Managing Online Resources for Teaching and Learning

Albert Ip, EdNA Technical Specialist, Dept of Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia albert@dls.au.com

Prof. Iain Morrison, Head, Dept of Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia iain@staff.dis.unimelb.edu.au

Michael Currie, EdNA Higher Education Project Manager, Dept of Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia m.currie@dis.unimelb.edu.au

Jon Mason, Technical Director, Education.Au Limited, Adedale, Australia jmason@educationau.edu.au

Keywords

Resource discovery, metadata standards, NEF resources, Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Apart from providing access to a huge collection of information resources the Web promotes a new paradigm for teaching and learning. In response to this opportunity a number of major projects are taking place to develop educational metadata standards to describe digital resources which promote interoperability of resource discovery.

Pedagogical frameworks such as 'resource based learning', scaffold learners and resources to achieve desired educational goals. The majority of online resources, however, are not created as educational tools or classroom materials. The term 'non-educationally-focused' (NEF) resource is introduced in this paper to refer to a resource originally created for purposes other than educational consumption. Yet these NEF resources can have great educational value in the right context. This context is generally provided not by the creator or initial indexer of the resource, but by a third party, a teacher, student or librarian perhaps.

This paper describes the technical work of the EdNA Higher Education Team in this area since mid 1999. The distinction between educational resources and NEF resources provides a model for educational metadata development. A mechanism for "education enabling" NEF resources is proposed and is compatible with current educational metadata standardisation efforts. It is argued that Subject Gateways are potential providers of enabling resources and enabling metadata for domain specific NEF resources.