Start date: 30 September 2003
End date: 31 March 2004
Funding programme: Digital Preservation and Records Management Programme
JISC theme(s): Information environment, e-Administration
UK Higher and Further Education institutions have invested substantial
effort and resources in creating and acquiring e-learning content. To
secure the long-term future of this investment, effort must now be put into
ensuring that e-learning content can be retained in a usable state as long
as it is pedagogically relevant. There is an increasing need to consider
how the maintenance and re-use of e-larning materials can be maximised
cost-effectively, and systems developed and implemented that can support
easy portability and maintenance over time.
As a part of the JISC Continuing Access and Digital Preservation Strategy
and its implementation plan, JISC has over the past years funded a series
of feasibility studies which aim to assess the preservation risk and
retention criteria for digital content and to help inform and prioritise
the development of future services and calls in digital preservation. This
study has been commissioned to examine the factors that may affect the
long-term retention and reuse of learning object and materials, and
to make recommendations on how best to address these challenges.
The project partners involved in the study are the Institute for Computer Based Learning
(ICBL) and the Arts and
Humanities Data Service (AHDS). ICBL is part of the School of
Mathematics and Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University. The
ICBL has been actively studying design, development and evaluation issues
in the use of learning technology in Education. AHDS is a UK national
service funed by JISC and the Arts and Humanities Research Board,
which aids the discovery, creation and preservation of digital collections
in the arts and humanities.
The study is now complete and the final report is available
as an attachment of this page.