Isn't it just a case of creating customized metadata to suit the needs of
these learning resource repositories? DSpace supports custom metadata
already does it not? Wouldn't it be easier to create this metadata and then
build services on top of it rather than create a whole new repository
software from scratch?
Stephane
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Fred Riley" <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 5:24 PM
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: List for learning object repositories?
>
>> Leslie Carr wrote:
>>
>>> I have looked at the product definition for intraLibrary, and
>>> it is very difficult to distinguish it from a generic
>>> repository. Obviously the devil is in the details, but IN
>>> THEORY, I don't see that there is a fundamental distinction
>>> between them.
>>
>> <shrug> Theory's one thing, practice is another. At a high level of
>> abstraction I'm sure you're right, but on a practical level I wouldn't
>> use DSpace, or any other repository designed specifically for scholarly
>> materials, to store, catalogue and serve e-learning resources, and I
>> wouldn't use Intralibrary, for example, for scholarly works. And I'm
>> afraid that this techie operates very much at the mundane, practical
>> level, which is why I'd like to see a forum where practical learning
>> materials repository issues can be thrashed out. Which forum, as Sarah
>> has pointed out, does already exist in cetis-metadata, the name of which
>> made me forget that learning materials repositories are very much in
>> CETIS' remit.
>>
>>> > Er, precisely because "a repository is a database and some
>>> storage and
>>> > a heap of services". To store, catalogue and serve learning
>>> resources
>>> > the database needs to be designed rather differently from that of a
>>> > scholarly materials repository, and the services on top need to be
>>> > tailored to learning resources.
>>> Different schema, different workflows, different services.
>>> That's just customisation!
>>
>> I'm a database developer, amongst other things, and I wouldn't describe
>> a completely different database schema as "just customisation", and for
>> sure the database design I'd come up with for publications would be very
>> different from that for e-learning materials. It's a different database
>> for a different purpose. Again, at a high level of abstraction all
>> repositories are but instances of the same ideal meta-repository, an
>> 'abstract class' perhaps, but then at a high level of abstraction we
>> might be just programs running in a universe-wide quantum computer ;-)
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Fred Riley
>> Learning Technologist
>> School of Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy, University of Nottingham
>> Vcard: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nursing/sonet/about/fr_uon.vcf
>>
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