The JISC is hoping to provide a learning materials repository service to all FE and HE institutions in the UK. As part of this the JORUM+ project has been funded to:
- investigate the user requirements for the national repository service by December 2003
- support a JISC research programme called Exchange for Learning (X4L) into re-use of learning materials until July 2005
The JORUM Scoping and Technical Appraisal Study has now been published and includes recommendations for how this national repository should work. The lengthy report makes interesting reading and while the recommendations are too numerous to mention here, there's good news for RSS fans: "Implementation of RSS to allow alerts to be sent to relevant applications such as the L&T Portal whenever metadata is changed, so that the record can be automatically harvested"
The report mentions Scott Leslie's RSS-enabled repositories web page and so mentions the RSS learning object syndication offered by yours truly. With a bit of luck and a little bit of vision RSS may figure in the JISC/JORUM repository.
The initial stages of the JORUM+ project used the IntraLibrary product from Intrallect and Xtensis from XOR eLearning Ltd. As far as I know it's not yet been announced which vendor(s) will be involved in the next phase of repository development.