EdShare is the University’s institutional repository for learning resources, making them accessible by all members of the University. This is in contrast with resources uploaded to Blackboard, which can only be viewed by students enrolled on the relevant module. Staff and students can use EdShare to manage their online resources and choose who can access them; for example, access can be restricted to individuals, members of the University or made openly available. In this way, EdShare supports the Open Educational Resource (OER) agenda, enabling academics to freely share their learning resources with colleagues across the world.
EdShare was recently upgraded, and this post describes how to upload an interactive learning resource made up of many files (e.g. HTML, CSS, images, video) such as the output created by Articulate Storyline.
Step 1: create a ZIP archive file of all the output files/folders.
Step 2: log in to EdShare, access the Share Manager and create a New Share.
Step 3: select and upload your ZIP archive, and complete the metadata fields (e.g. title, description, viewing permissions)
Step 4: unzip the archive by clicking on the icon shown:
Make sure you select the Single option when unpacking the archive:
Step 5: EdShare tries to guess which is the main file used to access the learning resource, but often gets it wrong. Click the icon shown to select the correct file:
Step 6: select the story.html file (Articulate Storyline) or another correct file from the list, scroll down and click the Apply button:
Step 7: make the story.html file the first one listed; click the arrow shown or use drag-and-drop to reposition this file:
Step 8: click Save and Return at the foot of the New Share page to save your learning resource.
When you view it, right-click on the Download link and copy the link URL – you can use this to add a direct link to the resource from an email, web page, blog post, Twitter message or Blackboard course. If you chose the World viewing permission then the resource will be loaded; if you chose University then the user will have to type in their username and password to view it. Does access really need to be restricted? Would you be upset if students elsewhere saw how good our University’s learning resources are?
For example, this link takes you to the interactive Library video; click on the icons that appear in the video and answer the quiz questions to proceed. This was created using Articulate Storyline.
UPDATE: if you need to update a resource but retain the same URL, be sure to delete all the old files first and then upload the new versions. For Storyline resources, this means deleting both the unzipped file archive (appears as one item) and the main story.htm entry point file (appears as one item).
One issue I’ve encountered a few times is that you fix a glitch in the resource, delete the old version, upload the new version and it seems to make no difference – the glitch is still there. In all cases so far this has been a browser cache issue, so be sure to clear your browser cache after uploading the new version to EdShare.
by Adam Warren