMeeting on 2 April. He is away now until 21 April, but it was very useful for me to have a chat with him and find out more about Exeter’s progress in the project so far. The module that the University of Exeter are developing as Open Content is their MSc Business and Sustainability module.

They have already passed on this content to the POCKET team. An advantage of this material is that all the photographs taken and used in the material have been created by staff at The University of Exeter who are happy for this material to be used as Open Content. The main copyright issue will be the maps used in the material, and myself and the POCKET team will investigate alternatives to these.

I am very much looking forward to working with the other partners involved in POCKET, which so far includes The University of Exeter, The University of Bolton and The Open University. We expect new partners to join the project in the second phase, after the June workshop held at The University of Derby.

I recently joined the University of Derby as Learning Technologist, working on the JISC funded POCKET project (Project on Open Content for Knowledge Exposition and Teaching). The project is exciting as it builds on the valuable work that the Open University has already done in transforming existing learning materials into Open Content and aims to create a wide range of high quality, free-standing educational resources authored by different Higher Education Institutions.
Although I have only recently joined the project I have had a busy time so far. As well as reading through the project plan and existing documentation, I have met with the project partners and made a start on re-writing the content development plan and the process guide.
These documents are important outputs for the project and will help ensure the sustainability of the project. I have created an initial process guide using the Compendium mapping tool, which is available to view on the POCKET space on the OpenLearn LabSpace. This guide will hopefully provide a useful tool for academics involved in the transformation of their work into OERs as it shows the various stages and processes involved. However, I am meeting with Tina Wilson at the Open University this Friday and this meeting should be very useful in confirming I have all the correct documentation to include in the content development kit and the best way in which to take it forward. The Open University are a very valuable partner in this project as they have first hand experience of transforming educational material into Open Content. I’m very much looking forward discussing the whole process with Tina and getting technical and planning advice.