The open educational resources (OER) movement has gained momentum in the past few years. With this new drive towards making knowledge open and accessible, a large number of OER repositories have been established and made available online throughout the world. However, the inability of existing search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing to effectively search for useful OER which are of acceptable academic standard for teaching purposes is a major factor contributing to the slow uptake of the entire movement. As a major step towards solving this issue, this paper proposes OERScout, a technology framework based on text mining solutions. The objectives of our work are to (i) develop a technology framework which will parametrically measure the usefulness of an OER for a particular academic purpose based on the openness, accessibility, and relevance attributes; and (ii) provide academics with a mechanism to locate OER which are of an acceptable academic standard. From our user tests, we have identified that OERScout is a sound solution for effectively zeroing in on OER which can be readily used for teaching and learning purposes.
Journal or Publication Title
The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRR ODL)
Volume
14
Number
4
Page Range
214 - 237
Year
2013
ISSN
1492-3831
Publisher
Athabasca University
Material type
Electronic
Funder
Grant # 102791 International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada through an umbrella study on Openness and Quality in Asian Distance Education.
OERScout technology framework: a novel approach to open educational resources search
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OERScout Technology
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