ABSTRACT

In order to make the promise of ‘effective, efficient, attractive and accessible’ e-learning a reality, it is necessary for educational practitioners to have access to a wide range of durable high-quality electronic teaching and learning resources. However, producing high-quality materials of this kind represents a considerable investment in terms of time, resources and finances. For some time now there has been a growing awareness that even the most accessible resources have failed to be widely adopted by the educational community and as a result have also failed to fulfil their considerable educational potential. For example, in the UK, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has recently launched the Exchange for Learning Programme (X4L), which aims to encourage educators to reuse and repurpose educational content produced by existing and forthcoming programmes. The programme has been motivated by ‘the imperative to make the most of the considerable investment that has taken place in a range of

content which has high potential value’, and recognizes that ‘the challenge is to demonstrate how this can be reused to support learning’ (JISC, 2002). Similarly, Learning and Teaching Scotland, the national public body that advises the Scottish Executive on all aspects of the learning experiences of children up to the age of 18, has recently held a series of learning object symposia to help gain a common understanding of issues relating to the sustainable reuse of educational resources (Gordon et al, 2002, p4).