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Introduction
The combination of content or objects stored on servers
and organized by metadata or catalogued is the foundation
of a repository. This foundation has a number of important
features. First, any content provider can label objects
using a shared metadata scheme, post them on a server
and be confident they will be easily found by others
using the repository. Secondly, objects can be stored
on different servers in different locations but can
be accessed by anyone using the repository. An object
repository may well be a collection of distributed servers
but the user never needs to be aware of this.
Building an object repository is the first step in online
education. Whole curriculums and courses of study can
be assembled from the objects in a rich object repository.
Through the Internet, learners in all parts of the country
can use and share object repositories at any time of
the day or night. Because of the importance of education
to Canada's economic future, building a robust infrastructure
for a shared national object repository is an important
project for the nation in the 21st Century.
The
general vision of the eduSource project is focused
on the creation of a network of linked and interoperable
learning object repositories across Canada. The initial
part of this project will be an inventory of ongoing
development of the tools, systems, protocols and practices.
Consequent to this initial exercise the project will
look at defining the components of interoperable framework,
the web services that will tie them all together and
the protocols necessary to allow other institutions
to enter into that framework.
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