The quality / quantity conundrum -- it really is a trade-off. In the end, it depends on what you need and what your goal is. Large, exhaustive collections will favor quantity, especially if dependent on others to provide resources. Personally, I favor a quality collection and am reminded of a recent experience in checking references cited in a print publication only to find that they were wrong-- I discarded the publication as a reputable resource! Rosana Frattini FAO [quote="Lisa-Cespedes"] TOPIC 1 Populating a repository with resources and metadata: The quality versus quantity dilemma [/quote]

Hi and thanks for the spot-on questions! Q1. As a portal owner / administrator, how do you ensure that the learning resources accessible from your portal, are high quality? Do you have any mechanisms for reviewing and re-assessing the resources you curate? I am the content manager for the FAO Capacity Development Portal (www.fao.org/capacitydevelopment) which acts as a repository for FAO's learning resources aimed at helping our member countries develop their national capacities. The Learning Resources which are on the Portal come in many forms- manuals, guidelines, best practices, case studies, etc. Obviously, it is impossible to check and verify each one. These are tools and methods that have been used by the Organization and, in theory as well as in practice, are valid. I feel that an important aspect of sharing resources of this kind is to make clear that they are documented successful outcomes relevant to the work of FAO, but in no way are they to be interpreted as the only or best methods for achieving results. The CD Portal showcases and shares FAO's learning resources from within the entire organization, and I rely on my colleagues, that is, the data owners, to ensure quality resources. Q2. As a user of such portals, what do you value most when you visit them? For example, simple searching interfaces, accurate results, possibility to interact with the resources (rate, review, tag)? Anything else? Portals are entry points to a vast array of information. It is paramount that this information is organized simply and made accessible at-a-glance without wasting too much time looking for it. Search functionality should be simple and the possibility of accessing abstracts or information summaries is a plus. Q4. What are the practical problems that arise during the creation and maintenance of a portal with thousands of resources, from the portal owner side? Which are the most common ones? Are there any that you have yet to address? One of the major tasks in collecting thousands of FAO learning resources is getting colleagues from all over the house involved in identifying and uploading their resources for possible inclusion on the Portal. Although not extremely time-consuming, this task does entail a certain degree of commitment on part of the Portal Focal Points responsible for submitting their resources for approval and subsequent publication on the Portal. In the case of FAO this is the first Portal of its kind - a one stop shop of learning resources categorized by resource type, language and subject area. We are currently working on simplifying the resource submission process by designing a more user-friendly submission form. Once the resources are published, it is a challenge to ensure that the links remain active. This is probably the most common problem. Our next step will be to include non-FAO capacity development learning resources. But that's another discussion! [quote="lmclaug"] Dear colleagues, Initiating the discussion on Phase 2, Topic 2, we would like to provide you with a set of questions that focus on various aspects of the proposed topic. As you will see, some of the questions are more generic, whereas others focus on specific stakeholder groups (i.e. content/course creators, users of the content, etc.). The idea here is to start elaborating on these topics, clarifying and delving into the topic in hand. To facilitate the discussion, we would like to ask you to start replying by indicating the question number addressed (i.e. Q1), so that our colleagues that read you answers can easily identify the question you refer to. It's not obligatory to answer all of these, so feel free to choose the ones you want to answer. It would be nice, to answer with separate "posts" on each question. In this way, we will be able to follow up on your questions more easily. 1. As a portal owner / administrator, how do you ensure that the learning resources accessible from your portal, are high quality? Do you have any mechanisms for reviewing and re-assessing the resources you curate? 2. As a user of such portals, what do you value most when you visit them? For example, simple searching interfaces, accurate results, possibility to interact with the resources (rate, review, tag)? Anything else? 3. As a content creator, do you feel that making resources available on educational portals would interest you? Are you already doing this? If yes, how do you handle intellectual property rights (IPRs)? If not, what are your reasons for not sharing? 4. What are the practical problems that arise during the creation and maintenance of a portal with thousands of resources, from the portal owner side? Which are the most common ones? Are there any that you have yet to address? With kind regards, Lisa McLaughlin, ISKME OER Commons Manager [email protected] [/quote]