Learning Object Repository *Software*

http://www.edtechpost.ca/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/EdTechPost/
LearningObjectRepositorySoftware

There’s a lot of lists of learning object repositories around – to name but a few good ones, there’s

• the database of repositories that the good folks at the ADL Co-Lab have recently released,
• Joe Hart’s EduResource portal is fast becoming an authoritative resource on the topic
• and there’s Patricia McGee’s collection done as NLII work.

The problem, for me, with many of these lists is that these typically don’t make any distinction between instances of existing repositories that are hosted by specific institutions or consortia (‘collections’ if you will) and repository software projects – software that one can download and install in one’s own environment, and integrate with one’s own systems if that’s important to you.

Well it’s important to me for a variety of reasons – within the context of the BCcampus lor project we are definitely looking for software that we will run and host in BC, and in the context of the Edutools team we are looking at doing some work that will allow people to do a comparative analysis of this kind of software.

So to that end, the above URL points to an evolving list of packages one might consider if you had to implement a learning object repository. A few final notes on this list and my approach:

• for the purposes of initially identifying as much as possible, I have included not only software that is specifically identified as LOR software, but also more commercial LCMS software, institutional repository software coming out of the library/archives world, and CMS software that implements either a repository or LCMS component
• I have not made a huge distinction between learning object metadata repositories and learning object content repositories though I recognize there are crucial differences.

It’s a wiki page so feel free to add to it. It isn’t exhaustive when it comes to LCMS or institutional repositories, but I think there are strong cases to be made that these are different beasts, and that while either can be made to fill the LOR role, there may be good reasons not to do this. – SWL