CETIS EC SIG meeting, Manchester May 2008

Content Matters

Phil Barker <philb@icbl.hw.ac.uk>

JISC CETIS Metadata and Repository Coordinator

http://jisc.cetis.ac.uk/domain/metadata

CETIS EC SIG meeting, Manchester May 2008

Quality (or something like it)

High quality => expensive 40-400hrs development per hour of interactive resource Commercial training, 60hrs preparation per hour of delivery In universities...

Cannot produce materials that are worth sharing or preserving in a few hours

http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/philb/2008/05/05/preparation-is-everything/

Example: quantum bound states, tunnelling, bonds and bands Bound states simulation (PhET, Univ. Colorado at Boulder)

http://phet.colorado.edu/new/simulations/sims.php?sim=Quantum_Bound_States

Lecture notes (MIT OpenCourseWare)

http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Physics/8-04Spring-2006/LectureNotes/lecture15.pdf

CETIS EC SIG meeting, Manchester May 2008

CETIS EC SIG meeting, Manchester May 2008

CETIS EC SIG meeting, Manchester May 2008

Student feedback

“Brilliant”. “really helpful” “Would never have understood some of the more abstract concepts without

the visualizations”. “lot easier to see [animated demo] than to look at hundreds of diagrams and try to fit them all together”.

An “interactive approach”: can illustrate “transitions” on the spot “literally at the click of a button” rather than having to draw another ten waveforms on the board, which would be “direly boring”.

Easier to pay attention when something is going on rather than just being talked at.

“Attendance for these lectures is a lot higher than for others”

CETIS EC SIG meeting, Manchester May 2008

Comparison

PhET Simulation• Innovative• Exploits computer for

computation• Advanced—difficult to

produce– Team effort

• Product of discipline initiative

MIT OCW Lecture• Normal• Exploits computer for

delivery• Typical—could be

produced by any lecturer

• Product of institutional policy

CETIS EC SIG meeting, Manchester May 2008

Content development & dissemination

1984 – Computers in Teaching Initiative (cont. devel.)1989 – Computers in Teaching Initiative (dissemination)1992 – Teaching and Learning Technology Initiative (I & II)1998 – TLTP 3 (dissemination)2002 – X4L (content re-purposing)Recently: D4L, RePRODUCE, repositories, standards,

packaging, feeds, mash ups, social net (largely dissemination).

Content as infrastructure (David Wiley) See-saw between development & dissemination Trend away from discipline-driven shared development.

CETIS EC SIG meeting, Manchester May 2008

TLTP Parts of it were excellent (OK, good enough):

“more TLTP materials are in use in the HE sector than may be generally recognised”

Use of TLTP Materials in UK higher education, Hayward et alhttp://homepages.ed.ac.uk/jhaywood/reports/TLTPreport.pdf

Used in (at least) 33% of 919 departments/schools surveyed Faced many challenges

Started pre-web, finished when web was setting norm No delivery platform No infrastructure (lan, projectors, computer access, computer specs) Low computer literacy Didn’t know much about use, reuse, interoperability

could do better now(?)

CETIS EC SIG meeting, Manchester May 2008

Questions

Quality resources, where do they come from? Discipline-based development Vs Institution-based

development. Share development effort or share resource?