A tiny nudge about Assignment #1

by David Vogt

5 comments

1 Ed Stuerle { 10.02.09 at 9:09 am }

Hi David,
I’m pasting my question about Assignment 1 that I added as a comment to another student’s request:

I’m feeling a bit in the dark about Assignment #1. We have already posted views of various companies using the Cube. I’m assuming that this was an excercise designed to prepare us for assignment #1? Are there exemplars that we can see? Is there a list of suggested ventures that we should consider using for Assignment #1?

2 James Richardson { 10.02.09 at 3:34 pm }

Hi David,
I am also a bit in the dark as well. I am consolidating ideas and doing an enviromental scan for an elearning initiative involving learning objects relevant to my field. As I am doing my scan I am discovering a lot of dead links to many LO repositories. I also discovered that David Porter (or his namesake?) was involved in CANARIE’s view of these educational entities. Before I invest move EVA time on this path, I just wanted an insiders take on the demise of so many repostitories, is the “bloom of the rose”?

3 Brian Powell { 10.02.09 at 11:30 pm }

Hi David,

I am also feeling in the dark about assignment 1. In particular, I’m searching through the first 3 modules to where the term “environmental scan” as used in the assignment instructions has been defined and elaborated on. I can only assume that it refers to factors affecting the viability of an initiative both internal organization and external market.
I googled it.
I’m also trying to get focused back on something that I have first hand knowledge of after drinking from the hose of endless web pages on global markets and ventures that are second hand or third hand information.

And about the learning object repositories.
David, tell me how far off I am about this.

I worked on that for Edusource at Athabasca University back in 2003. My take on it is that early on too much work seemed to be required to chunk, tag, store, and search for learning objects. There were and are a number of LORs with varying standards of quality assurance of learning objects, user-friendly interfaces, and searching ability. Some course designers and instructors would rather create their own content rather than search for something that they will want to overhaul any way.

You still have MERLOT, HEAL, Creative Commons and others sharing across institutions. I think that the effort has refocused to each institution trying to organize its own learning content into learning object repositories. Even Blackboard Vista uses the term repository for content reusable across courses, but that is limited. The idea is to separate the LOs from the LMS in a CMS or LOR. BC Campus is using Equella to manage its learning objects and feed them to their LMS.
The other aspect is that it’s taking this long to make user friendly learning content production tools that conform to standards such as SCORM to make LOs easily sharable. IMS talks a lot about development of standards and cartridges.

My point of view is from higher education. Industry might be further ahead.

4 davidp { 10.03.09 at 2:35 pm }

Yes, Jim. It was me who was involved in the CANARIE-sponsored EduSource Canada project way back in 2001-2004ish. My role was in highlighting potential business models for the open source software (OSS) that EduSource was creating.

Here is a 2002 presentation on open source business models and EduSource.

I’ll let DavidV address the specific questions re. A1.

However, I think the repository questions remain in the academic realm, even after many bold experiments. An EVA analysis would be useful if it considered the question from an objective perspective.

In the corporate sector it is a no-brainer that content reuse for training purposes within an organization requires a managed environment, and that it lowers operating costs overall (time, people, resources) to reuse commonly required instructional elements and schemas.

The big question is, so why not in the academic realm? I have my own theories, but it would be cool to see a focused EVA analysis.

5 David Vogt { 10.04.09 at 7:02 pm }

I hope everyone is well undeway with A1 now. I’ve also posted here with some further explanation:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec522sept09/2009/09/16/a-bit-lost/#comments

In terms of “environmental scan”, what’s meant is simply that you’re not considering a single venture, but perhaps a group of ventures offering competing solutions, or perhaps complementary solutions serving similar customers geographically or otherwise.

The suggestion of “learning object repositories” is a great example of a marketplace where a scan could work well.

Good luck!

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