Background: The SELF platform also aims to include multimedia files for educational purposes, so the SELF Legal Experts Group had to conduct an analysis for video formats that meet SELF's Open Standard Definition and can be used in the SELF platform. The following is the result of this analysis, involving various experts in the field.

The PR / Media Expert Group (PREG) defines the general dissemination strategy to position the SELF Platform at the international level as well as at local levels. The Expert Group produces press releases and maintains contact with specialised media while direct contact will be sought with the target groups of the SELF Platform: universities, schools, training centres, Free Software communities, software companies, publishers and government bodies. The Expert Group is responsible for the SELF presentation, channeling, workshops and conferences, a documentary on Free Software and Open Standards, and all other issues related to Public Relations and Media.

The Legal Expert Group (LEG) proposes the legal policy of the SELF Platform. The group watches over the SELF Legal Policy and evaluate licenses that are acceptable to the SELF Platform. The Legal Expert Group also advises the SELF Board on any legal issue that could arise in relation to the platform.

The Technology Expert Group (TEG) proposes the high level specifications of the SELF Platform to be build and the developers team will develop this into a working platform. This Expert Group oversees the technical maintenance activities and enhancements of the platform, and puts in place localised versions of the SELF Platform.

The Technology Expert Group is led by Nagarjuna G., Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR.

See for a draft definition of the Platform the following document: in ODF format or in PDF format . Comments and observations are very welcome. The implementation details of the SELF Platform can be downloaded here (PDF, 2.3 MB).

The Learning Materials Expert Group (LMEG) carries out the detection and analysis of available content, its transformation, enhancement and editing into SELF content, the creation of new materials and the translation into various languages.

The Learning Materials Expert Group is led by David Megias, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

Currently, the group is performing an intensive search, evaluation and classification of already available copyleft educational materials on Free Software and Open Standards. This process will allow us to build a list of materials that meet the conditions to be included in the SELF Platform: high quality, up-to-date educational content published under free licenses.

Description

Not all educational materials are of good quality. Moreover, the quality of materials that are constructed openly, in a collaborative fashion, evolves over time. The Quality Assesment Expert Group's task is to design mechanisms that will enable users to identify materials that are of good enough quality to be used in courses, as well as materials that still need their contribution to get better.

The quality assessment of materials from a very wide-ranging, rapidly changing technical field, which are themselves in constant change, is an unsurmountable challenge if approached with the standard quality assurance mindset. The QAEG will design novel ways of combining technical tools such as revision control systems with on-line questionnaires and analysis of social dynamics to infer the relative quality of materials throughout their lifecycle.

Learning standards and guidelines for the contents of the SELF Platform provide a common basis for the design of educational materials. The Learning Standards Expert Group (LSEG) has been constituted in order to help define the learning standards and guidelines for the contents of the platform. Read the Press Release .

This group is formed by experts in the field of Learning Objects (LOM, SCORM and/or IMS-LD) to give advice in the definition of the information (metadata) used to label the SELF contents and to create the structure of the SELF repository.

SELF Consortium partner Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain) has researched digital format candidates to be used in the SELF Platform. While the SELF Platform collects content in an open standard it also follows didactic standards for its own operation. This ensures that all the content collected into the platform, as well as what gets distributed from it will confirm to the widely used open standards.

The Learning Standards Expert Group will advice, provide feedback and test demonstrating versions and the final version of the SELF Platform, emphasising the implementation of the learning standards. They define common goals and structures for different kinds of educational materials. This group is formed by experts in the field of Learning Objects (LOM, SCORM and/or IMS-LD) to give advice in the definition of the information used to label the SELF contents and to create the structure of the SELF repository. The Expert Group, led by David Megias, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, consists of: