My Way is currently a set of tools to edit and deliver content in different formats. After three years of development, the UOC wants to open and transform the project with the objective to be helpful to the open learning community.

The objective of this work is to share our ideas and to invite other institutions to build on a larger initiative in this area.

Main Goal

To develop tools for the editing process in an open learning environment.

Description

The traditional value chain of an editorial company has four steps: authoring, editing, formatting and delivering.

Open learn uses an editorial process slightly different from the traditional one. In an open learning environment authorship is not necessarily the responsibility of just a person. Several authors can work simultaneously using a wiki and can take into account anonymous contributions. At the same time editing takes the form of peer review or annotations in a web page. And finally, the contents are delivered simultaneously in multiple formats such as pdf, html and audio and have to be packaged in SCORM or Common Cartridge.

MyWay will produce tools for this particular scenario, among others:

• Authoring. To transform different formats to xml. Wiki2xml, word2xml, latex2xml.
• Editing. To edit contents already published. Annotation, comments, evaluation.
• Formatting. To publish contents in different formats. Xml2pdf, xml2html, xml2AA, xml2audio, xml2DAISY.
• Delivering. To edit metadata and deliver content in different packaging standards. SCORM editor, Common Cartridge editor.

Data architecture

MYWAY handle three different types of files: course descriptors, learning objects and components.

Course descriptors contain metadata that describes the content. The learning objects are materials in its final format: word, pdfs, html, etc.

Many institutions just require course descriptors and learning objects. Only a video file an a descriptor is required for a university to upload off-line classes. In this case the institution could use the packaging editors as well as the annotation and evaluation tools.

However, to deliver a single unit of content in multiple formats, it will be necessary to use a xml edition. The components will be text files tagged in xml, images and generally the elements necessary to transform content in multiple formats such as pdf, html or audio.

Relation with other projects

Open Course Ware. My Way can be used to edit and package content which is then sent to an Open Course Ware repository. My Way editing tools can be used to annotate, comment or evaluate materials housed in Open Course Ware repository. My Way is in no case a content management system but a set of tools to facilitate the publishing process.

OKI. All tools use OKI as the basic architecture. Open Source. All tools will be delivered using open source licenses.

For more information please contact Josep Rivera, jrivera@uoc.edu