Creation of Basic Processable Units

Basic Processable Units are data structures created from content components isolated by authors from SCORM packages. They are built by attributing didactic interpretations to any independent content component (a single SCORM SCO), as well as to aggregation of components (a tree structure created for multiple SCO). UCTS-derived nomenclature or a nomenclature derived from any other taxonomy of didactic interpretations of content components can be used to create Basic Processable Unit. If UCTS nomenclature is in use, a SCORM package owner may attribute one of the following values to a chosen content component – Curriculum, Module or Unit

A user can attribute the following permissions determining component's behaviour in the repository:

• Search permission (publication) – visibility of the component in the search engine,
• Download – permission to download the component from the repository,
• Preview - preview of the component,
• Visible - visibility of the component in the tree view.

The Search permission is used to publish the content in the repository. If the search permission is set to a component, it means that it may be retrieved by other users. The permission may be set to components which are Processable Units as well as to any other SCORM resources (eg. files with assets).

The Download permission gives a user the right to determine which content can be downloaded from the repository. If Global value is set on, the content component can be downloaded not only from a considered repository (called “local” or “slave” repository), but also from other repositories (called “master” repository) linking the repository. If Local value is set on, download will be possible only from the repository where the content is stored.

The Preview permission gives a user retrieving the repository access to the content in a preview mode. This will significantly improve the process of content selection by users authoring new content structures.

The permission Visible allows the author to hide the information about the SCORM component in the Details view accessible for users exploring the content component. This enables the owner of the component to hide the structure of it and to deny a person retrieving the repository to access the names of the component parts. The permission Visible is automatically set on for all Processable Units. It means that a Processable Unit must be always visible to other users.

Attributing tags is a functionality that enables the owner of the content component to describe a subject matter of it with the help of freely chosen words or expressions. Exhaustive description of the content subject matter would improve retrieval effectiveness of the search engine especially in multi-topic repositories of large size. If the Content Repository tool is integrated with a wordnet based ontology organizing words and expressions as an ontology of concepts linguistically motivated (Marciniak, 2014b), the hierarchy of the used tags is presented in the Tags view. The hierarchical organization of tags will help a person tagging a content component to choose the most relevant tags by referring to domain conceptualizations.

IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) can be used to describe any content component such as SCO or files. Metadata, when completed with information, can make a search of the repository far more efficient. The system enables the selection of each of the metadata element available in LOM (approximately 100 metadata elements).