This is a specialized UK site for professionals concerned about learning technologies; RESULTs is focused on the use of learning technologies in higher education. "RESULTs" stands for Resource and Exchange Support for Users of Learning Technologies."
The front page of RESULTs describes the site this way, "RESULTs is a 'dynamic' web portal for resource exchange and support for users of learning technologies. It is dynamic in that it provides multiple views to multiple types of 'resources' for multiple types of 'people' who comprise the learning technology 'communities.'" The goal of the builders is stated as, "RESULTs lays the foundations for the ultimate goal--an established high profile national web portal for learning technologists in higher education that will be both defined and owned by its user communities."
RESULTs can be explored as a Guest but full participation requires registration online (as the portal designers claim, registration is "quick, simple, and free"). As I explored the site I first took the Guided Tour but found it to contain only text files rather than a graphic overview of the site or a simulated search through the site. A Help page is available to orient a new user to the site (http://www.results.ac.uk/help.php).
RESULTs is browsable by topic, type, subject area, and target audience; it uses a category tree directory format rather than a search engine format. The contents are varied and are described this way in the FAQ, "Resources range from editorials, case studies, workshop materials, frameworks, articles, exemplars and other general materials to example learning and teaching 'objects'... the various resources and elements that might comprise an online learning module."
The subject area categories range from Art to Sociology. I looked at English, Information and Computer Science, and Psychology. All of the listings are rather sparse, reflecting the newness of the repository; most of the entries were articles about using technology rather than specific, usable instructional resources. However the Information and Computer Science category did include several very interesting instructional resources that could immediately be evaluated by instructors for inclusion in courses: these included e-Map Scholar (http://edina.ac.uk/projects/mapscholar/index.html); ComeXos, Composers' Experimental Online Suite (http://mustech.music.salford.ac.uk/ceos/), and IKPuppet (http://www.vectorlounge.com/04_amsterdam/jam/wireframe.swf).
Undoubtedly, the number of learning resources and learning objects in RESULTs will increase steadily as it becomes more widely known and as the use of online instructional resources becomes more widely accepted in higher education. As RESULTs expands it will be important to add a an internal search engine to its capabilities to make the resources more easily accessible to users.
One of the articles included in the Psychology section by John Pickering on "Education and Network Culture" forecasts a vital role for repositories such as RESULTs in the future of education, "Computer based resources for teaching, learning and research, already common in universities, are set to become the primary medium of educational practice. Within a decade or so, the use of networks, both local, national and global, will have become a routine activity for teachers, researchers and students alike" (http://www.warwick.ac.uk/ETS/interactions/vol1no1/pickering.htm).
I'm interested in RESULTs for its contents and for its vision, but also as one additional design model for the EduResources portal that I'm working on to accompany this EduResources weblog. I'm also using the EduTools portal (http://www.edutools.info/index.jsp) as a design model, along with several other sites. RESULTs is a promising site and it will be interesting to follow its development; the built-in interactive, dynamic component of the site to further a community of practice makes it of especial interest.
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