Development
Do you search for relevant material before creating your own?

• Mostly dependent on context.
  
• See what others have done in order to validate what you are doing.
  
• Need to think about differing needs for different institutions (e.g. referencing materials vary depending on institutional requirements).
  
• Search on Google, repositories, YouTube.

What does this mean for the CoP?
Discuss differing needs for searching for material. Perhaps reach some agreement on appropriate generic material to 'sell' as very re-usable.

How often are new RLOs developed when appropriate material already exists?

• Very often; this activity was felt to be ubiquitous.
  
• Sometimes librarians re-use colleagues' material and sometimes librarians are not even aware of internal resources which could be re-purposed.
  
• There is the issue of ownership, when librarians are not sure what rights the original creator has or who should be contacted to ask for permission therefore the assumption is that it's sometimes easier to create objects from scratch.
  
• Depends on limitations of University website.
  
• Formats of learning object not always appropriate even if content - this is a major design issue for RLO creators.
• Reluctance to use materials branded with other Unis' logos.

What does this mean for the CoP?
We need to raise awareness of licence/rights/permissions with those searching for RLOs. There needs to be a simple system to identify what restrictions are attached to each learning object.

How do you use new technologies (Web 2.0) to develop material and what are the implications of this in terms of ease of re-use and re-purpose?

• There was consensus that Web 2.0 is not widely used in developing new material, even when it could be used in place of expensive software (e.g. Google Docs).
• There was also agreement that the more complicated the technology, the more difficult it can be to re-use and that it takes time to get to know new Web 2.0 applications.
  
• Sometimes simpler, more well known formats are better as there are issues with currency issues – when will these technologies become obsolete?
  

What does this mean for CoP?
We need to discuss the need for awareness raising of Web 2.0 and training of librarians in using new technologies.

How do learning outcomes/learning contexts impact on developing material?

• RLOs should be linked to modules and should be subject specific where possible as experience tells us that any learning material needs to be relevant and specific. Type of learning/teaching environment. Evaluation – relative to learning outcome – did it contribute to achievement?
  

Storage/preservation
How/where do you store your learning material (own PC, VLE, IR, Jorum etc.)?

• Shared university drives, VLEs, institutional repositories, Jorum, free web, intranets.
• There is no one single point of access for learning material as this depends on permissions and who needs to access.
  

Is it best to house all RLOs in one place (in national repositories like Jorum) for ease of access and consistency or should we be using a system like Merlot?

• The positive points about using one place - community of users, single point of access and consistent metadata.
  
• However, there are many questions attached to housing RLOs including how the RLOs get kept up to date, who coordinates tagging/metadata/quality assurance?
  
• How do users send feedback to contributors with suggestions for improvements?

What does this mean for a CoP?
Do we need to agree standards for how RLOs are stored (including metadata, quality assurance, keeping a use/audit trail, linking up creators and users)?

How can we ensure that material is kept up to date and preserved for others to use?

• Is it worth looking into auto-archiving? Or an agreement when uploading materials to keep on uploading each new version as and when new versions are created.
  

Sharing
How is it best to promote the sharing and re-purposing of material and what are the copyright implications for sharing material?

• How is it best to market the RLOs that we're all creating (and do we want/need to market them?)
• Where is it best to go to search for material? Does there need to be a single point of access? Appropriate places could include IL sub-group website, discussion lists etc.
• Are we making it clear that people are welcome to re-use our work? Do we need to make better use of Creative Commons etc. or some other consistent set of licencing standards.
  
• Barriers to promotion include copyright, technical issues, branding, how easy are RLOs to repurpose, update?
  

How can we exploit Creative Commons in this area (JorumOpen)?

• Repositories would need to re-market learning material and use of repositories themselves in light of Creative Commons as access would be much easier and re-use of material would be made easier.

What does this mean for a CoP?
What are the best channels for communication and keeping interested parties informed about new IL RLOs and informing them about rights/licences etc.?

Quality control
How do you assess the quality of RLOs that you're re-using?

• The most important consideration and top of the evaluation criteria will be how adaptable is the material and how easy is it to re-purpose?
  
• Is the learning material at the appropriate level?
• Who is the audience that the material is aimed at?
  
• Learning material needs contextualisation – understanding the strategic aims of learning objects in terms of projects and individual objects also helps to understand how useful they will be to you.
  
• Use individual judgement.

Do you think that RLOs should be quality assured and included in a repository based on assessment?

• There was no consensus on quality assurance.
  
• Perhaps guidelines (for both creating and re-purposing) are a way forward.
  
• Peer review – but what are the criteria?
  

What does this mean for CoP?
Should we think about an editorial board for repositories holding IL RLOs or just an annual review of the best examples of IL RLOs?

Re-purposing/re-use
To what extent is IL learning material being re-purposed or re-used? Do we have any feeling for what is being done at our own institutions?

• There is still a huge duplication of effort.
  
• Uncertainty over copyright means that many users don't know what material can be re-used/re-purposed
• A clear guide to CC with regards to re-use would be useful.
  
• Don't know what's out there (metadata/finding issues).
  
• Reluctance to ask for stuff from others – there need to be ground rules/standards for sharing including designed-in adaptability (granularity), info/context for learning objects, was it successful?
  
• They're more successful if they're bite sized rather than huge as it makes for easy editing.
  
• Creators should also use a log to explain context e.g.

What are the issues surrounding re-purposing for you/your organisation?

• Non HEFCE and LSC-funded institutions are left out of CoPs (e.g. BLDS), Jorum access etc. Some funding models prevent collaboration/sharing (can we educate the funders?).
  
• There is a need to indicate the learning outcomes/intentions of learning material.
  
• There is a lack of links between repositories (maybe we need just one central list of links to places to find learning material, RSS feeds to keep us updated, metadata standards when contributing to Jorum, Merlot (like people have to use the same Twitter tag, contributors must use the same 'tag' when uploading to any repository).
  
• Audit may be redundant as material goes out of date quickly.
  
• Audit of use could lead to useful peer-recommendation “users who re-used x also re-used y...”.
  
• How have re-purposed objects been kept up to date...are they up to date? Is that part of the responsibility of uploading?
  

What does this mean for CoP?
Do we need to start with an audit of appropriate material with an indication of the quality etc.?

Community of Practice

• CoP would be valued
• Events and online
• Need to have links with learning technologists and others, should be inclusive, not just librarians or owners of large repositories
• RLOs need to be both subject-based and general
• Need to ensure that this is cross-sectoral and independent.

What will the IL RLO CoP look like?

• WHO - librarians, learning technologists, academics, eLearning specialists, web developers, repository developers, software developers, technology trainers, HE, FE, charity sector (non HEFCE funded), government and public libraries etc.
• WHAT – website, wiki, lists of links (RLO sites, literature, events, contacts), repository section for RLOs, online discussion forums, face to face events to discuss best practice for creation, storage, tagging, sharing and re-use of IL RLOs with a view to producing standards/guidelines etc., training for those creating RLOs (use of Web 2.0, pedagogy, context etc.)
• WHERE - http://ilrloshare.wetpaint.com – just for starters