the eun learning resource exchange (lre)

European Schoolnet

Learning Resource Exchangehttp://lreforschools.eun.org

David Massart <[email protected]>

http://lre.eun.org/

Outline

• A presentation on the Learning Resource Exchange (LRE)– Outlining the project, indicating – Current challenges and – Future plans as well as

• Ideas on how the European Commission can promote OERs in Europe

Learning Resource Exchange (LRE)• Result of an effort started in 2002• By European Schoolnet (EUN) and its supporting

European Ministries of Education (MoEs) • With support of the European Commission

(CELEBRATE, CALIBRATE, MELT, ASPECT and eQNet)

• Self-sustained since 2008• Covers all aspects linked to access to OERs:

Interoperability and standard, Legal, Quality, Infrastructure, Pedagogy, Retrieval

LRE: Catalogue of Quality OERs for K-12 Education in Europe

LRE Portalhttp://lreforschools.eun.org/

http://lreforschools.eun.org/



The LRE is NOT “Yet-Another-Portal”

LRE Protocols

50+ LRE Content Providers

http://lreforschools.eun.org/web/guest/content-providers

200,000+ OERs that

www.europeanschoolnet.org - www.eun.org

Trans-national Topics (MUST BE PRESENT)

The resource addresses curriculum topics that could be considered trans-national.

For example, teaching multiplication is usually covered in every national curriculum, but teaching the folklore of a very specific region is not. It can also be a resource well suited for use in multi-disciplinary or cross-curricular contexts.

http://lreforschools.eun.org/web/guest/resource-details?resourceId=280919


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Knowledge of a specific language is not needed

(MUST BE PRESENT)

The resource can be used without having to translate accompanying

texts and/or the resource may be available in at least 3 European

languages.

For example, a resource might be a video where the narrative can be turned off, or it employs icons, images, animations, maps, etc. making its contents understandable for everyone.



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Stored as a file type that is usable with generally available software*

The resource can be used in any

environment (online and off-line) and

runs on multiple platforms (also

hand-held, IWB).

For example this can be an animation that plays in a web browser without the need for additional software.



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Methodological support for teachers is not needed

Subject teachers can easily

recognize how this resource meets

their curriculum requirements or how

this resource could be used in a

teaching scenario without further

instructions. This criteria should not

be used to assess the usability

(technical qualities) of a resource.



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Intuitive and easy to use

The resource is intuitive to use in the

sense that it has a user-friendly

interface and is easy to navigate for

both teachers and students without

having to read or translate complex

operating instructions.

Example are resources with simple button commands to create maps for use on computers, printouts or interactive white boards.



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Interactivity with or without feedback in a digital environment

This kind of resource invites or requires a significant

degree of user input or engagement, other than just

reading something on a page in an online or offline

environment.

The interactivity can be simple or complex. Simple forms can be feedback on correct or incorrect answers in a drill/practice scenario. Complex forms can be lab activities that produce different results depending on user actions or hints to help complete tasks successfully in an online environment. An interactive resource that does not provide feedback but still requires user input would be a geometric 3D shape that can be moved and turned.



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Clear license status (MUST BE PRESENT)

The user can easily find information about the license/rights (sometimes called Terms of Use, Copyright or Permissions) for this resource.

These statements explain if users or educators are allowed to make copies, or remix or redistribute a resource, or use images from the site in a blog without contacting the photographer, or if they can put this resource in a VLE like Moodle, etc.

This license/rights information should be understandable for a typical user.



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LRE Subcommittee• LRE governing body• Meets twice a year• Founding members and Associate members have one

vote each and elect a Chair• Technical Advisory Board – chaired by EUN• Decisions on operation of LRE and annual workplan

decided by Founding and Associate members• Changes to statutes of LRE Governing Committee and

LRE membership rules require majority decision by Founding members (MoE)

Types of LRE Members

• LRE Founding members – EUN MoEs• LRE Associate members

– Territorial, regional, municipal authorities– Commercial and public sector content providers– Tools’ providers

• LRE Subscription members (limited to 1 year)– Smaller organizations exploring LRE added value

LRE Subcommittee Members• Belgium (NL)• Czech Rep.• Finland• Italy• Lithuania

• The Netherlands (chair)• Norway• Portugal• Sweden• Switzerland

Currently discussing with SMEs, MoEs, Projects

Beyond Metadata: Social Data

LRE Social Data Manager

What’s next?

Location of LRE Portal Visitors (2012)

Beyond Metadata: Artifact Data

LRE Proxy (under development)

• This proxy is very similar to URL shorteners such as goo.gl or tinyurl.com • LRE “short” URLs are used in the LRE metadata to replace resource locations• Each time users consult the LRE catalog to access OERs, they contact the LRE Proxy that captures data before redirecting the users to the actual resources

OER Analytics• Associated with metadata, interaction data enables

– Improved curation, searching, ranking, and recommending of OERs

– Better data on which OERs are most likely to be used and where

• Valuable source of analytics of OERs’ audience preferences

• Helps to identify quality resources by crowdsourcing• Makes it possible to measure

– Impacts of marketing campaigns for the uptake of OERs– Shifts in educational policies on OERs globally

• D. Massart and E. Shulman. Interaction Data Exchange. D-Lib Magazine, May/June 2013. (forthcoming)

Beyond Metadata

SENnethttp://sennet.eun.org

Curriculum-Based Discovery

How do LRE teachers can do to find OERs that address a given curriculum item?

What we need• A European bank of curriculum in machine addressable form

that:– Are based on the extensible ASN framework used in the US and

Australia supporting interoperability and tailoring to each nation’s needs

– Are accurate digital representations of curriculum documents and their component statements (semantic units);

– Are consistent in form; and – Are modelled in RDF and amenable to the emerging Semantic Web and

Linked Data principles.• Design an extensible framework to support evolving uses• Provide open access• Support curriculum that is language independent

Rationale

• Thanks to EU funding during the last 10 years, Europe has been ‘competing’ on very favourable terms with the USA in terms of access to learning resources (LRE, national portals)

• However, without a major initiative at European level on the ‘curriculum mapping’ of digital learning resources, there is now a real danger that we will fall seriously behind

Rationale (cont.)

• Europe does not have an initiative comparable to ASN even though a number of European Ministries of Education at the forefront of content repository development increasingly recognize that curriculum-based discovery is key to ensuring that the majority of teachers begin to exploit digital learning resources and justify the existing investment in eLearning content portals

Rationale (cont.)

• Coordinating national efforts (interoperability)• National initiatives

– Denmark– France– Sweden– The Netherlands– …

Process

• MoEs create machine-readable descriptions of their national curriculum

• Machine-readable curriculum documents and statements are stored as open data in a European bank that supports:– Efficient integration of data from disparate resource providers– Resource sharing and linking related resources

• Content providers relate their learning resources to the curriculum learning outcomes provided by the MoEs

• As learning resources get tagged using different curriculum, it will be possible infer cross-maps between these curriculums

Immediate Benefits

• Greatly enhanced discovery of relevant OERs (and other resources)

• An instrument for defining across Europe:– Instruction (i.e., what is taught in the classroom)– Assessment (i.e., what skills are tested) and– Relating assessments to instruction.

This instrument enables

• Content providers to align their learning resources with the different European curricula

• Ministries of Education to better manage curricula

• Teachers and learners to perform curriculum-based search for learning resources (something that is simply impossible to do via Google)

• Policy makers to better monitor and compare curriculum and curriculum-related activities.

Long-Term Benefits The cross linking of the curricula of nations and their relationships to resources will enable:• Better alignment of learning resources and strategies to student assessment

based on national learning objectives• Development of data-driven decision making mechanisms based on learning

objectives (both expected and achieved)• Personalization of student learning to meet particular needs through customized

maps or trajectories through learning outcomes• Student mobility through e-portfolios representing student achievement aligned

to learning outcome expectations and the international cross-mapping of those expectations

• Sharing/leveraging of eLearning content developed throughout the world based on semantically related learning outcomes

• Intensive data-driven research into the nature of learning processes as they relate to goals expressed in curricula

For Further Information

WEB:

http://lreforschools.eun.org EMAIL:

[email protected]



mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

the eun learning resource exchange (lre)

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