Sharing Learning and Teaching Resources
Many of the nationally funded content initiatives (such as Exchange for Learning Programme (X4L) had the original intention of encouraging sharing as well as reducing costly duplication. JORUM - a national UK HE and FE learning and teaching repository was developed to facilitate this. Despite this investment several barriers prevented widespread sharing. JISC has commissioned a number of studies into the 'sharing' of learning and teaching resources which highlight the cultural, pedagogical, technical and organisational barriers to sharing.:
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Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories CD LOR,
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Trust in Digital Repositories TRUST DR,
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West Midlands Share - Promoting shared use of digital content across the region WM-Share,
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Repository Metadata and Management project RepoMMan,
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Sharing e-learning content - a synthesis and commentary,
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Good Intentions report: improving the evidence base in support of sharing learning materials
It could be argued that sharing implies an open model (sharing with all) but many individuals have little incentive to share in this way. The FE sector, with shared curricula and assessment frameworks, does have a culture of sharing within the sector, but individuals in HE institutions may be more likely to share within their subject discipline community that with colleagues in their own institution.
This lack of incentive for individuals to share and lack of recognition by institutions of the value of sharing learning & teaching materials meant that most institutional repositories focussed primarily on research outputs. This tied in with the move by institutions to invest in VLEs which had access control and authentication as a significant function. Closed VLEs do not encourage sharing and for many institutions these were seen to be the main mechanism for managing access to their learning and teaching materials.
Web 2.0 and social software applications have facilitated the sharing of practice and content both for individuals and subject communities. This, combined with the Open Movement, has gone some way to contributing to changes in cultural and perceptions around sharing. Another significant driver in this cultural shift is the perceived simplicity of Creative Commons licencing.
