Title: A story to illustrate the usefulness of DEMML
Author: Grant Sheridan Robertson
Source: DEMML Blog
Date (published): 23/10/2009
Date (accessed): 28/12/2009
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
The Distributable Educational Material Markup Language™ (DEMML™) will be both a free and open XML format for marking up educational material in a highly structured yet incredibly flexible manner and a system for authenticating and distributing that content throughout the world, even to areas that have no internet connection at all. Once distributed, no internet connection is required to use the material either. This material is organized and classified to a degree never before attempted, using what turns out to be a rather simple system of encoding the hierarchical tree of all possible educational material right down to the paragraph level.

Title: Toolkit for academics on Open Educational Resources released
Publisher: Information Society Division of UNESCO’s Communication and Information Sector
Date (published): 01/10/2009
Date (accessed): 20/12/2009
Type of information: toolkit/wiki
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
In October 2009, the UNESCO OER Toolkit (with support from the UNESCO Communications and Information Sector) was released as a resource for academics and institutions - with a special focus on developing countries - who are interested in participating in open education projects.

Most of the Toolkit is designed for academics who are interested in finding and using OER in the courses they teach, or who wish to publish OER that they have developed. Some sections are aimed at institutional decision-makers and academics interested in setting up a more formal OER project. These projects may start with just a few interested academics but, as they grow, institutional policies, funding and legal constraints become more relevant.

Individuals who are not aiming to set up an institutional project may nonetheless be interested to read the whole document. Likewise, institutional planners, IT staff or librarians who are interested in setting up an OER project would benefit from understanding the academic's perspective.

The drafting and review has been a real community effort, and UNESCO would like to thank all who sent suggestions, made edits to the draft, or provided assistance in other ways.

Finally, this is also a reminder that the Toolkit remains a work in progress. As the OER world develops, and we explore new opportunities (and hopefully learn from mistakes) the document should change and evolve with our work. It's a wiki and you can edit it!

Title: The Open University UK: creating a win-win situation by sharing code and content
Author: Gregor Bierhals
Pages: 12 pp.
Source: Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR), osor.eu
Publisher: IDABC
Date (published): 27/10/2009
Date (accessed): 12/12/2009
Type of information: case study
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML, pdf, odt)
Abstract:
In 2005 The Open University (OU) UK, one of Europe's largest distance learning universities, established that it was time to deploy a new Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), for both The Open University itself as well as for their OpenLearn project aimed at providing free open educational resources (OER) to the general public. A team with different sub-tasks was formed, which investigated future learning environments and how learning material was presented and disseminated through those. Next to this, the OU also researched open learning models, as part of the OpenLearn project. The team of researchers and technical staff, after setting out the components required to meet the OU's needs the most appropriate match was determined. The choice fell on the VLE Moodle, which is an open source product. Today the Moodle VLE has been successfully implemented at the OU and the OU has further published a significant amount of their learning material under a Creative Commons license as courses on the Moodle VLE based OpenLearn website, which are freely available to anyone interested. The OU continues to collaborate closely with the Moodle community , as this provides a very large platform for feedback and information. All the OU's development are given back to the Moodle community, which improves the product for the OU and the rest of the community.