[Oer-community] [e-Conference on Learning Repositories in Agriculture, Food & Environment: Quality Issues & Considerations] Launch of Phase II

[Nikos Palavitsinis]

  Dear colleagues,

I would like to take this opportunity to inform you about an ongoing 
e-Conference that the Agriculture Learning Repositories -Task Force 
(http://aglr.aua.gr) is organizing in cooperation with the e-Agriculture 
platform (http://www.e-agriculture.org <http://www.e-agriculture.org/>) 
& the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, to 
facilitate a discussion on Quality Dimensions & Considerations for 
Learning Repositories and Portals.

We really feel that some of the topics discussed in the e-Agriculture 
platform, are closely related to your work with Open Educational 
Resources, and it would be really interesting for the attendants of the 
conference to hear your opinion on some of the questions that are being 
discussed. For the time being, the e-Conference on Learning Repositories 
in Agriculture, Food & Environment, is continued for the second week, 
introducing its second Phase, with two new topics for discussion!

Phase 2 – Topic 1 - Populating a repository with resources and metadata: 
The quality versus quantity dilemma
1.    Which metadata standard are you using in your 
institutional/project repository?
2.    How many and which metadata elements do you require for a resource 
to be uploaded in the repository?
3.    How do you measure quality of the metadata within your repository? 
Do you have any mechanisms (automated or not) in place, to ensure the 
completeness, correctness, etc. of metadata?
4.    As a content creator, do you find it easy to provide metadata for 
the resources you create? What are your experiences so far?
5.    Would you prefer a repository with hundreds of thousands of 
resources with the minimum metadata attached to them (title, description 
and keywords) or a repository with significantly less resources, 
described with a comprehensive set of metadata elements (covering 
educational aspects, format requirements, classification aspects, etc.)? 
Justify you choice.

Phase 2 – Topic 2 - Managing a portal with thousands of resources and 
users: Are communities “attracted” to quality, like bees to honey?
1.    As a portal owner / administrator, how do you ensure that the 
learning resources accessible from your portal, are high quality ones? 
Do you have any mechanisms reviewing and re-assessing the resources 
available?
2.    As a user of such portals, what do you value most when you visit 
them? For example, simple searching interfaces, accurate results, 
possibility to interact with the resources (rate, review, tag)? Anything 
else?
3.    As a content creator, do you feel that making resources available 
on educational portals, would interest you? Are you already doing this? 
If yes, how do you handle IPRs? If not, what are the reasons for not 
sharing?
4.    What are the practical problems that arise during the creation and 
maintenance of a portal with thousands of resources, from the portal 
owner side? Which are the most common ones? Are there any that you have 
yet to address?

To answer our new topics and the questions posed there, please visit the 
following link and choose the appropriate topic: 
http://www.e-agriculture.org/657.html?&tx_mmforum_pi1[action]=list_topic&tx_mmforum_pi1[fid]=33 
<http://www.e-agriculture.org/657.html?&tx_mmforum_pi1[action]=list_topic&tx_mmforum_pi1[fid]=33>

Additionally, we would like to remind you that we already have some 
interesting views and replies regarding the first week's topics, which 
are the following:

Phase 1 - Topic 1 – Learning resources creation: What constitutes a 
quality learning resource?
Phase 1 – Topic 2 - Providing quality metadata: Is the gain worth the 
effort?

To answer to one of these topics, or to the refining questions that are 
available, please visit the following link and choose the appropriate 
topic: 
http://www.e-agriculture.org/657.html?&tx_mmforum_pi1[action]=list_topic&tx_mmforum_pi1[fid]=30 
<http://www.e-agriculture.org/657.html?&tx_mmforum_pi1[action]=list_topic&tx_mmforum_pi1[fid]=30>

Thank you for your time,

With kind regards,

Nikos Palavitsinis

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Nikos Palavitsinis
Programme Management and Administration
Greek Research&  Technology Network (GRNET) S.A.
56, Messogion Av.
115 27 Athens, Greece
tel: +30 210 7474 263
fax: +30 210 7474 490
http://www.grnet.gr, palavitsinis at grnet.gr
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