In order to assure pedagogical, technical and socio-cultural reusability, the 4 dimensions of quality serve as a guideline to construct and maintain quality in a LOR. The LOR Management Team main task is to implement best possible quality assurance strategies.  There are 3 main activities that the LOR Management Team is involved in. The LOR Management Team implementing change must have the confidence of both the management and the staff affected by the change. This team

• should be drawn from all areas affected by the change;
• demonstrate commitment to the change;
• will need to be given the time and recognition to undertake the role;
• support the change;

Select the job aids that you wish to consult

NEEDS ANALYSIS

Principles:

• Always conduct a needs analysis, where change is foreseeable
• Be sure to consult all concerned stakeholders, such as learners and training staff, training managers etc…

Examine organizational demands and propositions

• How are demands and propositions handled in your organization? Is it easy for a member to propose an idea?
• Consult members of different groups in your organization on whether the proposal is desired or not.
• Examine change and effects on the organization
  (http://nt6139.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/pdf/CHANGEMANAGEMENT3t.pdf )

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Evaluate network propositions

• If a repository architecture is offered, examine compatibility with existing technological framework
• Compare proposal with your organization’s policies on intellectual property and usage of learning objects
• Consult members of different groups in your organization on whether the proposal is desired or not.
• Would this change trigger training in using the LOR?
• Decide whether to join a network of repositories; i.e., look at
  • Schoolnet
  • GLOBE
    • If yes, do they impose a quality Q4R Plan?
    • If no, do you want to build a LOR or adapt an existing LOR

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List needs and constraints

• Formulate LOR’s goals and objectives
• Elaborate mission and vision statements and validate those with a sample including all stakeholders.
• Identify all potential LOR end-users, i.e.,
  • All stakeholders in the organization
  • Only Math teachers
  • Only primary schoolchildren
• Identify type of LOs the LOR will host, i.e.,: will
  • All kinds of LOs be accepted
  • Only SCORM objects
  • Only video clips
• Identify LOR communication channels, i.e.
  • Only a simple LOR Interface with search and browsing capabilities
  • LOR Interface + Community of practice
  • LOR Interface + LMS+Blogues+ etc…
• List constraints and connected projects influencing the LOR, i.e.,
  • LOR has to be compatible with LMS
  • LOR has to respect existing policies

Products

• Goals and objectives
• Mission statement
• Vision Statement

Useful Resources

• Writing mission statements 
  http://www.nightingale.com/mission_select.aspx?promo=INTBAx139v1
• Writing vision statements 
  http://www.timethoughts.com/goalsetting/vision-statements.htm
• Writing organizational goals and objectifs 
  http://www.libsci.sc.edu/BOB/class/clis724/pp724unit3.pdf
• Intellectual Property User Statements 
  http://creativecommons.org/ 

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Examine revision elements

• Sort revision elements and specify type of revision that is needed. For example, if it is a complaint that regards the metadata editor, file it under technical errors and send it off to the technical team.
• If the revision concerns the interface,  

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Q4R KIT ELABORATION

• Decide whether to join a network of repositories; i.e., look at
• Schoolnet
• GLOBE
  • If yes, do they impose a quality Q4R Plan?
  • If no, do you want to build a LOR or adapt an existing LOR
  • Build  or adapt existing LOR
• Specify the policies that you want to include
• Elaborate job aids for each role

Principles:

• Consult members of all stakeholder to define specific Quality Assurance Strategies
• It is important to define whether quantity or quality is the most important
• If quantity is more important, then make no restrictions for contributions, but install easy to use annotation and LO end-user evaluation mechanisms
• If quality is more important, propose several measures of LO evaluation such as membership if contributing, peer-evaluation, production guides and tools.
• Examine changes to be made and effects on the organization
  (http://nt6139.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/pdf/CHANGEMANAGEMENT3t.pdf )

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Specify Technological Infrastructure

Principle: It is important to specify 

1. Proprietary/commercial vs. open and/or free
2. Standard metadata (IEEE, Dublin Core vs. custom)
3. Database centered vs. community centered
4. Focused on intra-institutional use - vs. large communities
5. Type of learning objects to be hosted

Useful Resources:

• Building Repositories
• EduSource http://www.edusource.ca/
• eRib
• Interoperability for Searching Learning Object Repositories
• Open Access to Scholarly Information
• Learning Object Repositories: Deployment and Diffusion – (2005) D. MacLeod
• DOOR, DOOR Digital Open Object Repository is an Open Source piece of software for creating learning objects repositories.
• DSPACE is a DublinCore based document repository, but can also be used to store learning objects.
• Fedora. “ This source software gives organizations a flexible service-oriented architecture for managing and delivering their digital content.”
• Edutools provides an Object Repository Software Reviews
• Ariadne tools (repository, query and indexing tool, etc)

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Elaborate Policies

Principle: There are three essential policies that will ensure LOR quality
Contribution policy – who can contribute and how

• Should a contributor be a member? This would assure some type of control
• What are the criteria that a LO must have in order to be added to the LOR? Should everything be accepted

Intellectual Property or Usage Policy – how is the LO assured against misuse.

Useful resources:
Merlot :

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Elaborate Job Aids for each Role

Principle:

• Make each job aid short and to the point

Useful resources:

• 'Just in time' and 'just enough:' A new approach to training:
  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4137/is_200506/ai_n14716829

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QUALITY MAINTENANCE

This section refers to daily use of the LOR and how to maintain high quality. We have divided this section according to type of quality concerned.

Assure Pedagogical Quality

The daily tasks to carry out to ensure pedagogical quality in the LOR could be to:

• Provide LOR Video tutorial and/or User’s Guide
• List of last month’s (week’s) contributions and/or LO rating information 
• Install easy to access feedback mechanisms
• Offer Newsletter
• Display Events Calendar
• Provide access to authoring tools such as
  • Tested editing tools for specialized

Select pertinent pedagogical support (guidelines) for designing different kinds of LO’s (e.g., IMS LD, SCORM, BlackBoard based or other LCMS etc…) :

• Interoperability Information Documents
• Evaluation Checklists and Instruments
• Instructional Design Methods
• Special Editing or Production Tools

Useful resources
http://www.curriki.org/
http://www.efuse.com/Design/navigation.html

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Assure Technical Quality

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Assure Cultural Quality

The Cultural dimension of quality refers to how the Repository informs and educates all stakeholders to understand and respect cultural variables and their impact on learning and teaching. Elaborate the Cultural Policy needed in your organization.
Consult LO Reusers’ and LO Contributors’ opinions but ideally all stakeholders opinions in order to represent these in a Cultural policy. To increase awareness of cultural variables and to ensure that end-users opinions are represented in the policies, it is important to that they identify personal and organizational bias by reflecting on:

• My own culture
• End users’ culture and existing diversities in the organization
• Layers of culture addressed (national, regional, gender, generational, social class, organizational or departmental level
• Whether generic or specific resources are sought for Facilitates awareness of cultural variables

Offer the possibility to reflect on cultural biases to all stakeholders and especially end users Facilitate awareness of cultural variables

Provide tools permitting the various end user roles to take into account cultural variables, as for i.e.,:

• Informational documents on pertinent cultures
• Indexing tool allowing the user to indicate cultural variables
• Cultural Sensitivity Quiz allowing the users to potentially identify their cultural bias
  Facilitate awareness of cultural variables and problems they may create or solve

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Assure Accessibility & Ergonomical Quality

Propose and organize special interest groups (SIG), i.e.  such as collaborate design of LO’s	Unifying efforts and reducing peer evaluation efforts Unifies efforts and reduces peer evaluation efforts. This is important to avoid contributor’s work overload. Increases pedagogical quality Unifies efforts and reduces peer evaluation efforts
Adopt Intellectual Property Policy (essential) Determine how a LO is free to be used by anyone Identify who is responsible for Intellectual Property Issues Clearly identify whether a LO is free or needs some type of payment or other recognition  Inform contributors about Creative Commons statement	Provides confidence that the LO or materials will be used according to the LO Author’s decision.
Provide policies such as i.e.: Editing Policy Cultural Policy Contribution Policy Metadata Profile and Guidelines	Helps the contributor to propose adequate LO’s Helps the LO Indexer to provide pertinent metadataIncreases commitment and belonging for all actors Informs the LO re-user of new options and quality
Elaborate a task list for each Repository Role: LO Contributor LO Publisher LO Indexer LO Re-user	Increases possibility of high quality by making tasks that are essential explicit.

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THE TECHNICAL DIMENSION OF QUALITY

Technical quality refers to the Technical and Organizational Infrastructures as well as the search, store and retrieval functions necessary in order to provide a high quality LOR.

Tasks	Why/justification	Done	To do	N/A
Consult LO Indexer and other stakeholders’ opinions Provide appropriate technical infrastructure and architecture (to learn more…) Search, gather, (alert)/expose Request/deliver Submit/store Deliver /store between two repositories	Ensure interoperability
Provide Tutorials on technical use User’s Guide for the Repository functionalities Online help with technical issues Information on standards are applied, such as SCORM, IEEE-LOM etc. Special Editors	Increase interoperability
Assure that the search, retrieval and storing functions are interoperable with other systems	Increase technical reuse
Offer user statistics such as : Number of downloads per LO Number of user annotated the LO Ratings for each LO Results of Social Bookmarking/Folksomy	Provide the user with information about the LO by other users.

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ERGONOMICAL AND ACCESSIBILITY DIMENSIONS OF QUALITY

Ergonomical and accessibility dimensions of quality are usually specified in the editing policy. Here we will just provide a few essential strategies to adopt for the Repository Interface concerning accessibility features.

Tasks	Why/justification	Done	To do	N/A
Consult the stakeholders opinions
Provide Browsing organizational themes Search by subject, author, theme Changeable font size Audio and/or textual description of images and pictures	Facilitate use for all tastes Help visually and audio impaired
Make sure the Repository Interface functions are tested with concerned end-users	Ensure technical quality

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Resources

Accessibility :
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html;
http://www.nea.gov/resources/accessibility/pubs/DesignAccessibility.html ;
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/innovative_design_accessibility/
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/Code/public_rnib008789.hcsp

Usability Testing:
http://www.utexas.edu/learn/usability/
http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/schooled - Interface functionalities and events
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_digital_repositories/project_irs.aspx  Repository Statistics
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf social bookmarking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy Folksomy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr  --- http://www.flickr.com/map/

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