Learning object repositories as knowledge management systems

Demetrios G Sampson ,Panagiotis Zervas

doi:10.34105/j.kmel.2013.05.009

Demetrios G Sampson , Panagiotis Zervas

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.34105/j.kmel.2013.05.009

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Abstract

Over the past years, a number of international initiatives that recognize the importance of sharing and reusing digital educational resources among educational communities through the use of Learning Object Repositories (LORs) have emerged. Typically, these initiatives focus on collecting digital educational resources that are offered by their creators for open access and potential reuse. Nevertheless, most of the existing LORs are designed more as digital repositories, rather than as Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). By exploiting KMSs functionalities in LORs would bare the potential to support the organization and sharing of educational communities’ explicit knowledge (depicted in digital educational resources constructed by teachers and/or instructional designers) and tacit knowledge (depicted in teachers’ and students’ experiences and interactions of using digital educational resources available in LORs). Within this context, in this paper we study the design and the implementation of fourteen operating LORs from the KMSs’ perspective, so as to identify additional functionalities that can support the management of educational communities’ explicit and tacit knowledge. Thus, we propose a list of essential LORs’ functionalities, which aim to facilitate the organization and sharing of educational communities’ knowledge. Finally, we present the added value of these functionalities by identifying their importance towards addressing the current demands of web-facilitated educational communities, as well as the knowledge management activities that they execute.

Highlights

Today it is commonly argued that, digital educational resources generated by teachers and by students, as well as by teacher-to-students and students-to-students interactions during day-to-day school activities constitute core knowledge assets of educational communities (Chen, Chen, & Kinshuk, 2009; Carroll, Rosson, Dunlap, & Isenhour, 2005; Hsu & Ou Yang, 2008), educational communities can be defined as: “groups of people who share their common interest about education” (Wenger, McDermott, & Synder, 2002, p. 2)
Most of the existing Learning Objects Repositories (LORs) are designed as digital repositories of educational resources providing functionalities only for the organization and sharing of educational communities’ explicit knowledge, whereas functionalities for the organization and sharing of educational communities’ tacit knowledge are very limited
Through the systematic examination of a broad spectrum of existing LORs, we claim that LORs’ functionalities need to be revisited from a KM perspective, so as to be able to support activities related with typical KM processes in the context of webfacilitated educational communities of practice

Summary

Introduction

Today it is commonly argued that, digital educational resources generated by teachers and by students, as well as by teacher-to-students and students-to-students interactions during day-to-day school activities constitute core knowledge assets of educational communities (Chen, Chen, & Kinshuk, 2009; Carroll, Rosson, Dunlap, & Isenhour, 2005; Hsu & Ou Yang, 2008), educational communities can be defined as: “groups of people who share their common interest about education” (Wenger, McDermott, & Synder, 2002, p. 2). Digital educational resources are worthy to be organized, managed, shared and reused effectively (Hsu & Ou Yang, 2008) For this purpose, a number of international initiatives have emerged recently and they have recognized the importance of sharing and reusing digital educational resources among educational communities typically represented in the form of Learning Objects (LOs) (McGreal, 2004; UNESCO, 2002). A particular category of those systems is the Learning Objects Repositories (LORs), which are developed to facilitate search, retrieval and access to LOs (Geser, 2007) Even though, this is the main general scope for the development of LORs, existing implementations of LORs are not necessarily focused on addressing common issues, but rather each of them produces a reflection of their own perception of the problem of managing digital educational resources on the web, resulting to different LORs implementations (McGreal, 2004; McGreal, 2008). This is a drawback for the design and development of future LORs, since there is not a common list of LORs functionalities, which can be implemented towards addressing the problem of managing digital educational resources on the web

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