Hi Andy
> However, you'll note that the system has no
> inbuilt knowledge
> of content packaging (though you can of course deposit a pre-existing
> IMS-CP file). My guess is that adding decent support for
> bundling/unbundling of content packages would be quite difficult (i.e.
> more than playing!) - in part, because the current workflow
> of the system
> only asks for the object at the end of the process (i.e.
> after you have
> entered all the metadata that might well be already contained
> within the
> package that you want to deposit) :-(.
I saw a recent demo of eprints and thought it might be useful as the
basis of a LO repository also. In fact there's quite a number of
systems that essentially associate metadata with digital files of
whatever type - document management systems, Content Management Systems.
OSS s/w like Plone and Bodington have this capability. As you point
out, the sticking point always seems to be support for aggregation
/dis-aggregation of content packages and this never seems to be a
trivial or easy process. Having looked at a number of commercial
systems that claim to have learning object repository functionality, the
support for content packaging is generally very limited. It's quite
clear that adding the required functionality to import, disaggregate and
edit the metadata from packages and then be able to export the packages
or individual objects from the package requires a major (and expensive)
development of the system.
Adrian
_________________________________
Adrian Stevenson
Software Developer
JORUM Project, MIMAS
Manchester Computing
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Tel: +44(0)161 275 7044
Email: [log in to unmask]
MIMAS: http://www.mimas.ac.uk
JORUM: http://www.jorum.ac.uk
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The CETIS Metadata Special Interest Group
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andy Powell
> Sent: 21 July 2004 13:44
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Using eprints.org as basis for institutional
> learning object repository
>
>
> Over the weekend I had a few hours to kill :-) so I had a
> quick play with
> the eprints.org software from Southamption, to see how easy
> or difficult
> it would be to use it as the basis for an instituional learning object
> repository. (You know *learning objects*... the things
> behind the bush on
> the OSU campus! :-) ).
>
> As some of you may know... the eprints.org software
>
> http://software.eprints.org/
>
> was developed by the University of Southampton to enable
> universities to
> set up their own eprint archives. (Its major 'competitor' in terms of
> open source software is DSpace from MIT). As such, the default
> configuration of eprints.org is very much centred on eprints
> (articles,
> book chapters, etc.) and the associated metadata is very
> bibiographic-focused.
>
> A couple of hours work built me the system at
>
> http://lor.ukoln.ac.uk/
>
> which you are free to experiment with using the username
> 'guest' and the
> password 'guest'. I've configured the metadata fields to use
> a variation
> on the UK LOM Core theme! :-)
>
> Getting this far was relatively straight-forward. I plan to
> add proper
> support for OAI-PMH (LOM records) next - again, I don't
> expect this to be
> difficult. However, you'll note that the system has no
> inbuilt knowledge
> of content packaging (though you can of course deposit a pre-existing
> IMS-CP file). My guess is that adding decent support for
> bundling/unbundling of content packages would be quite difficult (i.e.
> more than playing!) - in part, because the current workflow
> of the system
> only asks for the object at the end of the process (i.e.
> after you have
> entered all the metadata that might well be already contained
> within the
> package that you want to deposit) :-(.
>
> At the risk of stating the obvious, I noted that presenting
> LOM fields to
> end-users in the order they are encoded in the LOM XML record format
> doesn't seem to make a great deal of sense. For example
>
> 9.1 purpose "educational level"
>
> and
>
> 9.1 purpose "educational objective"
>
> are better presented along-side the other educational fields in
>
> 5. educational
>
> and
>
> 9.1 purpose "discipline"
>
> and
>
> 9.1 purpose "idea"
>
> are better presented along-side
>
> 1.5 keyword
>
> and
>
> 1.6 coverage
>
> Andy
> --
> Distributed Systems, UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
> http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/a.powell +44 1225 383933
> Resource Discovery Network http://www.rdn.ac.uk/
> ECDL 2004, Bath, UK - 12-17 Sept 2004 - http://www.ecdl2004.org/
>
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