[These posts should be regarded as drafts for comment until I remove this note]

Although, a project’s choice of licence is not a particular concern of a technical synthesis,  how the licence is associated with the open content is a technical issue (see also Self description), and many of the available discovery services look for and only recognise particular licence types (typically Creative Commons – see Scott’s post).

Licence choice

Licences chosen in the UKOER 2 programme

Encoding choice

How licences are associated with content in the UKOER 2 programme

Notes

• A few projects use multiple options for licences, but on the whole each of these choices represents a single project.
• A few projects hadn’t chosen at the time of the review calls.
• Some projects use multiple methods to associate their licence with their content.
• Licence encoding options are: entry in a formal descriptive metadata record, encoding in file structure (eg in Word file) or page markup (eg wiki or html), creation of human readable licence information as part of content (eg cover page)
• Consent Commons is a initiative by the Medev subject centre to develop a licence to support the recording of patient and practitioner consent around the use of their personal data. It is beign developed in the style of a Creative Commons licences to offer a simple statement of types of use which are permitted without further permission being sought (i.e. providing consent for some use in a non-transactional licence).
• many of the Strand C collection projects are working with materials under a variety of licences – consequently a number of them don’t have a particular licence choice and aren’t represented here.

Comments

• Although the use of the CC: nd clause works against usage some projects have found it necessary in light of 3rd party or patient rights
• Projects had a strong steer to use a cc: by license, but it seems only a few have been able to do this – it is noteworthy that more projects opted to use the open but restrictive cc: by sa option. For example the Triton project has chosen CC:BY SA for the blog posts which form its ‘static’ collection. As a result any pictures which use in those posts need to have either a CC: BY or CC: BY SA licence. They discuss this in more detail on p5-6 &24 of  Triton final report , as well as Appendix 3
• CC: BY NC SA remains the most popular option
• One project developed software artefacts and used the GNU GPL.

[These posts should be regarded as drafts for comment until I remove this note]

Descriptive choices

Descriptive metadata in use in the UKOER 2 programme

Dublin Core

“The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative “popularized the idea of “core metadata” for simple and generic resource descriptions” and its initial 15 descriptive elements became an international standard and a component of the Open Archives Initiatives Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. The Dublin Core community has subsequently developed in two directions – one developing application profiles to support particular implementation communities and the other developing in a way that would make its data structures more compatible with RDF and support the uptake of Dublin Core around Linked Data (http://dublincore.org/metadata-basics/). At this time there is, therefore, a very wide spectrum of usage of Dublin Core.” (http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/johnr/2010/03/17/the-use-of-dublin-core-metadata-in-the-ukoer-programme/)

As in the first UKOER programme Dublin Core metadata is by far the most widely used descriptive standard in the programme. As in that programme, it is not clear what version of Dublin Core metadata projects are using (many are likely to be using some form of the basic DC Metadata Element Set, some may be using the newer DC Metadata Terms structure), nor is it clear if there is any common set of metadata element choices in use (the programme’s descriptive requirements are representable in Dublin Core and this is likely to form a common set, but there are other valid ways to present this information)

As noted in commenting on the first  UKOER programme, many projects will be using Dublin Core because it is probably the most commonly implemented interoperability standard in repositories and is also a required part of the OAI-PMH protocol.

It is, however,  noteworthy that some of the projects are developing a wordpress plugin to support the creation of DC metadata based on items in blog posts rather than the blog post itself (for more details please refer to the Summary of Strand C [forthcoming]) .

IEEE LOM

““Learning Object Metadata (LOM) is a data model, usually encoded in XML, used to describe a learning object and similar digital resources used to support learning. The purpose of learning object metadata is to support the reusability of learning objects, to aid discoverability, and to facilitate their interoperability, usually in the context of online learning management systems (LMS).”http://wiki.cetis.org.uk/What_is_IEEE_LOM/IMS_LRM

The LOM standard is available from the IEEE store. There are also many Application Profiles of the LOM data model. One of which is the UK LOM CORE http://www.cetis.org.uk/profiles/uklomcore/uklomcore_v0p3_1204.doc ” ( http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/johnr/2010/03/11/the-use-of-ieee-lom-in-the-ukoer-programme/)

The use of IEEE LOM in the second programme is quite a bit lower than in the first UKOER programme. Two possible reasons for this are: 1) fewer projects are using learning object repositories so there is less native support for LOM 2) in the first programme a number of HEA subject centres may have had significant quantities of existing content in the LOM which they released under an open licence, in the second programme projects may not have had relevant legacy content in this form. [Note: these are speculative].

exif

Exif is a standard widely used in cameras and smartphones for storing and transferring information about images, audio, and associated tags. More information is available in the Wikipedia article.
In use by the Open Fieldwork and ORBEE projects.

MeSH

MeSH (Medical Subject Headings ) is not a descriptive metadata standard as such but it is rather a controlled vocabulary used in the description of medical resources. It can be used and referenced with a number of metadata standards such as Dublin Core and IEEE LOM.
In use by the PORSCHE project.

Geo Microfromat

“geo (pronounced “gee-oh”) is a simple format for marking up WGS84 geographic coordinates (latitude; longitude), suitable for embedding in HTML or XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML. geo is a 1:1 representation of the “geo” property in the vCard standard (RFC2426) in HTML, one of several open microformat” from http://microformats.org/wiki/geo.
In use by the Open Fieldwork project.

KML

Keyhole Markup Language: “KML is an XML language focused on geographic visualization, including annotation of maps and images. Geographic visualization includes not only the presentation of graphical data on the globe, but also the control of the user’s navigation in the sense of where to go and where to look.” The major implementation of this standard is in Google Earth and Google Maps.
In use by the Open Fieldwork project.

paradata

Paradata is a rapidly evolving specification to describe activity and review data for digital assets. The initial specification was developed by the NSDL) in connection with the US Learning Registry initiative.
In conjunction with SRI International the Oerbital project developed an experimental template to generate paradata from mediaiwki pages at the OER Hackday.

Packaging choices

Packaging formats in use in the UKOER 2 programme

IMS CP

“IMS Content Packaging “describes data structures that can be used to exchange data between systems that wish to import, export, aggregate, and disaggregate packages of content.”http://www.imsglobal.org/content/packaging/ .” (http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/johnr/2010/03/08/the-use-of-ims-cp-in-the-ukoer-programme/)

ADL SCORM

““The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) integrates a set of related technical standards, specifications, and guidelines designed to meet SCORM’s high-level requirements—accessible, interoperable, durable, and reusable content and systems. SCORM content can be delivered to your learners via any SCORM-compliant Learning Management System (LMS) using the same version of SCORM.” (http://www.adlnet.gov/Technologies/scorm/default.aspx )” (http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/johnr/2010/04/01/the-use-of-adl-scorm-in-the-ukoer-programme/)

Two  projects are using both IMS Content Packaging and ADL SCORM – EALFCO and ALTO. ALTO’s use may relate to the capabilities of the tools they have chosen to use.

OAI-ORE

““Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) defines standards for the description and exchange of aggregations of Web resources.” (http://www.openarchives.org/ore/)””

OAI-ORE – a number of projects mentioned this standard. For three of the four projects the standard is supported out of the box by the repository platform they were using  and it is there is no indication of actual or intended use. Part of the OSTRICH project team (the partners at University of Bath) were investigating the possible use of OAI-ORE with their repository.

Other content related standards in use

Other assorted standards in use in the UKOER 2 programme

The other standards graph is a miscellanea of other standards which projects are using which are distinctive but don’t easily fit into other categories.

IMS LD

The IMS Learning Design specification provides a flexible markup language to encode pedagogies  (http://www.imsglobal.org/learningdesign/)

The ALTO project is usingconcepts and structures from IMS-Learning Design to inform their work but they are NOT implementing the specification

IMS QTI

“IMS Question & Test Interoperability Specification http://www.imsglobal.org/question/ is a standard used to support the interoperability and exchange of digital assessment items (questions, answers, and data).” (http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/johnr/2010/03/03/the-use-of-ims-qti-in-the-ukoer-programme/)

IMS QTI, one of the content types whose release surprised us in the first UKOER programme, has again been released by a number of projects (De-Stress, OER Cafe, Ripple).

HTML5

HTML5 is a work in progress of the latest update to HTML the defining specification of the world wide web.
The De-Stress project used this specification.

epub

“EPUB is a distribution and interchange format standard for digital publications and documents.” http://idpf.org/epub

Although mobile delivery and etextbooks were not an explicit part of the call both DHOER and Triton are experimenting with the epub format to explore these options.

OPML

OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) http://www.opml.org/spec is being used in the progamme by the Triton project to support exchanging lists of RSS feeds.

iCalendar

the iCalendar specification is an exchange format for calendar information which can be used to record diary information or request meetings.
The EALFCO project was investigating the use of this specification.

last time I counted we had a little over 250 tweets.

Once we take ‘OERHack’ and RT out of the picture we see:

250 tweets isn’t that many for 2 days and ~40 people but that’s cause everyone was busy

Beforehand the event we had some discussions on blogs.

• Musings on OER Infrastructure
• Social Networking for Metadata

OER Hack day Wiki

Ideas that we outlined but didn’t develop fully:

• PORSCHE thoughts
• Document Import/Export Service
• OER Playlist picker
• Additions to OERbit
• Prototyping a new OERca

Things that got hacked (and more or less documented)

• Extend the utility of WordPress as a host / presentation vehicle for OER collections.
• Bookmarking tools for OER
• Generating Paradata from mediawiki pages
• Hacking a Google CSE for course directories
• Metadata Extraction Tools
• SWORD desktop app
• Email-based deposit plugin for SWORD
• JS widget to Wookie widget (Jorum and OER Recommender)

These are described in more detail on the wiki as well as some notes about other things we tested and a useful list of wordpress plugins for learning resources. A fuller write-up about the event will be forthcoming but we (CETIS OERTIG, UKOLN DEVCSI, and everyone else) had a productive, fun, and busy two days.

• richer user profiles both for depositors and users
• resources to include a link to the source/ master object
• import asset plus usage info (such as which courses it’s used for) from VLE
• import asset plus usage info (such as comments and tags) from Web 2 tools
• need support for instituional management and release of assets

The other key feature for deposit tools which we wondered about was the possibility of tools recording ongoing interaction between content and users and what this might enable. At the time not much developed from that discussion but a year and a bit later it’s interesting to see elements of that discussion are (completely independently) coming to the fore in other initiatives.

Firstly there’s the work JISC has funded to develop the SWORD specification to

” push the standard towards supporting a full deposit lifecycle for all types of scholarly systems by specifying and implementing update, retrieve and delete extensions to the specification. This will enable these systems to be integrated into a broader range of other systems within the scholarly infrastructure, by supporting an increased range of behaviours and use cases. (http://swordapp.org/category/sword2/)”

Admittedly the development focused on scholarly works but extending the profile to support CRUD functionality and ongoing interaction around content and use of content between users and repository is an important step towards richer tools and services.

Then there’s the work Nick Sheppard has been doing with the ACEREP project looking at multiple deposit (and search) of learning materials with sword and the joys of trying this across repositories using various combinations and profiles of of IMS CP, METS, LOM and DC. I look forward to seeing how this project works out;I’d write more but Nick does a better job of explaining the details than I could and I expect that this project will produce one of the first SWORD-based deposit tools specifically for learning materials.

And there’s also an interest from the UKOER Ripple project at Oxford in exploring a possible use or extension of the OERca tool from Open Michigan . I want to provide a little more detail about this option because I think it’s the next step beyond a simple deposit tool and a step toward an interactive tool.

I first saw some of the details of the OERca tool last summer and got a trial account on Open Michigan’s test server – it is a workflow tool for managing basic metadata copyright clearance and licensing. The basic approach is that content is uploaded, assigned basic metadata and each component part (eg images in a powerpoint) is identified and flagged for rights clearance. The interface has a clear mechanism for assigning content to courses, work to users (dscribes), tracking the clearance progress of component parts of content, and replacing component images for which the rights aren’t clear. In a sense it’s a simple rights focused workflow tool but as Ripple point out it’s perhaps four fifths of the way to being  a deposit tools for learning materials, more than that as a concept -it is a step towards the ‘plug and play’ environment Ripple are thinking of.

Here’s an example of OERca in action from Open Michigan’s YouTube channel.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwkfVUjsm1c[/youtube]

OERca is open source software and I’d like to see it hacked at the OERTIG/ CETIS & UKOLN Hackday but I’ll note that [as I understand it ] Open Michigan have pointed out that as a tool OERca probably needs a rewrite prior to the addition of more functionality. So I hope that if we’re going to play with it we can coordinate a little with Open Michigan and think about how to work in the same direction.

• a protocol almost universally implemented in repositories and consequently (usually) publishing metadata about repository contents to the world
• a protocol frequently reviled by anyone trying to aggregate feeds from different repositories and build discovery tools and services on top of that aggregate.

I’m not going to repeat OAI-PMH’s problems in detail (PERX, the experience of the NSDL with metadata quality, Andy Powell, Jim Downing and many others have done that), suffice to say their are issues about how protocol was implemented by software, how it is used by metadata creators, and how not web-friendly it is and niche it remains.

However,  I realised recently that I’d begun to think that it must be better by now – surely the teething problems are done with – implementations more mature, record quality better, and aggregation more stable. This is, in part, because it remains the standard for sharing repository metadata and because in a number of settings it works well – there are plenty of communities using it to establish and provide services either by creating ‘closed’ controlled conditions through communally enforced ways of recording information and application profiles, guidelines and ‘political’ agreements in additional to the protocol or by creating tools that simply hack their way around whatever data they get and offer good enough services.

So it was with interest that I picked up on a discussion on twitter about what’s wrong with OAI-PMH and an upcoming paper on using Atom .[edit: I’m updating this list with fragments of conversation about OAI-PMH if I see them, and the odd link or two] It’s not the first time I’ve caught fragments of conversations on the use of feeds – for example the earlier RSS and repositories discussion.

There are a slew of issues around trying to standardise feed types (as we discovered in the discussions organised around RSS as a possible metadata deposit mechanism). See for example Feed Deposit , OER, RSS, and JorumOpen , and the two later review articles (1 , 2) as well as the email list discussions ). Given the increasing use of RSS or Atom in some of the OER discovery tools, the work listed above, and the wider promotion of it in the UKOER pilot projects, why am I so interested in this discussion about OAI-PMH and about another effort to use Atom/ RSS?

I’m happy to see this debate crop up again in the wider (library) repository community for two reasons:

1) perhaps obviously it reaffirms the issues with OAI-PMH, that they haven’t changed, and the possibilities RSS/Atom offers,

2) more importantly it’s bringing the discussion about the feeds produced by repositories into the library/ scholarly works communities. Like it or not those are the communities who are most using repositories and the communities who can to some degree shape the development of repository software and specifications. Few repository platforms natively support much customisation of the feeds they produce and until the wider repository community wants that type of functionality or control and begins to think how update or move beyond OAI-PMH* there’s little reason for repository developers to work on the problem.

Without those changes anyone wanting to manage learning materials in a repository still has to hack their own fixes, build their own repository – or not use repositories (but that’s another question).

*I should note: I like OAI-PMH – I can play with in a browser, repository explorer is a good tool, and using OAI-PMH I can get and interact with someone else’s ‘raw’ metadata. – I’m just no longer convinced it’s the right tool to share metadata – in part by how few successful discovery services there are which use it.

As OERTIG and the discussion about the oer hackday kicks off on the oer-discuss list, here’s a quick note about one small thing that might be of interest to anyone developing/hacking oer discovery tools – it’s probably too minor to get into at the hackday but – you should look at how the tool handles public domain materials.

An aside during a Learning Registry discussion mentioned the interaction between public domain [rights] and creative commons licensing (I think it was Steve Midgley and Nathan Yargler) – the LR specification needs to deal with public domain materials as much of the content produced by the US Federal government is in the public domain. In a UKOER context his got me thinking about how discovery services deal with the public domain. This isn’t something that crops up a lot at the minute as it’s actually quite hard to put stuff into the public domain but it is something which is an issue and will crop up eventually.

As part of Scott Wilson’s work on the Ensemble demonstrator and our more general CETIS support for  UKOER we’ve provided some advice about handling licence info in feeds so that discovery services can easily use it to support additional features.

I had a brief chat with the OER IPR Support folk yesterday to help my understanding of public domain (rights) and licensing and from a category purist’s point of view it’s going to be a bit of a mess – but one with a hack. The following is though only my understanding and IANAL.

Challenge

the basic issue is -there’s lots of good tools offer support for restricting your search to CC-licensed content but how do they handle Public Domain stuff?

• Creative Commons is a license the owner can apply to copyrighted works to extended permissions around their use.
• Public domain is a rights status. As I understand it public domain stuff cannot be licensed as it no longer has an ‘owner’.

A complication – CC0 is a way of of licensing content that you own which is still in copyright to permit use as if it were in the public domain. It does not put something into the public domain. [Update: CC0 is  waiver rather than a license , but one that defaults to the most permissive license if waiver doesn’t apply – I have no idea if a waiver is legally a license or a change in rights status]

The Hack…

Thankfully Creative Commons have come up with one way to address this issue-  the Public Domain Mark.

Public Domain Mark uses this form of description  <a rel=”license” href=”http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/”>

Technically I have to say it’s a hack (PD is rights not license and I don’t think you can ‘license’ PD), but  rel=”license” or the equivalent is where someone will look for this information and given how badly dc: rights and dc: license are used i don’t think anyone has much justification for complaining about it too much…

The challenge for developers is when they support searches that support usage rights don’t forget to code in CC0 and Public Domain.

• learn more about ICoper -a major European project- working building tools for the discovery, recommendation, and annotation of learning materials.
• explore the issues in incorporating third-party OERs in a repository,
• explore the technologies available for the dynamic thematic collections envisaged by the OER phase 2 call for proposals, and
• investigate what needs to be done to implement these technologies.

More details of the day can be found at http://wiki.cetis.org.uk/OER_Gathering which we’ll continue to update as we get feedback.

Tag: #cetisgath

We’d originally intended to run this as two back to back events but as a result of some of our expected participants (including a number of colleagues from ICoper) having conflicting commitments and being unable to attend we’ve decided to run the two days we’d planned for the OER Gathering as a single day: June 22nd.

To help structure the day and make sure that the concentrated event is able to focus on what participants are most interested in and the questions the community has in this area, we’d like some feedback from participants and other interested parties.

If you’re attending:

• What’s your background? (developer, manager, researcher, …)
• Within the scope of the event, what are you most interested in discussing?
• If applicable, what would you like to demonstrate at the event?
• What are you most interested in hearing more about/ seeing demonstrated?
• If you’re a developer, what languages do you know/ what development environments/tools do you work with?
• If applicable, which metadata standards are you familiar with?
• If you run a repository or service that you’d like involved in the event can you provide us with some details about it (e.g. OAI-PMH base url / api functionality / feeds)?

Whether attending or not if you have any ideas of development challenges which you’d like to work on or see further specified at the event let us know (comment, email, or add them to the wiki).

The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH ; http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html ) “provides an application-independent interoperability framework based on metadata harvesting.” The protocol is widely used by repository software to make metadata about the resources they store available. In its use the repository acts as a data provider which is then able to be harvested by a data harvester. Two issues of note:

1. although most repositories can function as data providers the data harvesting aspect of the protocol often requires separate software and is much less widely implemented.
2. OAI-PMH specifies a minimal base metadata set of OAI_DC (~ the simple DC element set) therefore any implementation of it should be able to provide this as a minimum. Other metadata standards such as DC Terms or IEEE LOM can also be made available for harvesting.

Although OAI-PMH is a well established standard which is widely used, at this point it’s use for open educational resources is somewhat limited. OAI-PMH is not currently in use by Jorum for metadata harvesting and, as far as I know, there are not many OAI-PMH based harvesters offering aggregated search services for educational materials (outside of those within particular closed/ or semi-closed communities). DiscoverEd from Creative Commons does offer an OAI-PMH based harvest but prefers RSS/Atom based approaches (Enhanced Search for Educational Resources – A Perspective and a Prototype from CCLearn (2009) http://learn.creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/discovered-paper-17-july-2009.pdf , p12). UPDATE: Please see comment from Jenny Gray below.

OAI-PMH is being used or is supported by:

• ChemistryFM (option once content is in backup ePrints repository)
• Phorus
• Unicycle
• OCEP
• Open Exeter
• OpenStaffs
• OERP (use unknown)
• Humbox

OAI-PMH is in active use by (as opposed to out of the box support):

• Phorus (harvesting catalogued resources from Intute.)
• TRUE (using a Drupal plug in?)
• ADM OER
• ChemistryFM (option once content is in backup ePrints repository)

OAI-ORE

“Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) defines standards for the description and exchange of aggregations of Web resources.” (http://www.openarchives.org/ore/)

As a standard for describing aggregated or compound resources ORE has the potential to be highly relevant to some types of education materials made up of distributed web resources; its use, however, with educational materials has thus far been somewhat limited. It has however been used as an exchange mechanism for moving repository contents from one system to another.

Projects using OAI-ORE:

• ChemistryFM (export function from WordPress – will use to backup content to repository)
• ADMOER (export function from ePrints)
• HumBox (export function from ePrints)

There are a number of projects in the UKOER programme which have identified themselves as using Dublin Core, they are:

• Unicycle
  • http://unicycle-leedsmet.ning.com/
• Open Content Employability Project
  • http://cuba.coventry.ac.uk/ocep/
• Open Exeter
  • http://as.exeter.ac.uk/support/educationenhancementprojects/openexeter/
• OTTER (considering using DC)
  • http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/beyond-distance-research-alliance/projects/otter
• OpenStaffs
  • http://www.staffs.ac.uk/about_us/projects/openstaffs/index.jsp
• Berlin (considering using DC)
  • http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/berlin.html
• ChemistryFM (early intention)
  • http://chemistryfm.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/
• OLE Dutch History (early intention)
  • http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dutch/OER/
• ADOME
  • http://www.adm.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/sector-projects/art-design-media-open-educational-resources-adm-oer-project
• TRUE
  • http://economicsnetwork.ac.uk/projects/oer
• Open Educational Resources Pilot
  • http://www.engsc.ac.uk/an/oer-project/oer-project.as
• Phorus
  • http://phorus.health.heacademy.ac.uk/
• Humbox
  • http://www.llas.ac.uk/projects/3233
• Skills for Scientists
  • http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/home/projects/skillsforscientists
• UK Centre for Bioscience OER Project (considering use of DC Terms for html based resources)
  • http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/oer/

Projects using Dublin Core at least in part because they’re using OAI-PMH
(I’ve made the assumption those using OAI-PMH are implementing it according to the protocol and thus creating OAI_DC)

• Unicycle
• Open Content Employability Project
• OpenStaffs
• ChemistryFM
• ADOME
• TRUE
• Phorus
• Humbox

Projects creating a mapping to DC to promote interoperability
(this mapping may go beyond OAI_DC)

• Unicycle
• Berlin (investigating mapping to DC)
• Open Educational Resources Pilot (investigating mapping to DC)

Projects implementing the latest version of Dublin Core: DC Terms

• OpenExeter
• UK Centre for Bioscience OER Project (considering)

Projects for whom Dublin Core is not their primary standard

• Unicycle
• Open Content Employability Project
• OpenStaffs
• Berlin
• TRUE
• ChemistryFM (not sure – using WordPress (with OAI-ORE plugin) and institutional repository)

Reflections

• Projects will be creating Dublin Core metadata as a side effect of their deposit into JorumOpen – but this isn’t a choice to use DC in the programme as such.
• I think there is a definite tension between the ongoing use of OAI-DC as part of OAI-PMH and the uptake and use of DC Terms.
• This overview of the use of does not comment on the element / term choices used as part of the use of Dublin Core.

The LOM standard is available from the IEEE store. There are also many Application Profiles of the LOM data model. One of which is the UK LOM CORE http://www.cetis.org.uk/profiles/uklomcore/uklomcore_v0p3_1204.doc

There are a number of projects in the UKOER programme which have identified themselves as using IEEE LOM, they are:

• Unicycle
  • http://unicycle-leedsmet.ning.com/
• Open Exeter
  • http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/oer/
• BERLiN
  • http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/berlin.html
• OpenSpires
  • http://openspires.oucs.ox.ac.uk/
• OpenStaffs
  • http://www.staffs.ac.uk/about_us/projects/openstaffs/
• Evolution
  • http://www.uclan.ac.uk/lbs/about/evolution.php
• FETLAR
  • http://www.fetlar.bham.ac.uk/
• TRUE
  • http://economicsnetwork.ac.uk/projects/oer
• OERP
  • http://www.engsc.ac.uk/an/oer-project/oer-project.asp

Some of the projects use the LOM as the software they are using to manage OERs uses it or offers it as an export option. These projects are:

• Unicycle
• BERLiN
• OpenStaffs
• EVOLUTION
• FETLAR

Some projects have created mappings to the LOM to support interoperability

• Open Exeter has mapped DC:terms to LOM
• OpenSpires has the capacity and an outlined intention to create an IEEE LOM export but as yet this has not been realised. Their output/export formats are here: http://www.steeple.org.uk/wiki/Msc/E

Others using LOM natively have created a mapping from LOM to Dublin Core to support interoperability

• Unicycle (see http://repositorynews.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/musing-about-metadata-for-oer/ )

Observations

Given the prevalent use of the LOM in VLEs and Learning Object Repositories there’s surprisingly few projects using it – this could have more to do with the technology choices which projects have made for sharing OERs than with the standard as such – although the complexity and richness of the LOM may have been a factor in some project’s choices of technology and (unlike IMS Content Packaging) I suspect choices of whether or not to use the LOM have been much more deliberate.

It is notable that some projects have considered the use of LOM with the explicit intention of better interoperability with other repositories -in particular Jorum (although JorumOpen now supports Dublin Core – this feature was still under development in the early stages of the programme).

Of course this indication of use says nothing about which LOM elements where selected for use in any project or to what extent or how the selected elements were used – that’s a different question for another time.