Sections :

About the IIS&R Project

Substitutability Project

Education Project

FAQ & Glossary

COLIS Phase 1: 2002

COLIS Project CD-ROM

"The COLIS Project" Book

COLIS Demonstrator

About the IIS&R (COLIS Phase 2) Project

• Background

• Partners

• Methodology
• Achievements
• Future directions

Education Research Project 2003-2004

• Outline
• Research areas
• Reports

Outline

The Education Research Project and the Substitutability Project together comprise the second stage of the COLIS Project, known as the Interaction of IT Systems and Repositories Project (IIS&R). The Project is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). Five institutional research teams from around Australia conducted educational research into the COLIS conceptual model. One group from the United Kingdom also joined the group, funding their own research.

Goals

• IIS&R Project
  ‘To improve interaction between IT systems and repositories within a standards framework by sustaining and extending the outcomes of the COLIS Demonstrator project, and by conducting research with teachers and learners.’

• Education Research Project
  ‘To conduct research with teachers and learners’ regarding the COLIS concept and Demonstrator.

Objectives for the Education Research Project

• Gain teachers’ and learners’ input into technical developments regarding the COLIS Demonstrator;

• Obtain input on usability;

• Determine teaching and learning implications, especially regarding the COLIS ‘Global Use Case’;

• Develop workflow models;

• Collect data regarding standards for IMS research;

• Engage in collaboration to develop a framework for interoperability, substitutability, standards and digital repositories;

• Identify possible future directions, strategies and implications for policy; and

• Disseminate the findings.

Conceptual outcomes

• Confirmation that the COLIS model, while to some degree still an idealised model, is functional and relatively easy to use in the ‘real world’ for ‘Content Creators’, content and course ‘Arrangers’ and those looking for content or learning objects, ‘Infoseekers’.

• The COLIS ‘Global Use Case’ conceptual model was revised (December 2003). The new version includes a role for the librarian or ‘Cataloguer’.

• Identification of barriers and motivators to use and reuse of learning objects.

• Identification of barriers and issues affecting implementation of Learning Resource Management Systems, or similar digital repositories, from a national perspective and a UK perspective.

• Identification of issues affecting creation of workable metadata scheme that will fit an educational setting.

Tangible outcomes

Outcomes are detailed with each of the six individual research projects, but the main tangibles outcomes were:

• Six Education Research reports and an overall Education Research Report;

• Monograph of the COLIS Project including edited chapters from education researchers, vendor partners and other contributors (in press);

• A minimum metadata set and guidelines for the creation of content (University of Tasmania consortium)

• COLIS Procedures: Guidelines for metadata creation (Murdoch University)

• Guide to COLIS: A brief introduction to the COLIS model, a users guide (WestOne Services)

• Workflow models (Monash University):

  • Identifying learning objects (LOs) to be put in the repository and why

  • Preparing learning resources for the repository

  • Adding a LO to the repository

  • Editing a LO in the repository

  • Adding information about copyright and other restrictions

  • Using a LO in the Learning Management System (LMS)

  • Finding resources

• Dissemination in various forms including a national seminar series of ‘Roadshows’;

• COLIS documentation for users