Connexions
From Bazaar Wiki
Type of application / System Requirements
Connexions is a web based service and a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:
- authors create and collaborate
- instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
- learners find and explore content
Purpose
Connexions is an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Our Content Commons contains educational materials for everyone — from children to college students to professionals — organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger collections or courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license.
What it does
Connexions actively encourages the development fo a community around Open Educational Resource creation and use.
They have adopted a modular approach. Most textbooks, they say, are a mass of information in linear format: one topic follows after another. However, our brains are not linear - we learn by making connections between new concepts and things we already know. Connexions mimics this by breaking down content into smaller chunks, called modules, that can be linked together and arranged in different ways. This lets students see the relationships both within and between topics and helps demonstrate that knowledge is naturally interconnected, not isolated into separate classes or books.
Educationally Connexxions encourages authors to write each module to stand on its own so that others can easily use it in different courses and contexts. Connexions also allows instructors to customize content by overlaying their own set of links and annotations.
How can it be used for creation of OERs
Connexions provides a word template and on-line tools for creating modules and courses.
How can it be used for consumption of OERs
The Connexions repository contains 5096 reusable modules woven into 316 collections. Content can be searched by:
- Subject
- Title
- Author
- Keyword
- Popularity
- Language
- Revision Date
- Institution
Material can be accessed on-line or downloaded as PDFs. There is the provision of discussion forum around courses and modules.
How can it be used for reuse of OERs
All materials are free for reuse and remixing. Authors are particularly encouraged to create new collections based on exiting modules and tools are provided for this purpose.
Sidney Burros says:
1. The author creates the modules. This is done by writing a new module or by modifying an existing one which may have been written by the modifier or by a completely different author. There are software tools to write, edit, and collaborate. This is strongly aided by the open Creative Commons copyright. 2. The instructor creates courses or plans for study by creating a “road map” through the modules in the repository. The instructor may write all of the modules for a particular course or some of them or none of them. The resulting course may be used by a class in a school, by an individual doing self-study or distance education, or a business for documentation. The course material may be used from a screen or be printed out as a paper book. 3. The learner or student uses Connexions to learn not only the factual information, but also the contextual “connections” to the piece of information. This allows the traditional instructor to lead teaching but also allows a learner to actively participate in a controlled discovery experience. 4. The community, which consists of all three participants, and especially the first two, allows all individuals to gain maximum benefit from this new technology. It also includes legal, commercial, and educational infrastructure.
License support
Content is licensed under Creative Commons.
Standards / Compatibility
Connexions has developed a mark up language - The CNXML 0.5 for adding metadata and mark up to resources. As well as XMKL documents can be uploaded and downloaded using templates in Microsoft Word and Open Office standards.
HOW TO USE IT
You can work alone on your content, or you can collaborate with other Connexions authors.
- Personal Workspace: Every author has his or her own personal work area called “My Workspace”. Any content you create or edit in this work area is only visible to you, until you publish it.
- Shared Workgroups: To collaborate with other authors, you can create a shared work area called a work group. A work group is similar to My Workspace, except that you can name other authors as members of your work group. All members of a work group have access to its contents. You can create multiple work groups, one for each of your projects. Each work group can have a different set of members. Any content in a work group is only visible to you and the work group members, until it is published.
- Lenses: Any Connexions member can create public and private lenses by selecting content from the Content Commons and adding tags and comments. All public lenses are listed at http://cnx.org/lenses and show up individually while readers are viewing content that is selected by the lens. To get started, use the quick start guide, "Creating a Lens".
Links / examples / Who is using it
Connexions started in 1999 with electrical engineering. It has now grown to cover a large part of electrical engineering and several courses in mathematics, some in physics, botany, history, and a wide range of other areas. Two of the most exciting applications, says Burros, have been a course in music appreciation at the university level and a course in music theory for teacher and children.
Connexions boasts over 4000 modules, more than 220 courses or books, approximately 550,000 users (96% non Rice University), 2000 author accounts, and approximately 200,000 hits per day from 198 countries. We are now working with Teachers without Borders and UNESCO, bringing content to developing 22 EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY/November–December 2007 countries, with QOOP, a printing company for lowcost text books, and National Instruments, bringing interactive applets for embedded demos and labs.
Sandbox
Simply go to the Connexions web site to access the content. If you wish to create or edit content you should create your own account at the site.
Comments / Discussion
I think it is great site. I particularly like the community focus and the provision of tools for collaboration. Whilst the content is probably stronger in engineering and sciences than in other subjects it is rapidly increasing and broadening in focus.
Connexions is an active project and is going from strength to strength. It provides a great model of how universities can support Open Educational Content.
