Group Admins
Description
The original resource-sharing model, implemented between 2005 and 2008, was based on a centralized network design with a hierarchical logic, where the nodes depended on a core that would concentrate and distribute information. This involved working in accordance with common criteria for the documentation and packaging of resources (Dublin Core metadata[2]) and a condition of interoperability of the nodes (tailor-made development[3]). The implementation of this model was unsuccessful. The first reason was that the logic of centralization went against the diversity of its members. Another reason was that the emergence of social networks concentrating a significant portion of members’ interest, in other words their traffic and educational resources. All these aspects made this system unfeasible.
In recent years, two major changes have been observed in the dynamics of online content. One of them is the increasing predominance of content generated by users through different online platforms and environments; and the other is the stabilization and slow growth of online semi-structured data sources.
It was in this context that we started working on the idea of collaborative exploitation of educational resources using an open design. Working under open standards (mainly OAI-PMH and Dublin Core) leads to greater consistency with the objectives of the network and the aspirations and expectations of its members, providing access not only to nearly 50,000 resources but also to the models of work and conceptions that generate them.
This federated, asynchronous, cooperative scheme facilitates scalability, since it does not require all the members to join at the same time or real-time updating of supply of or demand for resources, so the conditions are in place for the creation of an ecosystem of linked open data. It also guarantees the conditions for dissemination, permanence, reuse and ownership of the educational resources emerging from the portals.
While this is an open process, it not only describes the transition from one open resource exchange model to another, but it also represents an ambitious far-reaching implementation and describes tensions between the fast rate of technological changes offered by the Internet and the institutional timing of the educational organizations that promote them.
[1] Created in 2004, the network comprises national non-profit public service education portals orientated towards the school system (K-12) and designated for that purpose by the Ministry of Education of the country. www.relpe.org
[2] http://www.relpe.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DocumentoTecnico1.pdf
[3] http://www.relpe.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DocumentoTecnico2.pdf