[Oer-community] What is beyond mapping the OER intiatives?

[Edward Cherlin]

Here are links to some more resources.

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Duda Nogueira <dudanogueira at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am very happy with all the discussions we are having here.
>
> Getting all this cool people that work with OER together is a great
> initiative. Kudos for that!!
>
> I started my pet project some time ago, Duda Library[1], an open source
> software which aims to map, index, download, pack and redistribute OER
> objects to schools and community with low no None Internet.
>
> What you can see there (both on the installed version[1] and on the code
> repository[2]) is a real "beta" software, or "under research" if you may
> prefer.
>
> It's being developed to solve a huge problem here in Brazil (and certainly
> on other countries), that some of you might not consider that much of a
> problem while talking about Distance Learning or OER: Internet Connectivity,
> or better saying, the lack of a good and reliable Internet Connectivity.
>
> However, I stumbled on 3 huge difficulties to accomplish what my project and
> myself wants. And the first of it it's being discussed right here right now.
>
> 1) Getting to know all the OER Repositories and their curators, or have at
> least a point of contact with them.
>
> I even tried to map some of them [3], but then, because of the second
> problem, I didn't go further as this wasn't the big problem for me at the
> moment: the project has a limited OER Repositories scope for now.
>
> 2) an OER standart - While I was writing the piece of software to pack the
> OER for redistribution, I then discovered that there's no pattern or file
> format standart whatsoever. This is a huge problem, as you cannot have a
> reliable way to know if the OER object is going to work on a big variety of
> platforms, or if the OER object is really Open (it might contain a Flash
> Piece of Software without the source).
>
> Possible Solution: Hire some great software developers to improve the Libre
> Office in order to accept Video, Audio (with subtitles), HTML5 animations,
> test and quizz with result return,etc, and make it the PERFECT OER authoring
> tool, and compliant with the ODF Alliance [5]
>
> 3) an OER exchange protocol - While I was writing the piece of software to
> map and index, I realized  there's no protocol to interchange OER, or have
> easy, programatic, access to the OER. Each OER Repository delivers the OER
> on their own way, and it might or might not provide a API (Application
> Program Interface), allowing the programatic access to the OER and their
> metadata.
>
> Por instance, the contents from our main OER and PER (Public Educational
> Resource) repository, Portal do Professor [4] don't provide a API, so I
> needed to grap the content on the hardway (with a "webscrapping" process and
> believe me, it's not pretty).
>
> On the other hand, Khan Academy Portuguese is delivered by Youtube, which
> offers a API to work with, but doesn't offer a way to download the subtitles
> (root cause: problem #2), and for the portuguese version, doesn't have the
> tags field filled, which doesn't allow to create a reliable list of similar
> OER contents.
>
> Possible Solution: Write a protocol and ask the OER providers to follow it.
> This protocol would be used to easy access for the OER, and can be used from
> a mobile device or other OER redistributors.
>
> Anyway, I expect to give here my 2 cents for the discussion.
>
> I certainly got ahead of the mapping discussion, But I really needed to
> expose the whole idea. Sorry for that and for the long email :)
>
> Some references:
>
> 1 - http://dudalibrary.org
> 2 - http://dudalibrary.googlecode.com
> 3 - https://code.google.com/p/dudalibrary/wiki/Resources
> 4 - http://portaldoprofessor.mec.gov.br
> 5 - http://www.odfalliance.org/
>
> Thank you!
>
> Duda Nogueira
> Gerente de Projetos em Tecnologia
> www.dudanogueira.com.br
>
> Celular: +55 31 9985-1271
>
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> Oer-community at athabascau.ca
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>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks