Digital educational resources repositories in lower and middle education in Portugal: quality criteria in the international context

Cornélia Castro, Sérgio André Ferreira, António Andrade

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

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Abstract

The thematic of Digital Educational Resources (DER) and digital educational repositories at primary and secondary education levels is of growing centrality in the educational themes in the international debate. In order to make it easier for teachers and students to find the best and relevant learning resources and to encourage teachers' uptake of innovative materials and learning styles, authorities and/or companies in European countries have launched web based educational repositories. Following this trend, about two years ago, three major institutions in Portugal have launched their repositories: Portal das Escolas (ME), Casa das Ciências (FCG) and BOA (INESC-ID). After examining the state of the art of educational repositories in Europe, it was found that those three Portuguese repositories are not mentioned in recent European reports and so the study here presented seemed to be very relevant. This work aims to develop a descriptive and comparative study, in order to characterize the reality of the Portuguese repositories and compare it with European examples of good practices. To guide this investigation, the following question was theorized: "How are the Portuguese institutional repositories, for primary and secondary education levels, positioned in what concerns international quality criteria?" Our methodology design is a qualitative one and of type i) descriptive, as it is intended to characterize the main Portuguese institutional DER repositories for primary and secondary school education, aiming to assess the key dimensions that affect their quality and ii) comparative since it has in view comparing those repositories with reference European ones. In this sense, Lektion in Sweden and Scoilnet, Portal for Irish Education in Ireland are considered. The study was undertaken from the view of the DER producers and users. As a tool for data collection it was used a framework of analysis built on the Guía para la Evaluación de Repositorios Institucionales e Investigación (GERII), a joint publication of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and other organizations in the fields of Education, Science and Technology (Villar et al, 2010). The GERII guide includes a set of guidelines for the creation and evaluation of a repository, bringing together a battery of 31 evaluation criteria, distributed over seven dimensions that any repository must accomplish to meet quality and therefore was considered an excellent basis for our analysis. Comparing the three Portuguese repositories, target of this study, with two reference European repositories in order to contextualize the national reality in the international arena will stand for the Portuguese institutions that hold the repositories as an opportunity for improvement. Thus, Portuguese teachers will have an increased chance to access an eclectic collection of quality resources, in order to diversify their teaching strategies.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 10th European Conference on e-Learning, ECEL 2011
EditorsAsher Rospigliosi, Sue Greener
PublisherDechema e.V.
Pages100-108
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9781908272225
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2011
Event10th European Conference on e-Learning, ECEL 2011 - Brighton, United Kingdom
Duration: 10 Nov 201111 Nov 2011

Publication series

NameProceedings of the European Conference on Games-based Learning
Volume1
ISSN (Print)2049-0992

Conference

Conference10th European Conference on e-Learning, ECEL 2011
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityBrighton
Period10/11/1111/11/11

Keywords

  • Comparative study
  • Digital educational resources
  • Evaluation
  • Quality
  • Repositories

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