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Jisc TechDis Xerte Online Toolkits
Editing, managing and sharing learning objects (Part 2)
Introduction This tutorial continues from Part 1 and covers some
additional and more advanced steps and features including: Using
RSS Feeds Adding Notes Sharing LO’s for collaborative development
Giving copies of LO’s complete with content Peer Review Exporting
LO’s from Xerte Online Toolkits Editing using the Xerte ‘offline’
Windows application Importing into Xerte Online Toolkits
Pre-requisites You should already be familiar with the basic steps
required to create a learning object with Xerte Online Toolkits and
the steps and features involved in managing and sharing LO’s
covered in part 1 before beginning this tutorial. (See relevant
tutorials if necessary) Context There are some powerful features
built-in to Xerte Online Toolkits to enable different ways to share
and review LO’s and also to facilitate efficient workflow. You may
wish to use this as a reference guide to the specific features you
would find useful.
Key:
New sequence
Sequential steps with screenshots for reference
Repeated steps without screenshots
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Using RSS feeds Xerte Online Toolkits automatically provides a
number of RSS feeds. This includes a site wide RSS feed, a feed for
each individual workspace account, a unique feed for each folder in
each workspace and a site wide syndication feed. These are
described in more detail below.
To ensure an LO is part of the site wide RSS or your Personal
Workspace RSS, first select the LO and click Properties.
Select the RSS Tab. If your LO is not yet set to public you will
see a prompt to change the Access settings.
As described in part 1 of this series simply select the Access
tab, tick the Public checkbox and click Save.
Now select the RSS Tab again. If the RSS settings
haven’t been changed previously you should see an empty
Description box and the Checkboxes to include the LO in the RSS and
Export feeds will be set to No which is the default setting.
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Change the RSS feed checkbox to Yes.
Change the Export feed Checkbox to Yes. N.B. Including content
in the export feed allows other users to download your project and
make changes to it themselves.
Add a suitable description of your project to the Description
text box. The description will appear as part of the RSS feed and
should be a suitable summary of your object. Remember to click Save
to complete the changes.
People who subscribe to the feeds will see new content
automatically as it is added to the feeds.
The Main Feed link is the site wide feed for this installation
of Xerte Online Toolkits. The site wide feed includes LO’s created
and added to the feed by anyone using the installation and in this
case the link is http://vle.jisctechdis.ac.uk/sandpit/rss.php
The link described as ‘your own RSS Feed’ will only include LO’s
that you yourself have created and added to the feed e.g. not LO’s
created by others. In this example the link is:
http://vle.jisctechdis.ac.uk/sandpit/rss.php?username=Michael_Rippon
You can preview what the links contain by clicking the links in
the RSS Properties window or by copying and pasting the links into
an RSS Reader or VLE RSS Module etc.
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http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/xertehttp://vle.jisctechdis.ac.uk/sandpit/rss.phphttp://vle.jisctechdis.ac.uk/sandpit/rss.php?username=Michael_Ripponhttp://vle.jisctechdis.ac.uk/sandpit/rss.php?username=Michael_Rippon
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By organising you’re LO’s into folders (covered in part 1 of
this series) you can also make use of unique RSS feeds for each
folder. So for instance you might organise your LO’s into course or
group specific folders and then add the specific feeds to relevant
VLE courses.
To obtain the RSS feed link to a specific folder select the
folder in the My Projects panel and click Properties.
Select the Tab labelled ‘RSS feed for this folder’ and Click the
link to preview the folder specific feed. You can then copy the
link from the preview window or the properties panel and paste the
feed link into the relevant VLE course.
Any new LO’s added to the folder and set to be part of the RSS
feeds will be displayed automatically to anyone who has subscribed
to the specific feed using their preferred RSS reader or to anyone
visiting the VLE course where the feed has been added.
As an example Moodle provides an RSS Feed Block which can be
added to any course and configured to display the relevant
feeds.
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Adding Notes Xerte Online Toolkits makes it very quick and easy
to build up a large collection of learning objects some of which
you may duplicate and organise into different folders and amend for
different groups etc. To save time in the future it’s therefore
useful to keep notes about the content and purpose of each LO using
the notes property. You might choose to summarise existing or
planned changes or simply to make a note of the content an LO
contains or ideas for future reference.
To add notes about a particular LO first select the LO and click
Properties.
Select the Notes tab, add relevant notes and click Save. N.B.
The notes property has a restricted length and prohibits special
characters and carriage returns so keep your notes concise.
Sharing LO’s for collaborative development A powerful and
relatively unique feature of Xerte Online Toolkits is the ability
to easily enable a colleague or colleagues to edit an LO you
initially developed and then to continue to develop the resource
collaboratively.
Select the relevant LO and click Properties
Select the Shared settings tab and type the first name,
last name or even just 1st initial(s) of the colleagues you wish
to share with. N.B. Only existing users will appear e.g. those who
have accessed the installation at least once. This example shows
typing the letter s displays two users picking up the s in Sewell
and the s in Simon.
Click the link alongside each colleague to add them to the list
and enable them to edit or just read the LO. N.B. Editor is the
default option.
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If you have an installation of Xerte Online Toolkits in your own
organisation and search for a colleague without their name
appearing it may simply be that they have never accessed the
installation and therefore do not yet have an account. Simply send
them a link and once their account is created you will be able to
share LO’s with them.
You can also revisit the Shared settings to see who has shared
access and if necessary to remove that access or change to Read
only. Once a colleague has shared access they will see the LO in
their own workspace and be able to edit and add pages but not
delete the whole LO or change specific properties.
Giving LO’s to other users Another powerful feature built-in to
Xerte Online Toolkits is the option to give a copy of an LO to
other users. You might use this to develop an LO complete with
content and activities and then give it to colleagues or even
learners to further adapt. Indeed you might develop a sequence of
pages with prompts for students to then develop further by adding
relevant content and activity themselves. Alternatively you might
develop a successful format and sequence which colleagues can then
use and learn from when developing their own LO’s.
As usual select the relevant LO and click Properties.
Select the Give this project tab and as with sharing simply type
the first name, last name or 1st initial of the colleagues or
learners to whom you wish to give a copy. N.B. You will see a
confirmation that the LO was successfully gifted but not a list to
review at a later date. Those receiving the LO will have full
control
over what becomes their own copy of your LO complete with
content.
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Enabling and using Peer Review This feature enables peer review
of your LO’s. However the feature only works with installations
where certain settings have been added during installation. Contact
your system administrator if you find the following steps do not
work in your installation.
As usual select the relevant LO and click Properties.
Select the Peer review tab, tick the On checkbox to
turn Peer review On, enter a suitable password and click Save.
N.B. You will be sharing this password with those you invite to
review your LO.
Once you have saved the settings you can test the peer
review link and then share the link and password with
colleagues.
You will be prompted to enter the password and click Sign
In.
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Your colleagues will be able to interact with your LO and
make comments in the review text box before clicking Save to
submit their comments. N.B. You might think it’s just as easy to
send them a link to your LO and ask for feedback by email instead
of using the peer review system. However that would mean making
your LO public whereas the peer review system provides access
without having to make your LO public which can be useful during
development and testing etc.
Exporting LO’s Xerte Online Toolkits enables the export and
import of LO’s between Xerte Online Toolkits installations as well
as export and import into VLE’s such as Moodle. Or you may simply
wish to export for ‘offline’ use from a USB stick, CD/DVD or
network drive. It’s also possible to export as a Scorm package and
import into a VLE in that way or even to export and continue
editing with the separate locally installed Xerte authoring
tool.
As usual select the relevant LO and click Properties.
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Select the Export tab and choose one of the two export options –
zip or Scorm. Choose zip export to use or edit locally or to import
into another toolkits installation.
You should be prompted to open or save the zip file.
Choose Save and select a location of your choice.
To view or edit the LO locally extract the contents of the zip –
usually by right clicking the file and selecting the relevant
option.
To view the LO double click index.htm
The LO will launch in the default web browser and work in
the same way as it would online. 31
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To export as a Scorm package select the Scorm export link and
Save the zip to a location of your choice. Choose this option if
you wish to import into a VLE/LMS as a Scorm object. N.B. The
current page templates do not send quiz data via Scorm calls. Also
if you view scormRLO.htm locally you will see error messages as the
package tries to communicate with an LMS.
Editing with the Xerte Windows application If you have the Xerte
Windows application installed (available from
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/ ) you can also continue to edit
your exported LO’s offline. This provides a useful workflow whereby
you can create an LO with Xerte Online Toolkits online, export as a
zip and continue to edit with the Windows application or indeed by
importing into a local installation of Xerte Online Toolkits. You
could also actually begin the process with the Windows application
using the same Xerte Templates Wizard as with Xerte Online Toolkits
and then import the packaged LO into a Xerte Online Toolkits
installation.
Depending on your version of Xerte Online Toolkits you may see
either learningobject.rlo, learningobject.rlt or indeed both within
the extracted folder. Double clicking either of these files will
launch the Windows application (if installed).
If you opened learningobject.rlo be careful not to change
anything in the more specialised authoring environment. Instead
simply double click the Xerte Online Toolkit icon top left of the
icon panel to launch the much easier Xerte Templates Wizard…
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The Xerte Template Wizard looks and works in much the same way
as it does within the online version in Xerte Online Toolkits.
Double clicking learningobject.rlt should launch this directly but
if you find yourself back in the native application simply double
click the Xerte Online Toolkit icon as described in the previous
step.
If you edit or create an LO using the Windows application you
can then Publish the LO as a zip
Package ready for importing back into a Xerte Online Toolkits
installation. Select Publish then Package. This prompts you to save
a Scorm zip package which can be imported as described in the
following steps…
Importing into Xerte Online Toolkits Any LO created with Xerte
Online Toolkits and exported as either a zip or Scorm package can
be imported back into the same Xerte Online Toolkits installation
or imported into another installation. Likewise an LO created with
the Xerte Template Wizard from within the Windows application and
Published as a zip Package can be imported in the same way. This
facilitates the sharing of objects between installations and indeed
between organisations where staff are willing to share
development.
To import a zip or Scorm package first select the Workspace icon
and then select Properties.
Then select the Import tab and Browse to find your exported or
packaged zip.
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Select the relevant zip file and click Open.
Enter a New project name and click Upload.
Watch the progress indicator bottom left of the Workspace
Properties window.
A confirmation window should appear confirming that the package
was imported successfully.
Select the imported LO and click Preview to further check that
the import has worked...
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Recap This guide covered a range of powerful but slightly more
complex features than covered in part 1. Awareness of these
features and options should help you become more efficient when
working with Xerte Online Toolkits and able to decide when and how
to use some of these more advanced features. As in part 1 you may
wish to use the following checklist to track that you have reviewed
each section and make further notes in the panel opposite.
Using RSS Feeds Adding Notes Sharing LO’s for collaborative
development Giving copies of LO’s complete with content Peer Review
Exporting LO’s from Xerte Online Toolkits Editing using the Xerte
‘offline’ Windows application Importing into Xerte Online
Toolkits
View an interactive version of this tutorial and others at
www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/xerte
Notes Make notes here to remind yourself and reflect on any
ideas you had, or features you discovered, whilst working through
this guide.
Tutorial created by Ron Mitchell mitchellmedia.co.uk for Jisc
TechDis service – © Jisc TechDis 2013
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Editing, managing and sharing learning objects (Part
2)IntroductionPre-requisitesContextKey:Using RSS feedsAdding
NotesSharing LO’s for collaborative developmentGiving LO’s to other
usersEnabling and using Peer ReviewExporting LO’sEditing with the
Xerte Windows applicationImporting into Xerte Online
ToolkitsRecap
Notes