SURF metadata publisher project
Stoke on Trent College worked with Nelson Thornes to explore the practical issues involved in transforming a publisher’s educational resources into e-learning materials for delivery within a virtual learning environment.
Summary
This project explored the practical issues involved in transforming a publisher’s educational resources into e-learning materials for delivery within a virtual learning environment (VLE). Stoke on Trent College worked with publisher Nelson Thornes to select source material for e-learning modules on Health and Social Care and Principles of Motor Vehicle Mechanics. The Stoke team developed a process for authoring the e-learning materials. The resulting packages were loaded on the Learnwise VLE and evaluated by students and staff in the SURF consortium.
E-learning materials are created to conform to e-learning standards to ensure they are interoperable across systems and therefore can be shared within the community. Metadata was created by subject specialists according to the UK LOM Core specification. Materials were aggregated into e-learning packages using LRN Toolkit and RELOAD, both of which supported IMS Content Packaging and SCORM. Materials created using LRN were tested in RELOAD and vice versa to ensure interoperability.
Outcomes
E-learning is a fast moving field and has moved on since this project took place in 2003. It gave the team practical experience in creating e-learning materials and testing them within the SURF consortium. They built on this experience in the SURF X4L project which resulted in several useful outputs on repurposing content for use within VLEs and the associated interoperability issues.
Outputs
Report
The project’s final report (PDF) to JISC documents the work in detail, including selection of tools, the authoring process, evaluation at the test sites, and lessons learned.
Further Information