OERInterop-ContributionDistributionChannels

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Enable alternative contribution and distribution channels


 * Design or adapt tools for offline authoring and intermittent uploading
 * Current tools
 * OpenOffice 3 to mediawiki format and mediawiki will export to OpenOffice
 * Context sensitive branching and sychronization -- Benjamin Mako-Hill
 * Google gears -- internal URL's were a problem


 * Design OERs to allow for offline distribution and use (on a hard drive or on paper)


 * Design OERs to allow use on mobile devices and cell phones
 * MobilEd -- sms search to wikipedia article and get back an audio version of the search

= Authoring =

Media-wiki export exists - does very well. Next year media-wiki to opendocument format EXE editor - creates xhtml, also has export for IMS content packages Lots of off-line authoring tools - sync automatically with repository MIT - context sensitive branching and syncing - allow intelligent ability to consolidate changes across multiple branches (Benjamin

Google gears type tech for doing off-line editing OU - allows local Moodle installation which syncronises with server. Internal URLs problem with Google gears / OU wanted to piggy back off pre-existing Moodle work Syncronisation of MediaWiki servers - Africa - local bandwidth cheap - use syncing and branching to have local versions in country to significantly lower access costs.

= Delivery =

MobilEd - allows you to sms a search with an audio phone - site does audio of search results and returns information - have to have a proper number and server - images could be delivered depending on capability of cellphone. Costs also relevant. Network can be a problem too.

Intermediate XML formats can allow smart stuff to be done with different kind of exports. Flexibility from structured data.

XSLFO has been good for printing for connexions. Can't handle maths. Ultimately will go this way.

Word and OpenOffice will become XML authoring tools - read custom tags etc. Add customisations to word.

Can do anything, but need to look at target audience to see what outputs are necessary. Export content so that it can be imported into LMS systems. Start with a basic IMS package export - can be done relatively easily.

LMS should not lock down OER, only student cohort - so OER should be outside LMS - reference things elsewhere.

What to do to put everything into Sakai - common cartridge (OU). OCW can be imported into Sakai in some way.

Limiting factor for common cartridge - need content for platforms, need platforms for content. Publishers love common cartridge. Single format for publishers - easier for them.

Enable alternative contribution and distribution channels


 * It would be very useful to have a free hosting service for open video/image formats
 * Need a business model to support this.

= Scenarios =

Current tools

 * OpenOffice 3 to mediawiki format and mediawiki will export to OpenOffice
 * Context sensitive branching and sychronization -- Benjamin Mako-Hill
 * Google gears -- internal URL's were a problem -- Sakai is moving that direction
 * Moodle project to allow local dev and synchronization

Delivery: Export to Learning Management Systems

 * IMS Content Packaging, Common Cartridge is the main route for Sakai
 * No reason that the actual resources have to be inside the LMS
 * -- limiting factor is having LMSs import the Common Cartridge

Common principles

 * OER's should export in common formats, but isn't necessarily useful for underlying structure
 * need a different way for delivering content that is to be reused.

Current tools

 * XML using XSL-FO and from their you can get many different output
 * LaTeX - open source print format tool

Delivery: Design OERs to allow use on mobile devices and cell phones

 * MobilEd - allows you to sms a search with an audio phone - site does audio of search results and returns information - have to have a proper number and server - images could be delivered depending on capability of cellphone. Costs also relevant. Network can be a problem too.
 * Use of phones as data capture devices -- blog, picture, video, question answers
 * What video formats should be delivered to phones is not yet standard
 * Flexible displays will allow phones to have a page size display

= Common Principles =

Functional Interoperability

 * Learning Tool Interoperability IMS standard
 * Ex. In Common Cartridge you can refer to a discussion group and it can be supported by whatever LMS you import into. Could be facebook.
 * OpenID
 * What about Shiboleth?
 * Functional Mashups
 * Announcement tool from Sakai that ended up in Blackboard
 * Sakai and Moodle mashups with Facebook
 * Investigate OpenSocial and Facebook API's

What are the main use cases we are trying to address?

 * Making sure that the content we produce doesn't end up in a dead end format
 * XML formats that are transformable -- crosswalks
 * Common mappable vocabulary
 * Media repository to preserve source materials


 * User want to define Personal Learning Environment and use content


 * User wants to create a mashup


 * Another tool wants to create a mashup

= Recommendations =


 * exports to support
 * common cartridge
 * export as SCORM
 * export as IMS content packaging
 * clean XHTML


 * come up with a set of design principals to facilitate mashups