Articulate the collection

describe the purpose, organization, nature of the materials, ownership, and terms of use of the collection

Purpose of the collection

the what, the why and who of the collection

• why is the collection being made - e.g. to consolidate and provide greater access to the materials of the ABC group
• what is the goal of the collection - e.g. to use ABC materials to provide professional development
• who is the collection intended for - e.g. EFD professionals ready for a graduate-level experience in updating their skills and techniques
• who is producing the collection - e.g. the ABC group is a non-profit education service meeting the needs of K-12 educators, a group of New York state educators
• kind of material - e.g. lesson plans, publications from XYZ, video clips
• audience specific - e.g. middle school educators, graduate students in a certain discipline, train the trainers

Organization of the collection

information on how the collection is put together
thematic - e.g. around a topic or subject - may include many different kinds of material
information on how the collection is put together

• thematic - e.g. around a topic or subject - may include many different kinds of material
• institutional - e.g. materials from the department of XYZ from university ABC
•  

Nature of materials in the collection

describes what types of materials are in the collection

• instructional materials - such as classroom activities, laboratory experiments, demonstrations, models, case studies, courses, simulations, tutorials, syllabi, curricula, modules, field trip suggestions, problem sets, teacher guides, lesson plans
• pedagogical resources - including teaching techniques, online professional-development courses, educational research
• assessment materials - such as exams, quizzes, questionnaires, self-assessments, answer keys, rubrics, portfolios
• research materials - including journal articles, research findings, conference proceedings, theses, models
• reference materials - such as bibliographies, abstracts, policies, indices, glossaries
• datasets - including visual, factual, and numeric information; remotely sensed and observed data; trials, databases
• audio/visual resources - including animations, simulations, interactives, movies, photographs, diagrams, sound and voice recordings
• collections - such as aggregations of educational materials, repositories of research papers, libraries of digitized primary sources
• serial publications - such as newsletters and magazines
• events - including archived broadcasts, podcasts, and webcasts; information about on-site conferences and workshops; news and opportunities pertaining to grants, exhibits, jobs, and professional development
• tools and products - such as software or applications for interacting, accessing, manipulating, or viewing resources; calculators and converters
•  
• community services - including weblogs, forums, listservs, wikis

Collection building strategy

how are materials selected for inclusion in the collection

• selection of materials - who does this and how; are there rules for selection?
• resource granularity - what is the basic unit for building the collection (e.g. activities, organizational sites, modules, or a mixture) and how are they organized?
• where are materials found - is the collection content gathered from across the Web or is it locally produced?
•  
• ensure material quality - perform checks or have in place mechanisms to ensure the quality of resources is appropriate

Ownership

describes the persons or organizations responsible for putting the collection together in terms of who owns what. This would include who owns the content, who owns the metadata and any other pertinent collection materials

Terms of use

describes how the collection may be used by the public, educational institutions, commercial sector, etc. This includes who can do what with collection content, metadata etc. What can be redistributed, shared or added too?

Produce/gather collection content 

the actual production or gathering of materials and deciding which items are included in the collection. To be most effectively shared with many online repositories, materials should be digital or at least accessible at an Internet URL and constructed so that content can be easily indexed (crawled) automatically. Be sure to avoid blocking your content from respository web crawlers in which you want your content to reside.

Describe the collection 

to provide information (metadata) about the resources/items/content of the collection for search and discovery by the intended audience or intended repository in which access to the materials is given.

Share the collection

to make collection items or the metadata about such items accessible to the intended audience or repository. Establish an appropriate 'sharing' schedule so that your collection remains fresh in the repository in which it resides.

Maintain the collection

to keep the collection content and metadata fresh, current, accurate and accessible. Establish an appropriate 'update and maintain' schedule so that your collection remains fresh in the repository in which it resides. It is the responsibility of collection builders to update broken links and maintain accurate content (if appropriate) and accurate metadata titles and descriptions.