The evolution of learning object repository technologies: Portals for On-line Objects for Learning

Abstract

Learning objects are the digital files that are used to construct e-learning experiences, and repositories provide mechanisms to encourage their discovery, exchange, and reuse. Portals for On-line Objects in Learning (POOL) is a consortium project of the TeleLearning NCE to build a learning object repository scalable to the national level. Funded in part by the CANARIE Learning Program, POOL efforts have resulted in the development of two focal technologies: POOL, POND and SPLASH, a distributed architecture for a peer-to-peer network of learning object repositories; and CanCore, a practical metadata protocol for cataloguing learning objects. The authors conjecture that the technology of learning objects and repositories is in an early phase of development and that significant evolution can be expected as user communities form, protocols emerge for the functional linking of these structures, and the underlying technology becomes less visible.