Following the FAIR principles and best practices, the LifeWatch Italy training catalogue hosts the metadata of relevant learning resources so that these can be shared, searched, discovered, accessed and reused. The LifeWatch Italy training catalogue’s accurate and descriptive metadata allow all users to find the most appropriate and well-suited educational resources for their needs.
This page explains how to use and navigate the catalogue and find the most appropriate available learning resource.
LAYOUT
The home page of this catalogue presents (from top to bottom):
When you click on “Full Catalogue” or on a specific category icon, you will be presented with a list of resources and for each one of these you will see a presentation box that illustrates the language, the difficulty and the rating of the specific resource.
Clicking on the selected resource, you will access the page of the resource with all the metadata included in the catalogue. In the same page, on the right-hand side, you will find a “Access the resource” button that redirects you to the learning resource.
NAVIGATION
To navigate through the resources included in the catalogue, you have two options: you can click on the “Full Catalogue” button and access the full list of resources available on the catalogue; or you can click on the categories icons and access a sub-list of resources arranged by resource type.
When you click on “Full Catalogue” or on a specific category icon, the related list of resources will show. In addition, on the top of the page you will also find a “Search” box.
Here you can perform searches by writing a keyword in the search input and clicking on the “Search” button. The resulting resources will be those containing the selected keyword in the title or in the description.
Similarly, you can perform advanced searches by clicking on the “Advanced Search” link. The search form that will open will allow you to perform a search on specific metadata fields.
Once you find the resource you were searching for, you can access it by clicking on the title, on the thumbnail or on the “Read more...” link. The page of the specific resource will contain all information and metadata on that resource. On the right side of the page, the button “Access the resource” allows you to access the resource and start the training.
You can also leave comments and ratings on a specific resource. Such feedback will be subject to revision by admin before publication
CREATING A USER PROFILE (for contributors only)
If you only want to navigate the catalogue and access the metadata of the training resources you do not need a User profile; you have access to the full catalogue directly.
If, on the other end, you were accepted as a participant to one of the LifeWatch Italy short programmes and Schools or you were approved as a contributor for the catalogue, you would need to register and create a User profile.
You can register by clicking on the “Login” link in the top right corner of the home page.
The login and the registration forms will look like this.
After completing the registration, you will receive to the email address specified in the registration form a confirmation email to activate the account. Please follow the link specified in the email to acknowledge the success of the confirmation and see the outline of your profile, which will contain username, role (User by default after the registration), and all the other profile details. In this page you can also modify the password and edit the profile information.
METADATA SET IDENTIFICATION
The LifeWacth Italy training catalogue has been designed and developed by following simple but effective requirements, mainly based on the need to find educational materials. In order to identify the most suitable metadata set for the LifeWatch Italy Training Catalogue, two well-known metadata schemas, namely Dublin Core (ISO 2009) and IEEE Standard for Learning Object Metadata (IEEE 2002) have been investigated. The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) contains 15 well defined elements for describing the properties of digital and physical objects.
The IEEE Learning Object Model (LOM) consists of 60 optional elements that can be used to describe learning objects. Such elements can be combined in various manners to describe the pedagogical intent of an educational resource.
This cataloque uses a customized metadata profile IEEE LOM for the resources - derived from the Dublin Core (ISO 2009) and the IEEE Standard for Learning Objects Metadata (2002) - that consists of 29 elements. The meaning of each of these metadata elements is given below and might help you in defining your search keywords.
The following IEEE LOM elements are now used in the LifeWatch Italy training catalogue:
1. General: this category groups the general information that describes the learning object as a whole
1.1 Identifier: a globally unique label that identifies the learning object
1.2 Catalog: The name or designator of the identification or cataloging scheme for this entry. A namespace scheme. E.g., URI, ISBN, ARIADNE, etc.
1.3 Entry: the value of the identifier within the identification or cataloging scheme that designates or identifies the learning object. A namespace specific string
1.4. Title: name given to the learning object
1.5. Language: the primary human language or languages used within the learning object to communicate to the intended user
1.6. Description: a textual description of the content of the learning object
1.7. Keywords: list of keywords separated by ‘;’ describing the topic of the learning object
1.8. Coverage: the time, culture, geography or region to which this learning object applies. The extent or scope of the content of the learning object. Coverage will typically include spatial location (a place name or geographic coordinates), temporal period (a period label, date, or date range) or jurisdiction (such as a named administrative entity). Example: 16th century France NOTE: Specify "Not available" if needed
2. Life Cycle: the category describes the history and current state of the learning object and those entities that have affected the learning object during its evolution
2.1. Version: the edition of the learning object. Example: 1.2. Specify "Not available" if needed
2.2. Status: the completion status or condition of the learning object. It can be Draft, Final, Revised, Unavailable
2.3. Contribute: those Entities (i.e., people, organizations) that have contributed to the state of the learning object during its life cycle (e.g., creation, edits, publication)
2.3.1 Role: kind of contribution. It can be author, publisher, unknown, initiator, terminator, validator, editor, graphical, designer, technical implementer, content, provider, technical validator, educational validator, script writer, instructional designer, subject matter expert
2.3.2. Entity: the identification of and information about entities (i.e., people, organizations) contributing to the learning object (e.g., FOAF: Friend Of A Friend)
2.4. Date: the date of the contribution. Specify "Not available" if needed.
3. Educational: this category describes the key educational or pedagogic characteristics of the learning object
3.1. Interactivity type: predominant mode of learning supported by the learning project. It can be active, expositive, mixed. “Active” learning (e.g., learning by doing) is supported by content that directly induces productive action by the learner. An active learning object prompts the learner for semantically meaningful input or for some other kind of productive action or decision, not necessarily performed within the learning object's frame-work. Active documents include simulations, questionnaires, and exercises. “Expositive” learning (e.g., passive learning) occurs when the learner's job mainly consists of absorbing the content exposed to him (generally through text, images or sound). An expositive learning object displays information but does not prompt the learner for any semantically meaningful input. Expositive documents include essays, video clips, all kinds of graphical material, and hypertext documents. When a learning object blends the active and expositive interactivity types, then its interactivity type is “mixed.”
3.2. Learning resource type: specific kind of learning object. It can be exercise, simulation, questionnaire, diagram, FAQ, figure, graph, index, slide, table, narrative text, exam, experiment, problem statement, self-assessment, lecture, video, webinar
3.3. Interactivity level: the degree of interactivity characterizing the learning object. Interactivity in this context refers to the degree to which the learner can influence the aspect or behavior of the learning object. It can be very low, low, medium, high, very high
3.4. Semantic density: the degree of conciseness of the learning object. The semantic density of a learning object may be estimated in terms of its size, span, or - in the case of self-timed resources such as audio or video - duration. It can be very low, low, medium, high, very high
3.5. Intended end user role: principal user(s) for which the learning object was designed, most dominant first. It can be Teacher, Author, Learner, Manager
3.6. Context: the principal environment within which the learning and use of the learning object is intended to take place. It can be school, higher education, training, other
3.7. Difficulty: how hard it is to work with or through the learning object for the typical intended target audience. It can be: very easy, easy, medium, difficult, very difficult, knowledge-dependent
3.8. Typical learning time: approximate or typical time it takes to work with or through the learning object for the typical intended target audience. Example: PT1H30M, which means 1 hour and 30 minutes; PT1M45S, which means 1 minute and 45 seconds. Specify "Knowledge-dependent" if the learning time depends on the familiarity with the context
3.9. Rights: describes the intellectual property rights and conditions of use for the learning object. Example: Copyright © 2018 xxx. Specify "Not available" if needed
3.10. Cost: whether use of the learning object requires payment (Yes/No)
3.11. Copyright and other restrictions: whether copyright or other restrictions apply to the use of the learning object (Yes/No)
3.12. Condition of use: comments on the conditions of use of the learning object (e.g., Free access)
4. Technical: this category describes the technical requirements and characteristics of the learning object
4.1. Location: a string that is used to access the learning object. It may be a location (e.g., Universal Resource Locator), or a method that resolves to a location (e.g., Universal Resource Identifier). The first element of this list shall be the preferable location. Specify "Not available" if needed
4.2. Size: the size of the digital learning object in bytes not Mbytes, GB, etc. This data element shall refer to the actual size of this learning object. If the learning object is compressed, then this data element shall refer to the uncompressed size. Specify "Not available" if needed.