[Oer-community] OER mapping essential information

[Lesley Delaney]

Hello All, 
I earlier mentioned a cross-referencing system that Ken Uda has more
eloquently articulated and I agree with him. Bren Taylor on the other hand
has raised very important issues with which I, as an academic, fully agree.
The essentials in the map need to maintain language usage at various levels.
Bren's argument also highlights the reverse of language usage, where the
informal does not/ cannot access the formal.  This issue can be extended
into various languages and cultural nuances.  So keywords in dropdown boxes
(or the like)not unlike an online thesaurus may be useful.  As I am not a
tech-head (term of endearment here), this may be a complex or laborious
task, but when I have taught grad teachers or undergrads how to search, I
have found that their depth of search knowledge is highly variable.
 
There is also a persistent inconsistency for those searching in languages
other than English (which I assume is the main OER map language for the
moment). Prime example: Human Geography in English, is in Japanese, also
known as Social Geography; this becomes sticky when there are terms such as
Social Science, Social work, Sociology. 
 
At the end of all this, as mostly an end-user, I cannot stress enough the
importance of intact, updated links, contact names etc. How frustrating this
must be for a struggling student at the end of a hard day, accessing
learning opportunities only to have an email contact returned by 'a
mail-daemon'. Is there a 'goodwill' contract for those people linking their
courses, that they have to maintain their end of the course?
Cheers Lesley

 

Lesley Crowe-Delaney

BA (Geography & Asian Studies) Grad Dip Ed (Japanese & ESL)

PhD Tourism and Coastal Development in Japan

Curtin University of Technology

Western Australia

 

 
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