The purpose of a Learning Object Repository (LOR) is to house content that is portable, sharable, and reusable. All faculty members have their own personal LOR that will allow them to share content items among courses in which they are a course editor. Using a LOR for content is a good choice when you are teaching several sections of the same course or otherwise have content that is used by more than one course, especially if you will be adding or editing the content. If changes are made to the content item within the LOR, those changes will automatically be made within any courses that are linked to the content item.

A LOR is also a good solution for larger content items, such as audio or video files. Linking to them within a LOR then requires only one instance of the file instead of having the same file duplicated in several courses, thus preserving valuable file space on the server.

LORs can also be created for specific courses, departments, divisions, schools and so on so that users can share the content items.

To access your personal LOR for the first time, click the LOR button on the Power Strip.

 

 

Navigation inside a LOR is similar to a course or group, except there are only three pages, as reflected in the LOR, Repository, and Manage tabs.

 

 

 

 

The Repository tab functions similarly to the Lessons tab in Courses and is where content is added, using Add Content. In this example, a page has already been added using the same method used to add a page in Lessons.

1. To make the content in the LOR available to the course where it needs to be linked, go to the Manage tab in the LOR and click Course and Group Access.

 

 

 

 

 

2. On the next screen, click the My Courses link on the right side. It will expand to display all courses in which you are a course editor. Check the box next to each new course and click "Add Selected".

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. To import a content item from the LOR into a course, open the course and go to Lessons > Add Content > Import from Learning Object Repository.

 

 

 

 

 

4. The screen shown in the following figure allows you to choose the content to be imported.

 

 

 

 

 

 

a. Click the + next to the repository folder with the needed content; in this case, the Personal repository. When the folder expands, click the box next to all content items to be added.
b. From the drop-down list, choose the location where the content item is to be added. In this example, it will be added to the Orientation Module.
c. Note that there are some options that can be checked, including mapping the content to the Standards already mapped to it, copying question keywords, and copying question difficulty levels (for assessments).
d. Choose either Copy Items or Link to Items to finish:

• Use Copy Items for items that need to be separate from the LOR, such as drop boxes and discussion forums that need to have results and grades remain within the course. If any changes are made to the content item within the LOR, they will not change the copied item within the course.
• Link to Items will not move the content item into the course, but it will create a link to the item. If the content item is changed within the LOR, it will also change within the course. This is the best choice for files that would otherwise need to be duplicated within a number of courses/sections because only one instance of the content item is required.
  In this instance, because this is a file and not a gradable item, we will choose Link to Items.

5. Click Done. A window indicates the item was added.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. The arrow on the content item icon indicates that the content item is a link from the LOR.