Much of the content consisted of archival material with local historic and educational value in addition to the regular links to materials, documents, and web based media. There was also a perceived need to record and store more local material, some which had been in storage in various formats for many years and not accessible by anyone. As such, the institution has a central role in managing and directing this archive. However, regular use of the material is another matter and requires a culture of students and teachers who have ready access to and use of the Internet, as well as a regular use of the computer in educational activities. Part of this is learned behaviour and it is just a matter of time (we already have examples, as the above acapaca.com).

The LOR eventually had a hardware failure on our new Apple server coupled with a backup failure. Rather than reinstalling the Careo we are currently looking at installing new software to carry on with this project. For us, the storage of the archival media is as important as the use of the LOR. However, usability and use is the other side of the coin and this makes the choice of software and the user interface perhaps more important, as is creating a culture of LOR use.

Of special interest within this new educational paradigm are the online educational management platforms such as Moodle coupled with a repository such as DOOR or similar platform. But that’s another discussion!!

http://lemill.net/

LeMill is a multi-lingual web community and open source platform for finding, authoring and sharing learning resources. RSS from everywhere possible.

I certainly agree with you about the core dynamic. The biggest mistakes we have made have been when we have tried to appeal to the altruism, or even enlightened self-interest, of users. Wrong! Yacapaca has only grown by appealing to the _unenlightened_ self-interest of our target users. They just want to get their teaching job done, and they really don’t give a stuff about metadata, discovery, and all the rest that we thought was so important early on.

If I look at the most successful web apps that I use, I use each and every one of them because they’re helpful to ME. I don’t use them to be social (well, maybe Twitter), or even to share (as the primary goal of the activity). By and large, I use them because they’re useful to me. They help me archive stuff. Or organize it so I can find it later. Or learn new things, or refine my understanding of things. That anyone else might benefit from my use of these apps is really just gravy.

OK. It might not be quite as cut-and-dry as that, but it’s an aspect that was completely overlooked by the LOR work. Why would anyone contribute? What needs were being met? If its only goal was to satisfy the Institution, that’s fine, and that’s what happened. But that’s also why it failed, from a wider perspective.