Rory McGreal of Athabasca University discusses a typology of LORs. Stephen Downes comments, "Some interesting bits, including a discussion of DRM (when users encounter access restrictions, they just leave) and the reusability paradox (McGreal cites Hodgins's distinction between reuse and repurposing, but it is not clear how this addresses the problem). He also notes some of the criticisms of learning objects, countering with access statistics from Connexions and OCW (not that these are 'Learning Objects' properly so-called). The major deliverable in this paper is his typology of learning object repositories: 'Content repositories; Linking or metadata repositories; and hybrid repositories that host content and link to external LOs.'"
McGreal's distinctions are valid and useful, but a more important type of categorization discriminates between collections of courses (such as MITOCW) and collections of learning objects (such as MERLOT). It's true that these overlap, since courses certainly can contain LOs and LO repositories can point to courses. The reason that the course vs LO distinction is especially important, I believe, is that it represents two very different ways of thinking about educational resources and two different traditions: most instructors are course oriented, while most instructional designers are learning object oriented. Instructors may use LOs, but within the framework of a course, while instructional designers think more of learning modules and embed LOs within modules, and then modules are assembled to form a training program. One tradition comes mainly from academia, while the other comes mainly from T&D efforts of corporate and government programs. Each tradition can benefit and learn from the other, but trying to encourage the use of LOs among academics is much easier when they can be contextualized within courses. _____JH
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"In this paper, the investigator attempts to create a comprehensive listing of learning object repositories (LORs) and address the following research questions.
1. What types of LOR are available on the Internet?
2. What are the principal features of these LORs?
3. What features are more or less universal and which are specific to certain types of repositories?
4. With the vast amounts of information available on the Internet is there a need for LORs?"
"The state of the art of LORs in 2007 can be described as functional and growing. The seamless interoperability of LOs housed in different LORs has yet to be achieved, as they have for the most part developed independently with some notable attempts at rendering them interoperable. The ability to use learning objects (LOs) seamlessly and consistently in different application environments has only been partially achieved .... Nevertheless, in maximizing the capabilities of the WWW, external LOs can be successfully integrated with course materials if not in a fully interoperable manner. "
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