Content Collection

Sufficient resources are required not only to properly test the repository system functionality, but adequate content gives users a reason to use the repository. One approach is to have enough resources to support one or more complete courses in a selected discipline. Ideally, you should select a high enrollment course, or one that has difficult concepts where students might particularly benefit from the use of interactive digital content. At minimum, we recommend that at least 10-15 resources be contributed to the repository in at least two subject areas (e.g., algebra and biology) for your test implementation. The more resources you can have available for your pilot implementation, the better. If initial users get the impression that the repository does not have very many resources, or lacks resources in their discipline, they may not continue to use it. If you are concentrating on a limited number of subject areas or targeting specific audiences initially, or for the life of the repository, we suggest you make that clear to users. If you expand your offerings, that will provide an opportunity to market your new resources to specific audiences.

Depending on decisions you made earlier, you may be inputting content that consists of individual files, content packages or aggregations, or URLs. During the planning process, you probably identified some existing content that you planned to include. When looking for vetted content sources, we suggest you first identify content funded or licensed by your state, or developed with federal government funds such as grants from the National Science Foundation or National Institute of Health. For example, there may be existing collections of learning objects or digital assets at state libraries and institutions that could be added to the repository. Members of your stakeholder group may also have content that they could house in the repository. The owners or managers of these items may be willing to provide resources to be included in the repository at no cost and with or without restricting access to different types of repository users. Please note that there is often a grant requirement that content must be disseminated at no cost.

Depending on your software system, you may be able to batch load or import existing items into the repository. This is the preferred method, as it will save both time and labor when populating the repository. If the imported items already have metadata attached to them, make sure that the metadata is imported into the repository as well. Even with batch importing, it may be necessary to edit or adjust the content or metadata after import. If your software does not support batch uploading, or if the content is scattered among a variety of sources, you will have to add the items or objects individually. Again, be sure to add the metadata, according to your chosen metadata structure, to ensure future discoverability. The effort you spend now will add value to your repository as it grows in size and complexity.

Federation with and harvesting of other standards based repositories can provide thousands of resources. Harvesting involves using the the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) (http://www.openarchives.org/pmh), which is a low-barrier mechanism for repository interoperability. Repositories expose their metadata via OAI-PMH which can then be by other repositories or service providers. This page lists registered OAI conforming repositories: http://www.openarchives.org/Register/BrowseSites

The OnCoRe project team has not located a website that maintains a similar listing of repositories or collections that enable federation. However, as a starting point, The Orange Grove currently federates with these in-state and out-of-state collections:

• BC Campus SOL*R – access to BCcampus online learning resources from a variety of disciplines and subject areas. As of October, 2008, the majority of these resources were available only to the BCcampus community. A search on "AGLO“ (Applied Geophysics Learning Objects) yields around 25 accessible results; a "Design” search returns over 100 open content resources related to course design, learning object design, and website design. For more information see: http://solr.bccampus.ca/cms2/
• Intute Repository - access to vetted, open-access web resources for education and research across universities in the United Kingdom. For more information see: http://www.intute.ac.uk/irs/

• MERLOT – access to peer reviewed higher education, online learning materials catalogued by registered members, and a set of faculty development support services. This repository houses URLs rather than actual resource files. Discipline areas include Arts, Business, Education, Humanities, Mathematics and Statistics, Science and Technology, and Social Sciences. For more information: http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm

• USG Share –the University System of Georgia learning object repository houses resources from a number of higher education disciplines. As of October 2008, about 60 items were available to users outside the USG system, including about 20 Nursing resources
  
• Library of Congress – most items are library records describing the resource, rather than a link to an actual digital resource. Those items that have URLs associated with them appear in the search results.
• Florida on Florida Collection of the Florida Electronic Library - access to digital resources about Florida history, culture, and environment. Includes digital collections held by libraries, archives, museums and historical societies throughout Florida. For more information see http://bibt10f-8.fcla.edu/cgi/b/bib/bib-idx
  
• PALMM (Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials) – access to source materials for research and scholarship relevant to the students, research community and general citizenry of Florida. For more information see: http://palmm.fcla.edu/

Another source of content is individual faculty. Administrators of The Orange Grove, as well as of many of the other repositories we interviewed indicated that soliciting content from faculty was a challenge. Often faculty must become aware of your repository and gain familiarity with using it before they are willing to contribute their own items. We will address ways to reach out to faculty in the marketing and training section of Phase II.