Questions of Quality in Repositories of Open Educational Resources: A Literature Review. <s> Introduction <s> Metadata enables users to find the resources they require, therefore it is an important component of any digital learning object repository. Much work has already been done within the learning technology community to assure metadata quality, focused on the development of metadata standards, specifications and vocabularies and their implementation within repositories. The metadata creation process has thus far been largely overlooked. There has been an assumption that metadata creation will be straightforward and that where machines cannot generate metadata effectively, authors of learning materials will be the most appropriate metadata creators. However, repositories are reporting difficulties in obtaining good quality metadata from their contributors, and it is becoming apparent that the issue of metadata creation warrants attention. This paper surveys the growing body of evidence, including three UK-based case studies, scopes the issues surrounding human-generated metadata creation and identifies questions for further investigation. Collaborative creation of metadata by resource authors and metadata specialists, and the design of tools and processes, are emerging as key areas for deeper research. Research is also needed into how end users will search learning object repositories. DOI: 10.1080/0968776042000211494 <s> BIB001 </s> Questions of Quality in Repositories of Open Educational Resources: A Literature Review. <s> Introduction <s> The online Learning Resource Catalogue (LRC) Project has been part of an international consortium for several years and currently includes 25 institutions worldwide. The LRC Project has evolved for several pragmatic reasons into an academic network whereby members can identify and share reusable learning objects as well as collaborate in a number of ways. Collaboration through the LRC3 toolset may be concerned with the development or redevelopment of learning resources or for administrative and research purposes. For practical and particularly academic cultural reasons, the ‘catalogue’ itself has adopted a broad perspective on the nature of a ‘repository’. Many academic staff do not wish to give away their learning resources by uploading them to a public place but they may be prepared to describe the resources (objects) and retain control over their use. The LRC3 therefore includes a ‘distributed repository’ in that the objects may reside in many different places yet can be located through the catalogue w... <s> BIB002 </s> Questions of Quality in Repositories of Open Educational Resources: A Literature Review. <s> Introduction <s> For teachers and learners, the proliferation of Open Educational Resources (OER) in combination with advances in information technologies has meant centralised access to materials and the possibility of creating, using, and reusing OER globally, collaboratively, and across multiple disciplines. Through an examination of a community of author users of the OER portal Connexions, this article explores individual and group authorship, OER use and reuse and the factors contributing to and hindering these practices. As such, the paper sheds light on how OER can be sustained and continuously improved, with an emphasis on the use and reuse of dynamic, relevant, and high quality materials over time. <s> BIB003 </s> Questions of Quality in Repositories of Open Educational Resources: A Literature Review. <s> Introduction <s> Success in open educational resources (OER) has been reported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA and the Open University in the UK, among others. It is unclear, however, how valuable OER are in learning and teaching. Approaches to OER policy and sustainability are just two other key aspects that remain unresolved across the sector. Based on the findings from the Open, Transferable, Technology-enabled Educational Resources (OTTER) project at the University of Leicester, UK, 1 we introduce the OER mix framework: purpose, processes, product, and policy. We argue that different mixes of the four Ps can generate different approaches to OER. We discuss the relevance of the framework and its importance for social inclusion and widening access to higher education. We also discuss the implications of the OER mix for the openness agenda. Institutions may find value in adapting and applying the framework. We invite colleagues to critique it and report back. <s> BIB004 </s> Questions of Quality in Repositories of Open Educational Resources: A Literature Review. <s> Introduction <s> Abstract This paper focuses on the significant developments in the area of open education, in particular the role that Open Educational Repositories (OER) can play in higher education, teaching, learning and scholarship. The National Digital Learning Resources service (NDLR) in Ireland is presented as a case study of a best practice model for such an OER service. <s> BIB005 </s> Questions of Quality in Repositories of Open Educational Resources: A Literature Review. <s> Introduction <s> Open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) are relatively new areas in educational research. How OER and OEP can help practitioners enhance curricula is one of a number of under-researched topics. This article aims to enable practitioners to identify and implement appropriate open practices to enhance higher education curricula. To that aim, we put forward a framework of four open educational practices based on patterns of OER reuse (‘as is’ or adapted), mapped against the processes of curriculum design and delivery. The framework was developed from the in-depth analysis of 20 cases of higher education practitioners, which revealed patterns of OER reuse across disciplines, institutions and needs. For each open practice we offer evidence, examples and ideas for application by practitioners. We also put forward recommendations for institutional policies on OER and OEP. <s> BIB006 </s> Questions of Quality in Repositories of Open Educational Resources: A Literature Review. <s> Introduction <s> The extremely rapid expansion of open educational resource (OER) initiatives and the millions of learners they attract can be understood as an indicator of an emerging revolution in education and learning. This article describes recent developments in this area and develops conceptual foundations for studies and policies on OER. We describe four different types of OER, locate these in a field of learning theories, and discuss how the wide adoption of OER may constrain and accelerate the transformation of learning and education in the knowledge society. <s> BIB007
The technological affordances of computers and the Internet have made the production of learning resources easier, leading to a proliferation of resources that may be shared between institutions and individuals, therefore enabling the possibility of open educational resources (OER). According to proponents of OER such as  , 'the free and open sharing of educational resources is essential to the building of ubiquitous learning networks and reducing the knowledge divide that separates and partitions societies' (p. xviii). Indeed, prominent educators, institutions and international organisations have identified the need to 'open up' educational resources as a crucial next step in the evolution of education. This position is summarised in point A of the Paris OER Declaration, which recommends that States Promote and use OER to widen access to education at all levels, both formal and nonformal, in a perspective of lifelong learning, thus contributing to social inclusion, gender equity and special needs education. Improve both cost-efficiency and quality of teaching and learning outcomes through greater use of OER. (UNESCO 2012, p. 1) For  , OER is a means to promote the dissemination of knowledge more widely, increasing the pace of development and, additionally, increasing the quality of education and reducing social inequalities. According to  , the sharing of quality open resources unleashes the power of resource-based learning and, for  , reusing and remixing teaching materials produced by others can unleash the creativity of educators, encouraging them to rethink the ways in which they deliver their teaching and encouraging collaboration in the scholarly community around resource improvement and adaptation.  , however, sound a note of caution, contending that while OER can 'greatly improve the quality of material available online to learners . . . this wealth of resources can leave learners adrift in an ocean of information, struggling to solve ill-structured problems, with little clear idea of how to approach them, or how to recognise when they have made progress ' (p. 316) . Thus, discussions around OER (and the infrastructure which supports their storage and use) must take into account educational practice. According to  , this is reflected in the fact that, while the origin of the OER movement is located on the emphasis of entitlement (of access to, and adaptation of, free pedagogical material), the new wave of policy and advocacy initiatives focus on transparency enabled by the adoption of open educational practices. (p. 3) On the ground, opening up academic practice is a work in progress that requires a combination of solutions, including cultural change as well as better technologies. The sharing and 'reuse' of published research output (assuming referencing conventions and any copyright restrictions are observed) is considered to be normal and desirable Á in other words, it is hoped that other scholars will read and cite one's papers, but one's teaching materials seem to be subject to a different set of criteria   . For  , there is a 'lack of professional incentives and a culture (or expertise) in sharing and remixing openly'. Beyond these questions of culture and motivation, it is also the case that the reuse of teaching and learning resources is not straightforward when academics are unsure of the aim for which and context in which the resource was produced  BIB002 . Additionally, according to BIB003 , 'users may lack the confidence, capacity, or willingness to contribute changes to OER'. Assuming that adopting Open Educational Practices (OEP) represents a significant and desirable cultural shift for many academics, there is at the same time a fundamental requirement for appropriate tools to enable and support such practices. For the OECD (2007) , 'the rapidly growing number of learning materials and repositories makes the issue of how to find the resources that are most relevant and of best quality a pressing one' (p. 100). Indeed, the success of the OER movement hinges on both the ability and possibility of educators to effectively create, share, discover and reuse quality resources. Repositories have come to be regarded as a key link in this chain BIB001   , as evidenced by the development of a wide array of OER repository initiatives worldwide in the decade or so since the term OER began to gain currency BIB005 However, repositories matching this definition are quite a diverse and non-standard group BIB006   BIB004 BIB007 . It seems therefore to be an opportune moment to build on the considerable work that the OER community has put into the development and use of such repositories, and consider how they might best be implemented or enhanced going forward. In order to identify the most relevant literature for this study, 122 peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers and books were reviewed and analysed. A subset which specifically discusses repositories was identified. Within this subset we identified mentions of good practices and elements lacking in the design of ROER. The literature reviewed was obtained from relevant articles in the field of OER, learning objects and repositories, from both Open Access and paywalled journals. The timeframe of the literature review is from 1996 to 2014 and the articles reviewed were in English, German and Spanish. The objective of this study is therefore to contextualise and to describe a method for evaluation of ROER. Through this literature review we will define key themes in the ethos of ROER and distil a set of quality indicators (QI) for repositories, in order to ultimately derive an evaluation model.