A quantitative analysis of learning object repositories as knowledge management systems

Abstract

Learning Object Repositories (LORs) are a core element of the Opening up Education movement around the word. Despite, the wide efforts and investments in this topic, still most of the existing LORs are designed mainly as digital libraries that facilitate discovery and provide open access to educational resources in the form of Learning Objects (LOs). In that way, LORs include limited functionalities of Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) for organizing and sharing educational communities' explicit and tacit knowledge around the use of these educational resources. In our previous work, an initial study of examining LORs as KMSs has been performed and a master list of 21 essential LORs' functionalities has been proposed that could address the issue of organizing and sharing educational communities' knowledge. In this paper, we present a quantitative analysis of the functionalities of forty-nine (49) major LORs, so as (a) to measure the adoption level of the LORs' functionalities master list and (b) to identify whether this level influences LORs' growth as indicated by the development over time of the number of the LOs and the number of registered users that these LORs include. © 2014 Knowledge Management & E-Learning.