Organized exchange repositories for learning resources

Learning resources now abound on school networks and the Internet. Easier access to quality and adequate resources are becoming one of the major concerns for educational practitioners. A resource sharing framework called DSIC (Domain Specific Information Clearinghouse) has been proposed for setting up on the WWW exchange repositories of information about learning resources. This paper describes the automation mechanism for managing the repository content and content providers and discusses the benefits for the teacher community with reference to studies from social exchange theory. The DSIC framework uses agent-based technology to allow collaboration between different repositories and thereby promotes cross-domain research. Work in progress includes ontology-based knowledge engineering that would enhance the quality of such repositories.