Building the Maricopa Learning eXchange

(Using a Bit of Competition and Bribery)

Alan Levine
Maricopa Center for Learning & Instruction (mcli)
Maricopa Community Colleges
a poster presentation at...

MERLOT International Conference
Vancouver, British Columbia, Aug 5-8, 2003

How do you cultivate the use and contribution to a learning object repository? We will share some strategies we have used at the Maricopa Community Colleges. The Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) is an electronic warehouse of ideas, examples, and resources that support learning at the Maricopa Community Colleges.

The metaphor we designed was in fact a warehouse. Since what represented an innovation could range from as small as a lesson idea or a single piece of media content to something as large as a faculty development program, we represent each item as a brown wrapped "package." All of the information about the item is described in the "packing slip" (see packing slip anatomy). As an option, the creator of a package can also add any number of web links that are relevant and they can upload various media items (Word documents, PowerPoint files, PDF documents, images, video clips, etc). To preserve intellectual property, all items shared have a usage license from Creative Commons.

Part of the task in building this sort of collection is getting its contents to a level where the content is seen as valuable. It takes time and much effort to convince people in the organization to submit their materials. And they need to be able to find content of interest to see the collection as a destination worth returning to.

The first requirement to create this buy-in is that the submission process must be as simple as possible, which we achieved with a friendly metaphor of entering them at the loading dock of the warehouse. We added a comment feature for all items that are tracked and sent to the package owner, as well as integration of TrackBack technology for connections to weblogs and other sites. Also, in September 2003, we will add a public rating system for packages.

We have set up connections with existing programs, such as our internal "Learning Grants" that have reporting tools. Reports submitted on grant projects then added to both the grant site and to the MLX. We are expanding this concept to include connections with our faculty sabbatical report process, modules developed as part of Systemic Reform In Science (SyRIS) project, as well as a other Maricopa programs such as Innovation of the Year, Internationalizing the Curriculum, and Creative Pathways (employee development program)

Next, we appealed to the notions of "competition" and "bribery" by offering prizes of software to the college that contributed the most items between November 2002 and March 2003. This was rather successful, adding more than 350 new items (with one third arriving 48 hours short of the deadline), and we have made the "Great MLX Package race" an ongoing event, with new prizes awarded every six months. For the race that ends August 31, 2003, we have added software prizes (donated, thanks!) for individual contributions.

In addition, we have set up "syndication" feeds of the content in the MLX, that would allow a college to add to their own web site, a dynamically updated "window" into their contributions to the MLX (see Estrella Mountain Community College's CTL site). Two technologies are employed; RSS or "news headline" feeds using XML (more robust technology but more difficult to implement) and an easier JavaScript linked source file method. Both allow selection of customized views of the entire collection to be integrated into external web sites and the appearances customized to match local design.

Building the Maricopa Learning eXchange (Using a Bit of Competition and Bribery)
Poster Display Signs
Adobe Acrobat file : merlot_poster.pdf [2.3 Mb PDF]