Usable and interoperable E-Learning Resources Repositories

The Web puts a huge number of learning resources within reach of anyone with Internet access. In many cases, these valuable resources are difficult for most users to find in an efficient and effective manner. This is why e-learning resources repositories or e-learning brokerage systems have emerged. In a very generic terms an online "brokerage system" is an on-line entity that acts as an electronic marketplace. Brokerage service has two types of users: those who offer their products for sale (providers) and those who buy the products offered (consumers). An e-learning resources repository facilitates the exchange of learning objects or resources among organizations and individuals. One can mention a lot of e-learning resources repositories. Unfortunately, the various repositories are either closed systems or systems that allow user access only through proprietary interfaces and data formats. In brief, there is lack of interoperability. Interoperability can be defined as “the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged”. The aim of this chapter is to present the requirements of an ideal e-learning resources repository that will provide services for covering the aforementioned critical issues. We will also describe how this system could be non-centralized, which is the main difference from all the system that exists today in the WWW. Peer to Peer (P2P) based approaches are more flexible than centralized approaches with several advantages.