D7.3.3

=Institutional policies encourage the reuse of e-learning resources. =

Evidence
Chang (2004) suggests that in order to encourage educators to create and importantly to share reusable e-learning materials, then we must engage educators in the creative process, provide a forum for circulating ideas and resolving problems, obtain user feedback on effectiveness, and offer practical workshops with hands on experience.

Koper (2004), identifies several issues concerning sharing and reuse that require further clarification. Firstly, there is a need to clarify types of objects that are reusable. The most reusable being small units of learning, thereby raising the issue of granularization (Duncan, 2003; Wiley, 2000), or the size of learning objects. A third issue concerns how objects are aggregated for use in learning units and activities, particularly with regard to automated processes, which, in turn introduces the issue of disaggregation, or how to deal with other course materials that are not appropriate for e-learning. Finally there is the issue of adapting learning objects, which concerns not only technical complexities, but also the intellectual and property rights involved.

Ongoing design and development of the physical e-learning infrastructure should be done with an awareness of reuse as well as an appreciation of the rapid pace of change and development in this area.

Resources
Tate & Hoshek (2009) describe a case study of an ‘exemplar’ organizations’ management of reusable learning objects. They propose a ‘four-quadrant’ model for effective management in this domain which seeks to avoid learning object creation in the ‘zone of frustration’ where controls are high and potential for reuse is low. They also recommend that organizations seeking to implement a reusable learning object repository should support an informal prototyping environment that allows experimentation, creativity, and rapid non-specialist development.

E-learning results in digital content that can be re-used, or can be designed to be re-used (Bates 2007). This digital content has value and therefore needs to be managed. It is this value that compensates institutions for the investment in e-learning. Institutions should be considering how best to create digital content so it can be re-used. Also, who owns the copyright for the content once it has been created? There are a range of possibilities from making content freely available to charging for everything. Bates (2007) recommends that an explicit plan be developed for how the institution proposes content management.