CETIS UKOER mini projects

In early 2011 JISC provided CETIS with funding to commission a series of OER Technical Mini Projects to explore specific technical issues that had been identified by the community during CETIS events and which had arisen from the JISC / HEA OER Programmes.

The CETIS OER Mini Projects built on rapid innovation funding models already employed by the JISC. Open innovation was encouraged, with project proposals being submitted and discussed openly. Projects were expected to build on existing knowledge and share all their work via the oer-discuss jiscmail list and other open channels. In addition to exploring specific technical issues the Mini Projects aimed to make effective use of technical expertise, build capacity, create focussed pre-defined outputs, and accelerate sharing of knowledge and practice. The projects are overseen by the CETIS OER Technical Interest Group.

Programme Call
The Programme Call invited proprosals under three strands:

1. Analysis of Learning Resource Metadata Records

2. Search Log Analysis

3. Open Call

Submitted Proposals and Discussion
Four diverse proposals were submitted for the open strand of the call, though no bids for the first two strands. The open strand bids were:

1. Development of Visual Vocabulary Management Tools from Dr Ian Piper, Tellura Information Services Ltd

2. OER Bookmarking Initiative from Paul Horner, James Outterside, Suzanne Hardy and Simon Cotterill, University of Newcastle.

3. Representing Aggregations of Open Educational Resources Utilising OAI-ORE from Alex Lydiate, Vic Jenkins and Kyriaki Anagnostopoulou, University of Bath

4. CaPRéT Cut and PAste reuse and Tracking from Brandon Muramatsu, MIT OEIT and Justin Ball and Joel Duffin, Tatemae.

Proposal Results and Markers Comments
Having taken into consideration the comments and discussions on the oer-discuss JISCmail list, a pannel of JISC and CETIS staff selected the following two projects for funding.

1. CaPRéT Cut and PAste Reuse and Tracking from Brandon Muramatsu, MIT OEIT and Justin Ball and Joel Duffin, Tatemae.

2. OER Bookmarking Initiative from Paul Horner, James Outterside, Suzanne Hardy and Simon Cotterill, University of Newcastle.

In the spirit of this open call most of the projects have agreed to allow the markers comments on their proposals to be made available publicly.

Getting to the Alpha Release
Brandon Muramatsu, MIT OEI, writes a blog post explaining how the team scoped and developed the alpha release of the CaPRéT tool and how it works.

OER Bookmarking Mini Project Update
Paul Horner of the University of Newcastle presents and update on the OER Bookmarking mini project. The project, which builds on the Dynamic Learning Maps initiative, aims to produce an OER-specific social bookmarking tool with a simple API to access lots of useful metadata.