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"Questions of quality in repositories of open educational resources: a literature review" Javiera Atenasa,b* and Leo Havemannc Abstract Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials which are freely available and openly licensed. Repositories of OER (ROER) are platforms that host and facilitate access to these resources. ROER should not just be designed to store this content - in keeping with the aims of the OER movement, they should support educators in embracing open educational practices (OEP) such as searching for and retrieving content that they will reuse, adapt or modify as needed, without economic barriers or copyright restrictions. This paper reviews key literature on OER and ROER, in order to understand the roles ROER are said or supposed to fulfil in relation to furthering the aims of the OER movement. Four themes which should shape repository design are identified, and the following 10 quality indicators (QI) for ROER effectiveness are discussed: featured resources; user evaluation tools; peer review; authorship of the resources; keywords of the resources; use of standardised metadata; multilingualism of the repositories; inclusion of social media tools; specification of the creative commons license; availability of the source code or original files. These QI form the basis of a method for the evaluation of ROER initiatives which, in concert with considerations of achievability and long-term sustainability, should assist in enhancement and development. Keywords: open educational resources; open access; open educational practice; repositories; quality assurance "

"Access to learning repositories is helping educators locate more impactful content for students learning-repository-instructionThe emergence of open educational resources, coupled with students' desire for more personalized learning, has fueled a need for content repositories that enable teachers, students, and parents to locate effective learning resources and educational content quickly. Now, the state of Illinois is developing efforts to help teachers and students leverage tagged educational content to make learning more customized, and effective, for students. The Illinois Shared Learning Environment (ISLE) will help educators use data and other tools to connect students with the learning resources and instructional content best suited to their needs. State educators can use student data to locate tagged educational resources and learning materials that suit each student's needs, moving away from a "one size fits all" mindset."

"Farquer said presently, while the ISLE is still in beta, state leaders and educators are making efforts to "use resources from repositories and organizations that have shown a commitment to publishing according to the LRMI."

"This Clearinghouse is a collaborative effort led by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) and the Michigan Virtual Learning Research InstituteTM (MVRLITM) to provide a repository of references to research articles and other publications from the field of K-12 online and blended learning. This project has been made possible by generous financial support from Next Generation Learning Challenges and in-kind support from iNACOL and the Michigan Virtual University."

This is an invaluable resource.