Introduction

1.1 A Context for this Report

This report is part of a series of reports issued by the EPOC Working Group on aspects of "Enabling the Provision of Open Courseware". For the benefit of readers without access to the other reports this report includes several extracts from the first EPOC report. The primary aim of this report is to provide further discussion of some of the more technical issues which in the first report were merely summarised.

Reports Summary to Date:

EPOC Report No.1

Report of the TLTP Working Group on Open Courseware

EPOC Report No.2 (available on WWW only)

Pre-requisites for Open Courseware

EPOC Report No.3

Towards a Framework for Open Courseware (this report)

EPOC Report No. 1 "Report of the TLTP Working Group on Open Courseware" establishes a context, provides an overview of the main issues, and introduces a framework for subsequent reports which can focus in more depth on various specialised aspects.

EPOC Report No.1. includes:

• "A vision of open courseware". This section briefly describes EPOC's view of what open courseware is and how it would be of benefit to the courseware community. The term "courseware community" is used to refer to all the potential beneficiaries of open courseware including courseware developers, courseware publishers, courseware resource managers, lecturers, teachers, students, distance learners, etc.
• "Summary of findings". This section briefly describes the current situation. It highlights the differences between genuinely open courseware (which doesn't exist yet) and some tentative steps towards open courseware which have been taken by a variety of UK projects. This section of Report 1 is used as a starting point for this third report. Hence, this third report is an elaboration of several of the issues which need to be addressed by Courseware Management Systems (CMSs) and a review of several current approaches to courseware management.
• "Recommended courses of action". This section briefly describes some proposed courses of action which can lead towards open courseware. These include some aspects which EPOC is attempting to tackle and some aspects which are hopefully useful suggestions for others in the courseware community. In particular, this section outlines a proposed project to define a technical specification for a Framework for Open Courseware (FRAMEWOC). FRAMEWOC is intended to be a public domain specification which will provide standards for the development of open courseware.

EPOC Report No.2. "Pre-requisites for Open Courseware" is intended to provide advice and guidelines on some very fundamental technical issues, e.g., what is required just to successfully install and operate different courseware products on the same machine; what should developers do now to anticipate migration towards open courseware? Report No.2 will rely upon contributions from various sources and is likely to remain in the form of an evolving web-based document rather than be delivered in printed form.

Report No. 2 is is intended to be a WWW document only, so that it may continually evolve as information is incorporated on new products, and from disparate sources across the globe.

All EPOC reports will be located on the world wide web, accessible from the EPOC home page. This site will be continually updated with references to related work; hence relevant links to the work of other courseware practitioners are always welcome. Most of EPOC's work will exploit web publishing as the most practical way of providing an evolving source of information. From time to time, some of the reports will be delivered in printed form.

1.2 A Context for Open Courseware

(An edited extract from Report No.1. "Report of the TLTP Working Group on Open Courseware".)

The courseware development community in UK higher education has now developed significant volumes of computer based courseware across a diverse range of subject disciplines. The major escalation of courseware development during the last few years is partly attributable to the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP). The widely held aspiration is that the freely available courseware emerging from the TLTP will become widely implemented within higher education institutions and that new and innovative ways of delivering higher education will be enabled by these courseware resources.

However, there are serious inhibitors, both cultural and technical, which could impair the widespread exploitation of existing and future courseware. It is outside the scope of these reports to speculate on cultural inhibitors and their remedies. These reports are therefore deliberately restricted in scope to a range of technical issues which affect the exploitability of courseware resources.

The shared beliefs and concerns which the EPOC Working Group has identified can be briefly summarised as follows:

The beliefs are that for courseware to be widely exploited within universities:

1. it will need to be simple to implement, simple to manage, simple to adapt, and simple to use;
2. it will need to offer "flexible use" in ways that are taken for granted with older technology like text books, photocopiers and overhead projectors, and in particular this means it will need to offer consistent forms of "pick and mix" capability;
3. it will need to be "open courseware" in order to be technically capable of the above and hence form part of an integrated learning environment.

The concerns are:

1. currently emerging courseware products are very diverse, non-integrated, and technically incompatible with each other;
2. there are no standards or systems currently available which achieve genuine inter-operability of all courseware, therefore a "pick and mix" capability is severely constrained;
3. the current lack of openness will compromise the desired widespread exploitation of courseware and impede the creation of integrated learning environments.

The EPOC Working Group (hereafter referred to as EPOC) believes that ultimately courseware will need to be "open courseware" before the diversities can be successfully accommodated, the necessary integration can be achieved, and the technical incompatibilities eliminated. EPOC believes that "standards for open courseware" are an inevitable and essential requirement for the courseware community. EPOC also believes that these standards need to emerge out of, and hence be compatible with, the existing courseware developments, rather than be specified remotely and imposed upon the courseware community. To this end, EPOC is trying to promote a collaborative approach to providing solutions which can be placed in the public domain.

The road to achieving "open courseware" is however fraught with difficulties. An immediate, overnight fix for all existing courseware is quite simply not available. Hence, EPOC has been concerned with establishing short-term partial solutions, which can ease some of the immediate difficulties, and with longer-term solutions which can make strides towards genuinely open courseware.

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