Building System Processable Units from existing content components

Creation of System Processable Units

System Processable Units are data structures created by users in the Content Repository. These structures are created when there is a need to author a new content component from the content stored in the repository. UCTS-derived nomenclature or a nomenclature derived from any other taxonomy of didactic interpretations of content components can be used when creating System Processable Units. If UCTS nomenclature is in use, a System Processable Unit may be annotated as Curriculum, Module or Unit. After creation, the System Processable Unit is unfilled. Then, its owner can add to it any other Processable Unit retrieved from the repository. Adding content components is performed by the drag and drop utility.

Setting persmissions which determines behaviour of the content component in the repository

When the Processable Unit is created, one can determine how it will be accessible in the repository. Following permissions can be set:

• 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 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.

Describing subject matter of the content component with tags

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.

Describing other characteristics of the content component with Learning Object Metadata (LOM)

IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) can be used to describe any content component. 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).