Forum .LRN Q&A: LORSm version 0.2 out for testing!

For a few weeks now some small number of people have accessed to LORSm version 0.2. It was suppose to be open for everyone to test, but a hardware failure frustrated this idea until now.

On LORSm version 0.2, I added four new features:

1.- The ability to search and find a learning object in the repository (using openfts as a search engine).

2.- Disable and enable courses (so professor can turn on/off courses as they pleased).

3.- Tracking student progress and the time they spend on the course.

4.- Modifying metadata by uploading IMS MD compliant XML files (so you can easily edit your metadata with Reload and then just upload the XML file).

These new features are an addition to the improved features we have in the previous version:

    * Import Course Content (IMS CP & SCORM).
    * Course Management
    * Course Structure
    * Metadata Viewer
    * Course Delivery
    * Export Course Content

To have a look:

http://mlweg.pc.ee.usyd.edu.au:8081/

professor access

  user: mailto:admin@user.com
  pass: admin

student access

  user: mailto:random@striker.com
  pass: random

Please feel free to play around with it, upload any type of content package that you might have created or found. There's a bit of documentation at http://mlweg.pc.ee.usyd.edu.au:8081/lorsm/doc/

In just a few days I'll check this version into CVS for people to use. First I want to get most critical bugs out of the way. Once that is done, with the help of Rocael, we'll put LORS on the .LRN testing site.

Comments, suggestions, ideas, bugs are welcome.

Thanks,

Ernie

<blockquote> Is it possible to delete/remove content packages?
</blockquote>

For this version you get a chance to "disable" the course, but can't delete it.

One of my concerns about deleting the actual content for a course is dependencies.

Say another professor is using a part of the course for a different subject... then we need to figure out which part have to be removed and which ones should remain. It's not really difficult, but it just takes time, then the permission system kicks in and it makes it a bit more interesting.

I'll see how we can go about removing courses completely from the repository without causing major damage for the next version (0.3).

Once again, thanks for taking the time to suggest functionalities.

Ernie

Yeah, I guess we learned that when Milan from AIESEC deleted the entire certification test site... hhehehee.. oh Malte, the good old days 😉

Back again, yes, they idea is not to delete it back mark it as gone.

<blockquote> If someone else is reusing the content, he should get a notification
that the content has been deleted by the original author and a one
click link to copy the deleted item to a new location, with him as
the author.
</blockquote>

I thought about the notification for deletion and also for new versions of content available.

However, the tricky part will come when the part of the course is being used by several other lecturers (not just one).

Although, in the past few days, I've been trying to think on a different approach to this altogether. An approach that will make much more sense for a learning object repository:

What might works is a paradigm where content is uploaded not necessarily into a .LRN class, but to the repository directly. Then once the course is there, it can be "used" or linked by the owner in any of the classes that HE/SHE is part of. Additionally, the content owner should be the one who determines to what extend he/she wants his/her courses/learning objects/content to be shared with others. For instance as a content owner I could say 'Well, I'm just going to share this with people in my department'. Or if copyright issues are managed tightly in the University/company, then the content owner can say 'No, I just want this to stay within the limits of this class'. Using this approach we will be accommodating for both: repository centric content and class centric content.

So if we pursue this approach, then a lecturer that has upload content for people to reuse won't really delete the actual content, but will turn down permissions for other people to use it. A UI could be done so the content creator can see who's using the content that he's providing and in what context they are using it.

I think this will be more "open" (again, for lack of a better word) approach to content within a learning object repository.

Luckily, I think I'm on a stage where I can easily modify what I have so far to accommodate for this new approach.

I'd really like to hear what other people would have to say about this idea and whether it is the right way to go.

Ernie