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Item Designing learning object repositories : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Information Science in Information Sciences at Massey University(Massey University, 2006) Gan, Yang YangLearning object repositories are expanding rapidly into the role of independent educational systems that not only are a supplement to a traditional way of learning, but also allow users to search, exchange and re-use learning objects. The intention of this innovative technology is to have such repositories to collect a database of learning objects catalogued by the learning content management system. However, for users to perform an efficient search, these learning objects would need to use metadata standards or specifications to describe their properties. For learning objects stored within the repositories, metadata standards are often used to descibe them so users of the respositories are able to find the accurate resources they required, hence metadata standards are important elements of any learning object repository. In this paper, a courseware example is used to demonstrate how to define a set of characteristics that we want to describe for our courseware, and attempt to map the data schema in the database with the available metadata standards. The outcome is to identify a set of metadata elements that would fully describe our learning objects stored within the learning object repository, and these metadata elements will also assist instructors to create adaptable courseware that can be reused by different instructors. Metadata standard is known as a critical element for the management of learning objects, not only will it increase the accuracy of the search results, it will also provide more relevant and descriptive information about the learning objects to the searchers.Item Total availability of journal articles to Internet users(Emerald Group Publishing, 2014) White BDPurpose - To determine the outcome of the different measures taken towards open accessto peer-reviewed research by measuring aggregate availability of a sample of journal articles.This sample was then used to examine the factors contributing to the availability or non-availability of types of article. Design/methodology/approach - A sample of articles was taken from the Scopus database based on a search by surname. This minimised any skew that would result from a datasetbased on subject or source. The results were analysed to determine availability by subject and differences in availability based on source. Findings - Less than 30% of articles are available in their year of publication, rising to nearly 40% in following years. Repositories are responsible for slightly less than 50% of available articles. Substantial differences exist between the practices of scholarly societies and commercial publishers. Practical implications - Aggregate availability is dependent on a range of activities and current efforts need to be maintained to ensure its continuance. Moves towards open access by commercial publishers are not a major factor. Originality/value - This study differs from similar work by looking at access from the users’ viewpoint. Rather than looking at the total amount of material to which access is provided, it looks at the proportion of high-value information which is available. Read the article at http://www.massey.ac.nz/~bwhite/totalavailability.pdf