Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?Name=project_evalmedi. This project
was led by the Peninsula Medical School of Exeter and Plymouth
Universities. Its partners included Gold Standard Media, Blackboard and
EBSCO. As a new medical school the VLE was to be the primary means
of communication with and between students. All core staff at Peninsula
Medical School manage their courses through the VLE. The overall aim
of the project was to evaluate and assess staff training needs and
methods, student needs, training and appreciation of the integrated
library and digital environment.
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INFORMS
Information Skills Project: http://informs.hud.ac.uk/cgi-bin/informs.pl.
INFORMS was led by the University of Loughborough and the
University of Oxford and built on the previous JISC project INHALE. It
recognised that while there had been widespread adoption of VLEs,
information skills learning and teaching resources are practically non-
existent within them. The project scaled up the INHALE model for
delivery of information skills materials to enable the replication, testing
and refining of all the models, methodologies, tools and materials
already developed by the INHALE project in the area of the delivery of
information skills within VLEs.
The 4i project
Linking Library and VLE systems: http://www.ulster.ac.uk/library/4i.
The University of Ulster worked with WebCT, Talis and Athens on a
VLE–library integration pilot. This project continued the work of the
successful pilot to accelerate the institutional implementation of
integrated VLE and library systems. The aim was to provide users with
contextual links and seamless access to appropriate online resources and
services. The project assessed the impact of such added value services on
users and academic and library business processes. It also developed and
tested a more scalable system-independent, interoperable integration
methodology.
OLIVE
Open Linking Implementation in a Virtual Learning Environment:
http://www.wmin.ac.uk/olive. OLIVE was a collaborative project
between Royal Holloway, the University of London and the University
of Westminster. Partners included Ex Libris, Granada Learning and
Blackboard. The project provided a practical exploration of the
OpenURL as a method of linking between VLE software and digital
library resources at the level of reference lists and learning objects.
PORTOLE
Providing Online Resources to Online Learning Environments:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/portole/. This project was led by the University
of Leeds, in partnership with the University of Oxford and the Resource
Discovery Network. It aimed to produce a range of tools for tutors
which enabled them to discover information resources and embed these
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into their course modules from within a university VLE. PORTOLE
produced a set of tools that facilitate the discovery of resources to
support an online learning resource, and their embedding into the
learning environment.
Talking Systems
http://www.newport.ac.uk/talkingsystems. This project was led by the
University of Wales College, Newport, with partners including IBM,
Lancaster University, SIRSI and Percussion. It recognised that virtual
learning was seeing the emergence of standards for the way online
learning materials should be structured. One such standard is the
Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). Talking Systems
explored the way that a search and retrieval standard developed by the
library community could be used to help universities to share SCORM
content they were developing in their VLEs.
LinkER
Linking Digital Libraries and Virtual Learning Environments: Evaluation
and Review: http://www.cerlim.ac.uk/projects/linker/index.php.
Manchester Metropolitan University in partnership with the University
of Lancaster provided a formative evaluation of the DiVLE Programme.
The main focus of the project was the generic lessons learned from the
programme about the integration of digital libraries and VLEs.
Evaluation took place by close interaction between the LinkER team and
key individuals in each project, mainly through a planned longitudinal
series of interviews. Formative feedback was provided to both the
individual projects and to JISC.
Evaluation of DiVLE and the findings of LinkER
The DiVLE Programme attracted a considerable amount of attention,
running several workshops and establishing an e-mail list. Meanwhile,
the LinkER project was invaluable in drawing together the common
themes emerging from the nine projects. Three reports were produced by
this project in total, including:
■
a review of recent developments, achievements and trends in the
DiVLE area;
■
an interim report on DiVLE emerging issues;
■
a final report: the formative evaluation of the DiVLE Programme.
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LinkER highlighted that the programme ‘gave scope for the exploration
of key areas of interest rather than the development of products and
services for the community’ (Brophy, Markland and Jones, 2003, p. 3).
The emerging issues were divided into technological, teaching and
learning and organisational. Technological issues concentrated on the
lack of consensus for ‘library’ metadata standards that were applicable
to the library and learning community and the need to further test
standards such as OpenURL. Cusomisation and interoperability between
digital resources and commercial VLEs was also raised as an issue, as
was cross searching of resources, access management and the immature
development of learning object repositories. These issues are explored in
greater detail in Chapter 5.
In teaching and learning issues, LinkER suggested that tools developed
by the DiVLE Programme imply considerable changes to the workload
and role of academic staff, who may be resistant to such changes without
an obvious benefit to themselves or to students. The projects also
highlighted that current academic practice in resource selection and
reading list construction requires further investigation. Finally the report
argued that assumptions could not be made about the willingness of
students to engage with VLEs and the digital resources embedded within
them. A minority of students were found to have difficulty adapting to
the VLE environment, or may be resistant to certain features. Many of
these issues are discussed further in Chapter 3, which looks at current
and emerging roles for information professionals.
Organisationally, several issues emerged relevant to projects of short
duration. LinkER found that several projects had staffing problems.
They also recognised that project staff need to be adaptable and flexible.
The report emphasised the need for contingency planning before the
start of the project to help alleviate the unforeseen risks and when
planning a project, staff must consider the alignment of the project
timescale with the academic year. This was particularly important when
user testing with students or tutors was a key requirement or where a
product needs to be rolled out for the start of the next academic year.
LinkER recommended that further work was required, in particular to
collate and sythesise the technical work undertaken in the programme.
The report also recognised that communication between the projects had
been limited and that valuable synergies might have been lost. However,
there was some evidence that work from the projects was feeding into
international standards. In particular, the work on resource list
interoperability led to project members participating in the establishment
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of an IMS specification in this field. Again these developments are
discussed in Chapter 5.
Developments outside the UK
Much of this chapter has concentrated on developments in the UK,
which has led much of the research on the integration of digital libraries
and VLEs. In the US, government-funded digital library research is
largely undertaken by the National Science Foundation (NSF). A recent
collaboration with JISC has seen the NSF undertake projects in this area.
Additionally, organisations such as OCLC have also launched initiatives
which are bringing the wider e-learning and library communities
together.