JISC Exchange for Learning programme (X4L)
It is clear that colleagues in the classroom wish to take an active role in defining the kinds of content that would best fit their learning aims, and for national agencies and support services to work to provide the tools and infrastructure to allow this exchange of learning to take place. In addition, considerable national investment has taken place in a range of content which has high potential value for use in learning.
X4L is exploring how this content can be used in learning and teaching and, by using open standards and tackling copyright issues, how learning materials can be shared across different VLEs and other learning platforms. The four main aims of X4L are to:
- Use and develop the best available tools to explore whether repurposing content can become a popular, sustainable way of producing e-learning materials for the future
- Increase the numbers of people in institutions with the necessary skills to repurpose learning objects
- Expose and begin to tackle the challenges associated with repurposing learning objects
- Begin to populate the JORUM national repository with repurposable learning materials, case studies and exemplars.
X4L has the potential to greatly benefit the UK FE and HE communities. Through the experiences and outcomes of the 31 lead projects across two phases, all colleges and universities are able to share in the new technologies and studies developed by the programme.
X4L programme
Projects are producing subject-specific resources that can be repurposed by teachers. Subject areas in which projects are working are:
- Art, Media & Performance BTEC Public Services
- Business Studies Catering
- Childcare and Education Communication
- English Literature Engineering
- ESOL & Skills for Life Health & Medicine
- Law Study Skills Leisure & Tourism
- Music & Music Technology Physics and Biology A Level
- Social Studies Study Skills
- There are also some general or multi-subject projects
The X4L programme has identified that a number of issues need to be addressed in order to maximise the potential that repurposing and sharing content has in contributing to the efficiency and effectiveness of e-learning activities. These issues are quality, repurposing as a core activity in institutions, building/supporting communities of practice, obtaining copyright clearance to use other people's materials, and interoperability. Addressing these issues will also ensure that the JORUM national repository becomes the central resource to support repurposing and sharing across the JISC community.
X4L programme
Quality
Evaluating use of the materials created with teachers and learners in the classroom has been an important part of the project’s work. In some cases this has led to the production of a standard methodology used across the institution for developing all learning materials. In other cases the creation of learning materials by students themselves as part of portfolio-building has been explored. In most cases, testing learning materials in the classroom has produced valuable feedback from teachers and learners, which has led to further refining and modifying and, in some cases, a complete redesign of the materials produced.
Repurposing as a core activity in institutions
In order to maximise the potential of ICT to enhance the work of teachers and support staff, allowing them to work smarter rather than harder, the activities involved in repurposing and sharing content need to be incorporated into core processes and procedures within institutions. Activities from resource discovery and selection through learning design, metadata creation and copyright clearance for deposit in JORUM are being explored as part of X4L. Projects are analysing how staff roles in institutions need to be adapted to include these activities. Effective staff development, internal marketing and amendments to institutional policies and procedures are also key to the successful integration of repurposing into the core activity of the institution.
Building/Supporting Communities of Practice
Communities of practice at all levels are beginning to develop through X4L. At national level, the number of institutions involved in the programme represents a considerable pool of expertise, collaborating and sharing good practice and resources. The Jorum repository website has been designed to act as a forum for the community, with a discussion board and the opportunity to join a Jorum Enhancement Committee/Community User Group. At institutional level, partnerships and relationships are developing between FE and HE staff, between subject teachers in different institutions, and between library and information staff and teachers. At project level, some projects are developing subject communities of practice, for example, in art, media and performance studies, medicine, law and study skills.
Jorum
Exploring copyright considerations in using other people's materials
Addressing copyright and IPR issues is central to enabling repurposing of content and to the functioning of the JORUM national repository. All projects have used a significant amount of time and resource in tackling copyright clearance of third-party content with the support of the JISC Legal Information Service and are reporting on experiences. All projects agree that it is good practice to keep an audit trail of all communications with rights holders and also to record where decisions have been made with regard to use of third-party content and why.
The JORUM Deposit Licence for contributors and Repository Licence for users have been drawn up by JISC’s legal adviser in collaboration with institutional legal teams to ensure that risks associated with sharing materials nationally are kept to a minimum for all those involved.
Interoperability
The use of standards is very important to ensure that learning materials can be shared as widely as possible within our community. An application profile of the IEEE LOM (Learning Object Metadata) specification has been specifically developed for X4L. All projects must use this specification. IMS Content Packaging and SCORM specifications are also being implemented within X4L. The RELOAD and TOIA tools and JORUM repository have been developed to support the most recent standards to ensure maximum interoperability between the systems that are essential to the transportation and storage of learning objects and assessments.
Tools with pedagogic flexibility – RELOAD
The aims of RELOAD are to facilitate the creation, sharing and reuse of learning objects and services, and enhance the range of pedagogical approaches realisable through the use of lesson plans.
These aims have been achieved through the production of a suite of open source software tools for authoring and delivery of standard-compliant learning objects incorporating comprehensive user guides and exemplar resources. The tools are of significant value to the JISC and wider community, since they provide the crucial ‘missing link’ which allows users to author and transfer learning objects, in specification compliant format, between authoring and design tools, local and distributed digital repositories, and VLEs.
RELOAD
Tools for flexible assessment – TOIA
TOIA is an advanced online assessment management system available free of charge to all UK FE and HE institutions. Optimised for compliance with the developing international specifications for assessment content, TOIA aims to remove many of the barriers for teachers who wish to move into computer-assisted assessment – and avoid lock-in to a particular proprietary system.
Features include:
- Pedagogical and functional direction by leading UK CAA experts
- Sophisticated administration and reporting options
- Nine question types
- Completely web-based
- Secure and robust
- Optimised for standards compliance (IMS QTI, Content Packaging and IEEE Learning Object Metadata)
- Customisable user interface
TOIA
National Learning Materials Repository – Jorum
JORUM is a free online repository service for teaching and support staff in UK FE and HE institutions, helping to build a community for the sharing, reuse and repurposing of learning and teaching materials.
The service will be available initially to host and deliver JISC-funded project outputs and those of early-adopter institutions. However, over time, we hope that many institutions will consider sharing their learning materials via Jorum.
Staff development resources
The repurposing and sharing of learning objects in a standard way requires a wide range of skills. The X4L projects are identifying the related staff development issues and are addressing these in different ways. The purpose of the Staff Development Resources work is to synthesise the various approaches and to gather the staff development resources produced, to help ensure that valuable lessons from the projects are captured and can be shared widely with the FE and HE sectors.
An X4L Staff Development Resource website, linked to the X4L pages of the JISC website, has been set up to enable the resources to be accessible through a framework using categories such as topic area, user role and resource type. Exemplars illustrating how different resources for a topic can be selected and adapted to form a staff development workshop or training programme have been created and the website also contains links to other online sources of staff development resources.
Related services and JISC development programmes
Experiences and recommendations from X4L are influencing the work of a number of JISC services and programmes, including:
X4L tools are recommended in the HEFCE e-Learning Strategy and used in NLN activities.
In addition, the following JISC services have enhanced their provision as a result of working within the X4L programme.
TechDis
As a result of work originally carried out to support X4L, TechDis are leading a cross sector multiple agency initiative (including JISC, CETIS, DfES Standards Unit, NIACE, LSDA and Becta) to develop a framework process that aims to give all staff involved in e-learning an opportunity to understand the impact of e-learning on various user groups by providing contextual examples of practice. The aim will be to give staff working in post-16 and HE the confidence to provide all learners, regardless of disability, social and cultural background or previous experience, with educational experiences that meet their learning needs.
Netskills
A workshop entitled ‘e-Assessment Tools & Techniques’ has been included in the portfolio of training workshops offered by Netskills to promote the TOIA assessment tool and the use of open standards for interoperability of online assessments.
JISC Legal
A guide to Copyright and IPR in e-learning was commissioned by JISC Legal from an X4L project manager and has been made available to the community.