Draft:Workshops/Building a Sharing a Learning Object Repository in D2L
Session Information
- Level - Intermediate, basic knowledge of D2L course design and content management required
- Intended Audience - Instructors using D2L interested in building a content repository that can be shared across D2L courses
- Time - 50 minutes
Before the Session
Before the Session: This session is hands-on, so please bring your laptop if possible. If you cannot bring a laptop, one will be provided for you. Participants should also have an active or expired D2L course that includes content.
General Description
Instructors who use D2L regularly are familiar with adding content and activities to courses and copying those resources from one D2L course to another. The D2L Learning Object Repository (LOR) allows instructors to save components of their courses to a secure database that exists outside of any particular course. Once populated with content, instructors can then search the LOR and connect to that single copy of the content from any course. This has a number of benefits. First, it allows instructors to make changes to one copy of a shared resource versus having to change it in every course or section that uses it. Second, it allows instructors to share a single copy of a resource with their colleagues (e.g., other instructors in the same department who are teaching the same course). Just about anything in a D2L course can be placed in a LOR, including files, quizzes, content modules, or even all of the content in a particular course. Instructors determine if and with whom their content is shared and can track the use of any shared content. Even if an instructor is not sharing content with other instructors, the use of a personal LOR by a single instructor can reduce workload and increase the ease of reuse of content across courses and semesters. In this intermediate-level workshop, the LOR will be demonstrated and participants will practice saving, searching, and using content from a LOR. A number of potential individual and collaborative applications will be discussed. Finally, issues related to intellectual property will be addressed.
Learning Outcomes
Following this session, you will be able to...
- Describe how individual instructors might benefit from using a personal LOR
- Describe two ways that a group of faculty might use a LOR to share course content
- Describe how permissions on a LOR can be set to support individual and group content sharing
- Search a LOR and add resulting content to a D2L course
- Describe in general terms how LOR items are tagged using metadata and how these tags may help organize content
- List five things that can be saved to a D2L LOR from a D2L course
- Describe how Minnesota State and WSU treats LOR content based on intellectual property policies