User:JimTittsler/OERu/RegionalRelations

This repository was originally built in USQ's Moodle database module. There are a variety of ways this might be expanded to meet the demands of an OERu population.

OER Foundation Moodle
The OER Foundation runs a Moodle instance that could host a replica of the repository. (Domain name?)

Wiki table
A sortable table could be built with wikitext and optionally augmented by a form widget. Student input into the form could be added to the table either chronologically or grouped by country/region. Optional validation could vette entries by checking accessible links, detecting duplicates, comparing against a blacklist, etc.

It is not obvious what the best way for users to comment on existing entries. Each entry might create a new subpage with discussion of the link. (Easy, but "consumes" a lot of "pages.") Or each entry might start a LiquidThread on the talk page. (Concise, clearly threaded. Probably not as "discoverable" for naive users.)  Disclosure triangles could put all comments inline, with only the original poster's displayed by default. (Needs an "add comment here" widget.)
 * There are no plans to allow comments on other student's entries in the repository. --JimTittsler 05:20, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

WEnotes
The OER Foundation has developed a scheme that caches micro-blog posts from a variety of sources. Since many learners will already have identi.ca or WikiEducator (or even Twitter, although licensing there is problematic) accounts, we could harvest a database of resources that were dented/tweeted with a #ORRdb hashtag. This solution offers the advantages of: Disadvantages include: dents tend to be free form, so the harvesting engine would need to be able to recognize country/region names, links, and reasoning from plain text. "Threading" replies to collect responses to a particular entry is problematic. "Re-tweets" would be an easy way of "scoring" an entry.
 * convenience for the student, collecting resources "where the learners are"
 * resources would appear in existing WEnotes stream and/or mailings
 * limited length of micro-blog post constrains reasoning behind link inclusion
 * difficulty in following a thread of responses to a particular link's inclusion