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Ana Mª Fernández-Pampillón et al.
The possibility to dynamically define customized data, metadata and content for LO collections
according to the knowledge domain and the specific didactic needs of users (Figure 6);
Because of (1), an intuitive mechanism for domain experts (teachers and researches) for the
location and selection of LOs based on their discipline’s specialized attributes and terminology.
Hence, when exploring and searching LOs in OdA, students use language and conceptual
domain classifications of each discipline, which helps to improve the learning of terminology and
conceptual structure of that domain.
The possibility to export LOs to an IMS Content Package to publish them in other e-learning tools
such as Learning Management Systems (e.g. Moodle).
Figure 6: Metadata schema management interface
Finally, a minimal set of technical requirements is needed, concerning both IT equipment and
skills. OdA can be installed in a personal computer with a self-installing version.
Therefore, OdA is a software solution to easily create and manage specialized LO collections in
tertiary education low-tech contexts (where teachers are not computer specialists and usually have
poor IT support). It offers an alternative to international repositories, with greater functionality and
interoperability but more complex to use, less flexible to precisely store and manage specialized LOs
and requiring larger equipment and staff infrastructures.
2.4 An inductive methodology to create Philology LO collections
The incremental construction methodology of LO collections is based on the above-presented
elements – an open LO model, an accessible quality tool and an easy-to-use LOR – to inductively and
systematically generate tertiary LO collections in six stages:
Creation/reuse. The teacher or team of teachers create or digitize their teaching materials
according to the usual procedures.
Inductive creation of metadata schema. Each faculty member involved in the collection defines a
metadata record for their materials. A minimum set of metadata to describe and classify all the
initial materials is selected from all the metadata records.
Evaluation. Teachers evaluate the quality of the materials they have created, or are creating, by
means of the COdA tool. Once evaluated, they can continue with this step, or stop if the
evaluation has been satisfactory.
Fine-tuning. If during the evaluation the material does not meet some criteria, it is modified so as
to obtain a higher score. After fine-tuning the material, the teacher usually returns to step 3 to reevaluate
the new version.
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