The JISC online pre-conference reading week is open. Having reviewed all of the offerings in the Have a Go area, I’m looking at some in a little more detail.
The Xpert media search and attribution service is a cracking tool, which has indexed over 120,000 learning objects from over 8000 providers, has a very simple interface and does all the tedious and tricky licence attribution stuff for you.
Underpinning Xpert are a wealth of techie treasures that made my eyes shine, and my heart skip a beat, they can all be found at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/labs/
There’s a code block to embed Xpert in your website, as I’ve done here:
<img src=”http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/images/logoresults.gif” /><form action=”http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/scoreresults.php” method=”get” enctype=”multipart/form-data” target=”_blank”> <input type=”text” size=”70″ name=”keywords” style=”margin-bottom:15px” /><input type=”image” name=”search_all” value=”all” src=”http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/images/search.gif” /><input type=”hidden” name=”ukoer” value=”on” /></form>
There’s an API for Xpert which allows it to be queried and return CC licenced OER, no key required, in multiple formats, xml, rss, json, etc
So if you are developing a tool, system or webpage, you can directly integrate with the Xpert.
In php you’d add your search term to http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/cc_api_search_php/
and then use the results programmatically.
You may for instance build a VLE block that looked at your users course, checked it with an index of keywords and pulled up potentially useful youtube videos on their homepage.
For those unsure about the API there’s an SDK.
Of course all these capabilities are available as fantastically easy to use templates in the Xerte online Toolkits, no nerdiness needed. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/toolkits.htm You can download and run on your own server, or have a go in the Techdis sandpit.
For those attending the JISC Online conference there is an elluminate tour of on Thursday, 18th, 13:00 – 14:00 which will be recorded.
