The following 12 Learning Object Repositories (LOR) participated in our survey of quality control strategies for Learning Object Repositories.  The number of resources is approximate and refers to mid-2007

Description
Organizational Q4R Strategies
Q4R Strategies to insure quality before inclusion into the LOR
Q4R Strategies to insure quality during inclusion into the LOR
Q4R Strategies to insure quality after inclusion into the LOR

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Results

• 10 are networked, and either uses IEEE LOM or DublinCore for Metadata and 1 is networked on collaborative grounds (free content exchange) having no metadata yet
• 8 have mapping systems between different types of metadata profiles.
• 8 propose Intellectual property, Editorial, Accessibility policies and interoperability standards
• 2 has a cultural policy and
• 1 develops policies as members see it fit
• 3 report sending out monthly news letters and 3 use Events Calendars  

Best practices

On the organizational level, it appears to be good practices to:

• be networked with other repositories and to provide multiple metadata conversions in order to be highly interoperable;
• provide clear guidelines for intellectual property and digital rights management; editorial and accessibility policies
• support users with monthly news letters and events calendars

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Results

• 1 proposes an instructional design method for online instructional materials
• 7 propose quality criteria lists but report that they are not really concerned with the authoring process
• 3 makes available SCORM or IMS LD compliant editors
• 2 report that they are not involved in the authoring process

Best practices
Although seven (7) of repository owners provide quality criteria covering pedagogical, technical and ergonomical aspects, most also state they are not as a repository responsible or involved in the authoring process. Only one repository reported making available an instructional design method and three provide compliant editors to ensure compatibility. These seem to be the most obvious quality strategies used to ensure quality during the conception (design and development) of a LO.

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Results

Contribution control:

• 7 require membership to contribute an LO to the LOR
• 5 practice free LO contribution, that is no control
• 4 apply internal review of proposed resources
• Some type of rights management, 4 mentioned Creative Commons

Interoperability quality:

• 9 have Metatagging tools with some automatic features
• 10 have some system
  • 2 have automatic reference checks
  • 4 have metadata reference guides and a set of required minimum set of metadata
  • 4 have experts indexing or verifying the metadata for a resources

Best practices
The most common strategy to ensure quality here appears to be to require repository membership in order to be allowed to contribute an LO. The second most common strategy appears to be to have an internal review process, although it is mentioned that this is a very demanding and expensive way of ensuring quality.

In terms of ensuring correct metadata, the most common practice is to have a meta-tagging tool with some automatic generation of metadata, online guides to reference techniques a set of required minimum set of metadata. Four reports having experts indexing and or verifying metadata, however seen as a worthwhile but expensive quality control strategy.

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Results

Retrieval Quality:

• All provide free text and keyword search
• 8 allow the user to search by metadata or a combination of metadata
• 8 allow search by a classification
• 2 of which also allow search by a thesaurus

LO Usability Quality

• 2 reported using all kinds of user evaluation systems including a ranking system
• 2 allows annotations
• 1 has 5 star system
• 6 has no system at all but planning to integrate some

Best practices
Minimal retrieval quality consists in providing free text and keyword search; however it appears to be quite a common feature to allow users to search by specific metadata and by internal classification systems. Even though only two repositories practiced search using a thesaurus, it seems like a commendable feature. Using classifications and thesaurus avoid spelling mistakes, but should be accompanied by a definition or glossary of terms.

To ensure usability quality most repositories do not have any system to feed back information about how end-users appreciate a resource.  Several mentioned that they are working on social tagging systems as well as ranking systems, so it appears to be an important feature to develop.

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