and higher education.  It is a collaborative network of subject based centres (the Hubs) 

hosted at academic institutions which identify and catalogue electronic resources available via 

the Internet in order to provide a quality assured Internet catalogue and other resource 

discovery services for the further and higher education communities.   

By using its subject specific experienced cataloguers, the RDN is able to provide a bespoke 

and adaptive service to JORUM, which will result in sustainable creation of metadata 

permitting easy depositing and location of learning objects by JORUM users. The RDN is also 

working with JORUM to ensure that workflow and metadata application profile reflects the 

current standards within the sector, ensuring sustainability for the future repository 

environment. 

The RDN is investigating with JORUM the best possible means of surfacing JORUM object 

metadata to ensure that the objects can be discovered by the widest possible audience. 

Content Management 

Results from ADL's research indicated that users expect to be able to upload and download 

materials from a learning repository. This is contrary to the emergence of many online 

catalogues of web based resources, which simply allow users to contribute a record of 

existing web sites. At present the drive seems to be to focus on producing catalogues of high 

quality web based resources to overcome the disadvantages associated with common search 

engines. However, learning repositories like these neglect the need for the repurpose and 

reuse of resources which is at the core of e learning.  

The number of learning repositories storing actual content will only increase once the 

community as a whole reaches an agreement on digital rights expression and management. 

At present learning repositories can be forced into a risk adverse strategy due to the 

complexities of the law and intellectual property rights. With the introduction of licensing 

models such as Creative Commons and expression languages such as ODRL (Open Digital 

Rights Language) that has been adopted by JORUM service in development, it is becoming 

possible for contributors to specify rights holder information and for learning repositories 

services to deliver resources with rights being expressed.  

With respect to user expectations of resource type stored within a learning repository, the 

research presented in the ADL report suggests that if possible it should cover the maximum 

amount of subject classifications, or  type agnostic  as one respondent phrased it. It seems 

logical that users should be delivered a single repository or gateway that covers all subject 

areas, yet the feasibility of collecting a critical mass of content of that proportion is slim. 

However, with the development of harvesting technology and federated searching, learning 

repositories are collaborating to vastly increase the amount of resources they offer to their 

community. 

From the mix of responses ADL collected, there was an expectation among them that a 

repository system should provide interfaces and tools that facilitate many aspects of the 

repository content management including: 

1.  Content Packaging and Metadata Standards 

2. E mail 

Alerts 

3.  Digital rights or licensing related features 

4.  Individuals should be able to  create their own collections in unmediated ways,  giving 

them powers to set and restrict access to those collections 

5.  Unique identifiers for content 

Interoperability 

In terms of Interoperability, ADL's research suggests that users foresee integration between 

both metadata and resources within globally distributed learning repositories.  

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