OER1040 Oral Presentation ppt

The Global Grid for Learning: Unifying Commercial and Open Education Resource Providers Through A Single Digital Content Supply Network for Global Education

Theodore Lynn, Dublin City University

Conference Theme: Open Educational Content

Abstract: Throughout the world significant investments have and are being made in the design and development of digital learning content repositories and brokerage systems to facilitate the exchange of metadata and associated content to educational software systems. While attempts have been made to include commercial content providers, most of these initiatives are organized regionally and financed by government, sub-government or donor agency funding and focus on the sharing of open education resources. Contrarily, commercial content providers are suspicious of open education resources and associated licensing models. The Global Grid for Learning is an initiative funded by Cambridge University Press, a not-for-profit organization, with a vision to create a unified digital content supply network for global education connecting users and software systems to both commercial and open education resources. This paper provides an overview of the initiative and discusses some of the content, metadata and system interoperability challenges encountered to date, including country context issues dealt with in the context of the Arab world, and how this project has sought to address them. It also discusses cultural barriers encountered when dealing with both OER and commercial content providers and efforts to overcome these. The presentation will conclude with a status update on the project, a live demonstration of the system and a discussion of opportunities on the project for future research collaboration, OER discovery and OER exchange.

Keywords: Digital Content, Metadata, Educational Brokerage, Digital Content Repositories, OERs, Systems Interoperability, Semantic Interoperability, Localisation

References:
Communications and Information Technology Commission: Content
Filtering in Saudi Arabia, http://www.internet.gov.sa/learn-the-web/guides/content-filtering-in-saudi-arabia/view?set_language=en
DiGangi, S., Lynn, T. and Alhakami, A. (2009) "The Arab Grid for Learning: A Model for System-Wide Resource Sharing and Services",First International Conference on e-Learning and Distance-Learning, Al Faisaliah Hotel, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, March 16-18.
Lynn, T. and DiGangi, S. (2009) "Connecting a billion content resources to education by 2018: the Global Grid for Learning", International Conference on Information and Communications Technology Development, 2009 (ICTD 2009), Carnegie Mellon University, Qatar Education City, Doha, Qatar, March 17 - 19.
Lynn, T., DiGangi, S. and Hanney, D. (2008) "Creating a unified digital content supply network for global education: the Global Grid for Learning story so far." In: David Massart, Jean-Noël Colin, Frans Van Assche, Martin Wolpers (eds.), European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 08): Second International Workshop on Search and Exchange of e-le@rning Materials (SE@M'08), Maastricht School of Management, Maastricht, September 17.
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