[cc-education] A Voice in The Void.
Stephen Downes
Stephen.Downes at nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Thu Dec 4 12:33:01 EST 2003
Heather Ford wrote:
> Thanks Stephen and David for your great comments on this.
> > >
> > > It is worthwhile to think of setting up an open system whereby
> Open Office
> > > users are able to tap directly into (CC and equivalent licensed)
> RSS feeds
> > > distributing free content. For example, a direct connection between
> > > OpenOffice and Wikipedia would be most useful.
>
> This sounds really interesting, Stephen - would love you to explain more
> about how you think this could work/look. I've been thinking a lot about
> how to make this connection more direct than just having a list of open
> content on the cc website. I'd love to find a way of extending the
> user-friendliness that CC is becoming well-known for, in developing this
> side more - but I'm still trying to work out how it would look.
>
Obvously I don't have all the details worked out in my mind. But there
are two major aspects and an optional:
1. Treat the internet (or more specifically, the network of free content
repositories) as though they were a local file system
2. Create more mechanisms within the software itself to access that file
system
3. (Optional) Provide usage metadata back to the system
On the first point, the idea is that free learning (and other) resources
are available for access from within the OpenOffice software in a manner
analagous to the way that files are currently accessible. Thus, the
system would allow anybody to open such material straight from the
content repository into an OpenOffice application.
This would most likely be instantiated as a three step operation:
- locate materials
- view materials
- select (all or part) of materials for use
The first part is key, since you can't simply browse hundreds of
thousands of resources the way you can browse your hard drive (you can't
even browse some hard drives any more, including mine). Thus, an
effective search mechanism would be required. Parts of the search
criteria would be specified automatically by the means of access (see
the second point). For example, if a user selected 'Insert an Image'
then the search would look for free images, not text documents. The
search should also try to draw on other environment variables. Knowing
the user's language or country of origin would also provide preferences.
If I were designing the search, I would allow the searcher to select
default content repositories so I could pick repositories dedicated to a
specific topic. For example, I would probably use something like Edu_RSS
to search for related articles. The idea here is to treat the network of
content repositories as a self-organizing networks, as described in the
last section of my paper, Resource Profiles.
http://www.downes.ca/files/resource_profiles.htm
The second part is a mechanism to preview items before inserting them
into your document. I don't know what to say about this, really.
The third part is the payoff. Once the user has reviewed the resource,
she selects either all or part of it. The resource is then copied
directly into the docuemnt in the appropriate format. For example,
suppose the user found a text on owls, and located a paragraph worth
quoting. She highlights the paragraph and then double-clicks (say). The
paragraph is then copied into the document, and a tag or caption is
placed into the document identifying the bibliographical information and
the creative commons (or equivalent) license information (this latter is
key for commercial users, who will not reuse content unless they are
certain, and can prove, that they have permission to use the content).
On the second major point, we want to make access to these resources
integral to the application itself. It is worth noting in passing that
this is a service that should be provided by repositories (including the
ContentForge being discussed) into any application, not just OpenOffice,
though the authors of those applications would each need to write code
to provide access and use of the content.
In a program like OpenOffice, I would certainly include a function such
as this into an 'Insert' option. But more. I would also allow a user to
highlinght a word, double-click (say), and be shown a default set of
resources for that word, such as definitions, encyclopedia entires, etc.
Highlighting a person's name would yield a list of resources authored by
the person, or (switch a toggle) a list of resources about that person.
Certain keywords in the highlighted text would trigger certain sorts of
search results (the user wouldn't need to learn these, the idea is that
the system responds to what the user is asking for). For example,
'graph' would tend to return graphs, 'map' would return maps, 'flag'
would return flags. Different repositories could handle this in their
own way.
On the third point, I would suggest that users be given the option to
report usage of materials back to the system, much like RSS trackback,
except that only metadata would be sent back (since the document does
not have a URL just yet). The usage metadata sent back captures the
context of use and helps describe the resource being used. This helps
the aggregator more accurately process search results for future searches.
Now again, this sort of content distribution system should not be
restricted to open access. The same mechanism ContentForge uses to make
content available to OpenOffice should also be available to allow people
using Moodle to import (free) content into an online course. It follows,
therefore, that the sort of content that could be offered through such a
system could be something as simple as an image all the way to something
as complicated as an animation, simulation, or port into an interactive
environment.
-- Stephen
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