developed in the absence of an awareness of user practice and user 

communities  

[ADL 2003, p.19] 

However, how do repository administrators know what support the community requires? The 

Global Learning Repositories Summit report [ADL 2003] concludes that it is dependent on the 

repository's awareness of the community and how well they listen to their community. It is 

consequently important that the learning repository community as a whole develop more 

sophisticated techniques rather than simply asking a community what it needs. 

Such techniques include use case analyses, and surveys of the repositories 

potential user groups in order to gather sets of expectations form these 

groups  

[ADL 2003, p.20] 

As of the time the report was written many repository projects were working with a very limited 

vocabulary for discussing their community's needs and solutions. Projects that have 

expanded their vocabulary, and developed techniques for assessing user needs have not 

formalized them in a format that can be transferable and interoperable with other initiatives. It 

remains to be seen how this changes with the growing number of learning repository users. 

Once these issues have been tackled effectively, and learning repositories are able to 

establish a community's specific requirements, there are many benefits to that repository? 

1.  Sustainability is achieved through the loyal support of a community and through the 

potential of new sources of support, such as payment once a resource has proven its 

worth. 

2.  Awareness of the repository through the informal communication networks that 

communities already have in order to encourage awareness of their materials. 

3.  Feedback and direction from the community is invaluable to the development of the 

repository and its contents. 

4.  Identification of existing cultures of sharing within the community. 

What types of community support do users of learning repositories require? A repository has 

to provide support for both new and existing users, and it is important that a good balance is 

achieved. If there is too much focus on existing users then new users will feel alienated and 

be discouraged from joining. However, if there is too much support emphasis on new users, 

then existing users won't receive a sense of community belonging and appreciation, and 

therefore will be reluctant to contribute. 

Types of Community Support offered to both new and existing users include: 

1.  Support   Helpdesk accessible by email or telephone. 

2.  Training and Documentation   Training materials in multiple formats, best practice 

guides, introduction materials for new users, etc. 

3.  Shared Information Services   Details of repository content outside of the service, 

news via technology such as RSS Feeds, etc. 

4. Newsletters 

5.  Discussion / Mailing Lists 

6. Support 

Forums 

7.  Tools   Authoring Tools, Metadata Tagging Tools, etc. 

8.  Events   User Days, Conferences, etc. 

JORUM will be taking part in a new JISC funded project   CD LOR (Community Dimensions 

of Learning Object Repositories

1

) which will help to inform this work. 

1.6.2 Additional Requirements  

1

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=project_cdlor

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