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Criteria for the analysis of STEM OER

- relevance to KRK (National Competence Framework), or any other programmes (curricula, framework, QF)

- metadata

- description of OER in keywords adequate for NCF

- possisbility of adaptations (eg. translation), remix (users' freedom)

General comments:

HEA: Resources by discipline in HEA are mixed (open and closed), and not marked clearly.

Also there are subject-specific and pedagogical mixed in onle category. eg. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/search/search?region=&theme=&evnet=&discipline=Engineering&qt=&start_date=&end_date=&nh=10&sb=relevance&type=main_resources%2Cmain_events%2Cmain_pages%2Cmain_news%2Cmain_projects#

Jorum: (www.jorum.ac.uk)

there is not one standard for describing resources (eg. pictures - great description example here http://core.materials.ac.uk/search/detail.php?id=1255)

Besides the information about whether the resource is open or closed and whether it's subject-specific or pedagogical, one of the very important things when describing resources is the information about what kind of resource we are approaching and the possibility to search through different kinds of resources. We have found resources which are videos on Vimeo, SCROM packages, .pdf, .ppt. It would be good to:

1. have information about the kind of resource marked somewhere near to the resource name.

2. be able to search only through the videos and SCROM packages for instance.

If an academic teacher has an LMS, the resources in the SCORM format will be very usefull, but if not, then he will make no use of the SCORM package. Very often we know what kind of resource we are able to use in the class or on-line, it would be good to have this information clear just next to the resource name/title.

So we would like to recommend three additional meta-data represented by graphical signs next to the resource name/title, and the categories in the left-hand menu within which we can search for resources.

1. open or closed resource

2. subject-specific or pedagogical

3. kind of resource (video, pdf, ppt, SCROM or other)

Resources for analysis

We have focused on STEM OER

I. University of York, JBB Electronics Open Learning Tools

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/detail/oer/OER_IND_York

• Tools accessible by Jorum

digital bread-board simulator designed to allow students to create, share, and simulate digital circuits based on the bread-board construction style familiar to lab-based practical exercises. The tool is Java based so runs on many platforms (Tested on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux) Official JBB site is at www.cs.york.ac.uk/jbb Project's contact: chrisb@cs.york.ac.uk  

OUR COMMENT Licence does not allow for adaptation; keywords are not linked to any standrd frameworks (eg. EQF); keywords need to idenify level of study (BA MA post-grad pHD) subject area (this particular on is for mechanics); Information and

II. Computer Sciences Subject Centre, Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/detail/oer/OER_SUB_ICS

OUR COMMENT

Links are very poorly accessible (tags, visibility, usability, licence). The amount of meta-information about projcts (proposals, disseminations, supporting documents about OER, reporting) are not directly STEM OER but are much easier availiable that the core materials . Licence more flexible (eg enables translation ). Check what is teh level of applicalibility (relevance) of tests without contextual infomration about the topics?  http://open.jorum.ac.uk/xmlui/browse?value=Open+Educational+Repository+in+Support+of+Computer+Science&type=author

III. Economics Subject Centre, TRUE: Teaching Resources for Undergraduate Economics

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/detail/oer/OER_SUB_Economics

IV. Engineering a Low Carbon Future OER

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/oer2/ealcfo.aspx   

Teaching guides on eteaching in engineering http://84.22.166.132/guides.html

V. Open Textbook (available from www.digitalfutures.org)

1. The aim of the textbook 

We identified 2 main goals of the textbook:

1) to educate about digital literacy

2) to re-use this resources

As the 1st one is clear and visible, the second one is hidden under "Introduction" or "Thinking space". It would be great if this information could be put on main page to give user fast access to very useful information in the context of OER and the purpose of these initiative (to strengthen the re-use process). 

2. More about re-using

In the part "How to use and re-use these content"

- lack of the explanation of the Creative Commons license - what users are allowed to do with the content and under what conditions. The CC icon could be not enough in these context.

- the additional chapter - "Scenarios for re-use"  would be very interesting where user can find what are the possible ways of re-using these particular content. 

- It would also interesting to add explanation why these resource is called “Open Textbook”  

3. Engine 

Are you going to open it for others as open platform for other projects/institutions?

4. Usability

4.1 Creating an account

- registration doesn't work for domains like agh.edu.pl for instance - the e-mail with activation link had been lost in space ;-) After registration the user did not receive the mail but the registration process is completed. With gmail accounts the process goes correctly.

- without the active account we can assume that account grants some additional options like annotations and printing to PDF or printed-friendly version >> after deeper searching the user will find the explanation under "An introduction to Thinking Space"

- it should be written clearly for what reason the user have to register e.g. to personalise textbook/to download in X format, etc. 

4.2 Navigation  

- the menu in the left panel and the centre menu - there is no coherence between these two elements